234 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



fail when it is half done. When such a nation is pitted against 

 a nation like the Germans, with steady purposes to which they 

 hang like death, the result is certain. Steady energy always 

 vanquishes a fitful energy which may fail at the critical moment. 



There is still another way in which Russia is at a terrible dis- 

 advantage compared with Germany. Over 85 per cent of the 

 Russians are either peasants or depend on agriculture in some 

 other way. For six months the rigorous winter shuts them up in 

 their houses. There is almost nothing to do except cut and haul 

 the necessary firewood and take care of the animals. So the 

 peasants sit in the close, stuffy houses day after day and do 

 nothing except talk and dream. Such a life of idleness leads 

 many to sensuality which permanently weakens their powers of 

 real achievement. With many others there is a strong tendency 

 to make great plans during the long, idle winter. But when the 

 spring comes the routine farm work takes every hour of the day, 

 and people who have been idle all winter are not in fit condition 

 to carry out new plans or achieve great improvements. Thus 

 the severe cold of the winter tends to foster in the Russians a 

 tendency toward speculative idealism which bears fruit in words 

 but not in deeds. 



On the Italian battle-front the Germans found a more per- 

 sistent foe than the Russians. In Figure 26 we see that about 

 half of Italy has a climate of the kind marked "very high," while 

 only a small fraction of Russia has such a climate. This does 

 not mean, however, that the climate of all North Italy is as good 

 as that of Germany. Nevertheless, the frequency of storms and 

 the absence of depressingly low temperatures in winter give 

 northern Italy, to about the latitude of Florence, one of the world's 

 admirable climates in spite of the hot summers. Even there, 

 however, the difference between the deathrate of the worst and 

 the best months is two or three times as great as in Germany. 

 When Austria and Italy were pitted against one another, they 

 seemed almost equally matched, which is about what would be 



