ighting in the German army, and she had little
love for her adopted country. The poor little Czarevitch, eleven years
old, remarked, early in the war, "When the Russians are beaten, papa
weeps; when the Germans are beaten, mamma weeps." In spite of her
German sympathies the Czarina had great influence with her husband,
and the scheming officials who were secretly plotting the downfall of
Russia were able to use this influence in many ways.

In 1916, a new prime minister was appointed in Russia--a man named
Sturmer, of German blood and German sympathies. The Russians, after
their long retreat in 1915 had gradually gotten back their strength,
and had piled up ammunition and gathered guns for a new attack. This
began early in June, 1916, when General Brusiloff attacked the
Austro-Hungarians in Galicia and Bukowina and drove them back for
miles and miles, capturing hundreds of thousands of prisoners. You
will remember that the Bohemians, although subjects of Austria-
Hungary, are Slavs and have no love for the Austrians of German blood
who rule them. Two divisions made up of Bohemian troops helped General
Brusiloff greatly by deserting in a body and afterwards re-enlisting
in the Russian army.

In northern France, the British and French had at last gained more
guns and bigger guns than the Germans had, and by sheer weight of
metal were pushing the latter out of the trenches which they had held
for over two years. It seemed to Roumania that the turning point of
the war had come. With the Russians winning big victories over
Austria, and the French and English pushing back the Germans in the
west, it certainly looked as though the end were in sight.

Now the king of Roumania, as you have been told is a Hohenzollern, a
distant cousin of the Kaiser of Germany, but, just the opposite from
the case in Greece and Russia, his wife was an English princess, and
she was able to help the party that was friendly to France and Great
Britain. The man who had and worked early and late to get his
countrymen to join the Entente was Take Jonescu, the wisest of the
Roumanian statesmen, the man who predicted at the close of the second
Balkan war that the peace of Europe would again be broken within
fourteen months.[10]

[10] As an actual fact, there was only twelve and a half months between
wars.

[Map: What The Allies Wished]

By the summer of 1916, the Roumanians had at last decided that if they
wanted to get a slice of Bessarabia from