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Mastering JavaScript Single
Page Application Development

An in-depth guide to exploring the design, architecture, and

techniques behind building sophisticated, scalable, and
maintainable single-page applications in JavaScript

Philip Klauzinski
John Moore

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Mastering JavaScript Single Page
Application Development
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its
dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused
directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: October 2016

Production reference: 1241016

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-164-0
www.packtpub.com
 Credits

Authors Copy Editor

Philip Klauzinski Safis Editing

John Moore

Reviewers Project Coordinator

Ciro Artigot Ritika Manoj

Commissioning Editor Proofreader

Wilson D'souza Safis Editing

Acquisition Editor Indexer

Reshma Raman Rekha Nair

Content Development Editor Graphics

Divij Kotian Jason Monteiro

Technical Editor Production Coordinator

Sachit Bedi Aparna Bhagat

 About the Authors
Philip Klauzinski is a senior frontend developer specializing in JavaScript Single Page
Application (SPA) development. He has over 20 years of experience in web design and web
development and is a leading expert in web application development, client-side JavaScript,
and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Philip has worked as a frontend developer across
multiple industries, including consumer e-commerce, business-to-business e-commerce, big
data, Web hosting, direct marketing, domain name services (DNS), and manufacturing.

I would like to thank my Mom and Dad for always stressing the importance of education in
my life, not just institutional education, but more importantly, the pursuance of self-
education. My own interest in technology and software from a young age has driven my
subsequent, self-taught approach to my career. As a result, I love what I do for a living,
and I have been able to shape my professional life around the things in which I am truly
interested. I am inherently driven to learn more every day, and I believe that is what has
led to my success. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

John Moore has been working in web development for 20 years. He is an industry expert in
JavaScript and HTML5. He has developed award-winning web applications and worked
and consulted for Digital Equipment Corporation, Ernst & Young, Wachovia Bank, and
Fidelity Investments. Having focused his early career on frontend web development, he
helped usher in responsive web design and Single Page Applications in his roles in
development and architecture. Most recently, he led Full Stack development in JavaScript,
serving as CTO of a Maine-based startup company.

I would like to thank my wife, Dr. Myra Salapare, and daughters, Mila Moore and Sophia
Moore, for all of their support. I would also like to thank Andrea Shiflet, Erin Benner, and
Lauren Grousd for their tremendous help.
 About the Reviewer
Ciro Artigot is currently working as an IT manager at ECODES, an Spanish foundation that
works for the welfare of all people within the limits of our planet.

He has developed websites for over 15 years. He is a Full Stack developer and CMS expert
and is addicted to Joomla, He has worked for 10 years in open source GNU projects, mainly
in LAMP .

For the last few years, he has been investigating and working with SPA in MEAN
environments.

I would like to thank Pampa, Diego,and Hugo, for giving me the time to review this book,
and my parents and brothers, for making it possible for me to devote myself to what I like
best—develop
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 Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Getting Organized with NPM, Bower, and Grunt 7
What is Node Package Manager? 8
Installing Node.js and NPM 8
Configuring your package.json file 9
NPM dependencies 10
Updating your development dependencies 11
Bower 11
Installing Bower 12
Configuring your bower.json file 12
Bower components location and the .bowerrc file 14
Bower dependencies 14
Searching the Bower registry 15
Grunt 16
Installing the Grunt CLI 17
Installing the Grunt task runner 17
Installing Grunt plugins 17
Configuring Grunt 19
Understanding Node.js modules 19
Creating a Gruntfile 20
Defining Grunt task configuration 21
Loading Grunt plugins 22
Running the jshint Grunt task 24
Running the watch Grunt task 25
Defining the default Grunt task 27
Defining custom tasks 27
Summary 29
Chapter 2: Model-View-Whatever 30
The original MVC pattern 30
The Model 31
The View 32
The Controller 33
MVP and MVVM 34
MVP 34
MVVM 35
Summarizing the differences between MVC, MVP, and MVVM 36
 VIPER and other variations of MVW 36
VIPER 36
Other variations of MVW 37
AngularJS and MVW 38
A brief history of AngularJS 38
AngularJS components 39
Template 39
Directives 39
Model 40
Scope 40
Expressions 40
Compiler 41
Filter 41
View 41
Data binding 41
Controller 42
Dependency injection 42
Injector 43
Module 43
Service 43
Using the MVW pattern in an SPA 44
Building a simple JavaScript SPA 44
Creating the Model 45
Creating the View 45
Setting up frontend assets 46
Compiling web templates 46
Precompiling web templates 46
Handling server HTTP requests 47
Creating the SPA layout 47
Serving the SPA 48
Overview of a simple JavaScript SPA 49
Summary 50
Chapter 3: SPA Essentials – Creating the Ideal Application Environment 51
The JSON data format 51
Other data formats 53
XML 53
YAML 54
BSON 54
Why does JSON reign supreme? 55
The differences between SQL and NoSQL databases 55
NoSQL data typing 56
Relational data typing 56
ACID transactions 57
Atomicity 57

