whose arrival the Czarevitch “miraculously” got well. In this manner this low-born fakir obtained such a hold over the Czar and Czarina that he was able to appoint governors of states, put bishops out of their places, and even change prime ministers. There is no doubt that the Germans bribed him to use his influence in their behalf. It is a sad illustration of the ignorance of the Russian people as a whole, that such a man could have gotten so great a power on such flimsy pretenses. The real salvation of the Russians came through the Zemptsvos. These were little assemblies, one in each county in Russia, elected by the people to decide all local matters, like the building of roads, helping feed the poor, etc. They had been started by Czar Alexander II, in 1862. Although the court was rotten with graft and plotting, the Zemptsvos remained true to the people. They finally all united in a big confederation, and when the world war broke out, this body, really the only patriotic part of the Russian government, kept the grand dukes and the pro-Germans from betraying the nation into the hands of the enemy. It was a strange situation. The Russian people through the representatives that they elected to these little county assemblies were patriotically carrying out the war, while the grand dukes and the court nobles, who had gotten Russia into this trouble, were, for the most part, hampering the soldiers, either through grafting off the supplies and speculating in food, or traitorously plotting to betray their country to the Germans. With plenty of food in Russia, with millions of bushels of grain stored away by men who were holding it in order to get still higher prices, there was not enough for the people of Petrograd to eat. As you were told in a previous chapter, the German, Sturmer, was made prime minister, probably with the approval of the monk, Rasputin. Roumania, depending on promises of Russian help, was crushed between the armies of the Germans on the one side and the Turks and Bulgars on the other, while trainload after trainload of the guns and munitions which would have enabled her armies to stand firm was sidetracked and delayed on Russian railroads. “Your Majesty, we are betrayed,” said the French general who had been sent by the western allies to direct the army of the king of Roumania, when his pleas for ammunition were ignored and promise after promise made him by the Russian prime minister was broken.