"I shudder to think what the Germans will suffer at the hands of the Belgians when once the rout of the Germans has been begun by the Allies. The Belgians are unreconciled, and if they ever get weapons in their hands—well, I will not predict, I will just tell you one fact: I traveled the length and breadth of the land, saw the women and the children sitting by their ruined hearthstones, but I never saw a tear on the cheek of a Belgian."
CHAPTER IX
RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS
Russian Reforms—A United Russia—Russian Armaments—The Greatest
Future—Two Water Outlets—The Slav Invasion Bugaboo.
Russia also is likely to bring forth some notable men who have not previously been heard of before the world. General Evanoff is the idol of the Russian army. He is the strategist who plans the movements against Austria and Germany in the East, who surrounds Przemysl and says, "Now, we can take it when we please, but we will not sacrifice Russian troops to take it now; Cracow is more important. Lodz is not important from a military standpoint. We will surround it later."
Evanoff orders his men to keep out of the valleys and engage the Germans in the open plain, where their own numbers will count in action; for in the valleys the German big guns have the advantage.
Russia has been at work steadily since the Japanese war reforming her army within and without. More than one third of her officers were dismissed after that war. The Russian officials now say that the Japanese war was to Russia most providential. It showed the lines of Russian weakness, inefficiency, and graft, which could flourish at a distance from St. Petersburg but became exposed when war put the Russian organization to the test. Steadily every year Russia has been systematically and thoroughly routing out graft and inefficiency. When Russia starts to do a thing she does it thoroughly.
It was because Russia was rebuilding, reorganizing, and was indulging in criticism and putting its mind on the weak spots, that Russian confidential papers stolen in the interest of Germany misled both Berlin and Vienna as to the possibility of Russia going to war to defend Servia in the year 1914.
War has united Russia as never before. The Czar now moves about unattended, and the country is a unit behind him and the war and unitedly against the Germans. From Warsaw to Siberia the German agents and merchants have been arrested and impounded. Nobody in Germany can yet realize how this war has destroyed her commercial relations and commercial organizations throughout the world. Everywhere German people are subjects of suspicion. You will even hear in all seriousness that the Kaiser had an army of 150,000 reservists in the United States with a partial equipment of arms ready to attack Canada; and I have been told by supply agencies that these arms are now offered for sale, as the uselessness of any German movement on the American continent is apparent.
How far Germany is unable to measure the spirit of the English-speaking people is shown by the fact that she cannot understand why the United States does not take this opportunity to possess Canada.