4. In return for all this Bulgaria is permitted to retain the territory up to the Enos-Midia line, and it is promised some obscure and insufficient compensations in Macedonia, but only in case Serbia is sufficiently compensated by Austria.

That means: give your army, so that we may mix it up with our wild hordes and send them out for destruction on the various scenes of battle; and then, when Serbia has grown great and has taken South Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, and has grown to a State of from fifteen to twenty millions Bulgaria will get a small bit of land.

This shows most clearly how strongly the Quadruple Entente is allied to Serbia; how it is unwilling to persuade the latter to make concessions, and how it mocks our legitimate demands. The Triple Entente is known for its noise and its making of alarms. It is known, too, that during our last negotiations for a loan they published secret notes and even meddled in our internal affairs merely in order to evoke disturbances in the country to win Bulgaria for the Quadruple Entente. In this respect Germany and Austria-Hungary work quietly and without noise, so that we do not know in all their details their proposals to Bulgaria; but nevertheless from those which we can read, in their newspapers and from what well-informed persons have told us we can with certainty state that the promises of Germany and Austria-Hungary to Bulgaria for its neutrality are, in the main, as follows:

1. All of Macedonia, including Skopie, Bitolia, Ochrida, &c.

2. Friendly mediation between Bulgaria and Turkey for the purpose of ceding the line to Dedeaghatch and the territory west of the right bank of the Maritza. This agreement with Turkey is expected in a short time.

Still further territorial promises have been made to us at the expense of Serbia by the central powers in case of our active military assistance. These promises are in accordance with our demands for a common frontier with AustriaHungary along the Danube. The pres

ent war has shown how absolutely necessary it is that we should have a direct and immediate connection with Hungary in order that we may be independent of a Serbia that has gone crazy, (sic.) But also other parts of Old Serbia have been set forth for us in prospect.

Here we can see clearly the Quadruple Entente, in return for slight, uncertain, and doubtful advantages, demands great sacrifices from us, and that Germany and Austria-Hungary give us clearly and categorically to understand the things they are willing to give us in return for incomparably slighter sacrifices on our part. But the question has another side as well-we do not believe in promises of any sort any more anyway, and still less those of the Quadruple Entente, which took up Italy as an ally after it had in such treacherous fashion trampled under foot its word of honor and broken a thirty-three-year-old treaty of alliance. On the contrary, we have full reason to believe in a treaty with Germany, which has always fulfilled its treaty obligations, and is fighting the whole world merely in order to live up to its treaty obligations to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. *

* **

Finally, we must hold to that group of the powers which will win the victory in the present war, since only so can the important territorial extensions and further developments be insured. From the developments of the operations in the various theatres of the war, on the front against France and Belgium as well as the fronts against Italy, Russia, and Serbia, one recognizes more clearly day by day that victory is inclining on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. We need not linger long over the question, inasmuch as it has become clear to the point of certainty for every observer that Russia, which has lost fortresses like Warsaw and Ivangorod, will soon be overthrown, and then the turn will come for France, Italy, England, and Serbia. Germany has proved that it is so strongly organized in a military and material sense and can dispose of such enormous, superior, and inexhaustible forces as will enable it soon to overthrow its foes.

A

HIGH authority representing the Russian General Staff on Oct. 23, 1915, authorized the following official publication in The Times of London:

From May till October the Russian Army has been subjected to uninterrupted blows along a front of 700 miles. The AustroGermans applied every possible means, not excepting such as are forbidden by international treaties, in order to increase the pressure against us. Masses of their troops were flung against this front and sent to destruction regardless of losses. Military history does not afford another example of such pressure.

During these months of continuous and prolonged action the high qualities and mettle of our troops under the difficulties and arduous conditions of the retreat were demonstrated afresh. Notwithstanding his obstinacy in fighting and his persistency in carrying out manoeuvres, the enemy is still confronted by an army which fully retains its strength, morale, and its ability, not only to offer a stanch and successful resistance, but to assume the offensive and inflict blows which have been demonstrated by the events of recent days. This affords the best proof that the Austro-Germans failed to destroy, or even to disorganize, our army.

Seeing that they failed in that effort during the five months which were most favorable to them, it would be impossible for them to repeat the Galician and Vistula exploits now that the successes of the Allies in the west have complicated the strategical position. The crisis has passed favorably for us. We issued safely from the difficult position in the advanced Vistula theatre, where we were enveloped on three sides, and now stand based upon the centre of our empire, unexhausted by the

war.

It is true that there is still much fierce and determined fighting ahead. There may be movements rearward, but there will certainly be advances also. Our army lives in the expectati n of a general offensive and looks with full confidence to the armies of its allies. It will march boldly and cheerfully forward, conscious that in so doing it is defending the interests of our country and the interests of our allies. Stern struggle with the forces of nature has schooled the Russians to hardships and ingrained in them the instinct

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to hasten to the succor and relief of a brother in need. Hence an appeal from our allies will always find a warm sponse from the Russian Army. "By not advancing," General Ruzsky Isaid on Nov. 15, "the enemy of Russia is really retreating." The words of the commander in charge of the aggressive campaign against the Austro-Germans in Russia indicate a pause in the activity of his foe.

Petrograd reported on Oct. 30 that the Austro-Germans were evacuating the South Russian Province of Volhynia, and that they had fallen back at Riga under heavy Russian attacks. Opening a counteroffensive west of Dvinsk, in Volhynia, in Galicia, and in Bukowina, the Russians on Nov. 4 claimed a victory on the Stripa River involving the capture of 5,000 prisoners.

A new movement, while continuing against both wings of the hostile forces, was begun on Nov. 10 by the Russians directed at the German centre. On the 12th the Germans admitted the withdrawal of their troops from ground west of Riga, and Petrograd reported continued success in Volhynia. While the Austro-Germans were falling back from the Dvina, a Russian outflanking movement in the Riga region proceeded within striking distance of the TukumMitau railway, which connected the German fighting front with the fortress of Windau, and the Germans were yielding before Dvinsk as a result of the Russian offensive near Lake Sventon. In the south General Ivanoff reported that his repeated thrusts had during the past five weeks brought him nearly 130,000 prisoners.

London reported on Nov. 15 advices to the effect that the Russians "have definitely repelled Field Marshal von Hindenburg's drive toward Riga and Dvinsk and along the Dvina River, and have themselves taken the offensive."