There is no need here to dwell on subsequent events. After a delay of some three weeks, Austria was bullied by Germany into presenting her famous Note to Serbia. Every line of that Note was a studied insult designed to make Russian intervention and war inevitable. Serbia was exhausted in every way after her two wars with Turkey and Bulgaria, Russia was in the midst of a scheme of military reorganisation which still required a couple of years for completion. War was the last desire of either country. Acting on Russia’s advice, Serbia made an almost abject reply to Austria. But Germany was not to be denied. She was determined to unsheath the sword. Every proposal for peace was dismissed for the most trivial reasons, every precautionary measure was exaggerated into a hostile act. At last, on Friday, August 1st, when the German military preparations were practically complete, Baron von Pourtales, the German Ambassador, called on M. Sazonov, the Foreign Minister and formally demanded that the Russian partial mobilisation should cease within twelve hours. At seven o’clock the following day war was declared and Russia took up her task of defending Slavdom from the Teuton menace, and incidentally saved western Europe from its direst peril since the days when Napoleon thought to crush its liberties. The eastern campaign has been more or less overshadowed by the western, especially during the early days of the war. It was natural that it should be so. The western campaign was the more sensational. The Kaiser hurled his finest forces westwards; every day brought its vital news; doubts, joys, fears crowded one on the other; there were no tedious preliminaries, no hesitation, but smashing stroke and counterstroke. The storm in the east was comparatively slow in gathering and it lacked the spectacular element. The result was that Russia was both neglected and misunderstood. In spite of the public welcome accorded to journalists by the Grand Duke Nicholas, the official lust for secrecy is as fierce in the east as in the west. Only the sparsest details have been allowed to be published. Defeats have been ignored or dismissed as “local checks.” Every victory has been acclaimed a triumph and every step forward has been supposed to echo menacingly in the streets of Berlin and in the Kaiser’s headquarters. It has been practically impossible to obtain a clear view of the eastern campaign, and consequently it is not to be wondered at that there has sprung up a general disposition to regard Russia as something of a disappointment. Ignorance of the conditions under which she is fighting caused impossible triumphs to be expected of her.