Lithuania, if we may name a country from its people, was a not very clearly defined region of central Europe. It extended from the southeaster shore of the Baltic sea between the mouth of the river Vistula and the Duna southward through a region now comprised within modern Prussia, parts of Poland and the Western Russian province. The region consisted, in a great part, of a flat, marshy, wooded country, with many lakes. These people were divided into tribes, and they continue under various names to occupy the same territory in which they lived at the beginning of history. Their origin is unknown. Their principal branch has given its name to modern Prussia.
The Livonians were a tribe also living upon the Baltic farther to the north and were of Finnish origin. This region was considered by the Russian princes and republics of the northwest as subject to their dominion. A son of Vladimir, Monomachus, had conquered a portion of the territory, but German merchants and Latin missionaries appeared upon the shores of the Baltic, even pressing toward the north and east, and the country fell temporarily under the influence of the Church of Rome.
The monk, Meinhard, sent by the Archbishop of Bremen, converted the Livonians, and was created Bishop of Livonia, but under the cloak of Christianity the Germans really brought to the Baltic tribes the ruin of their national independence. The German merchant and the German missionary came together, and the apostle Meinhard built a church and a fortress at Uexkull in 1187. From this day these tribes lost their lands and their liberty, and soon saw to what this mission was leading. They rose against the missionaries, and, in 1198, the Bishop of Livonia lost his life on the battlefield. The natives returned to their pagan gods and plunged into the Dwina to wash off the baptism which they had received.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
