A total misconception of the internal situation in Russia had brought about a military disaster of unprecedented magnitude. The Russian armies had ceased to exist as fighting forces, the soldiers had flung away their arms and offered no opposition to invasion, all Western Russia was at the mercy of the Germans, who had only to advance.
With the disappearance of all military cohesion, the political situation in Russia became desperate. The dumb driven herd had, in the end, stampeded and put the herdsmen in a fearful quandary, from which there was no escape. Millions of men had demobilized themselves and roved about the country or poured into the towns; they had been brutalized by three years of war and showed it by their deeds. Six months before the Russian people had lost confidence in themselves. With a new form of Government new hope had come, but now that hope was dashed. Russian Democracy had been tried and failed. Kerensky and his fellows had destroyed an evil system, but had put nothing but rhetoric in its place. They had convinced themselves that they were Russia’s saviours, and had not realized that revolutions which are caused by war have but one object—a return to peace. They might have saved the situation by a temporizing policy; far greater men have not disdained inaction based on calculation, and Russia’s history had shown that in her wide and distant spaces lay her most sure defence. Instead, the leaders of the Revolution, having no Russian policy, had embarked on an enterprise which every thinking Russian knew was foredoomed to failure; thereby they had destroyed the trust of the people in their Western Allies, who had become objects of resentment, for having urged the last offensive without regard for ways and means.
To distracted soldiers, workmen and peasants in all parts of Russia, the Bolshevist doctrine made a strong appeal; it promised not only peace, but a form of self-government, and these leaderless, misgoverned men snatched eagerly at the prospect. Lenine and Trotsky had long perceived the real need of the Russian people, their international theories effaced any sentiment of loyalty to the Allies, and, after sweeping away the last vestiges of Kerensky’s Government, they asked Germany for an armistice.
In Southern Moldavia, the Rumanians still held their ground, covering the crossings of the Sereth. They were completely isolated—on one side anarchy, on the other a ring of steel. The situation of this dismembered country was tragic and appalling; in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, Rumania was “as the small dust of the balance.” Her fate was linked with that of Russia, she was small dust indeed, compared to that ponderous mass.
The impatience of the Western Powers had exposed Rumania to the machinations of a haughty, overbearing ally and an enemy in disguise. From these the Revolution had delivered her, but only in the hour of defeat and on the eve of irretrievable disaster. She was to drain the cup of bitterness down to its very dregs, and, at the bidding of the Bolshevists, to conclude a separate peace.
It has been said that the Bolshevists betrayed Rumania. This accusation is unfounded and unjust. The Bolshevists were the outcome of a pernicious system, for which the Revolution had found no remedy; Rumania had undoubtedly been betrayed, but the betrayal was not Lenine’s work. When he assumed control in Russia, Rumania’s plight was hopeless, and, at least, he left her what she might have lost—the status of an Independent State.
The Alliance had lost a limb which spread across two Continents and bestrode the Eastern world. Its strength had been exaggerated, but it had rendered priceless services at the outset of the war. At last it had broken down from overwork, directed by men who had neither understood its functions nor realized that it was something human, though different from the rest. The Russian people had not changed with a change of Government, but the same men were abused as traitors under Lenine, who had been praised as patriots and heroes when subjects of the Czar.
The amputation had been self-inflicted, and the limb was left to rot.