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19173 GRIEVOUS NEWS FROM RUSSIA 511
traditions, their old virtues: that is my fervent wish for
them.
Meanwhile the news arriving from Russia was
becoming worse daily. As I said above, the famous
offensive in Galicia had only served to emphasise the
utter demoralisation of the Russian soldier ; very soon
the results became brutally apparent: the
Austro-German Army having merely planned an attacking
movement—at once there was a general disbandment on the
whole Russian front; entire divisions, especially those
being held in reserve, began to flee, dragging their
officers with them by force, killing those who tried to
stop them at all costs, carrying off guns, in order to
re-sell them to the Germans later on. Horrible pogrom
scenes, the victims being the Galician populations, Jews
of the large villages and the towns, Orthodox peasants
of the villages without discrimination, took place along
the line of retreat of the " revolutionary army." The
massacres of Kalusz have, alas ! remained famous.
And to this final demoralisation of the Army
corresponded the growing dissolution of the country. A
Ukrainian rada (assembly) convened by no one and of
which the members had not been elected by any one,
assembled at Kieffand set itself up as the autonomous
Government of the whole of South Russia; in the
country the peasants took possession of the large and
medium-sized properties and divided the land and
all the accessories between them without waiting for
any legislative sanction and without heeding the local
administration, which yet had been elected by the
people themselves. At the head of the State the
despotism of the extreme parties worked the most radical
changes without awaiting the decisions of the famous
" Constituent," which nevertheless was on every one’s
lips. Kerensky first became Generalissimo on his own
authority; finally, to crown everything, he and four of
his colleagues—a kind of Council of Five—on their own
authority and their own initiative proclaimed the Republic,
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