HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN!

“In the welter of the conflict an emperor of Austria-Hungary has died, full of years and of sorrow, a czar of Russia has stepped from his throne, and a king of Greece has lost his crown,” said a well-known publicist, reviewing the war up to this time.

“Not one of the prime ministers or ministers of foreign affairs who conducted the diplomatic maneuvers preceding of immediately following the beginning of the war in the six most important countries of Europe is still in power.  In Russia, Goremykin and Sazonoff are forgotten behind a line of successors, equally unstable.  In France, Delcasse left the foreign office and Viviani ceased to head the cabinet, following the collapse of Serbia in the second autumn of the war.

“The tragedy of Roumania a year later contributed to the overthrow of Asquith and his foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, in Great Britain.  San Giuliano of the Italian foreign office and Salandra, the prime minister, have passed.  Count Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary in 1914 (the empire has no prime minister), has passed into oblivion, while Von Jagow gave up the management of Germany’s foreign affairs last autumn.  Von Bethmann-Hollweg, the last of the group to lose his grip, has just gone down, despite the fact that he was not responsible to any elective body.

“Ministers of war in the belligerent countries have not been more stable.  Kerensky follows a long procession in Russia.  France has had four war ministers from Millerand to Painleve, inclusive, while Lord Kitchener, organizer of Great Britain’s most marvelous war achievement, a volunteer army of some 4,000,000 men, sleeps below the waters of the North Sea.

“History has as ruthlessly brushed aside most of the army commanders of the early days.  Von Kluck, who led the Germans on Paris, is retired.  Rennenkampf, with whom the Russians meanwhile swarmed into East Prussia, is a memory only.  Sir John French has been recalled to England.  That little group of generals who saved France and Europe at the Marne is decimated.  Foch and Castelnau, and Manoury are no longer in command, while Gallieni, worn out in the service of his country, was borne on his last journey through the streets of Paris on a sunny spring day in 1916.

“Even Joffre has been superseded in a military sense, though not as an idol of the nation.  France still holds him as close to her heart as Germany possibly could hold Von Hindenburg—­almost the only one of the war’s early commanders to retain his military power.”

RUSSIAN CAPITAL IN PERIL

On August 23, Riga, the Russian seaport which is the gateway to Petrograd, was reported in peril from the Germans, who were conducting a determined advance on the north of the eastern front under the immediate direction of Field Marshal Von Hindenburg.  With a Japanese mission in Washington, headed by Viscount Ishii, it was expected that steps might be taken to send Japanese troops to the aid of the Russians.