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largest establishments which had given employment to one-half of all the workers thrown out of work was lack of fuel. Lack of materials was next in importance. Lack of cotton was responsible for the closing of eight establishments which had given employment to 28,800 workers. On the other hand, lack of orders and financial losses were reported only from 12 per cent of all establishments employing less than 10 per cent of the total number of workers.

The industrial situation in the month of October 1917 is characterized by the shipments of coal from the Donetz Basin which, as has been seen, is the chief coal-producing centre of Russia. During the month of October the shipments of coal amounted only to 1,440,000 short tons, of which nearly two-thirds were consumed by the railroads. This left only 504,000 short tons for the supply of all industrial establishments, which was about one-third of their regular demand for fuel.

The cessation of the war was followed by the closing of munition factories and other war industries. The secession of Ukrainia and the Caucasus deprived Russia for a time of her principal sources of fuel. The blockade was directly responsible for the lack of cotton which forced the closing of cotton factories.

On

The breakdown of the transportation system was, perhaps, the most potent cause of the crisis of Russian industry. It is a well-known fact that the war totally destroyed the efficiency of the Russian railways. On 1 Oct. 1917, the number of disabled locomotives reached 5,551, while work in the repair shops was practically discontinued for lack of metal and fuel. 31 Dec. 1917, 22,000 loaded cars accumulated at the Moscow railway depot for lack of locomotives to haul them. The Soviet government attempted to relieve the industrial breakdown by a broad scheme of nationalization of industry. ISAAC A. HOURWICH, PH.D. GEORGE J. KWASHA, M. E.

13. BANKING AND FINANCE. Russia's extremely agricultural character makes her banks and banking far less important than her enormous size and population would warrant us to expect. Neither in number nor in magnitude can Russian banks compare favorably with those of west European countries, let alone the United States. Indeed, banks are a comparatively recent institution in Russia. There were no commercial banks at all in that country before 1865, when the first of them (with a capital of 4,000,000 rubles) was established. Nor was their subsequent growth very rapid. The close of the last century still found only 39 such institutions in the whole empire, though their total capitalization approximated 350,000,000 rubles. By 1910 their number had decreased through consolidation to 31, though the number of branch-banks had more than doubled during the decade in question (increasing from 242 to 492) and the capitalization reached the halfbillion-ruble mark. Within the next five years, years of unusual industrial and commercial development in Russia, the number and importance of Russia's business banks grew amazingly. In 1915 there were 53 main and 743 branch banks, with a total capital exceeding 1,200,000,000 rubles. The World War, naturally, interrupted this rapid general development of Rus

sian banking though in its first years it seemed to stimulate even a more rapid growth in certain directions. According to the last statement of the Russian State Bank, published on 6 Nov. 1917- and no more recent reliable data are available at this writing - Russia then had in circulation no less than 19,000,000,000 rubles, with one and a third billions of gold reserve. The total paper currency had grown from 3,260,000,000 rubles in 1915 to about 25,000,000,000 rubles (est.) in 1918, with a greatly depleted gold reserve. Despite the prevailing panic caused by revolutionary conditions, the People's Bank of Moscow was so swamped with deposits that it was opening new branches all over the country to handle their amazing amounts-amounts which during four months of 1917 increased from 353,000,000 to 781,000,000 rubles. But just at the close of that year the Bolshevik government seized all the banks, which shared the sad fate of most other institutions under that régime.

In imperial times the Bank of Russia acted in the double capacity of State bank and commerical bank. The State Bank, the government bank of issue and directly under the control of the Minister of Finance, was the central unifying banking institution that gave the Russian banking system its soundness and stability. Before the World War it was the largest bank in the world so far as actual deposits were concerned. Protected and controlled by the State Bank were numerous State savings banks, established to promote thrift among the people. The government guaranteed all their deposits and fixed their rates of interest. None of their capital could be used for state expenditures, and only profits in excess of 10 per cent went to the government. Losses were met by a reserve fund built up from profits under the 10 per cent maximum permitted by the State Bank. The growth of these popular savings banks, which were represented by at least 10,000 branches all over the country, has been phenomenal. According to the official report made by the Russian Minister of Finance in 1916, the deposits in these savings banks increased by over 3,500,000,000 rubles in the first two years of the Great War. The growth of deposits in the State Bank amounted to 854,000,000 rubles during the first 18 months of that war. Besides these general banks, Russia before the Revolution had special banks, such as mortgage banks, land banks, etc. The functions of these different kinds of loan banks are indicated by their names. It should be noted, however, that the land banks were specially designated as the Nobles' Land Bank and the Peasants' Land Bank, each doing an enormous business before the Great War over 3,200,000,000 and 5,000,000,000 rubles, respectively, in 1913. There were 36 municipal credit societies in Russia on 1 Jan. 1915, having a total capital exceeding 150,000,000 rubles; while the 53 joint-stock banks for commercial credit had a total capital of about 837,000,000 rubles on 1 July 1915, with deposits approximating 2,900,000,000 rubles the previous year. The principal banks of the latter kind before the World War were the Petrograd International Bank of Commerce (capital 90,000,000 rubles), the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade (capital 80,000,000 rubles), the Azov-Don Bank of Commerce (capital 75,000,000 rubles), the Russian

