too bitter to make it possible for the mass of the Russian people to welcome the thought of another war.  It cannot, therefore, in truth be said that the war with the Central Empires was popular.  But it can be said with sincerity and the fullest sanction that the war was not unpopular; that it was accepted by the greater part of the people as a just and, moreover, a necessary war.  Opposition to the war was not greater in Russia than in England or France, or, later, in America.  Of course, there were religious pacifists and Socialists who opposed the war and denounced it, as they would have denounced any other war, on general principles, no matter what the issues involved might be, but their number and their influence were small and quite unimportant.

The one great outstanding fact was the manner in which the sense of peril to the fatherland rallied to its defense the different races, creeds, classes, and parties, the great tidal wave of genuine and sincere patriotism sweeping everything before it, even the mighty, passionate revolutionary agitation.  It can hardly be questioned or doubted that if the war had been bitterly resented by the masses it would have precipitated revolution instead of retarding it.  From this point of view the war was a deplorable disaster.  That no serious attempt was made to bring about a revolution at that time is the best possible evidence that the declaration of war did not enrage the people.  If not a popular and welcome event, therefore, the declaration of war by the Czar was not an unpopular one.  Never before since his accession to the throne had Nicholas II had the support of the nation to anything like the same extent.

Take the Jews, for example.  Bitterly hated and persecuted as they had been, despised and humiliated beyond description; victims of the knout and the pogrom; tortured by Cossacks and Black Hundreds; robbed by official extortions; their women shamed and ravaged and their babies doomed to rot and die in the noisome Pale—­the Jews owed no loyalty to the Czar or even to the nation.  Had they sought revenge in the hour of Russia’s crisis, in howsoever grim a manner, it would have been easy to understand their action and hard indeed to regard it with condemnation.  It is almost unthinkable that the Czar could have thought of the Jews in his vast Empire in those days without grave apprehension and fear.

Yet, as all the world knows, the Jews resolutely overcame whatever suggestion of revenge came to them and, with marvelous solidarity, responded to Russia’s call without hesitation and without political intrigue or bargaining.  As a whole, they were as loyal as any of the Czar’s subjects.  How shall we explain this phenomenon?