ersary was his method.
The German with concentration of population, resources, artillery,
soldiery, and organization, and the Russian part, glamorous, slow,
yielding to the terrific blows, flowing back like an ebb tide, and
taking his time, never risking a decision, his army never surrounded
or cut in two.

While Von Hindenburg's guns were hammering the Russians in front,
German political influence was occupied in Petrograd in the rear,
where certain official circles were under German influence in the
hope of getting Russia to capitulate. The situation was the most
critical for the Allies since the Battle of the Marne. A most
influential court party was undoubtedly in favor of capitulation.
Russia was bleeding cruelly. She was suffering the psychological as
well as the material effects of defeat. In Paris and London the
possibility of having to go on with the war without the Russian's
assistance had become a serious consideration. In short, the fate of
Europe was then in the hands of diplomatic and court intrigue.

According to the accounts it was the mass of the Russian people
whose pressure undoubtedly defeated the aims of German diplomacy.
Uninformed of the real situation, conscious only of the enormous
cost of the war in blood and treasure, their spirit of race
patriotism was undaunted. They realized if Russians in high places
did not, that surrender by Russia then meant a defeat, which would
set the Russian power back for another fifty years. England could
make peace and be in possession of more territory than she had at
the beginning of the war. France could be certain of retaining what
she had before the war. But Russia had not only lost Poland, but the
Slav had bowed the knee to the Teuton.

At the same time there was widespread unrest among the Russian
people. They felt that they had deserved victory, but had been
denied it. It was not a question of the grand duke's skill in
conducting the retreat from Warsaw, or his indomitable will and
sturdy patriotism, but of satisfying popular sentiment. The
announcement that the czar himself was to take command unified and
heartened the Russian people, who felt that "The Little Father" was
the natural God-given head of the army.

There was discontent in Russia too, with the situation on the
western front. All the news that Russia had from France was of an
occasional hundred or five-hundred-yard trench won or lost, while
the Russian army had been swept from Galicia a