BOOKS.
RUSSIA IN WAR TIME.•
THE good fortune which is Mr. Stephen Graham's due where Russia is concerned awaited him at the outbreak of the war. He was staying in a Cossack village on the Mongolian frontier,. amid the pine forests of the Altai Mountains, with all the young men and women busy mowing and the charcoal-burners working at their fires, when at 4 am. on Friday, July 31st, the telegraph brought the order to mobilize. At once the preparations for war began. A red flag was mounted on a huge pine pole at the end of every village, to be replaced each night by a red lantern. The examination of the horses was the first business. The Cossacks had a thousand miles to go before they reached a railway, and no home was passed that could not travel fifty miles a day. The checking of the kit for which each man was responsible followed, and by Thurs- day, August 6th, every man of military age bad left the village. All this time the object of the mobilization remained unknown. The first idea bad been that China bad declared war ; then it was rumoured that the old enmity with England had again become active; while in his Saturday evening's sermon the priest, suspicious probably of both these views, yet not certain- that the enemy was Germany, dwelt chiefly on the days when Napoleon "defiled the churches of 'old Mother Moscow' and was punished by God." It was not till the service of departure: when each soldier had dismounted, had kissed the Cross and been sprinkled with holy water, and had passed away from the priest leading his horse by the bridle, that they knew whore they were going to fight.. Two miles from the village, by the side of a rushing stream, an ox had been roasted whole, and soup and roast beef were served to all the men, while a limited quantity of vodka was provided for that day only. Then after an hour of dancing and singing on the part of the men and of sobbing on the part of the women the last farewells were spoken. "So Russia sent off her men from the frontier of Mongolia to fight on the far-off plains of Austria and Poland."
Mr. Graham's journey westwards "was like following a reaping." Everywhere the able-bodied men bad disappeared. The Government horses were looked after by boys. Old men and girls were making or getting in the hay, and women had charge of the post stations. After four days he came to the Irtish and found a place in a steamer packed with reservists. The cabins of the boat were given up to the officers and Gra- de& to the soldiers, while in the hold civilians of every clasa tried to get what sleep they could on sacks of rye and trusses of hay. "But there was no grumbling; every one understood that it was soldiers first." The steamer stopped nowhere, butt at every village it passed the women lined the banks and flung leaves, cucumbers, red melons, or cooked fish to the soldier-s. Thera was neither vodka nor beer on board, but constant feasting and merrymaking, and after Semipalatinsk, where they were transferred to a larger steamer, dancing went on ad night. At Omsk the railway was reached, but there was no• regular service of trains except for the carriage of soldiers, horses, and supplies. Moscow was still two thousand milers away, and the journey through endless forests had to be made on such scanty occasions as civilian passengers could manage to seize in the endless succession of heavily laden trains carry- ing troops or munitions of war.
This long journey had done much to show Mr. Graham the temper of the Russian nation towards the war. But it was only when he reached Moscow that he fully understood its character and its extent. "An all-pervading cheerfulness had taken the place of talk about strikes, or riots, or revolutionary propaganda. "The peasants go to the front
• Euelo and tae Weed. By Stephen Graham. London: Cana sad co. [ins,, rat. not.] with great enthusiasm; and the intelligentsia, Radical and Conservative alike, cheer them on. The newspapers of all parties are at one, and the Liberal organs are as loyal as those of the Extreme Right." For the time, at all events, Russia is a young man with his destiny before him. " He has come through the Japanese War, the great revolutionary danger, he is now in the depths of his third and. greeted struggle." The Tsar finds himself the absolute monarch of a hundred millions of free peasants and working men. Never has a Sovereign Lad such an opportunity. He has outlived the accusations of insincerity, his unpopularity has disappeared. and the simple explanation is that he "has given the lie to all that has been said against him." He Las already done things that demanded unusual courage. He has endangered his life by his attack on "the great corrupt police system which . . . is in some respects more powerful than the Tsardom itself "; he has begun the conversion of the peasants into a nation of small landholders ; he has amnestied the- revolutionary exiles ; he has promised freedom to. Poland; be has prohibited the sale of vodka. It would be easy, no doubt, to bring instances in which these changes have not been carried out. The most absolute Sovereign has his limitations. He must work by the hands of others, and many of his instruments will be anxious to give the least possible effect to his commands, But under Nicholas II. the govern- ment of Russia has received a new purpose and direction, and the war has created a kindly atmosphere in which his plans may take root and grow. Mr. Graham, at any rate, has no doubt on this point:—
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"The sacred simplicity, kindness, and earnestness of the Tsar emerge as a guarantee of the ultimate issue of the struggle, but 1L180 of the marvellous and healthful future of the vast Russian Empire and of the wonderful Russian people. It is good to see en the idealist, the Peace Tear, the same personality of to-day, but made wiser, stronger, simpler by suffering and responsibility."
