why Admiral
Koltchak was able to report their defeat and rout over the Chinese
border and we were back again at the point at which British and Czech
co-operation had arrived a year previously.

CHAPTER XXIV

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Before we decide our policy as to withdrawal or otherwise from Russia it
is necessary to know whether we have contracted any obligations to the
Russian people, and what is the nature of such obligations, if any. Are
they moral, military, or political?

Towards the end of 1914, when our army had been driven back behind the
Marne and the future of Europe and our Empire was in the balance,
frantic appeals were made by British statesmen, and even by still more
august authority, asking Russia to rush to our aid and save us from
destruction. This appeal was backed by British public and Labour
opinion, and through our Press made a profound impression upon the
Russian people. The Russian Government, regardless of their best
military advice, forced their partially mobilised legions to make a
rapid flying raid into East Prussia, which immediately reduced the
pressure upon our own armies and made the victory of the Marne possible.
Hurriedly mobilised, imperfectly equipped, not too brilliantly led,
these legions, constituting the chivalry of Russia, became the prey of
Prussia's perfect military machine. The Russian Government never dared
to tell the Russian peasant the number of Russian souls who were
mutilated by high explosives and smothered in the cold Masurian marshes
in that sublime effort to save her friends. Russia lost as many men in
saving Paris during that raid as did all the other Allies in the first
year of the war.

Russia continued to fight and mobilise until 1917, by which time she had
collected a huge army of over twelve million men. The Hohenzollern
dynasty and its military advisers came to the conclusion that it would
soon be impossible to stem this human tide by ordinary military means,
and having a complete understanding of Russian psychology through its
dynastic and administrative agents, decided to undermine the _moral_ of
the Russian people. German "Black Books" were not employed against
British leaders exclusively. We need not wonder at the rapid spread
among Russians of suspicion against their civil and military leaders
when we remember that the same sort of propaganda admittedly influenced
the administration of justice in England. The people of Russia were true
to th