The Spectator

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: During the week the Russians have been falling back in Poland and Galicia, and the Germans have been thrusting forward. The papers speak, indeed, of two million Germans invading Russia under Marshal von Mackensen. The Russian retreat, however, whether to the east or to the north, has been perfectly orderly, and the Germans have not made any material advance towards their main object, which, of course, is to destroy the Russian field armies. Indeed, the incidental fighting has in many places been favourable to the Russians.

From ‘John Hus’, The Spectator, 3 July 1915: Here and there we have indications that this titanic struggle has not led the Czechs to renounce their hatred of all that is German. The misfortune of Bohemia has ever been her geographical position. As an outpost of the Slav races only the mountain ranges with which she is surrounded have saved her from being overrun by the conquering Teutons. But her strong, natural frontiers would have been ineffective against "peaceful penetration" had it not been for the intense race-consciousness of the country. For a thousand years the Teuton has struggled in different ways to dominate the land, to capture her Church, her schools, her freedom, and her soul; and for a thousand years the Czech has continued the unequal resistance.