Asiatic Bank (capital 65,000,000 rubles), the United Bank of Commerce (capital 46,000,000 rubles), the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank (capital 45,000,000 rubles), the VolgaKama Bank of Commerce (capital 31,000,000 rubles), and the Siberian Trade Bank (capital 31,000,000 rubles). All these banks had numerous branches some as many as a hundred-in various parts of Russia, with headquarters invariably at Petrograd.

The government revenues and expenditures of Imperial Russia were classed under the two general heads of ordinary and extraordinary, with numerous and confusing sub-classifications. The principal sources and gross amounts of Russia's "ordinary" revenues, as enumerated and officially estimated in rubles for 1915, were as follows: (1) State domains- government railroads, banks, mills, factories, timber sales, etc.- 1,700,000,000; (2) Indirect taxes -customs receipts and revenue from sales of tobacco, alcohol, sugar, matches, petroleum, etc.- 699,000,000; (3) Duties revenue stamp receipts, passport charges, taxes on freight and passenger railroad transportation, etc.- -514,000,000; (4) Direct taxes-taxes on land, real estate, capital, trade licenses, etc.-375,000,000; (5) State monopolies - mining industries, coinage, liquor traffic, post office, telephone, telegraph, etc.- 326,000,000; (6) Reimbursement of treasury expenditures, 124,000,000; (7) Land redemption-payments on land purchased by exserfs and other peasants - 1,900,000; (8) Sale of state domains forests, lands and other natural resources- - 1,850,000; and (9) Miscellaneous revenues-military tribute, municipal contributions, payments on railroad and Crown debts, etc.-- 15,200,000. If we add to these "ordinary revenues the 155,000,000 rubles estimated as "extraordinary" revenues for the same year, the bulk of which was to come from state loans, we find Russia's estimated revenues for the first year of the World War mounting up to nearly 3,912,000,000 rubles. Counting the population of the empire as 180,000,000 in 1915 (a conservative estimate), these vast revenues came to about 21% rubles per capita.

At least 20 items made up the "ordinary> and "extraordinary" expenditures of the Russian government in its imperial days. The former included all the fixed or regular expenses connected with the various ministries; the latter, naturally, most of the irregular or variable disbursements of the government. The cost of running Russia's 11 ministries, which constituted the bulk of her ordinary expenditures, was estimated for 1915 as follows (in rubles and round numbers): Ministry of Ways of Communication, 752,000,000; Ministry of War, 590,000,000; Ministry of Finance, 357,000,COO; Ministry of the Interior, 203,000,000; Ministry of Marine, 199,000,000; Ministry of Education. 159,000,000; Ministry of Agriculture, 143,000,000; Ministry of Justice, 101,000,000; Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 57,430,000; Ministry of the Imperial Court, 16,300,000; and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 7,700,000. The other "ordinary" expenditures for that year included 440,000,000 rubles in payment of state debts. 52,500,000 rubles to the Holy Synod, 8,830,000 rubles for the higher government institutions (Imperial Council, the Duma, etc.), and 27,000,000 rubles in miscellaneous expenses.

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The "extraordinary expenditures were fewer in number and smaller in total amount. There were just four general government outlays under this head during 1915. These were 78,400,000 rubles spent by the Ministry of War; 66,000,000 rubles expended on railway extensions; 9,400,000 rubles devoted to the construction and improvement of ports; and 1,072,000 rubles paid out in railroad subsidies. This makes a grand total of 3,268,632,000 rubles for all estimated expenditures, "ordinary" and "extraordinary," for the year in questionwhich, on the bases used above, amounted to about 18% rubles per capita.

