" "Russia, the harder she was pressed the
harder she resisted," and the ghost of Napoleon retreating from Moscow
was presented to every home in Europe; but the plain truth was that,
after Warsaw, the temper of the people changed. Things were going wrong
once more as they had always gone wrong in Russian history, and as they
always would go wrong. Then followed bewilderment. What to do? Whose
fault was it all? Shall we blame our blood or our rulers? Our rulers,
certainly, as we always, with justice, have blamed them--our blood, too,
perhaps. From the fall of Warsaw, in spite of momentary flashes of
splendour and courage, the Russians were a blindfolded, naked people,
fighting a nation fully armed. Now, Europe was vast continents away, and
only Germany, that old Germany whose soul was hateful, whose practical
spirit was terribly admirable, was close at hand. The Russian people
turned hither and thither, first to its Czar, then to its generals, then
to its democratic spirit, then to its idealism--and there was no hope
anywhere. They appealed for Liberty. In the autumn of 1916 a great
prayer from the whole country went up that the bandage might be taken
from its eyes, and soon, lest when the light did at last come the eyes
should be so unused to it that they should see nothing.
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