Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/373

Rh disasters to his own; when Paul, cynic and half mad, flouted the church and betrayed the national cause, the cup of wrath was full. It matters little that the executioners who struck them down were self-appointed, and, no better than hired assassins, held no mandate for regicide. In the line of Russian autocrats those two stand out with a shameful preeminence.

Not all the sovereigns since Michael Romanoff have been great. More than one has been deficient in private virtue. In some there flowed not a drop of Slavic blood. But they all bore the test of being supremely Russian, only Russian, at the core. Save the execrated two, each down to the accession of Nicolas II, in 1894, contributed his full share to Russian power and prestige, both at home and abroad. Like the concentric rings of an oak tree were the territorial accretions of the Russian Em- pire. Each larger ring indicated a later reign.

In other lands there have been other autocrats, but always alike in this : each has fallen or stood according to his ultimate military failure or success. Had the mass of the people on whom his power rested really desired equal rights and personal liberty and self-government, the autocrat would not have been tolerated for an hour. The fore- most autocrat of all time is the great Na- poleon, child of the French Revolution.

Thus was it while Marengo, and Austerlitz, and Jena, and Friedland, and Wagram studded like stars his victorious name. The march to Moscow, the retreat from L,eipsic, the catastrophe at Waterloo, could have no other meaning than St Helena.

Since February 6, 1904, the on-looking world has beheld an unexampled spectacle. It has seen Russia staggering under such humiliation from a foe, once despised, as no other European nation ever endured at the hand of an Asiatic. In the monotonous story of a dozen months there is not a single alleviating feature to salve Russian pride except the admirable working of the trans-Siberian railway and the stolid, unbroken valor with which the Russian soldier has faced continuous defeat.

The diplomacy of Russia, before and during the war, has been as deplorable as her generalship. Her state papers, whether in the form of protestsorof communication with other powers, have been querulous and almost puerile. Her wily and unscrupulous enemy, equipped with all the appliances of the West and all the subtlety of the East, has so excelled at every point as to render haughty Russia an object of pity and derision.

All this detail the common Russian does not know. He does know that, despite hundreds of millions lavished and thousands of men sacrificed, the blackness has not been relieved by a single victory, and that the total has been defeat, retreat, and surrender. The dull ache of unspeakable humiliation is in his soul. Marvelous is it that in fury, blind as Samson's, the whole nation has not already risen as one man to pull down the pillars of the state. Strikes and riots there have been, and massacres by infuriated men, but neither revolution nor rebellion, no universal outburst commensurate with the hideous tragedy in the East.

There are many voices, but, as in the crowd before the temple, some cry one thing and some another. The only audible sounds breathe indignation and rage.