It takes time and experience of freedom to
teach the stern lesson that, as Rousseau has it, freedom comes by way of
self-imposed compulsions to be free.
The offensive which Kerensky had urged and planned began on July 1st and
its initial success was encouraging. It seemed as though the miracle of the
restoration of the Russian army had been achieved, despite everything. Here
was an army whose killed and dead already amounted to more than three
million men,[20] an army which had suffered incredible hardships, again
going into battle with songs. On the 1st of July more than thirty-six
thousand prisoners were taken by the Russians on the southwestern front.
Then came the tragic harvest of the Bolshevist propaganda. In northeastern
Galicia the 607th Russian Regiment left the trenches and forced other units
to do the same thing, opening a clear way for the German advance. Regiment
after regiment refused to obey orders. Officers were brutally murdered by
their men. Along a front of more than one hundred and fifty miles the
Russians, greatly superior in numbers, retreated without attempting to
fight, while the enemy steadily advanced. This was made possible by the
agitation of the Bolsheviki, especially by the mutiny which they provoked
among the troops in the garrison at Petrograd.
Pages:
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296