In the meantime through all the gloom and turmoil of Russian history, one figure loomed up as a great sovereign in the person of Alexander Nevsky. He made war upon the Swedes and Germans and Lithuanians who had fallen upon Western Russian tottering under the blow dealt by the Tartars. He began a policy of conciliation toward the Great Khan, making three journeys into Asia with this object in view. He came to the throne to find his country devastated with the Golden Horde in power in the South, while the Teutonic enemies pressed him on the west.
Alexander made his capital at Novgorod and was as brave as he was intelligent. He was the hero of the North, who, though so beset on every hand, managed to vanquish the Scandinavians and the Livonian Knights, but he was compelled to make an obeisance at the feet of the Asiatic barbarians. He comprehended that in the presence of this immense and brutal force of Mongols, all resistance was madness. To brave them was to complete the overthrow of Russia. His conduct may not have been chivalrous but it was wise, politic and humane. The result was that through his management Novgorod was the only principality in Russia which kept its independence, and he gave the first lesson which has been followed by Russian monarch down to the present day for dealing with the Asiatic by a combination of force, tempered by the wiles of diplomacy.
He went so far as to pay tribute to the great Khan as the price of freedom. This was done in the face of bitter opposition on the part of his people who resisted the Tartar impost, and while Alexander himself, overcoming his scruples, went to Sarai to prostrate himself before the Ruler of the Golden Horde, Providence smiled upon his arms by a signal victory over the Swedes.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
