I heard of a retired German-American of wealth, residing in Germany, who was actually invited to go to America to stir up a raid on Canada. Of course he obediently returned to the United States, and then he sat down to wonder how he could effectively report back the foolishness of such an idea without offense to Berlin.
Russia has been perfecting her military organization for ten years. The expansion was to come in the next two years. At the opening of the war she had only 2,500,000 available troops. For two years she has been building factories to manufacture ammunition and arms, and these are now being rushed to completion. People who have offered her contracts for arms and munitions have been told that Russian factories shortly to be completed will make their weapons more quickly than they can now be ordered and received from other countries.
With arms and equipment Russia can draw 17,000,000 men to her German-Austrian frontier just as readily as Germany can draw 7,000,000 men to both her frontiers. In both calculations only one in ten of the population is counted upon for service.
The story is told of a Russian who was asked in London why he did not return for military duty. He replied, "Oh, I belong to the 14th million, and it will be some time before the 18th million is called out."
Russia has the greatest future of any country in Europe. She has the largest unturned arable soil of any country in the world. Russia in Europe is a great agricultural plain. To the east are her rich oil-fields steadily expanding north in the Ural Mountains, and east lies Siberia, endowed by nature as one of the richest countries in the world, an area in which you could deposit the United States. From the Siberian railroad other railroads are now projected; mineral wealth is being uncovered; and English and French capital and American engineers will in the future work wonders with the country.
What Russia has long sought is an outlet to the ocean. This war is likely to give her benefits which she could never have asked and could only have fought for. Germany, defeated, will lose the control or monopoly of the Kiel Canal, and possibly the country around it which she took from Denmark. The Kiel Canal under international control will extend the Baltic Sea of the Russians and the Scandinavians most directly to the North Sea and the English Channel.
To the south Russia will have something to say in Asia Minor and much to say concerning Constantinople. Certainly her influence in the Balkan States and on the Bosphorus will be as great as she could desire. As long as the Turks remained loyal to England, Great Britain was bound to maintain their integrity and hold upon Constantinople and the Bosphorus. With the passing of the Turk Constantinople is in the hands of the Allies when they are victorious. Its final disposition is not yet clear, but the English people can see compensation in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Persia for any necessary Russian control of Byzantium.
While seeking one direct outlet by waterway, Russia may get two with the suicide of Germany and the destruction of her latest ally, the Mohammedan Turk.
Russia is beginning to be better understood throughout the British
Empire and the world. The fear of an invasion of Western Europe by the
Slav races is a bugaboo set afloat by Germany, who also propagates the
bugaboo of a Japanese invasion of North America.
Russia is not a competing nation. She needs the capital and the brains of the outside world for her development, and in time she will offer the greatest field for world coöperation.