THE RUSSIAN SITUATION 



377 



beginning to see the great possibility of 

 defeat. The Tsar, himself a well-mean- 

 ing and patriotic man, was surrounded 

 by a clique inimical to the Allies, eager 

 to bring about a cessation of hostilities as 

 the only means of preserving their power 

 and prestige in Russia. The removal in 

 the early summer of Sazanov, and every 

 man in the foreign office known to be 

 loyal to the Allies, provided a mechanism 

 for negotiating an independent peace. 



SCHEMERS EXPOSE THEIR OWN PE0TS 



The little clique who had been engi- 

 neering this enterprise had been so intent 

 on their own interests that they utterly 

 failed to appreciate the fact that every 

 other faction in Russia saw and clearly 

 realized their aims. The fall of Bu- 

 charest gave them their opportunity, but 

 so powerful had become the Duma and 

 the Council of the Empire that the gov- 

 ernment dared not move openly at that 

 time. 



Probably it was felt that the condition 

 in Russia economically would be so des- 

 perate in the spring that the people would 

 demand a cessation of the war and little 

 intriguing would be necessary, but when 

 spring arrived with its inevitable unrest, 

 and the Emperor endeavored to dissolve 

 the Duma, there came not the demand 

 for an independent peace, but a demand 

 for the overthrow of the government 

 whose incompetence and double-dealing 

 had brought about the wide-spread suf- 

 fering and disorders in Russia. 



The ease with which this revolution 

 was accomplished was due entirely to the 

 fact that every faction in Russia realized 

 the truth as to the government, learned 

 by thirty months of observation of in- 

 competence and munition shortage, which 

 had resulted in the sacrifice of millions of 

 men at the front, and made manifest at 

 home by the fact that in Russia more than 

 thirteen million refugees were forced to 

 flee for safety to the heart of the Empire 

 because an army had not been given rifles 

 and munitions with which to guard the 

 Russian front. 



We now approach the period of the 

 present, when America has elected to en- 

 ter the world war, and if America would 

 realize what Russia means to this cause 

 it must understand that the Russians at 

 the present time are holding on their 



eastern front, from the Baltic to the 

 Danube, nearly three million enemy 

 troops, perhaps a million and a half of 

 these being Germans. 



what Russia's elimination would 



MEAN 



If, by disaster at the front or by in- 

 trigue at home, Russia is forced out of 

 the war during the coming summer, we 

 may anticipate the early transfer of a 

 large portion of this vast mass of men 

 to the western front, and we will see the 

 beginning of what in reality is an entirely 

 new war. 



We must now consider what is our 

 duty toward ourselves and toward our 

 Allies. The minute a nation by declara- 

 tion of war engages in hostilities with an 

 enemy nation it becomes the duty of the 

 government and the people of that gov- 

 ernment to commence striking at that 

 enemy with every means which is at its 

 disposal — moral, financial, economic, and 

 military. 



If this country is to be of actual and 

 vital assistance to the Allies who are 

 fighting this war for world democracy 

 and the cause of humanity against the 

 German Government, which represents 

 neither, the first and most essential re- 

 quirement today in America is the realiza- 

 tion on the part of the people of this 

 country that the Germans are not on the 

 point of collapse. 



SEEDS OE DISASTER SOWN BY UNDERESTI- 

 MATING THE ENEMY 



I have been in three countries at the 

 beginning of the war — England, Russia, 

 and Roumania — and in each of these 

 countries the seeds of future disaster, 

 later paid for by the sacrifice of hun- 

 dreds of thousands of lives, were sown 

 in the belief among the people that the 

 struggle was to be of an approximately 

 short duration, and that it would be un- 

 necessary to exert the entire national 

 effort to defeat the enemy. I heard many 

 Englishmen in the early days of the war 

 express their hesitancy in enlisting for a 

 year's training before going to the front, 

 because they believed the conflict would 

 be over before they ever could reach the 

 fighting line. 



In the fall of 1914 the Russian Min- 

 ister of War had almost ceased ordering 



