[Footnote 232: _Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir William White_, edited by H.S. Edwards, ch. xviii.] For the Czar the strain of prolonged warfare against unseen and desperate foes was terrible. Surrounded by sentries, shadowed by secret police, the lonely man yet persisted in governing with the assiduity and thoroughness of the great Napoleon. He tried to pry into all the affairs of his vast empire; and, as he held aloof even from his chief Ministers, he insisted that they should send to him detailed reports on all the affairs of State, foreign and domestic, military and naval, religious and agrarian. What wonder that the Nihilists persisted in their efforts, in the hope that even his giant strength must break down under the crushing burdens of toil and isolation. That he held up so long shows him to have been one of the strongest men and most persistent workers known to history. He had but one source of inspiration, religious zeal, and but one form of relaxation, the love of his devoted Empress. It is needless to refer to the later phases of the revolutionary movement. Despite their well-laid plans, the revolutionaries gradually lost ground; and in 1892 even Stepniak confessed that they alone could not hope to overthrow the autocracy. About that time, too, their party began to split in twain, a younger group claiming that the old terrorist methods must be replaced by economic propaganda of an advanced socialistic type among the workers of the towns. For this new departure and its results we must refer our readers to the new materials brought to light by Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace in the new edition of his work _Russia_ (1905). Here we can point out only a few of the more general causes that contributed to the triumph of the Czar. In the first place, the difficulties in the way of common action among the proletariat of Russia are very great. Millions of peasants, scattered over vast plains, where the great struggle is ever against the forces of nature, cannot effectively combine. Students of history will observe that even where the grievances are mainly agrarian, as in the France of 1789, the first definite outbreak is wont to occur in great towns. Russia has no Paris, eager to voice the needs of the many.