Above the Battle
the Russian Government, and how suffocating the atmosphere of Panslavism. In 1906 it was the Lett peasant and intellectual classes who enjoyed most frequently the privilege of being flogged; it was amongst these classes that the greatest number of unfortunates were shot, hanged, or imprisoned for life. And since that dreadful year there are to be found in all the principal towns of Western Europe colonies of Letts, formed of refugees who succeeded in escaping from the atrocities of the punitive expedition sent by the Russian Government against my country. But this fact is significant: at the head of the majority of the military bands commissioned to punish the country were German officers who had asked for this employment, and showed so great a zeal in shooting down men and setting fire to houses, that they went even beyond the intentions of the Russian Government. In those days the places might count themselves fortunate which were visited by dragoons commanded by officers of Russian nationality; for where Russian officers would have ordered the knout, German officers habitually inflicted a sentence of death.
If my nation had ever to choose between a German and a Russian government it would choose the latter as the lesser of two evils. I see in the
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