[Illustration: TOM THUMB AND THE GIANT
"Come and save me. You know I am so fond of children."]
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"WE HAVE FINISHED OFF THE RUSSIANS"
Assuming that the statement with regard to finishing off the Russians
was actually written--and there is every reason to assume it--one may
conjecture what memories it recalled. The great battles of the Warsaw
salient, the drive that lasted for many months through the flats of
Poland, the struggles of the Vilna salient, and all the time the
knowledge that mechanism, the guns in which Germany put her trust, were
shattering Russian legions day after day. Then the gradual settling of
the eastern line, well into Russia, with all the industrial districts of
Poland firmly gripped in German hands, and the certainty that though
Russia had not been utterly broken and forced to a peace, yet so much
had been accomplished that there was no longer any eastern menace, but
both Germany and Austria might go about their business of conquest in
the west, having "finished off" in the east.
But that strong figure with the pistol pointed at the writer, that
implacable, threatening giant, is a true type of Russia the
unconquerable. It is a sign that the guns in which Germany put her trust
have failed her, that the line which was to hold firm during the
business of conquest in the west has broken--more, it is a sign of the
doom of the aggressor. The writing of that fat, complacent figure--sorry
imitator of the world's great conquerors--is arrested, and in place of
stolid self-conceit there shows fear.
Well-grounded fear. History can show no crimes to equal the rape of
Belgium and the desolation of Poland at the hands of Germany. The giant
with the pistol stands not only as a returned warrior, but also as an
avenger of unspeakable crimes.