Of course these figures do not include Russia's enormous war expenditures, which the Russian Minister of Finance placed at 10,000,000,000 rubles for 1915 alone. That the cost of the World War to Russia, as to the other belligerent nations, increased as the struggle continued, goes without saying. Specific estimates by years vary greatly, but Russian authorities place the whole cost of the World War to Russia at 56,599,275,699 rubles.

The rapid growth of Russia's national debt during the war is another means of gauging its cost. This increased from 8,811,380,000 rubles on 1 Jan. 1914, to 32,300,000,000 rubles on 1 Sept. 1917, when Russia no longer figured in the war. To cover this and subsequent deficits, Russia made several internal war loans, some of which were taken up abroad, and at least two foreign loans, amounting to $100,000,000, placed in the United States, which alone is believed to have extended financial aid to Russia approximating $325,000,000. Just what the financial situation in that country is at the present moment, with the Bolshevik government still in power, cannot even be conJectured. With all her pre-Bolskevik government loans repudiated by this reckless régime in 1918, and with her unprecedented issues of unsecured paper money, Russia's financial credit at home and abroad has already reached the lowest ebb in her whole precarious history. DAVID A. MODELL, Authority on Russian Subjects. 14. RAILWAYS, HIGHWAYS AND WATERWAYS. Russia's enormous size makes her means of transportation and communication even more essential than these vital factors generally are in smaller countries. Yet, neither her railroads nor her waterways have been developed or utilized to anything like their maximum efficiency, both lagging behind Russia's industrial and commercial progress.

This is especially true of the Russian railroad system, which, while it is the second largest in the world in point of trackage, falls far behind those of England, Germany and the United States in actual efficiency. The growth and development of Russia's railroads has been very rapid, however. Beginning in the sixties of the last century, when but 264 miles of tracks were constructed annually, and passing through a period of tremendous development between 1895-99, when the annual increase of lines averaged 1,915 miles, the development of Russian railroads reached its highest point just when the Great War broke out and, naturally, interrupted it. Conflicting figures are given for the total mileage of Russian railroads immediately before the World War.

In 1917, according to the American Railway Commission in Russia, the total mileage of all railroads in European and Asiatic Russia (exclusive of Finland) approximated 43,300. Only about 25 per cent of these railroads were then double-tracked. Before the Russian Revolution (q.v.) about two-thirds of Russia's vast railroads belonged to the government, the rest being owned by private companies. Despite their poor equipment and inefficient operation, Russian railroads carry enormous numbers of passengers and mountains of freight. No very recent statistics are available here, but in 1914 a total of about 250,000,000 passengers and 235,000,000 tons of freight were transported by Russian railways. What the figures were during the war, with its unprecedented movements of men and supplies, can only be conjectured at present.

The principal Russian railroad lines connect the outlying provinces of central, southern and western Russia one with another and with the chief Baltic, White Sea and Black Sea ports. Moscow, the centre of Russia's greatest industrial region, is naturally the most important Russian railroad centre. Next comes Petrograd, the actual commercial centre of Russia, which is linked with the older Russian capital by the Nicholas Railroad. NijniNovgorod, the leading commercial city on the Volga, ranks third as a railroad centre. Connected with Moscow by the Nizhni-Novgorod Railroad, it is a great distributing point for much of the grain that comes from such agricultural trading centres as Kazan, Riazan, Samara and Saratov. Another railroad, the Moscow-Kursk, connects Moscow with the densely populated governments of central and southern Russia; and still another, the MoscowBriansk, connects it with the city of Kiev, the fourth largest city of Russia. The Riga-Orlov Railroad runs directly to the port of Riga, on the Baltic, and connects that important city with those of four or five adjacent governments, finally making a junction near Dvinsk with the Warsaw Railroad. The Yelets and the GriazeTsaritsin lines help to connect the fertile blacksoil region of southern Russia with the western part of the country. The Petrograd-Warsaw and the Moscow-Brest lines connect Petrograd and Moscow with Poland and the AustrioPrussian frontier. Then there is, of course, the great Trans-Siberian Railroad (q.v.), the longest continuous railway in the world, which connects such remote cities as Petrograd and Vladivostok, 5,435 miles apart by rail, which is one and three-fourths times the distance from New York to San Francisco by the shortest route. This enormous railroad, costing over $172,525,000 in initial outlay and taking nearly 12 years to build-it is being extended by branch lines and made more efficient by doubletracking all the time-is double-tracked from Omsk to Vladivostok, a distance of 3,566 miles, which exceeds, the distance across the whole American continent. The Trans-Siberian Railroad has given a great impetus to commerce and agriculture in both European and Asiatic Russia and has greatly promoted Siberian immigration. In the Great War, when it was naturally taxed to the utmost, its services were inestimable. The much-needed lesson taught Russia by the exigencies of that unprecedented war is being improved by the above-mentioned

railway commission, which has already increased the efficiency of Russian railroads to a very considerable extent.

