Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/147

Rh his Bolshevik companions. It is their doctrine more than anything else that has caused the demoralization of our army and the successes of our enemies.

"The Bolsheviks are the Communards of France of 1871 who are left unrestrained for the sake of sane principle until it is perceived too late that to allow these mad fanatics to speechify and act leads to ruin."

No really Russian soldier has fired a shot since the Revolution except against his own officers—a great number of whom have fallen—or against his own Allies when these would not pack off before the Boches without striking a blow. The victories of July 1917, such as they were, were brought off by Finns, Letts, Lithuanians, and Poles, with Czech-Slovak prisoners who had been set at liberty. All these were not fighting for Russia, but for their own liberty and autonomy, which depended on a German defeat.

One can only affirm one thing to-day, and that is that without the Revolution the situation would have been even worse than at present, for a separate peace would long ago have been concluded, thanks to the intrigues of the ex-Empress, perjured to all which should have been most dear to her, and of the traitors who surrounded her and conspired with her to baffle, blind, drug and intimidate that unlucky and ill-fated puppet, the ex-Emperor, a man with no will, no force of character; honest in himself but incapable of exacting honesty from those