For SIX DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the United States. To Canada the postage is 50 cents per annum. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office or express money order if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks express and money orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co. Single Copies of THE LIVING AGE, 15 cents. THE RESURGENCE OF RUSSIA. She Germany believed that in September last she had broken Russia by that tremendous Austro-German offensive which was initiated by Marshal Mackensen in Galicia in the preceding May. She based this conviction on "successes that bordered on the fabulous"-the conquest of almost all Galicia, Poland, Lithuania, and Courland within a period of less than five months. has made many mistakes, but none profounder than this; Russia had not been broken, for at most she had only been bent back by the enemy, and there was no "decision." In a candid article, entitled "Resolute Russia," which appeared in the October number of The Nineteenth Century and After, the writer reviewed the existing situation, and while not extenuating the serious losses our great Ally had suffered, stated that the Czar and his people faced them with unchanged and unchangeable determination to continue the colossal conflict until, in combination with the other Allies, final and complete victory was achieved. Since the publication of that article not much apparently has occurred on Russia's European front as regards gain or loss of territory, though on the whole the Russians have somewhat improved their position, but a great deal has taken place on her Asiatic front which cannot but have caused Germany to feel less certain of the truth of her belief that Russia was hopelessly beaten and impotent. Yet in the Reichstag, in April, two months after the fall of Erzerum, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, spoke of Russia as if he still considered her powerless to effect any alteration to her advantage of the state of things. He said that history, by which he meant Germany, had "advanced the iron step," and that there was no re tracing it. He elucidated this metaphorical sentence by asking if Germany would ever again voluntarily hand over to the rule of "reactionary Russia" the peoples that had been freed by Germany and her allies between the Baltic and Volhynia, whether they were Poles, Lithuanians, Balts, or Letts? Having defiantly answered this question in the negative, he went on to declare that Russia would not a second time be permitted to mobilize her armies on the unprotected frontier of West and East Prussia, and never more be allowed to use, with the help of French gold, the land of the Vistula for the invasion of unprotected Germany. Poland was to be a new Poland, because the shock of battles had reopened the whole Polish question, and had utterly nullified the status quo ante. With a characteristic perversion of the fact, the Chancellor maintained that even members of the Duma had openly admitted that they could not imagine the return of the tchinovnik to the place where a German, an Austrian, and a Pole had in the meantime labored honestly in unhappy Poland! Of course, no member of the Duma had said anything of the sort. Knowing very thoroughly the cruel and tyrannical manner in which Germany treated the Poles within her own borders before the War the Polish deputies in the Russian Parliament, as well as practically the totality of the Poles, in Russia, elected to stand by Russia after the War broke out, and they remain unequivocally pro-Russian, in spite of certain inducements and blandishments to the contrary on the part of those who now are in occupation of their country. Thousands of Poles have sealed their devotion to Russia with their blood on the terrible battlefields of the Eastern Theatre of the War. But the point to notice particularly he was dumb with respect to several in the portion of Bethmann-Hollweg's speech which is quoted, almost literally, above, is the frank avowal that Germany designs to keep permanently what she at present holds of Russian territory. Thus saith Germany, "unconquered and unconquerable"-according to him. His comment on the capture of Erzerum from the Turks by the Russians was that the latter had taken the city by hurling against it forces many times stronger than those which defended it, but that they would be speedily repelled when the former brought up their reinforcements. And he spoke with an air of contempt of the collapse on the European front of all the efforts of the Russian storming columns to drive "Hindenburg and his brave men" from their trenches. Seeking to impress his countrymen, their friends abroad, and neutrals, he made the most and the best of his case, and he was especially careful not to prejudice it by even a hint at those features of the situation with regard to Russia which would inevitably suggest decidedly less favorable view. His rôle was not of a judge but of an advocate, and his utterances were charged with the plausibility of the special pleader. a After drawing attention to the Allies' "fasco of the Dardanelles," he mentioned, with compliments and congratulations to Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, that after Serbia had been conquered Montenegro and Northern Albania had been occupied. He bragged about Verdun, as if it were certain to pass into German hands; had he spoken a month later his tone, it may be guessed, would have been just a trifle hesitant; but he doubtless would have added Kut to the list of German gains, and have commented glibly on its influence in the Near and the Middle East. On the other hand, he would have been stubbornly silent, it may be presumed, about Ireland. As it was, essential factors. He had nothing to say regarding the failure of the Central Powers to make further headway against Russia in Europe; he had no fine story to tell of the fall of Dvinsk and Riga, and of that advance on Petrograd which all Germany expected to hear months ago. He omitted to indicate what was going on behind the long Russian line from the Baltic to Rumania-the growing menace of the millions of soldiers being drilled and armed, and eager; the assembling of guns great and small in immense numbers; the production, acquisition, and bringing up to the front of a vast assortment of shells and other munitions; the mobilization beyond all previous conception of Russia's industrial resources, and her discovery of her power of organization; the inflexibility of the resolution of the Czar and his people, and the serenity, in spite of all their sacrifices, with which they continue to look on to the end. He did, however, touch on one more aspect of Germany versus Russia, and to those who are acquainted with the history of the latter, what he said on this point is extraordinarily significant. Von Bethmann-Hollweg complained that since the commencement of the War the Russian Government had done everything it possibly could to "rob and drive out of Russia Germans of both Russian and German nationality." He declared, amid the vociferous cheers of the Reichstag, that it was the duty and business of Germany to demand of the Russian Government that it should make good the "wrong thus done to all human rights," and that it should "open the door out of Russian slavery to her persecuted and tortured countrymen." The complaint and the consequent demand mean nothing more or less than that Russia has been successfully setting her house in order by liberating it from that German domi |