national cause, but mainly because it was autocratic. The war revealed not merely the pro-Germanism of the Court and the guiltiness of the Government, but the complete bankruptcy of the autocratic régime. The autocracy had petered out. All strength and vitality, if ever it possessed any, had gone out of it. It was not merely a corpse, but a decomposing corpse. The pillars of the system had crumbled into decay. The whole structure was in a state of disintegration. Its very foundation—the army—had gone from under it.
It is easy to understand the tragedy of the army. After two and a half years of unparalleled sacrifices, heroism and endurance, the army felt itself morally weakened and humiliated. It was conscious that all its sufferings and reverses were not its own fault, but the result solely of the inefficiency and incapacity and guilty neglect of the authorities. The blind obedience, the unquestioning devotion and unlimited fidelity, traditional to the Russian soldier, was shaken. In its
