488 RUSSIAN CORRUPTION 



any difficulty in the matter if the enemy were not assisted 

 by European allies. The conquest of Turkey was ex- 

 pected to be a mere walk over the course, a march past, 

 with a few victories to give ^clat to the Russian army. 

 The Emperor soon discovered his mistake. Like Louis 

 Napoleon in the Franco-German war, he found that his 

 generals had deceived him as to the state of the army. 

 In every department of the Government corruption had 

 reigned supreme so long that disaster was the inevitable 

 result. It was commonly reported that official incapacity 

 and dishonesty reached their climax in the War Office, 

 and every post brought fresh narratives of blunders and 

 defeat. The commercial world of St. Petersburg were 

 chuckling over a cartoon in Kladderadatsch, in which the 

 Russian Army was depicted with lions' heads, the officers 

 with asses' heads, and the generals with no heads at all. 

 Of course the number of the Berlin Punch containing 

 this larnpoon was forbidden entrance into Russia, but 

 many copies were surreptitiously introduced. There can 

 be little doubt that, had not the Turkish Army been 

 equally mismanaged, Russia would have been ignomini- 

 ously defeated by her plucky little foe. But, after all, 

 the less said by Englishmen about Russian blunders the 

 better. Our fiascos in the Crimea, and recently in Zulu- 

 land and the Transvaal, have been quite as disgraceful ; 

 .possibly, if the whole truth were known, much more so. 



The corruption of Russian officials is beyond all 

 conception. Some time ago an attempt was made by 

 the Government to clear out the Augean stable of railway 

 management. It was found on one of the lines that for 

 years the head office had been debited with an annual 

 sum for the repairs of a building which had never been 

 built, both the original sum paid for the purpose and the 

 subsequent annual grants for imaginary repairs having 



