And then Russia! Distance from the scene of action, the great length
of the line of operations and the vast area behind it have made it
difficult or impossible for us to see the drama of the Russian campaign
as we have seen that of France, Belgium, and our own Empire. But we have
seen something, and it has been enough to give the lie to certain of the
emphatic protestations with which Germany made war. We had heard it said
by the German Chancellor that the fact that Russia was mobilizing in
those last days of July 1914 made it impossible for Germany to ask
Austria to extend the time-limit imposed upon Serbia--a time-limit which
would have been indecent among civilized people if it had concerned
nothing more serious than the destruction of a kennel of dogs suspected
of rabies. But all the world knows now that Russian mobilization was a
process inevitably so slow that the German armies had flung themselves
upon Belgium twelve days before the Russian advance began.
Then we had heard it said by the German Churchmen that in taking
the side of Russia we, British and French people, leaders among the
enlightened races, were helping Muscovite barbarians to oppose the cause
of civilization. But since Louvain, Termonde, and Rheims, not to
speak of the unnameable iniquities of Liège, the world knows where
the barbaric spirit of Europe had its central home--in Berlin, not in
Petrograd; in the proud hearts of the German over-lords, not the meek
ones of the Russian peasantry.