ABSTRACT
People went about in a mood of exaltation, carrying flags, cheering and expressing their joy. The Government was delighted, thinking that at last the Tsar and his people were to be welded together for ever. The defeat of the Russian armies in East Prussia revealed in a flash the corruption of the Government, the incompetence of the High Command, and the tragic inefficiency in the equipment of the army. The Government went through an analogous transition in their thought. At first they thought that the Revolution would be killed by the war and swamped by war enthusiasm. Thus the Government, which had begun the war with the idea of avoiding the Revolution, came to the idea of making peace in order to prevent the Revolution. A separate peace was not concluded, not because the Government did not cherish the idea, but because it was afraid of the army and the people.