Russia's internal waterways, covering so large a part of two continents, are naturally the longest in the world. The country is intersected by numerous rivers, lakes and canals which afford direct water communication between the Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, between the former and the Baltic and between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Exclusive of Finland, European and Asiatic Russia has about 250,000 miles of waterways. But, owing to the lowlands through which they pass, Russian rivers are generally not very deep. Hence only about half their mileage-not more than 132,000 miles, at any rate- represents really navigable waters, the rest being navigable by rafts and small sailing vessels. Moreover, most of Russia's internal waterways are practically icebound in winter and some are greatly affected by drought in summer, especially in their southern reaches. Yet, despite these handicaps, about one-third of Russia's immense freight is transported by water, which still affords by far the cheapest means of communication. And the proportion of waterway to railway transportation in Russia is bound to increase rather than diminish as time goes on, judging from the vast and numerous waterway improvements projected by the Executive Committee on Water Transportation during the Great War.

There are six large river systems in the former Russian Empire- two in Europe and four in Asia and these, with their numerous connecting canals, make up a network of waterways unsurpassed anywhere else in the world. Of the two European systems, that of the Volga River is by far the larger. It lies in the East and includes the waters of the Neva Basin as well as those of the northern Dvina, which empties into the White Sea. The other European Russian river system is that of the Dnieper, which flows south into the Black Sea. This is the Western system and includes, besides the Dnieper Basin itself, the basins of the Western Dvina, the Nieman and the Vistula, which link together the Black Sea with the Baltic. The two systems, together, afford a continuous water route between points so distant as the city of Astrakhan, on the Caspian Sea, and Petrograd, on the Gulf of Finland, 2,540 miles apart.

The principal river systems in Asiatic Russia are those of the Ob River, the Yenesey, the Lena and the Amur. The first is the largest and most important, comprising all the rivers of the West Siberian plain north of the Russian Atai and northern Mongolia, with at least 7,000 miles of navigable waters. The Yenesey system, second in size, drains about 870,000 square miles of Siberian territory and has a total of 4,500 miles of navigable waters. The Lena River system comprises over 5,000 miles of navigable waters and drains the northern Irkutsk region as well as the greater part of northeastern Siberia, an area exceeding 1,000,000 square miles. Finally, the Amur system, which drains the Russian Far East, affords another 5,000 miles of navigable water routes. Together, all these vast waterways, connecting here and there with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, have been one of the greatest promoters of Siberian colonization and expansion. The

maintenance and control of Siberia's river systems, as well as of the large and deep Lake Baikal (a fresh water lake of unlimited possibilities), is vested in the Russian Department of Ways of Communication, which recommends and makes necessary improvements. future of Siberia undoubtedly depends quite as much upon her vast waterways as upon any other single factor, the great Trans-Siberian Railroad not excepted.

The

A country so predominantly agricultural as Russia must of necessity depend a great deal on wagon roads and highways for means of transportation and communication. While Russia's ordinary wagon roads are apt to be impassable in spring and fall, they afford very cheap transportation facilities the rest of the year, especially in winter, when sledging is almost universal. It is then that Russia's agricultural and other products can be transported most conveniently from the villages to the towns and railroad stations by millions of peasants whose time is all their own. There are about 75,000 miles of ordinary (unpaved) roads and over 15,000 miles of post (macadamized) highways in European Russia alone. The latter connect all the principal cities, thus linking together such important centres as Moscow, Petrograd, Warsaw, Kiev and Kharkov. The post highways, over which millions of passengers travel in winter and summer, were bu.lt by the tsars, but are kept in repairs by local authorities and the rural communities through which they pass.

