Austrians in November and December, but the line on the Piave was successfully held.

Yet the net result of the year 1917 was extremely discouraging for the Allies. Russia was unalterably out of the war; all possible. help from her army had evaporated. Italy was in the gravest danger thinkable. The submarine had been successful in sinking an amount of shipping which the Allies had not believed possible although it was far less than the Germans had thought probable. It had not prevented the supply of the British and French armies. in France nor interfered for a day or an hour with the stream of ammunition, but, if the loss should continue at that rate, there was no knowing when the submarine would make itself felt on the battle line. England was building ships at furious speed; so was the United States; but the submarine was sinking them immensely faster than they could be built.

Meanwhile the Allies had failed to gain anything of moment in France. They had supposed that a simultaneous offensive on more than one front would expose the Germans and Austrians to certain defeat on some point. But instead the Germans had successfully held the lines in France and had won victory after victory elsewhere. The outlook was black indeed, for, although the United States had entered the war and had begun preparations of extraordinary magnitude, the American army could not in the nature of things take the field in great force for some months to come and perhaps for a year or more. The year 1918 every one foresaw would be the critical period of the war.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

ONE of the most important and dramatic events of recent decades was the Russian Revolution. In its results upon the war itself and upon conditions after the war in Europe it was one of the most significant events of a complex period. While we do not at present know with certainty much about it, we know

enough to say that its causes were varied. We are really dealing with three revolutions, all simultaneous.

The internal condition of Russia had been for generations extremely bad and the government was still tyrannical, unjust, cruel, and oppressive. The conditions of life were hard. It was extremely difficult to make a living. Sweeping reforms had been put on paper but were still awaiting execution, so that, despite decrees, the peasants rarely owned the land on which they worked. They were bound to pay heavy taxes, heavy rents, and suffered greatly from the oppression and injustice of the proprietors, the local nobles, the local officials and clergy. They formed the over

whelming majority of the population and their dissatisfaction had been growing in recent years in intensity and readiness of expression.

These conditions had produced definite movements in Russia for reform. Various parties were organized to oppose or destroy the Tsar's government. The laws, however, were strict against holding meetings without permission or publishing criticisms of the government in books or newspapers. Secret societies became, therefore, the only way in which reform movements could be organized. To ferret these out was the work of the secret police, which became in Russia an exceedingly powerful organization. The penalty for opposition even in small things was exile to Siberia, where the most terrible suffering was experienced by political prisoners. Only by the use of the army, the officials, and secret police had the Tsar's government kept itself in power so long. Revolts had been planned in 1913 and 1914, but the outbreak of the war postponed them and united Russia for the time against the Germans.

There came to be an almost universal belief in Russia that the defeats in the field and the death of nearly four millions of soldiers were due to treason. The generals and officials were pro-German, had sold the nation to the enemy, and were sacrificing the army in the field. They prevented sufficient food from reaching the troops, failed to send the necessary ammunition, or ordered the men to make attacks prearranged with the Germans so as to insure the destruction of the regiments.

An economic crisis also developed as the war proceeded, due not so much to the Tsar's government as to the inability of the railroads to do the work required, but the result in the large cities was a great scarcity of bread and the possibility of famine. Reforms had been promised before the war, and, while some had

been granted, the more important changes had not been made. As the war progressed more reforms were asked for by the Russian National Assembly, the Duma, but were again refused. In fact measures were taken by the government in the large cities to deal severely with any opposition.

This brought to a head simultaneously three independent attempts to overthrow the Tsar's government. There was first a strong body of Russian Liberals, headed by Milukoff and Prince Lvoff. The former was a college professor, an extremely welleducated and intelligent man, who had lived in America and had come to know much of our notions of government. He had long been the leader of the Intellectuals in Russia. Prince Lvoff, also an extremely intelligent and well-educated man, had embraced the cause of the peasants and had organized them so as to create better conditions and to prevent their oppression by the officials. His peasant organization had rendered great service to the government in feeding the army. These Liberals were in control of the Duma, wished to depose the Tsar, and frame a new constitution. They did not, however, propose to go beyond political reform and would have been entirely content to have the son of the Tsar as monarch.

A considerable portion, though by no means a majority of the population, had been organized in various groups called Socialists, Anarchists, Nihilists, who had long been anxious to overthrow the Tsar's government. They were radical thinkers and wished for something more than a mere reform of the political machinery or a change of the people who did the governing. They wished a complete social revolution which should shake society from top to bottom, and affect not merely the government but the ownership of property. It should put the control of the new state into the hands of the laboring people. This party con