The Tsar governs a people worthy of their Sovereign. One of the greatest of German errors has been the misreading of the Russian character. To the Germans Russia is "an inferior world, a world that needs setting right," They did not understand that it is precisely this prospect of being set right on German lines that has united Russia against them. The nation is fighting as ono man in order " that she may go on being herself." Her one desire is to keep unchanged her national life and her national religion. The Germans made another mistake when they treated Poland much as they treated Belgium. They ought to have presented themselves as the liberators of the Poles from Russian oppression. What they did was to show the Poles that German oppression could be far worse, because far more systematic and calculated, than tinything they had yet suffered. It was only when the Russian retreat began that " the pursuing Germans came upon many Polish towns at the most unexpected momenta. The people, wakened up in the night by the fire and tumult and thunder of war, rushed from their beds into the streets and were killed and injured in large numbers. The panic was terrible. Many thousands left their homes and tied without plan, without counsel, into the wild country... . Warsaw alone has 50,000 homeless refugees."
The Germans had no cause of complaint against the Poles; on the contrary, they had every reason for treating them as possible friends. But in war they know only allies or enemies, and the Germans were determined to leave no doubt as to the light in which they wished the Poles to regard them. Hundreds and thousands of waggons filled with stolen goods followed their retreat from the Niemen, and wherever there was a sign that the earth had been disturbed the hidden store was dug up and taken away. Aeroplanes have scattered appeals to the popula- tion to trust them, "hot the Poles, having fallen among thieves, have little difficulty in deciding who is truly their ;neighbour." Russian troops can march through a Polish city amid the smiles and even the cheers of the populace. "They come now to deliver the Slave, not, as formerly, to trample on them. Go into a restaurant and order your dinner in Russian and you are smiled at and treated specially. To be a Russian is to be a friend." And the Russians, with that complete turn-round of feeling of which. the Slavonic peoples are so capable, are quite affectionate towards the Poles. These are the natural results of the latest exhibition of German fright- fulness, and so the results which their authors must be supposed to have intended.
Mr. Graham gives a much clearer idea of the part the Cossacks play in the Russian Army than we in England
commonly possess. "In Cossack villages every man haw, to serve in the Army—only sons have no privileges. . . . By his passport he is a soldier. When he is farming he is said to be on •leave.'" He lives in a station, not in a village. He is specially favoured by the Government in the matter of land. When their three years- of service are over a company of Coseaeks are enocunaged.to settle where they have been encamped, and to bring their wives to live in the houses which they have got built for them. At once a new military station is marked on the map.
A. church is built, a horizontal bar and a wooden horse and a greasy pole are pot np. A vodka shop is supplied. And this constitutes Cossack civilization." The life, the talk; the songs of the station are all military. The children are mounted as soon as they can walk. The regular manoeuvres "are so wild and fierce that many get killed in them," and even in remote Asia the Cossacks "take themselves seriously as the personal bodyguards of the Tsar." It is fine material for a great cavalry. " They are all expert horsemen and ride like the wind."
We have only touched upon parts of this volume, but every page in it will repay reading. Mr. Graham writes as on enthusiast for hie'subject, but he has reason for the view that he takes of it
"In Russia there is no apathy. The whole atmosphere is ens of eagerness and optimism." The people "are full of thankfulness for the things the war has brought to Russia—national enthusiasm, national tenderness, national temperance and moral unanimity. Theivar has closed the vodka shop; it has healed the age-long fratricidal strife with Poland ; it has shown to the world and to themselves the simple strength and bravery of .the Russian soldiers and the new sobriety and efficiency of their officers. It has in fact given a real future to Russia to think shout ; it has shed light on the great road of Russian destiny."
This, at all events, is the impression which Russia in war time has made on a practised and competent observer.
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