There are at least six kinds of roads and highways in Asiatic Russia: (1) Main highways, (2) caravan roads, (3) local roads, (4) colonization roads, (5) by-roads and (6) commercial highways. Space does not permit a description of the character and function of each, except to add that the principal road in the first class (the famous Sibirsky-Tract) alone exceeds 4,000 miles in length, that the local roads (some 61 in number) have a total mileage of 16,000, and that there were about 6,600 miles of colonization roads in 1913. Most of these Siberian roads are of a rather primitive character, though examples of more modern highways are not unknown even in this undeveloped part of Russia.

DAVID A. MODELL,

Special Authority on Russian Subjects. 15. ARMY AND NAVY. At least three vital factors have combined in the past to make a large standing army essential to Russia's political integrity and imperial well-being: (1) Her vast territorial extent, which made three practically separate armies necessary; (2) her diverse and very numerous ethnic elements, which made racial revolts an ever-present danger; and (3) her peculiar geographical position, which necessitated a very considerable army to guard her extensive frontiers. Fortunately, Russia's enormous population, a population which has always enabled her to put more men under arms than any other nation in Europe or America, makes it comparatively easy to supply any number of soldiers needed in peace or war. Thus, while her standing army before the Great War probably did not exceed 1,700,000 trained men, Russia could always mobilize twice that number. In the World War she had no less than 12,000,000

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men under arms, with perhaps as many millions more under training.

Like most other European countries, imperial Russia had universal and compulsory military service, which she first established by law in 1874. Theoretically, every able-bodied male between the ages of 21 and 44 was liable to conscription; but exceptions and exemptions were quite numerous. Finally, many of the non-Slavic races found in the Russian Empire

such as the aborigines of Siberia, the inhabitants of Turkestan, the Caucasians, and the besubjects of the grand duchy of Finland ing deemed undependable, were permanently exempted from military service. Such exemption, however, involved considerable exemption taxes in the case of the Finns and Turkestanians, at least. These and other ways, honest and dishonest, of evading military service in Russia made conscription there much less onerous than it is elsewhere in Europe.

The number of conscripts to be called annually was usually determined by the Imperial Senate in accordance with recommendations made by the Minister of War. Thus the quota of new recruits would vary from year to year. Immediately before the Great War about half a million men were drafted out of the 1,300,000 liable for military service; and on this basis had not the war intervened the number of recruits would have increased by about 150,000 annually for the ensuing year or two. The general demoralization following the Russian Revolution naturally wrought havoc with the Russian army, greatly depleting its ranks through wholesale desertions and undermining its morale through premature relaxation of discipline. With the conditions existing under the Bolshevik régime, several rival armies have long been operating in various parts of Russia. The largest and strongest of these would seem to be that of the Bolshevik government, called "the Red Guards," and composed largely of mercenary troops and German officers.

The Russian army in pre-revolutionary times had the usual four branches - infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineers to which the Great War has added an indispensable fifth, the aviation branch. The infantry consisted of regulars, Cossacks, militia and what corresponded to the German Landsturm. Only the first of these divisions maintained its full strength in time of peace, while the Cossacks' ranks were normally kept at one-third their war strength. The conditions and length of service varied slightly before the World War, but were generally as follows: For the infantry and the artillery, three years in the active army and 15 years with the first reserves; for the cavalry and other branches, four years in the active army and 14 years with the first reserves; and for all of them five years with the second reserves. This makes a total liability to military service of 23 years for these particular branches, while the Cossacks' liability is practically lifelong. The latter, after two years' training at home, entered the active district regiment of the first order at 21. After four years of active service there came four years' leave of absence, which meant service in regiments of the second order, with a month's military training every year. Then followed another four years of active service in regiments of the third order and five

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years with the reserves, after which the Cossack, splendidly trained and well disciplined, belonged to the Landsturm division.

The term of military service would be reduced by five years for university graduates, who served but two years in the line and 16 with the reserves, and graduates of secondary schools, who served three years in the line and 15 with the reserves.

For military purposes imperial Russia was divided into 14 districts, each in charge of a district commander. In 1914 the Russian army had 37 army corps, each of which generally consisted of two infantry divisions, an engineer battalion and sometimes a division of cavalry. On a war footing an army corps had between 36,000 and 40,000 men. Two of the three separate armies maintained by Russia before the Great War were stationed in Europe. There were some 40,000 or 50,000 frontier guards permanently on the Austrian, German, Rumanian and other frontiers. Behind these guards, in the various military districts, were the regular army corps. The principal military headquarters in European Russia in time of peace were located at Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kovno, Grodno, Vilna, Minsk, Odessa, Riga, Revel, Warsaw, Lodz, Kharkov, Smolensk, Vitebsk, Simferopol, Dorpat and Brest-Litovsk. The Caucasian army, consisting of at least four cavalry divisions, had its headquarters at Tiflis and Alexandropol. There were, besides, considerable torces (some 150,000 troops) stationed in central Asia, while those normally in the Far East were by no means negligible. Military schools and academies were quite numerous in Russia before the Revolution and, naturally, were located near military headquarters.

