national and democratic war has ever acted as a revolutionary force in Russian politics.
(1) The liberal era of Speranski, perhaps the most picturesque and the most mysterious personality in Russian annals, followed the national war against Napoleon.
(2) The liberation of the serfs and the epoch-making reform of Alexander II followed the Crimean War.
(3) Drastic reforms had been decided upon after the Russian-Turkish War of 1878, and would have been granted but for the insensate murder of the Liberator Tsar.
(4) The establishment of Parliamentary Government followed the Russo-Japanese War.
The present war will prove no exception. The victory of the Allies will mean the end of militarism and the end of militarism will for the first time release the greater part of the huge financial resources of the Russian Empire for the economic development of the country and for the education of the people. And the victory of the Allies will also mean the end of the baneful activities of German reaction and of the German bureaucrats of the Baltic provinces, activities which, as we shall prove in a subsequent chapter, have been the incubus
