It is well known that this inevitable slowness and possible impotence on the part of Russia during the early period of the war was the foundation on which the Kaiser constructed his plan of campaign. He could, so he thought, smash the Allies in the West and return in time to mete out similar treatment to the Russians before they could do any damage in the East. Everything favoured the plan, which had all the merits of simplicity and conciseness. Nobody who was acquainted with the disadvantages under which Russia laboured could deny that, humanly speaking, Germany was immune from a serious attack from Russia for at least six weeks. Even that estimate seemed to err on the side of optimism, for at that time there was no reason to suppose that Austria would have much difficulty in defeating Serbia and menacing Russia with a strong advance. But among the many factors with which the Kaiser omitted to reckon must be included General Soukhomlinov--the Russian Kitchener, as he has, not inaptly, been called. When the disastrous Manchurian campaign was ended, Russia sadly needed a man who could take to heart the lessons of defeat and build up a new and better army from the discredited fragments of the old. The moment produced the man. Soukhomlinov, the greatest War Minister Russia has known, has for the past nine years been engaged on an immense scheme for the remodelling and reorganising of the army. Quietly and with inexorable efficiency, he has cut away cancer after cancer and added reform to reform. No problem has been too large, no detail too trivial, and no circumstance too hopeless, for him to devote to it his tireless energy. The whole military system from top to bottom, and in every nook and cranny, has been renovated. Soukhomlinov’s greatest merit is that, in planning and carrying this huge scheme into effect, he has not fallen into the trap that lurks in the path of every military reformer. Although working on western lines, he has not attempted to imitate the German or any other army. That would have been the obvious course for a man of less genius. But Soukhomlinov had the greatness to realise that an imitation army can never be satisfactory. An army must be national to the core, or it will fail in its object. “What is health to the Russian is death to the German,” is a Russian saying that is very true. And an attempt to force Teuton temperaments into Slav bodies would result only in a bastard production emphasising the defects of both.