[ ii ]
 Consistency 57
Isolation 58
Durability 58
MongoDB and ACID 58
Write-ahead logging with MongoDB 58
When to use SQL versus NoSQL databases 59
Scalability 59
Horizontal scaling 59
Big Data 59
Operational Big Data 60
Analytical Big Data 60
Overall considerations 61
Methods of presenting an SPA container 61
How to define your SPA container 62
Partial page container 62
Full page container 62
How to load your SPA container 63
Loading on user interaction 63
Login page transition 63
Loading based on the DOMContentLoaded event 64
Loading based on the document readystatechange event 65
Loading directly from the document.body 65
Using the script tag async attribute 67
Using the script tag defer attribute 67
Managing layouts 68
Static layouts 68
Dynamic layouts 69
Installing Express 69
Setting up a basic server with Express 70
Basic routing with Express 70
Running a server with Express 71
Loading static assets with Express 71
Dynamic routing with Express 72
Summary 73
Chapter 4: REST is Best – Interacting with the Server Side of Your App 74
Understanding the fundamentals of REST 75
Understanding an architectural style versus a protocol 75
Architectural style 75
Protocol 76
Transport layer protocols 76
Application layer protocols 76
Using HTTP as a transfer protocol for REST 77
The constraints of REST 78
Client-server 78

[ iii ]
 Stateless 78
Cache 79
Uniform interface 80
Identification of resources 80
Manipulation of resources through representations 81
Self-descriptive messages 81
Hypermedia as the engine of application state 81
Layered system 81
Code-on-demand 82
Benefits of REST 83
Performance 83
Simplicity 84
Separation of concerns 84
Scalability 84
Portability 84
Visibility 85
Reliability 85
RESTful web services 85
Setting up a simple database with MongoDB 86
Installing MongoDB 86
Installing MongoDB on Mac using Homebrew 86
Creating a MongoDB data directory 87
Running MongoDB 87
Creating a collection with MongoDB 87
Installing the Node.js MongoDB driver 88
Writing basic REST API endpoints 89
CRUD with REST 89
Handling request data with Node.js and Express 90
Creating with a POST request 90
Testing the POST request on the frontend 92
Reading with a GET request 93
Testing the GET request on the frontend 94
Updating with a PUT request 96
Testing the PUT request on the frontend 97
Deleting with a DELETE request 99
Testing the DELETE request on the frontend 100
Alternatives to REST 101
TCP versus UDP 101
SOAP 103
WebSockets 104
MQTT 105
AMQP 106
CoAP 107
DDP 108