Russia's navy has not attained such high rank among the navies of the world as her unlimited resources would seem to have made possible. But the Russians, it should be remembered, are not naturally a seafaring people, and shipbuilding is with them a comparatively recent art. It was Peter the Great (q.v.) who first organized the Russian navy as one of his pet ideas, but it never amounted to much until comparatively recent times. Its growth was so slow at first that only in the early part of the last century did it attain third rank among the world's navies. Even this rank was lost after the Crimean War, and such relatively small navies as the Turkish, Italian and German were in the middle of the 19th century easily surpassed Russia's naval strength. But late in that century (in 1884) a new naval program was begun in Russia which by 1895 again raised her navy to third rank. Such naval progress was not long sustained, however. In the RussianJapanese War Japan's more modern fleet easily and decisively defeated Russia's squadron near Tsushima. Since that disastrous defeat Russian naval reform and expansion have gone on apace, though effective reorganization began only in 1911. The full naval program as then projected involved the construction of 24 new battleships, 12 battle cruisers, 24 lighter cruisers, 108 destroyers and torpedo boats and some 36 submarines. The entire program was to be carried out by 1930, when the Russian navy would indeed have become very formidable. The Great War interrupted this huge naval program which, from present indications, will never be completed.

Before the war with Japan Russia maintained four separate naval squadrons- one each in the Pacific Ocean, the Baltic, the Caspian and the Black seas. Before the World War the entire Russian navy consisted of some 200 vessels of various types, with a total displacement of approximately 408,000 tons. These warships included seven battleships (five of the dreadnought type), seven battle cruisers, five armored cruisers, seven fast and other cruisers, 118 destroyers, 40 submarines and 15 torpedo boats. But these figures give no adequate idea of the nature and size of the Russian navy in the Great War, in the first years of which many important additions must have been made as vessel after vessel then building was completed. The actual increase from this source has never been tabulated. It could hardly have offset Russia's considerable naval losses during the war, which were greatly augmented by revolutionary conditions, especially under the Bolshevik régime. What the Germans did not sink_or capture of Russia's navy and the Black Sea fleet nearly all fell into their hands Bolshevik maladministration ruined or rendered impotent. Before the revolution Russia had three principal navy yards at Petrograd - the Baltic works, the New Admiralty Yard and the Galerny Island Yard- one each at Kronstadt, Sevastopol, Vladivostok, Reval, Libau, and Helsingfors.

DAVID A. MODELL,

Special Authority on Russian Subjects. 16. RUSSIA AND THE WORLD WAR. The immediate cause which brought Russia into the conflict was a declaration of war by Germany on 1 Aug. 1914, following an ultimatum requiring that Russia should demobilize within 12 hours. On being asked by the Russian Foreign Minister (M. Sazonov) whether the inevitable refusal of Russia to this curt summons meant war, the German Ambassador replied that Germany would be forced to mobilize if Russia refused. Up to this stage there were but two belligerents - Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and they had opened hostilities only two and a half days before. In reply to a message from President Wilson to the effect that the United States stood ready at any time to mediate between the warring powers, the German emperor on 10 Aug. 1914 handed Ambassador Gerard a personal letter to the President. This document was first made public on 5 Aug. 1917. In it the emperor stated that a general order of mobilization issued by the tsar on 31 July 1914 had rendered war inevitable. This theory was upheld on the German side for a considerable period of the war, for in his maiden speech to the Reichstag on 19 July 1917 the new German Imperial Chancellor, Dr. Michaelis, stated that Germany was forced into the war "by Russia's secret mobilization, which was a great danger to Germany." On 5 September of the same year he repeated the charge, saying it was "now irrefutably established that it was not Germany who had chosen the time for the war, but a military party surrounding the tsar, which was under the influence of France and England." Against this view may be set the statement by Prince Lichnowsky in his famous memorandum : "On 30 July, when Count Berchtold [Austrian foreign minister] wanted to give way, we [Germany], without Austria