"'The little white cross! ... The little white cross! ...' whispered Prince Oleg, and he bent forward slightly and kissed the shining enamel. We pinned the Cross to his shirt. Presently the patient began to gasp for air, and it was clear that the end was near. Those awful moments of silent waiting, those last short breaths ... how terrible is the mystery of death. At 8.20 the young life closed...."
A deep and real love breathed in all his life, doubly touching through the purity and transparency of the innocent heart in which it throbbed. Perhaps his soul, looking down from Paradise, can see the tear-dimmed eyes of many Russians gazing sadly up to Heaven's gates through which the beloved young hero has passed.
Russia is loyal to her sons. She will never forget them.
CHAPTER XVIII
BULGARIA'S DEFECTION AND PRISONERS OF WAR
Russia Blamed for the Balkans Muddle—Bulgaria's Treachery—Gen. Grant on the Russians and Constantinople—Bulgaria's Dissatisfaction—The Reign of the Fox—The Treatment of Prisoners of War—The German Method—The Allies' Failure—Lack of Organisation—Insidious German Propagandism—Britain and Her Prisoners in Germany
Many people blame Russia for what is going on in the Balkans. They may, perhaps, be more right than one would imagine, but probably not quite in the way they suppose! In political, as in private life, there are moments when one must be guided only by the criterion of one's own duty and conscience, whether one pleases the world or not, whether even one is openly blamed or not. Russia, unfortunately, has not always observed this principle.
It seems to me that in politics nothing is so dangerous as to be more carried away by cosmopolitanism than by patriotism, and to forget one's own feelings and duties in one's desire to please some other Power. Cosmopolitanism kills patriotism. I have spent many winters in England, and have known many Englishmen, but I have never met a true Briton who would boast of being a cosmopolitan and not a patriot. Happy England!
They tell me that there are prisons and lunatic asylums in this country. Naturally—even in this happy land there are madmen and criminals—but they are considered and treated as such. In the present situation all the harm has been brought about by our past diplomacy, anxious, as it has always been, ever since the Turkish war of '76, to please the European Concert.