Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/21

 which justifies our determination to rely not only on the Russians, but also on the French and the English.

Russia, official Russia herself, has already given powerful assistance to the Slav nations. She waged war on Turkey in order to free the Bulgarians; later, and during the present war, she has undertaken the defence of Serbia and Montenegro. It is in this war that Russia has claimed to the full extent the position of the Protector State of the Slavs.

Under this form of a friendly and free alliance the differences of our civilisation and national characteristics can be co-ordinated so as to benefit the whole of the Slav world by the forces, to-day dispersed, of our different peoples. It is impossible for a Government office at Petrograd, still less for one at Prague, to decide as to the municipal organisation of Warsaw, Belgrade, Odessa, Samarkand or Vladivostock.

Some Slavs are Orthodox; others Catholic, Protestant or Mohammedan. The Western Slavs are already greatly industralised, whilst the Southern and Eastern Slavs remain agricultural, sometimes indeed in a very backward con-