In short, out of the driftwood and wreckage of their primitive social system the Russians framed a bulwark against the swirling currents of the nomad world outside.  In some respects the Cossacks resemble the roving bands of Saxons and Franks who pushed forward roughly but ceaselessly the boundaries of the Teutonic race[276].  But, whereas those offshoots soon came to have a life of their own, apart from the parent stems, Russia, on the other hand, has known how to keep a hold on her boisterous youth, turning their predatory instincts against her worst neighbours, and using them as hardy irregulars in her wars.

[Footnote 276:  See Caesar, Gallic War, bk. vi., for an account of the formation, at the tribal meeting, of a roving band.]

Considering the number of times that the Russian Government crushed the Cossack revolts, broke up their self-made organisation, and transplanted unruly bands to distant parts, their almost invariable loyalty to the central authority is very remarkable.  It may be ascribed either to the veneration which they felt for the Czar, to the racial sentiment which dwells within the breast of nearly every Slav, or to their proximity to alien peoples whom they hated as Mohammedans or despised as godless pagans.  In any case, the Russian autocracy gained untold advantages from the Cossack fringe on the confines of the Empire.

Some faint conception of the magnitude of that gain may be formed, if, by way of contrast, we try to picture the Teutonic peoples always acting together, even through their distant offshoots; or, again, if by a flight of fancy we can imagine the British Government making a wise use of its old soldiers and the flotsam and jetsam of our cities for the formation of semi-military colonies on the most exposed frontiers of the Empire.  That which our senators have done only in the case of the Grahamstown experiment of 1819, Russia has done persistently and successfully with materials far less promising—­a triumph of organisation for which she has received scant credit.

The roving Cossacks have become practically a mounted militia, highly mobile in peace and in war.  Free from taxes, and enjoying certain agrarian or pastoral rights in the district which they protect, their position in the State is fully assured.  At times the ordinary Russian settlers are turned into Cossacks.  Either by that means, or by migration from Russia, or by a process of accretion from among the conquered nomads, their ranks are easily recruited; and the readiness with which Tartars and Turkomans are absorbed into this cheap and effective militia has helped to strengthen Russia alike in peace and war.  The source of strength open to her on this side of her social system did not escape the notice of Napoleon—­witness his famous remark that within fifty years Europe would be either Republican or Cossack[277].

[Footnote 277:  For the Cossacks, see D.M.  Wallace’s Russia, vol. ii. pp. 80-95; and Vladimir’s Russia on the Pacific, pp. 46-49.  The former points out that their once democratic organisation has vanished under the autocracy; and that their officers, appointed by the Czar, own most of the land, formerly held in common.]