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.

Of all the countries in Europe, with the possible exception of Turkey, Russia had been the most ignorant.  The great mass of the people had had no schooling and were unable to read and write.  It was easier for the grand dukes and nobles to keep down the peasants and to remain undisturbed in the ownership of their great estates if the people knew nothing more than to labor and suffer in silence.  There was a class of Russians, however, the most patriotic and the best educated men in the state, who were working quietly, but actively, to make conditions better.  Then too, the Nihilists, anarchists who had been working (often by throwing bombs) for the overthrow of the Czar, had spread their teachings throughout the country.  Students of the universities, writers, musicians, and artists, had preached the doctrines of the rights of man.  While outwardly the government appeared as strong as ever, really it was like a tree whose trunk has rotted through and through, and which needs only one vigorous push to send it crashing to the ground.

It is generally in large cities that protests against the government are begun.  For one thing, it is harder, in a great mob of people, to pick out the ones who are responsible for starting the trouble.  Then again it is natural for people to make their protests in capital cities where the government cannot fail to hear them.  A third reason lies in the fact that in large cities there are always a great number of persons who are poor and who are the first ones to feel the pinch of starvation, when hard times arise or when speculators seize upon food with the idea of causing the prices to rise.  Starvation makes these people desperate—­they do not care whether they live or not—­and, as a result, they dare to oppose themselves to the police and the soldiers.

There had been murmurs of discontent in Petrograd for a long time.  This was felt not only among the common people, but also among the more patriotic of the upper classes.  In the course of the winter of 1916-17, the monk, Rasputin, as a result of a plot, was invited to the home of a grand duke, a cousin of the Czar.  There a young prince, determined to free Russia of this pest, shot him to death and his body was thrown upon the ice of the frozen Neva.