[52] Ludendorff, My War Memories, vol. ii. (Hutchinson and Co., London). What Ludendorff did not mention, and for good reason, was the untiring efforts Germany had made to produce this revolution which had broken out so unexpectedly.
[53] Is not this idea illustrated in the popular saying which betrays the simple faith of the Russian peasant and his feeling of impotence: “God is a very long way up; the Czar a very long way off.”
[54] Ludendorff exaggerates the rôle of the Entente in the Russian Revolution when he writes: “In March, 1917, a Revolution, the work of the Entente, overthrew the Czar.” The movement was supported by the Allies, but it was not their work. Ludendorff shows well enough what were its immediate results for Germany. “The Revolution meant a fatal loss of military power to Russia, weakened the Entente and gave us considerable relief in our heavy task. The General Staff could at once effect important economies of troops and ammunition, and could also exchange divisions on a much greater scale.” And further on: “In April and May, 1917, it was the Russian Revolution which saved us in spite of our victory on the Aisne and in Champagne.” (Ludendorff, My War Memories, vol. ii.).
Thus, by the admission of the Germans themselves, if there had been no Russian Revolution the war would have ended in the autumn of 1917 and millions of human lives would have been spared. Do we realise what would have been the force of a treaty of Versailles signed by the Entente, including Russia! Germany, seized in a vice, would not have been able to escape the fate of the vanquished. The consequences of the Russian Revolution (Bolshevism) have thrown Russia into the arms of Germany. She is still there. Germany alone is in a position to organise and exploit her immense resources. It is in Russia that Germany is preparing her revenge against the Entente.
[55] Russia had been engaged in a reorganisation of the army which increased the number of her divisions and greatly augmented her striking force.
[56] Professor Fiodorof, realising that every hour’s delay meant less chance of averting imminent disaster, went to find General V——, who was one of the most prominent members of the Czar’s staff. He found him perched on a ladder engaged in fixing a nail in the wall on which to hang a picture. Fiodorof told him his fears and begged him to see the Czar at once. But the General called him a “revolution maniac,” and, picking up his hammer, continued the operation which had been interrupted by his tiresome visitor.
[57] It was a great misfortune for the Czar Nicholas II. and the Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna that they ascended the throne so young. Like Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, they could have said, “Guard us, protect us, O God! We are reigning too young!”
History will ultimately give them their due. What was not written about Louis XVI. at the time of the French Revolution? What accusations were levelled against him? Was there any calumny of which he was not the victim? Yet the children in France learn to-day that “he was honest and kind, and desired to do good” (Malet, Révolution et Empire, p. 312). It will be the same with Nicholas II., with the difference that he was a victim to his devotion to his country because he rejected all compromise with the enemy.
[58] Another Imperial residence, twelve miles south-west of Petrograd.
[59] No one can have any idea of what the Czarina suffered during these days when she was despairing at her son’s bedside and had no news of the Czar. She reached the extreme limits of human resistance in this last trial, in which originated that wonderful and radiant serenity which was to sustain her and her family to the day of their death.