tion of his army of
officials, who themselves were permeated with the Teutonic spirit. And
as passive resistance was their attitude, his purging scheme was
abortive. As a matter of cool calculation, the only hope of freeing
Russia from the meshes of the German net was a war between the two
peoples. And all radical legislation had therefore to be postponed.

In the meanwhile the Germans, having organized and primed their
agents, have been teutonizing Russia cunningly and effectively. With
the precious assistance of their own kith and kin settled in the
Baltic provinces and elsewhere, they employed the never-failing
expedient of taking an active and, when possible, a leading part in
domestic Russian politics, and invariably on both sides. At the Court
they have always been well represented, and in the ranks of the
inarticulate and Parliamentary Opposition they have also been playing
a noteworthy part. In factories and other industrial and commercial
institutions they arranged strikes, called indignation meetings and
hatched conspiracies at critical junctures when it was to Germany's
interest that Russia's attention should be riveted upon home affairs.
No Parliamentary Bill could be privately drafted, no railway scheme
could be secretly discussed, no Ministerial measure could be
canvassed; nay, seldom could a confidential report be drawn up to the
Emperor himself without the knowledge of the Berlin authorities and
the occasional intervention of their agents in Petrograd. It is
interesting to note that in 1914 a secret memorandum of a highly
confidential character, from a statesman to the Tsar, found its way
to Berlin soon after it had been presented to the monarch and had a
certain influence on the decisions which led to the war.

The work of economic interpenetration carried on under the aegis of
such powerful patrons and resourceful coadjutors was greatly
facilitated by the German colonies scattered over Russia for
generations. Many of these foreigners had been invited by Catherine
II., receiving large grants of land and various privileges which
enabled them to flourish at the expense of the native population, on
which they looked down with open contempt.

At that time the extent of free land was considerable in Bessarabia,
Volhynia, and the provinces of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, Saratoff and
Samara, where down to the year 1915 entire cantons were inhabited by
Germans. In the Novouzensky canton, for example, they consti