"In the same year Russia took upon herself the blows of Mackensen's and Falkenhayn's armies, which had invaded Roumania, stopped the further advance of the Germans, and undertook the defense of a considerable stretch of the Roumanian front."
In the beginning of the War, in August, 1914, there were, in addition to the Austrian Army, only 14 German divisions engaged on the Russian front. During the first Russian advance into Eastern Prussia, the German General Staff was obliged, on the eve of the battle of the Marne, to transfer 6 additional divisions to the Eastern front. The number of German divisions engaged on the Russian front grew continuously, and in October, 1914, there were 25 divisions, in November—33 divisions, in December—43 divisions, and in January, 1915,—53 German divisions on the Russian front. The role played by Russia and the services the Russian Armies rendered in the struggle against Prussian Imperialism can be seen further from the fact that during the spring of 1917 there were 162 German and Austrian divisions engaged on the Russian front alone, while on all the other Allied fronts together there were 205 German and Austrian divisions.[1]
To this it must be added that Russia entered the War unprepared for a modern struggle. As Col. Shumsky-Solomonov points out, "The Russian Army consisted of millions, but bayonets and guns it had only for one-tenth of its number." General Brusilov once said: "Our soldiers had no shells with which to blast their way across barbed-wire entanglements before an attack; so it was necessary for them to break down the wires with their own bodies and thus to form a bridge for the next attacking column." In the fall of 1917 the Russian Armies collapsed after months of intensive German and Bolshevist propaganda, but this cannot minimize the great heroism of the Russian soldiers during the first three years of the War, heroism without which the alliance of the democratic nations would never have been able to defeat the Prussian militarism.
A. J. SACK
Director of the Russian Information
Bureau in the U. S.
May 25, 1920.