The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-09-29
CRISIS IN RUSSIA.
ARMY WILL LEAD REVOLUTION
AS SOON AS PEACE COMES
GRAFTERS CRIPPLE Army

GRAFTERS CRIPPLE ARMl
Cars Artillery Was Helpless on Ac
count OF Wrong Sized Shells
Gunners Looked on Despairingly
While Austro-German Cannon
Blasted a Way to Facile Victories
A dispatch from Stockholm to the
Associated Press says the fall OF War
saw and the failure of the Russian
defensive campaign to prevent the
German invasion of Poland have had
much more profound effect upon
Russian national feeling than is ad'
mitted in dispatches from Petrograd
The feeling which has shaken this
constitutionally stolid and unemo-
tional country from one end to the
other is not one of encouragement OF
submission. It has not moved any
one to talk of ultimate defeat or the
possibility of Russia's undertaking
peace negotiations with Germany.
Russia's reaction is one of intense in.
dgnation at the government officials
who have been responsible for her
tragic shortage of ammunition.
The full tragedy of this shortage
has only been observed by the men
at the front who, with empty gun
caissons, have helplessly faced the
concentrated artillery attacks of the
enemy and have watched the assured
progress of the German and Austrian
trench builders under their very posi-
tions without the possibility of stop
ping them.
These soldiers were determined,
experienced fighters, Russia's best
troops, acquitting themselves with
unusual bravery in every bayonet ac-
ton, but crippled and finally demor-
allied by insufficient ammunition and
the knowledge that it was this lack
of ammunition that ordered their
continued retreat from one position
to another.
The most rigidly censored press in
the world and national and inherent
inhibition of free comment of any
sort has failed to check the ava
lanche of criticism and the accusa-
tions which have been made against
the government officials who are held
responsible. For once, expression Of
opinion in Russia has become free
and unhampered.
No attempt is made to conceal this
reproach against the methods of the
bureaucrats who are accused of hav-
ing crippled Russia's fighting
strength and materially delayed the
end Of the war. 1t is not expressed
alone by men of revolutionary incli-
nations or opposition tendencies, nor
is it uttered in hushed voices or Sec
ret places, but it is loudly and clam
orously current everywhere among
men of all parties and classes.
A prominent member of the Duma
said to an American correspondent in
Petrograd few days ago: "The Rus
sian people are on the threshold of
great awakening. Every one in Rus
sia, officer, civilian, and moujk,
knows why Russia has been COM
PEELED to surrender large part OF
her territory. They know that they
have good officers and that the fight
ing strength and spirit of the Rus
sian troops are as high as at the be-
ginning of the war. They know also
that they have been forced to retreat
or stand helpless before the murder
Gus fire of German artillery, while
their own guns have had only few
rounds of ammunition that had to be
sparingly used.
Without understanding the pecu-
liar methods of the purchasing COM
missions whose business it is to sup
ply them with ammunition. they, at
least realize that their government Is
at fault, that they have been sent
into trenches impossible to defend
and that tens of thousands of them
now lie dead as result of the delay
in the delivery of ammunition.
I'm my opinioH,1 ine this present
awakening of the. army and the peo-'
pie ;to the criminal neglect and cor
ruption of the officials, there are the
germs of the most serious revolution
Russia has ever known revolution
supported by the army. This revoiu-
ton will come as soon as the war Is
over"
In this protest, which is being so
bitterly expressed in Russia, there IS
not an atom of disloyalty. 1t is, IN
fact, a very high expression OF a
loyalty which is resentful that the
purpose of the nation is Icing frus-
trated and the chances OF victory
weakened by some of its own officials.
A common view is that the evil is ac-
counted for by the residue OF German
influence which still exists in the va
rious departments of the government.
1t was spirit Of revolt against
this persistent German element in
Russia that caused the terrible McS-
COW riots Of two months. ago. When
the order expelling all Germans from
the city was not enforced by the city
authorities, the mob decided to take
the matter in its own hands and eX-
pei them forcibly by destroying their
homes, business and property.
Evidence Of the same spirit of pro-
test has appeared in a milder form IN
Petrograd, where numerous meetings
denouncing corruption of government
officials were broken up by the police
In these meetings it was openly de-
clared that Russian officials were de-
feating the attempts of the army to
win the war and that while they con-
tinued in power victory was impos-
sih1e
The allegation was made that the
Russian officials who superlntendeo
the, purchase of war munitions were
primarily interested in seizing the op-
portuuity which the war offered them
of amassing a fortune at the expense
of the government and insisting upon
such large commission on all con-
tracts that the business of buying war
materials waited while the purchas-
| ing commissions adjusted satIsfac-
torily the amount OF commission
| which they we're to obtain.
ax~,o,,;oan apd FpOIich nOSineSS