War between Russia and Austria has been inevitable since the latter first cast her eyes eastwards and decided that Salonika was to be the object of her expansion. To reach a port on the east the Teuton must crush the Slav. Fundamentally, it is a battle of races. Hitherto the Teuton has managed to avoid actual conflict; by means of carefully designed coups at opportune moments, or, to put it more bluntly, by the methods of a common thief, he has made very good progress during the last few years without risking his own skin. But on the present occasion circumstances were not so favourable as they appeared to be; and instead of catching Slavdom at a disadvantage, he caught it ready to fight for its existence—a serious miscalculation which bids fair to have the most far-reaching results.

With the exception of the Greeks, Turks and the sparse Teutonic population, the inhabitants of the whole of eastern and south-eastern Europe are of Slavonic origin. They number roughly 125 millions, and they possess the best of all rights to their territories—that of settlement at the time when the Aryan peoples migrated from Asia to Europe. The Russians, Rumanians, Bulgars, Montenegrins and portions of the Serbs, Croats and Poles are either self-governing or under the rule of other Slavonic peoples. The remaining Slavs are under Teuton domination. In East Prussia the Kaiser rules Poles, Kassubes and Serbs, while Austria has several millions of Polish, Czech, Ruthenian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenik and Slovak subjects.

The Slav is the world’s most fervent nationalist. An intense and unconquerable vitality is the outstanding characteristic of every Slavonic people. Like the Jews they maintain their national traits distinct and unchanged in spite of centuries of foreign domination. Their conquerors have never been able to absorb them. Unlike the Jews, however, this vitality is not passive but active. They have never been subdued. When not actively hostile they are sullenly awaiting the opportunity to throw off the yoke. For nearly five hundred years Serbia was a Turkish province, held in the most ruthless subjection. But during all that time Serbia never forgot that once she had been an empire, nor faltered in her determination to be an empire again. In 1817 the chance came and Serbia rose like a nation defending its liberties rather than a rebellious people with a dozen generations of bondsmen for forebears. The modern experiments of Germany and Austria have not proved any more successful than the mediÆval methods of the Turks. Neither country has had a moment’s peace from its Slavonic subjects. They have never dared play any part but the bully’s.

The growth of the organised Pan-Slavist movement has added enormously to their difficulties, and Austria in particular has had many anxious moments in the eastern portions of her Mosaic empire. The movement is the definite expression of Slav aspirations. It aims at unity, if not actual union, amongst all the Slav peoples. Russia is the natural head of the movement, and the ultimate aim is a collection of free Slavonic nations under the suzerainty or protection of the Tzar. In the meantime the immediate object is to free the Slavs who are under the rule of foreign races.

Reference has already been made to Serbia’s aspirations to be once more the empire she was in the days before the Turks overran south-eastern Europe. When in 1817 she at length threw off the Turkish yoke her object was but half fulfilled. A further portion was won back as a result of the recent Balkan War. But there still remain some millions of Serbs under Hapsburg rule. In 1908 Austria, taking advantage of Russian weakness, seized the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both of which are peopled by Serbs. For a time war seemed inevitable. But the Powers stepped in and Serbia, unable to rely on strong Russian help, was forced to acquiesce. She had formally to renounce all claims to be a more natural ruler for Serbs than mongrel Austria, to moderate the activities of the Pan-Slavist societies all of which were more or less bitterly opposed to Austria, and to profess to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement and full of neighbourly love.

It was not to be expected that such an agreement, forced on a small nation by the Great Powers, would prove anything but a farce. Serbia very naturally resented the indignities which she had suffered. The nationalist societies, instead of being suppressed, became more bitter and bolder in their activities. The chief of them, the Narodna Obrava, has an immense membership, drawn from all classes. It is to be found in every town and village. The press, the army and the government service are its most enthusiastic adherents.

One evening, early in June, five members of the Narodna Obrava met in a house near the royal palace at Belgrade and hatched the plot which was destined to prove the spark that kindled the European conflagration. All the world knows how well their plans were conceived, how faithfully carried into execution. On June 28th the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne was, with his wife, murdered in the streets of Serajevo, the chief town in Bosnia.

There is no need here to dwell on subsequent events. After a delay of some three weeks, Austria was bullied by Germany into presenting her famous Note to Serbia. Every line of that Note was a studied insult designed to make Russian intervention and war inevitable. Serbia was exhausted in every way after her two wars with Turkey and Bulgaria, Russia was in the midst of a scheme of military reorganisation which still required a couple of years for completion. War was the last desire of either country. Acting on Russia’s advice, Serbia made an almost abject reply to Austria. But Germany was not to be denied. She was determined to unsheath the sword. Every proposal for peace was dismissed for the most trivial reasons, every precautionary measure was exaggerated into a hostile act. At last, on Friday, August 1st, when the German military preparations were practically complete, Baron von Pourtales, the German Ambassador, called on M. Sazonov, the Foreign Minister and formally demanded that the Russian partial mobilisation should cease within twelve hours. At seven o’clock the following day war was declared and Russia took up her task of defending Slavdom from the Teuton menace, and incidentally saved western Europe from its direst peril since the days when Napoleon thought to crush its liberties. The eastern campaign has been more or less overshadowed by the western, especially during the early days of the war. It was natural that it should be so. The western campaign was the more sensational. The Kaiser hurled his finest forces westwards; every day brought its vital news; doubts, joys, fears crowded one on the other; there were no tedious preliminaries, no hesitation, but smashing stroke and counterstroke. The storm in the east was comparatively slow in gathering and it lacked the spectacular element.

The result was that Russia was both neglected and misunderstood. In spite of the public welcome accorded to journalists by the Grand Duke Nicholas, the official lust for secrecy is as fierce in the east as in the west. Only the sparsest details have been allowed to be published. Defeats have been ignored or dismissed as “local checks.” Every victory has been acclaimed a triumph and every step forward has been supposed to echo menacingly in the streets of Berlin and in the Kaiser’s headquarters.

It has been practically impossible to obtain a clear view of the eastern campaign, and consequently it is not to be wondered at that there has sprung up a general disposition to regard Russia as something of a disappointment. Ignorance of the conditions under which she is fighting caused impossible triumphs to be expected of her.

The best corrective for this distorted vision is to study the eastern war from the Russian point of view. It is that point of view that I have endeavoured to set forth in these pages. No claim is made to any secret knowledge; in view of the extraordinary strict censorship in Russia, such a claim would be absurd. But it is possible to record and explain the events as they are known and understood by representative opinion in Russia. Moreover, sufficient of the earlier stages of the campaign have emerged from the fog of war to enable the period within these pages to be analysed in the light of subsequent events. In the circumstances, it can be confidently claimed that the views generally held by men of moderate opinion in Russia provide a reliable if somewhat sketchy history of the campaign. Some details may be meagre, others faulty; that is only to be expected when for descriptions of the actual fighting it is necessary to rely to a very large extent upon the stories of the wounded. But the general outlines and deductions are undoubtedly correct, and the study of them will enable the man in the west to understand and appreciate the many difficulties connected with the war in the east.