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I.ITTLK RUSSIANS IX MOSCOW 



Photo by Gilbert H. Grosvenor 



The Russians have never believed in corporal punishment or laying violent hands on a 

 child, and in this respect are generations ahead of England or the United States. Punish- 

 ment of any kind is disapproved as likely to break a child's spirit and spoil his character. 



winter of unusual severity set in. The 

 thermometer dropped to i8 degrees, the 

 wind blew furiously, and a driving, blind- 

 ing snow made the march a discipline- 

 breaking, heart-rending ordeal. Many 

 fell by the wayside and found a snowy 

 grave ; others crawled on, with nothing 

 to eat or to drink, frost-bitten and groan- 

 ing with pain. 



Discipline disappeared completely ; no 

 soldier obeyed his officer. Disbanded, 

 the troops spread themselves right and 

 left in search of food, and, as the horses 

 fell one by one, they fought over the 

 mangled carcasses and devoured them 

 raw. Many remained by the bivouac 

 fires, allowing the insensibility of cold to 

 creep over them and usher them into that 

 long bivouac that knows no waking until 

 the roll is called beyond the river. They 

 died like flies on the coming of winter, 

 and when Napoleon crossed the Berezina 



the wretched remnant of his once-power- 

 ful army was nearly annihilated. A Rus- 

 sian account says that 36,000 bodies were 

 found in that river alone. 



Of the half a million men with whom 

 Napoleon had gone forward to break 

 the Russian power, 125,000 were slain in 

 battle, 132,000 died from fatigue, hunger, 

 and cold, and 193,000 were taken prison- 

 ers. Only about 40,000 escaped the gen- 

 eral wreck, which was the greatest mili- 

 tary catastrophe of history or tradition. 



F'REmNG THE SERFS 



Perhaps the greatest single act of any 

 ruler in all history was that of Tsar 

 Alexander II in freeing the 50 million 

 serfs of Russia in 1861. Not only did 

 he release more than half the people 

 of his empire from bondage, but he also 

 bought 350 million acres of land from 

 the land- owners and turned it over to the 

 villages, to be held as communal property 



447 



