At Stretensk, too, there were concentrated representatives of all the races at war from Hamburg to Baghdad, and merely to live with them was a political education. First of all, there were the Russians. With the common soldier we were on the best of terms. This brought us several advantages, but to the Russians only harm. The prisoners of war exercised a steady corrupting influence. Many a Russian soldier left Stretensk for the front provided with letters recommending him, in case of capture, to mercy and good usage, because he had treated the Germans or Austrians decently. Our men used to spin the Russians wonderful yarns of what a paradise Germany was for prisoners of war. They did their best to terrify their guards by telling them tales of mysterious German inventions, against which it was impossible for the Russians to fight. Even before the Revolution, the complete breakdown of the Russian Army had been prepared for by the work of the prisoners. The higher classes of society were corrupted in a subtler way by the love-affairs of the prisoners. There were daughters of Stretensk manufacturers whose lovers had quite brought them round to an anti-Russian and especially anti-English point of view. I met one of these girls later on at Irkutsk, and she was an effective pro-German propagandist. Her talk was filled with sneers against England and Italy, from which I inferred that of her lovers one had been a German and another an Austrian. The women whose husbands were away at the front were the worst. Much was written about it at the time in the newspapers, but no reports ever came near the truth. I do not know if I should call these grass widows cynical, but they certainly made no attempt to keep up appearances. Watching them, I recalled Milioukof’s famous words, “In Russia we lack the binding cement of a common hypocrisy.” [SN: RUSSIAN SOLDIERS]