[ iv ]
 Summary 109
Chapter 5: Its All About the View 110
JavaScript templating engines 110
Underscore.js 111
Mustache.js 112
Sections 113
Boolean values 113
Lists 114
Lambdas 115
Inverted sections 115
Comments 116
Partials 117
Set alternative delimiters 118
Handlebars.js 119
Explicit path lookup versus recursive path lookup 119
Helpers 121
Helpers as block expressions 122
#if block helper 122
#unless block helper 123
#each block helper 123
#with block helper 124
Other differences in Handlebars from Mustache templates 125
Precompiling templates 125
No alternative delimiters 125
Pure.js 126
Markup 126
Pug 127
Embedded JavaScript (EJS) 129
Synchronous template loading 130
Asynchronous data loading 131
Caching 131
View helpers 131
The link_to view helper 132
The img_tag view helper 132
The form_tag view helper 132
Partials 133
Optimizing your application layout 134
UglifyJS and grunt-contrib-uglify 134
grunt-contrib-handlebars 136
Options configuration 137
Files configuration 138

[v]
 Running the Grunt Handlebars task 138
Watching for changes 139
Putting it all together 142
Summary 142
Chapter 6: Data Binding, and Why You Should Embrace It 143
What is data binding? 143
One-way data binding 144
Two-way data binding 145
Data binding with modern JavaScript frameworks 146
Data binding with AngularJS 146
One-way data binding with AngularJS 146
Two-way data binding with AngularJS 147
Dirty checking with AngularJS 148
Dirty checking by reference 149
Dirty checking by collection contents 150
Dirty checking by value 150
When to use dirty checking for data binding 151
Data binding with Ember.js 151
Computed properties 152
One-way data binding with Ember.js 153
Two-way data binding with Ember.js 153
Data binding with Rivets.js 154
One-way data binding with Rivets.js 155
Defining your own one-way binder 156
Two-way data binding with Rivets.js 157
Defining your own two-way binder 157
Implementing data binding with native JavaScript 158
Object getters and setters 158
The object initializer 159
The Object.defineProperty() method 159
Designing a getter and setter data binding pattern 160
Synchronizing data in the View 161
Abstracting the design pattern to a reusable method 162
Accounting for DOM mutations 164
MutationObserver 164
Extending dataBind with MutationObserver 166
Why use data binding? 169
Use cases for one-way data binding 169
Use cases for two-way data binding 170
Summary 170
Chapter 7: Leveraging the MEAN Stack 171
The Node.js environment 172

[ vi ]
 Running the REPL 172
Writing a hello Node.js script 173
Setting up a Node.js project with NPM 174
Getting started with Express 176
Installing Express 176
Standard method 177
Express generator 177
Setting up your Express application 178
Exploring the main script 179
Looking at the main application 180
Loading dependencies 180
Configuring the application 180
Application-level middleware 181
Our first Express route 181
Rendering the first view 182
Exploring MongoDB 183
Setting up MongoDB 183
Working with the MongoDB shell 184
Selecting a database 184
Inserting documents 185
Finding documents 185
Updating documents 186
Removing documents 187
Create your SPA database 188
Starting with AngularJS 189
Installing AngularJS into the application 189
Building the first AngularJS module 191
Adding a controller 192
Displaying data with Angular expressions 194
Two-way data binding 195
Summary 196
Chapter 8: Managing Data Using MongoDB 197
Exploring the NoSQL database model 197
Defining NoSQL 198
NoSQL 198
Non-relational 198
Distributed 198
Features of MongoDB 199
Document model 199
Schemaless 200
Open source 200
Why use MongoDB? 200

[ vii ]
 Well supported 200
Data model 201
Popularity 201
Commanding MongoDB 202
Getting information 202
Inserting and updating data 203
Running scripts in the MongoDB shell 204
Running bulk operations 206
Finding, modifying, and removing data 208
Specific results 208
Query operators 209
Projections 210
Query modifiers 211
Modifying data 212
Removing data 215
The cursor 217
Incorporating MongoDB into the SPA 218
Adding the NPM modules 218
Adding MongoDB into the main application 218
Writing a query 220
Displaying data in a page 222
MongoDB database performance 224
Indexing 224
Optimizing queries 225
Using limit 226
Using projections 226
Using hint() 227
Analyzing performance 228
Summary 230
Chapter 9: Handling Web Requests with Express 231
Examining Express in detail 232
App object 232
app.locals 234
app.set() 236
app.enable() 237
app.disable() 237
app.listen() 237
app.METHOD() 238
app.all() 239
Request object 239
req.params 240
req.body 243
req.query 244

