“Accepting the story as it stands, without demanding the names of the Jews found guilty, or any other details, let us simply examine the map. Shavli is not in Kurland at all. It is in the province of Kovno, and is 50 versts from the nearest point in Kurland, and more than 50 versts from the nearest point inhabitated by Jews. The Germans, we know, moved to Shavli, not through Kurland, but from the opposite direction. The charge, if true, would therefore mean that the Jews of Kurland went 100 versts out of their way in an entirely strange territory in order to commit treason by communicating with Germans. This is obvious nonsense. Nor is it less obvious that this fiction has been manufactured out of whole cloth. And this is how it was manufactured: Reports reached the newspapers that the Jews of Kurland were being expelled. The anti-Semitic papers at once argued that if the Jews were being expelled they must have committed some treason, and since the line of the German advance was known to be in the general direction of Shavli, and since these people were too lazy to consult the map, they promptly decided that the expulsion must have been due to the fact that the Jews of Kurland had guided the Germans to Shavli.”
And so this preposterous story was started on its way.
Other Spy Stories
No story was too absurd to be given credibility and systematic circulation. It was reported, and seriously believed, that at a place unnamed and a time unknown some Jew had enclosed a million and half roubles in a coffin and shipped the coffin to Germany. The chief Rabbi and the Jewish community of Warsaw telegraphed to the “Novoe Vremya” and several other leading papers, protesting against this monstrous slander against the Jews at a time when their sons were shedding their blood freely on the battlefields. The “Novoe Vremya” declined to publish the telegram.[29]
The Jewish community of Petrograd appealed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, in these words:
“The entire Jewish people would cast out, with scorn and indignation, those base criminals who, forgetting duty and conscience, would, in this year of universal sacrifice, break their sacred vows of loyalty to the fatherland. Such treachery is alien to our faith and was never known to exist among Jews to any greater extent than among other peoples. And never yet, in the course of the centuries, no matter to what persecutions the Jews, under the influence of prejudice created by their devotion to their ancient faith and customs, may have been subjected, has any government denounced ALL of its subjects as traitors to their country. This is the first time in all history that such an attitude has been assumed by any government toward the Jews. At the very time that our sons are fighting in the ranks of the Russian army for the honor and glory of Russia, we, their fathers, are held responsible for the acts of a few criminals and are being persecuted for their vile deeds, aimed at the betrayal of our own sons. Never has any man or any people been subjected to torment greater than this, to humiliation less bearable or more offensive to honor or self-respect.... Your Imperial Highness! In this sad hour of trial we long to implant in our people faith in a brighter future, we long to preserve that tie of loyalty towards our common country which is so essential for the welfare of all the peoples inhabiting Russia, and which was demonstrated so powerfully when the insolent enemy first threw down the gauntlet to Russia. We do not wish to admit discord, despair and sorrow where should reign only unity, harmony, hope. And we dare to appeal to your Imperial Highness in the hope that measures insulting to us will cease to be applied, that the stamp of outcast be removed from our faces and that we may be permitted, as loyal sons of our country, freed from all suspicion, to use our whole strength in the struggle with the common enemy.”
No reply was received to this appeal; on the contrary, the policy of fastening upon the Jews all the blame for Russian defeats was carried out consistently by the military machine. The “Russki Invalid,” the official journal of the War Department, in the spring of 1915, definitely accused the Jews of disloyalty to the State and of sympathy for Germany, and openly attributed Russian disaster to this cause.[30]
Military orders like the following were common: