Photograph by C. S. Stilwell 

 TRAVEL ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY 



can yield him no profit. He is assured 

 that ; the Germans are and always have 

 been his real friends, and that they stand 

 ready and willing to finance him and help 

 him rebuild Russia. A thousand subtle 

 measures are used to persuade him that 

 England made the war and that he has 

 fought it, and that the food crises in Rus- 

 sia are due to the British blockade. Again 

 he is told that the Tsar made the war, 

 and now that the Tsar is gone, there is 

 no reason for him to continue in it. 



From every angle and in every way his 

 slow mind has been attacked by the Teu- 

 ton influences to make the worse appear 

 the better cause ; and in spite of it all, 

 and notwithstanding the losses and dis- 

 asters and miseries of the past three 

 years, the Russians have not made peace, 

 their armies are still fighting, and their 

 people, though confused, are still show- 

 ing the inclination to hold on until the 

 end. 



At the front, the German influence was 

 even more pernicious than it was at the 

 base, for here the soldiers were allowed 

 to fraternize with the enemy. Literature 

 was prepared for them in Germany, 

 printed in Russian, and passed between 

 the lines. They were told that they had 

 won their liberty and their freedom, and 



that the policy of their government was 

 "no annexations and no indemnities," and 

 then they were asked why they were 

 fighting, a question difficult for the simple 

 mind to answer. 



Again the kindly Germans warned 

 them that the lands of Russia were about 

 to be distributed, and if they stayed in 

 their trenches they would miss this dis- 

 tribution entirely, while the stay-at-homes 

 got all the prizes ; and still enough Rus- 

 sians remained in the trenches to offer a 

 front 1,200 miles in length to the line of 

 the enemy forces in the East. 



THE GERMAN POLITICAL DRIVE A FAILURE 



In the meantime, through the unwise 

 orders relaxing discipline in the army, the 

 morale of the Russian troops began slow- 

 ly to deteriorate, and by this decrease in 

 efficiency the position at the front became 

 a serious one. Yet throughout there has 

 been a background of solid common sense, 

 for in spite of all that has happened, 

 and all that the Germans have done in 

 the Avay of propaganda, they have not 

 achieved their purpose in their political 

 drive on the Russian people any more 

 than they achieved their purpose in their 

 military drive of 191 5. 



The wonder is not that Russia failed 



