y the western allies to direct
the army of the king of Roumania, when his pleas for ammunition were
ignored and promise after promise made him by the Russian prime
minister was broken.

Of all the countries in Europe, with the possible exception of Turkey,
Russia had been the most ignorant. The great mass of the people had
had no schooling and were unable to read and write. It was easier for
the grand dukes and nobles to keep down the peasants and to remain
undisturbed in the ownership of their great estates if the people knew
nothing more than to labor and suffer in silence. There was a class of
Russians, however, the most patriotic and the best educated men in the
state, who were working quietly, but actively, to make conditions
better. Then too, the Nihilists, anarchists who had been working
(often by throwing bombs) for the overthrow of the Czar, had spread
their teachings throughout the country. Students of the universities,
writers, musicians, and artists, had preached the doctrines of the
rights of man. While outwardly the government appeared as strong as
ever, really it was like a tree whose trunk has rotted through and
through, and which needs only one vigorous push to send it crashing to
the ground.

It is generally in large cities that protests against the government
are begun. For one thing, it is harder, in a great mob of people, to
pick out the ones who are responsible for starting the trouble. Then
again it is natural for people to make their protests in capital
cities where the government cannot fail to hear them. A third reason
lies in the fact that in large cities there are always a great number
of persons who are poor and who are the first ones to feel the pinch
of starvation, when hard times arise or when speculators seize upon
food with the idea of causing the prices to rise. Starvation makes
these people desperate--they do not care whether they live or
not--and, as a result, they dare to oppose themselves to the police
and the soldiers.

There had been murmurs of discontent in Petrograd for a long time.
This was felt not only among the common people, but also among the
more patriotic of the upper classes. In the course of the winter of
1916-17, the monk, Rasputin, as a result of a plot, was invited to the
home of a grand duke, a cousin of the Czar. There a young prince,
determined to free Russia of this pest, shot him to death and his body
was thrown upon the ice of the frozen Neva.

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