The war takes an intolerably long time and is a great strain. The sacrifice of men is terrible; the cost unprecedented. We have undergone much and lost much. Our Russian soldiers are equal in bravery to the British, the French, the Belgians and the noble Serbs. We are inspired by the same high ideal, and therefore we must win. The new conditions of warfare have horrified the world—the suffocating gases, the atrocities, the diabolical machinery. Our task is not easy, but I do not think anyone in Russia doubts the final result. In spite of the new German weapons, the terrible cost, the German intrigue and corruption, and the tremendous sums that must have been secretly economised by Germany for the purpose of bribery, we shall win.
Then there is the German trick of double nationality—the becoming naturalised in Russia or England and yet retaining allegiance to the Emperor Wilhelm. I rejoice to notice that Great Britain is dealing with that so wisely and energetically, not, I believe, recognising nationality obtained within the last ten years.
Perhaps one of Lord Kitchener's most valuable legacies to his country may be his advice that no Germans should be given naturalisation papers in England for the next twenty-one years. The whole system of naturalisation in general is never a good or praiseworthy one. It kills real patriotism. Why can one not abolish it entirely in the whole world? We cannot at will take a new father or mother and break all the ties God and nature have given us—why then a new nationality? The habit of becoming a naturalised subject of some adopted country is most common among Germans, their Government rather encouraging the practice than otherwise, but not allowing naturalisation abroad to interfere in any sense with the full rights of citizenship at home. This, of course, creates the great evil of double nationality that has done so much harm, among others to countless Russian subjects of German birth or parentage. The legalisation of the practice was accomplished soon after the Franco-German war of 1871, but it was kept quiet and very little was heard of it. I should like to quote an example of the harm done by this pernicious system.
A talented Armenian had invented some important novelty in connection with naval matters. For some reason no one took any interest in him in Russia, and his life's work seemed unlikely to achieve any result. In despair, he turned his steps to Berlin. There he was immediately appreciated, but as, by the German law, the Government cannot finance the enterprises of any but its own subjects, my poor Armenian, after much hesitation and grief, and with the permission of the Russian Government, became a German subject. Thereupon the German Government bought his invention, largely rewarding and providing for the inventor—only, however, after his official naturalisation as a German subject.
Some time after, this same Armenian, having lost all his means, and having suffered much from illness ana other troubles, set to work and tried his luck in London. Here, however, his double nationality brought him nothing but trouble. Germans, in spite of his naturalisation, regarded him as a Russian, and Russians, since he had chosen to become a German subject, considered him a German. Neither the one nor the other would help him, and he was driven to despair and starvation.
The German Emperor has caught at the system of double nationality, and has done all in his power to create confusion in this connection. It is as though he had wished above all things to revenge himself on those of his former subjects who have adopted Russia as their country, and have become naturalised there. He has, by legalising the practice, sown discord and mistrust between the German Russians and the people among whom they might have continued to live peaceably and happily. Is not this the action of a wicked foe?
One of my friends, an experienced and clever judge, recently returned from the front, expressed himself to the effect that Wilhelm had dragged his hapless country into a state of Satanism and had everywhere sown dissension and bribery and evil and sorrow. This is indeed a fact and a danger of which by now not only Russia, but also France and England are convinced, and this very conviction has drawn the Allies more closely together, uniting them by an indissoluble bond, as they fight side by side in this war of liberation and self-defence.
Prussianism deserves merciless punishment, and a radical cure for its mad and boundless greed and ambition. Prussia must be forced back to its former modest dangerless limits. All the mischief done by and since '71 must be undone, and their military system destroyed once and for all.
Some people pretend that Prussia should be returned to the limits not only of the year '71, but to those of the Paris Treaty. I hardly think that so drastic a measure could be carried through. But of course we may remember that Berlin has been once invaded by Napoleon, and that the same victories could be repeated in our time.