In case of defeat her centre of gravity is not shifted.

A Russian war can hardly ever, therefore, become a struggle for political existence, and cause that straining of every nerve which such a struggle entails.

The inhabitants will hardly ever show self-devotion in wars whose objects cannot be clear to them.

Throughout the vast Empire the social and also political education, especially among the peasants, is so poor, that any grasp of the problems of a foreign policy seems quite out of the question.

The sections of the people who have acquired a little superficial learning in the defective Russian schools have sworn to the revolutionary colours, or follow a blind anti-progressive policy which seems to them best to meet their interests.