Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/180

 better, dug deeper trenches, fortified them more strongly, and constructed more comfortable and stronger dug-outs. Probably we must attribute this ineffective organization to the native indolence and the fatalist temperament of the Russian. There is, of course, a theoretical justification for this state of affairs. The Russian generals told us that if the enemy had constructed much stronger positions it was because the poverty of his effectives forced him to make a stronger defence, while the Russians, knowing, the enemy too weak to attack and themselves preparing for an offensive, were content with parallel lines of trenches sufficiently well protected by barbed-wire entanglements to prevent the enemy from coming over freely during the night. But it is only just to say that those who explained that theory to us did not seem to be quite convinced themselves of its soundness.

The Russian generals with whom we spoke took into account the fact that the proposed offensive would have to deal with material difficulties much more con-