RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS
Russian Reforms--A United Russia--Russian Armaments--The Greatest
Future--Two Water Outlets--The Slav Invasion Bugaboo.
Russia also is likely to bring forth some notable men who have not
previously been heard of before the world. General Evanoff is the idol
of the Russian army. He is the strategist who plans the movements
against Austria and Germany in the East, who surrounds Przemysl and
says, "Now, we can take it when we please, but we will not sacrifice
Russian troops to take it now; Cracow is more important. Lodz is not
important from a military standpoint. We will surround it later."
Evanoff orders his men to keep out of the valleys and engage the
Germans in the open plain, where their own numbers will count in
action; for in the valleys the German big guns have the advantage.
Russia has been at work steadily since the Japanese war reforming her
army within and without. More than one third of her officers were
dismissed after that war. The Russian officials now say that the
Japanese war was to Russia most providential. It showed the lines of
Russian weakness, inefficiency, and graft, which could flourish at a
distance from St. Petersburg but became exposed when war put the
Russian organization to the test. Steadily every year Russia has been
systematically and thoroughly routing out graft and inefficiency. When
Russia starts to do a thing she does it thoroughly.
It was because Russia was rebuilding, reorganizing, and was indulging
in criticism and putting its mind on the weak spots, that Russian
confidential papers stolen in the interest of Germany misled both
Berlin and Vienna as to the possibility of Russia going to war to
defend Servia in the year 1914.
War has united Russia as never before. The Czar now moves about
unattended, and the country is a unit behind him and the war and
unitedly against the Germans. From Warsaw to Siberia the German agents
and merchants have been arrested and impounded. Nobody in Germany can
yet realize how this war has destroyed her commercial relations and
commercial organizations throughout the world. Everywhere German
people are subjects of suspicion. You will even hear in all
seriousness that the Kaiser had an army of 150,000 reservists in the
United States with a partial equipment of arms ready to attack Canada;
and I have been told by supply agencies that these arms are now offered
for sale, as the uselessness of any German movement on the American
continent is apparent.
How far Germany is unable to measure the spirit of the English-speaking
people is shown by the fact that she cannot understand why the United
States does not take this opportunity to possess Canada.
I heard of a retired German-American of wealth, residing in Germany,
who was actually invited to go to America to stir up a raid on Canada.
Of course he obediently returned to the United States, and then he sat
down to wonder how he could effectively report back the foolishness of
such an idea without offense to Berlin.
Russia has been perfecting her military organization for ten years.
The expansion was to come in the next two years. At the opening of the
war she had only 2,500,000 available troops. For two years she has
been building factories to manufacture ammunition and arms, and these
are now being rushed to completion. People who have offered her
contracts for arms and munitions have been told that Russian factories
shortly to be completed will make their weapons more quickly than they
can now be ordered and received from other countries.
With arms and equipment Russia can draw 17,000,000 men to her
German-Austrian frontier just as readily as Germany can draw 7,000,000
men to both her frontiers. In both calculations only one in ten of the
population is counted upon for service.
The story is told of a Russian who was asked in London why he did not
return for military duty. He replied, "Oh, I belong to the 14th
million, and it will be some time before the 18th million is called
out."
Russia has the greatest future of any country in Europe. She has the
largest unturned arable soil of any country in the world. Russia in
Europe is a great agricultural plain. To the east are her rich
oil-fields steadily expanding north in the Ural Mountains, and east
lies Siberia, endowed by nature as one of the richest countries in the
world, an area in which you could deposit the United States. From the
Siberian railroad other railroads are now projected; mineral wealth is
being uncovered; and English and French capital and American engineers
will in the future work wonders with the country.
What Russia has long sought is an outlet to the ocean. This war is
likely to give her benefits which she could never have asked and could
only have fought for. Germany, defeated, will lose the control or
monopoly of the Kiel Canal, and possibly the country around it which
she took from Denmark. The Kiel Canal under international control will
extend the Baltic Sea of the Russians and the Scandinavians most
directly to the North Sea and the English Channel.
To the south Russia will have something to say in Asia Minor and much
to say concerning Constantinople. Certainly her influence in the
Balkan States and on the Bosphorus will be as great as she could
desire. As long as the Turks remained loyal to England, Great Britain
was bound to maintain their integrity and hold upon Constantinople and
the Bosphorus. With the passing of the Turk Constantinople is in the
hands of the Allies when they are victorious. Its final disposition is
not yet clear, but the English people can see compensation in Egypt,
Asia Minor, and Persia for any necessary Russian control of Byzantium.
While seeking one direct outlet by waterway, Russia may get two with
the suicide of Germany and the destruction of her latest ally, the
Mohammedan Turk.
Russia is beginning to be better understood throughout the British
Empire and the world. The fear of an invasion of Western Europe by the
Slav races is a bugaboo set afloat by Germany, who also propagates the
bugaboo of a Japanese invasion of North America.
Russia is not a competing nation. She needs the capital and the brains
of the outside world for her development, and in time she will offer
the greatest field for world coöperation.
Japan wants to coöperate with Russia, and, indeed, with all European
civilization. After the fall of Kiao-Chau she sent arms to Russia, and
she stands ready to throw legions into the European field in defense of
her English ally. Influential people in England are strongly urging
the military authorities to permit the little Japs to join in.
Russia will keep faith with the Poles and the Jews and set up an
autonomous Poland. But there is a strong resentment in Russia to-day
because the Polish Jews misled the Russian army in the marshy grounds
of East Prussia in the early campaigns of the war.
Russian military plans had to be changed and the field of war set
farther south. Here Russia hopes to drive the five million people of
Silesia back toward Berlin. This will awaken the Junkers of East
Prussia and bring home to the people of Germany what the Prussian
military machine really invites when it attempts a world-conquest.
Russia lacks military railroads and scientific means of communication.
But just as America was surprised ten years ago to find the Japs, as
the ally of England, giving, as the English predicted, "a good account
of themselves," so the Russians as the allies of Great Britain may be
found giving a very good account of themselves in this war. Russia is
certainly unconquerable from either the Austrian or the German
standpoint, and the smashing of Austria between Russia, Roumania,
Servia, and Italy may be the real military campaign of this most
Audacious War.
American engineers and diplomats familiar with Russia declare that,
properly led, the Russian soldier is the greatest fighter in the world;
and he is getting that leadership now.
The Russians expect the war will be over before next autumn, but
Kitchener does not plan to end it then. He means to do this job
thoroughly, and his plans are most comprehensive.