of constructive work. On the other hand, it was to Germany's advantage to keep the Balkan nations at enmity among themselves, to play them off one against another, to decrease their power of resistance to the process of Germanization. Her activities there were based upon destructive work, for her aim was to erect her own might upon the ruins of the smaller nations of the Balkan peninsula.
The roots of the relations that bound Russian policies with the fate of Serbia in the present War stretch far back into the history of both nations. At the time that the Turks became complete masters of the Balkan Peninsula, Russia herself was just freed from the yoke of her oppressors, the Tartars, and was consolidating about the princedom of Moscow. Even at that time there were indications of the future greatness and might of the incipient state, and the eyes of Poland, Austria and Crimea were turned to it with considerable attention. When, after the middle of the sixteenth century, the Prince of Moscow began to conquer, one after another, the realms of Russia's erstwhile oppressors, Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia, when he assumed the title of tsar, when the Metropolitan of Moscow was recognized by the whole Eastern Orthodoxy as one of the patriarchs, then the gaze of the submerged nationalities of the Balkan peninsula began to be turned towards the North, for they began to hope for liberation from that quarter. The Russian Tsars themselves came to consider the liberation of Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, as well as the Roumanians of Moldavia and Walachia, as their historic duty. They kept up a lively intercourse with these peoples, spent large sums of money for the support of their churches, waged numerous wars against Turkey, and these wars were always difficult and burdensome, though not always successful.
It was only natural that in the minds of these oppressed peoples should grow the conviction that the Tsar of Moscow was their defender, and that their interests are closely interrelated with the interests of Russia. The idea of Pan-Slavism, which never had either a practical significance, or even a proper formulation, was, undoubtedly, something artificial and untrue to life, but this spirit of unity between the Balkan peoples and Russia has been a direct and natural outcome of the existing social and historical conditions. This spirit is deeply imbedded in the mind of the Russian people. The sympathy that the Russian peasant has for his smaller "brother" is not imaginary; the desire to save him from oppression on the part of anybody, whether Turkey or Germany, finds a sincere response not only
