[236] _Ibid._, pp. 475-485.

[237] Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 402-405. London,
1896-1898.

[238] W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe, pp. 371-372. Map, p. 374. New York.
1899.




CHAPTER V

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION


[Sidenote: Importance of geographical location.]

The location of a country or people is always the supreme geographical
fact in its history. It outweighs every other single geographic force.
All that has been said of Russia's vast area, of her steppes and tundra
wastes, of her impotent seaboard on land-locked basins or ice-bound
coasts, of her poverty of mountains and wealth of rivers, fades into the
background before her location on the border of Asia. From her defeat by
the Tartar hordes in 1224 to her attack upon the Mongolian rulers of the
Bosporus in 1877, and her recent struggle with Japan, most of her wars
have been waged against Asiatics. Location made her the bulwark of
Central Europe against Asiatic invasion and the apostle of Western
civilization to the heart of Asia. If this position on the outskirts of