Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/161

 Rh Germany's striking power on the Russian front. This idea must emphatically be contradicted. There was no German offensive, not because Germany had to transfer her Eastern army to the Western front, but because of the political situation in Germany and Austria. The attempt to crush the Russian Revolution by force was at that time a very risky undertaking from the point of view of Germany's rulers. And as far as a mass transference of troops from the Eastern to the Western front is concerned, it has never been proved to have taken place. It is a great misfortune that figures relating to the movements of armies are used very arbitrarily. For instance, since the Revolution the Allied Press have proclaimed that, thanks to revolutionary disintegration, fraternisation, and so forth, the Germans have been able to transfer the greater part of their troops from the Eastern front to the West, and that the Allies have therefore had to bear the full brunt of Germany's forces. Yet even six months after the Revolution, Russia kept on the Eastern front 92 German divisions, i.e., considerably more than at any other period of the war, in addition to several Turkish divisions and the overwhelming majority of the Austro-Hungarian army.

We now see that the Soviet's attitude to war and peace was based on two foundations: the struggle for