CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE OFFENSIVE AND DISASTER
THE first month of the Coalition Government was a time of preparation and rapid development in Russia. The diverse forces which were to play so great a part at a later stage were ripening. On the one hand grew the forces of counter-revolution, on the other hand Bolshevism. At that time the separatist movement among the border peoples was beginning to threaten to disintegrate Russia. To the economic exhaustion of the country this new element of danger was added; no State could have been in a more critical position. Every effort was made to resist the tendency of disintegration. But nothing could properly arrest it short of the realisation of peace and the true reconstruction of the country. And yet Russia was drifting towards a continuation of the war.
On the front there was absolute quiet. Fraternisation had died out, but there was a kind of informal suspension of hostilities. The Germans, after their local attack on the Stokhod immediately after the Revolution, absolutely ceased all warlike operations. Probably they had several motives for their abstention. Undoubtedly they did not want to disturb the gradual disintegration of the Russian army by any aggressive movement which might inspirt new warlike ardour in the people and in the soldiers. Nor had they lost all hope that the Russian democracy might help to bring about a general peace; and they may even have cherished a hope that in the long run the democracy would make a separate peace. But their main motive was a fear of the internal dissatisfaction in Germany. An offensive undertaken against
