roup
to lose his grip, has just gone down, despite the fact that he was not
responsible to any elective body.

"Ministers of war in the belligerent countries have not been more
stable. Kerensky follows a long procession in Russia. France has had
four war ministers from Millerand to Painleve, inclusive, while Lord
Kitchener, organizer of Great Britain's most marvelous war achievement,
a volunteer army of some 4,000,000 men, sleeps below the waters of the
North Sea.

"History has as ruthlessly brushed aside most of the army commanders of
the early days. Von Kluck, who led the Germans on Paris, is retired.
Rennenkampf, with whom the Russians meanwhile swarmed into East Prussia,
is a memory only. Sir John French has been recalled to England. That
little group of generals who saved France and Europe at the Marne is
decimated. Foch and Castelnau, and Manoury are no longer in command,
while Gallieni, worn out in the service of his country, was borne on his
last journey through the streets of Paris on a sunny spring day in 1916.

"Even Joffre has been superseded in a military sense, though not as an
idol of the nation. France still holds him as close to her heart as
Germany possibly could hold Von Hindenburg--almost the only one of the
war's early commanders to retain his military power."

RUSSIAN CAPITAL IN PERIL

On August 23, Riga, the Russian seaport which is the gateway to
Petrograd, was reported in peril from the Germans, who were conducting a
determined advance on the north of the eastern front under the immediate
direction of Field Marshal Von Hindenburg. With a Japanese mission in
Washington, headed by Viscount Ishii, it was expected that steps might
be taken to send Japanese troops to the aid of the Russians.

Russia's critical internal situation, aggravated by the new German drive
against Riga, was watched by officials in Washington with the gravest
concern. While the taking of Riga would not necessarily be a decisive
blow, it would make the Baltic more than ever a German lake, leaving the
Russian fleet in the position of the mouse in the rathole to the German
cat, just as the Kaiser's fleet was the mouse to the English fleet
outside.

The outcome of the forthcoming extraordinary national council to be held
at Moscow was therefore awaited in Washington with the keenest interest,
scarcely less keen than in Russia itself. The immediate fate of Russia,
it was felt, depended upon the action of the council in its