Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/98

 86 worst possible "Black Hundred" methods. The soldiers, encouraged by the High Command, looked upon the unfortunate population of Western and Southwestern Russia and of the occupied territory of Austria as legitimate booty; they looted the shops and violated the people. The facts shocked Russia. Russian society was disgusted and filled with shame. All the high ideals which Russian progressives had associated with the war were brutally violated. They had gone to war to free the peoples of Austria from the Hapsburg yoke, only to put them under the regime of the "Black Hundred"; and on the way the war with the Huns was being transformed into a continuous pogrom by the soldiers in the Western provinces of Russia. Thus there was no limit to the depression and humiliation of thoughtful Russians. But apart from their humiliation, they were alarmed above all on account of the inevitable influence of this state of affairs on the morale of the soldiers. It was poisoning the soul of the Russian soldiers; it was dangerously affecting the simple mind of the peasant soldier.