ed. According to the Petrograd journals in Pskoff, where it was
tried, many individuals got no cards, and therefore no provisions.
Many who possessed the cards found nothing to buy. And some of those
who obtained the articles they wanted paid dearer for them than if
they had bought them without cards. And as with cards one has to lay
in a stock to last a fortnight, the poorer families were unable to
utilize them.[132]

[132] _Novoye Vremya_, January 1916. _Frankfurter Zeitung_,
January 21, 1916.

In France, as well as in Russia, the professional organizers,
especially the civilians, were very much adrift. In the army all the
sterling qualities of the French nation at its best, and many that
were deemed extinct, but are now seen to have been only dormant, shone
forth resplendent. Valour, fortitude, staying power, self-abnegation
for the common good, became household virtues. Friends and foes were
equally surprised. But the civil administration remained
well-meaning, patriotic and unregenerate to the last. The old Adam
lived and acted up to his reputation.

Before the war the French railway administration had been criticized
severely. It is not for a foreigner to express an opinion on the
internal ordering of a country not his own, but unbiassed French
experts found that the strictures were called for and the verdict, in
which the public acquiesced, was well grounded. Subsequently, when the
struggle began and the railway system was tested, people had reason to
remember the previous complaints, for they saw how little had been
done in the meanwhile to remove the causes of dissatisfaction. The
first drawback was the want of rolling stock. "Give us waggons and we
will execute all orders and supply the War Ministry," cried the
munitions firms. "There are no waggons in the ports, and we cannot get
the coal delivered," exclaimed the importers. "The country is
threatened with general paralysis," wrote the _Journal_;[133] "we can
neither forward nor sell anything." The railway administration asked
for a fortnight's notice, then for three weeks and finally an
indefinite period, before it could provide a single truck. "I have
fertilizing stuff to forward before the season is past," pleads the
representative of one firm. "We have no waggons," is the reply. "I
must have my produce delivered at once to the Government," argues
another, "for it is wanted for the fabrication of powder." But the
answer came promptly: "There ar