=“Russians, let us remember that the Russian Jew has no other country than Russia, and that nothing is dearer to a man than the soil on which he is born. Let us understand that the prosperity and power of Russia are inseparable from the well-being and the liberty of all the nationalities which constitute its vast Empire. Let us understand this truth, act according to our intelligence and our conscience, and we may be certain that the ultimate disappearance of persecutions against the Jews and their complete emancipation will form one of the conditions of a truly constructive imperial régime.”= AUSTRIA-HUNGARY The total estimated Jewish population of Austria-Hungary is about 2,250,000, of which nearly one million were, at the beginning of the war, in the border province of Galicia, in the immediate area of hostilities. Here, as elsewhere, the Jews manifested their keen loyalty by trooping to the colors even when they were normally exempt, as in the case of the students of the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary, many of whom volunteered, although not required to do so. The Government recognized this loyalty in many ways, particularly in the granting of special privileges with respect to the observances required by the Jewish religious ritual. Thus the Emperor, in his own name, sent 20,000 Tallithim (prayer shawls) for the soldiers in the field during the holidays. When, at Passover, it was discovered that the matzoths for the Jewish troops had been improperly prepared, the Government, at the instance of the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, authorized the wholesale distribution of potatoes to Orthodox Jews. Hundreds of Jewish soldiers have been decorated on the field of battle, and many were given officers’ commissions. GALICIA It was the million Jews of Galicia who were made to feel the full burden of the war. Although their economic condition before the war was greatly inferior to that of the general population, their political condition was one of equality. But the Russian invasion of Galicia, in September, 1914, changed their status overnight. The Russian Governor-General, Count Bobrinski, a notorious anti-Semite, found the political status of the Jews in Galicia most abhorrent to him. He at once proceeded to degrade them to the status of the Russian Jews, and, if possible, still lower. He proposed to his home Government that all Jewish landed property in Galicia be confiscated and the Jews be forbidden to own, lease or rent land; and this, he added, was an immediately imperative step, to be carried out even before the formal annexation of Galicia was announced! On February 13, 1915, the Grand Duke Nicholas issued an order declaring that “in view of the increase of spying on the part of the Jews, it is decreed that: =1. No person of Jewish nationality may enter Galicia.= =2. No persons of Jewish nationality may pass from one district of Galicia into another.=