ication of his
father,--"of blessed memory,"--his aims and purposes, and a solemn
declaration that he should remain true to his line of conduct, which
"God and history would vindicate." It was a man of ordinary flesh and
blood promising to act like a man of steel. His own nature and the
circumstances of his realm both forbade it. The man on the throne
could not help listening attentively to the voice of the people. There
must be peace. The country was drained of men and of money. There
were not enough peasants left to till the fields. The landed
proprietors with their serfs in the ranks were ruined, and had not
money with which to pay the taxes, upon which the prosecution of a
hopeless war depended. Victor Emmanuel had joined the allies with a
Sardinian army; and the French, by a tremendous onslaught, had captured
Malakof, the key to the situation in the Crimea. Prince Gortchakof,
who had replaced Prince Menschikof, was only able to cover a retreat
with a mantle of glory. The end had come.

A treaty of peace was signed March 30, 1856. Russia renounced the
claim of an exclusive protectorate over the Turkish provinces, yielded
the free navigation of the Danube, left Turkey the Roumanian
principalities, and, hardest of all, she lost the control of the Black
Sea. Its waters were forbidden to men-of-war of all nations; no
arsenals, military or maritime, to exist upon its shores. The fruits
of Russian policy since Peter the Great were annihilated, and the work
of two centuries of progress was canceled.

Who and what was to blame for these calamities? Why was it that the
Russian army could successfully compete with Turks and Asiatics, and
not with Europeans? The reason began to be obvious, even to stubborn
Russian Conservatives. A nation, in order to compete in war in this
age, must have a grasp upon the arts of peace. An army drawn from a
civilized nation is a more effective instrument than one drawn from a
barbarous one. The time had passed when there might be a few highly
educated and subtle intelligences thinking for millions of people in
brutish ignorance. The time had arrived when it must be recognized
that Russia was not made for a few great and powerful people, for whom
the rest, an undistinguishable mass, must toil and suffer. In other
words, it must be a nation--and not a dynasty nourished by misery and
supported by military force.

Men high in rank no longer flaunted their titles and insignia