Why did russian rulers seek to expand their territory in the 1700s?
There are several reasons for Russia's expansion at this time. Firstly Russia had always craved a warm water port. All her ports froze in winter, so she needed to find a stretch of water to allow her to trade in winter. Russia wanted to control her borders. There are no natural boundaries between St Petersburg or Moscow and the Urals, and they are not huge, she wanted to protect her heartland. She wanted to control the trade of furs from Siberia so she established trading cities to do that (Ul'ianovsk - formerly Simbirsk is an example). And finally she also wanted to protect Orthodox Christians from Islam, so she expanded south - towards the Ottoman Empire. These concerns would dominate Russian thought even up to and including the Communist era - protecting Communists (not Christians) and the search for warm water even partially explains the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.
How were the Inca rulers able to maintain control over their vast empire?
Uhhhhh....Religion, and the such. Why don't you just research it online?
One method that allowed Russian leaders to maintain control over a huge territory was?
One method that allowed Russian leaders to maintain control over a huge territory was a) usage of a secret police to squash rebellion b) recruitment of serfs for military duty c) alliance with China to fend off Mongol advance d) clever flag with a hammer and sickle e) leadership wholesale acceptance of Enlightened ideals
What factors led to Napoleon's defeat in Russia?
Actually Napoleon started his campaign in Spring. It was a very well prepared campaign, he prepared a lot of supplies near Russia and such, no one thought it was going to be a long campaign. even the Russians thought they were going to lose. So what make Napoleon lose? Well for one, I think he never would guessed Russians would keep retreating for so long. The idea was to win one big battle, crush the Russian army and force Alexander to sign a peace treaty. But Russian armies keep running back. Prince Eugène and one of Napoleon's marshals had two chances to force Russian army into a big battle during their march, but they didn't ready their force in time and allowed Russian army to slip away. So they keep marching. Napoleon's force endured hot summer. He was forcing Alexander's hand when he march toward Moscow, he was forcing Alexander to make a stand, he dared Alexander into protecting Russia's most holy city, and it worked but too late. By the time he marched into Moscow, the winter was near. He started his campaign in spring, so no one thought he would end up freezing. They didn't prepare for winter and to be honest no one except maybe Alexander thought it was possible. So during his retreat like Alexander said, the winter of Russia defeated Napoleon. So in point form what defeated Napoleon: 1.Russian's burn and run policy, to keep Napoleon from resupply along the way. 2.The duration of the campaign. Napoleon was the emperor, not just a general. The long he was away from Paris, higher the pressure, and Russians hole up and retreated for a long time, force Napoleon to push foward so deep into Russia. 3.Long supply line. Russia is huge, and in the old days, to march into enemy territories means you need to leave troops to guard your line of communication and supply. It's like a rolling tape, the further you go, the less men you have. And Napoleon went in with half a million men, by the time he got near Moscow he only had about twelve hundred thousands. 4.Winter, it was the most obvious, but honestly no one saw it coming. It was not like Hitler who was stupid and went in near winter, Napoleon went in during Spring, and I think it was by no part his fault he didn't anticipate the weather.
Why did the soviets try to control other european countries?
The satellite nations were the countries of Eastern Europe that were liberated by the Soviets from the Nazis and then had communist governments imposed on them; Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. There are three main reasons for their establishment. 1) Russia has historically had no secure border. There are no great rivers, no mountains, no deserts no seas that separate her from her potentially war-like neighbours. This fear of invasion, and the idea of buying time through land (Russia, when invaded has often allowed the enemy to invade, then, when their supply lines are overstretched, they counter-attack) is one of the reasons that Russia became so big. As former border towns become consolidated into the Russian political landscape, so does the need to push the border further away from the heartland. After the devastation faced in the Soviet Union in WWII the Soviets wanted to push the border as far away from Kiev, from Moscow & Minsk as they could. 2) They wanted to set up satellite countries because they could. The Red Army had conquered the territory at great expense and the Soviet leadership was unwilling to simply withdraw - allowing Western style governments to push right up to her borders. 3) The Yalta Agreement between FDR, Churchill & Stalin had laid out the spheres of influence that each of the Allied countries would have, and the satellite countries all fell under the Soviet sphere. Some further reasons: The Soviets had a different view of democracy to the one in the West. The Soviets argued that as the Communist party represented the people and was of the people, it was an inherently democratic form of government. There was also Marxist ideology behind it. Marx claimed that the Communist Revolution was inevitable - especially in highly industrialised and advanced Germany. The Soviets saw it as their mission to export the revolution to other countries - especially Germany. The Soviets saw what the Western Allies were doing in Western Europe as no different to what they were doing - establishing governments based on models of the victors' own governments. And one final reason was to prevent a unified Germany from being a threat to the Soviet Union ever again. See: The Captive Nations - Patrick Brogan (it's a simplistic overview of the histories of the countries under Communist domination in Europe after the war)