[ viii ]
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
whom something has to be kept back, to whom the villages must be closed with
fear, and to whom the chosen centers must be closed with a feeling of loathing....
The element of distinction between Jews and other citizens remains and is even
more emphasized. The principle of equality of rights for Jews has not been
realized and without it no material benefits promised by the new act will
find their way to the soul of the people. Only acknowledgment of the
right of Jews to all rights of Russian citizenship will melt the ice of that
cold disappointment which has seized all Russian Jews.”
Finally, the eminent Jewish historian, Simeon Dubnov, in an
impassioned article in “Evreyskaya Nedelya” (September, 1915),
denounced the hypocrisy of the government and demanded the
immediate abolition of all Jewish restrictions:
“It is fully a year since the terrified faces of the ‘prisoners’ appeared through the
bars of that gigantic prison known as ‘the Jewish Pale.’ Part of the prison was
already enveloped in the flames of war, and the entire structure was threatened.
The prisoners, in deathly terror, clamored that the doors be thrown open. They
were driven from one part of the prison to another part that seemed in less
danger, but the prison doors remained shut. The warden’s answer to their prayer
was that it was impossible to ‘release them,’ even in war time, because later it
would be difficult to ‘recapture’ them!
“Ultimately the keepers were compelled to open the doors slightly and to let out
a part of the dazed and half-asphyxiated inmates; but even then they were
quarantined within three governments, which were immediately congested with
refugees; and only now, when the largest section of the Pale, with a Jewish
population of two million, has become foreign country—only now are the gates of
the overcrowded prison thrown wide open and the prisoners cautiously permitted
to leave....
“Should our further emancipation proceed at the same pace, we shall
attain full freedom only after our complete annihilation.... The sop is
thrown to us under conditions internal and external which sharply emphasize its
enforced character. This measure is not one of restoration; rather it is like a rag
thrown to the victim after his last shirt has been taken from him. This belated,
partial, privilege must remind the Jew that of all nationalities in Russia—not
excepting the semi-savage tribes—he alone needed such a favor.
“At this time of profound mourning, upon the graves of thousands of our
brothers who have fallen victims not only to the sword of the enemy, but because
of outrage within our own borders, amidst the ruins of our cities, our weary hearts
cannot rejoice over the beggarly dole tossed out to us. In silence shall our people
accept the miserly gift from those from whom it is accustomed to receive only
blows; but, as ever, it will demand aloud that those rights of which it has been
deprived should be restored to it.”
It is apparent, therefore, that the legal status of the Jews in
Russia has remained substantially unchanged by the war.
The restrictions normally imposed upon the Jews of Russia (with
the exception of certain specially designated—and numerically
negligible—fractions) subject them to the following principal
disabilities:

1. Other Residence Restrictions

(a) Within the Pale. Although originally granted the right to live
anywhere within the Pale, the privilege was gradually restricted until
the Jews were, in effect, confined to the cities and larger towns. By
the law of May 3 (15), 1882, the Jews were forbidden to settle in the
villages of the Pale. By the law of December 29, 1887 (January 10,
1888), they were forbidden to move from one town to another. By
judicial and administrative interpretation “towns” were often
designated as villages and the Jews expelled from them overnight.
The net result has been the congestion of the Jewish population in
the cities and larger towns. Although they constitute only 12 per
cent. of the total population of the Pale, they form 41 per cent. of
the urban population. As this congestion tended to create a ferocity
in competition which reduced incomes and standards to the lowest
limits, many Jews of necessity attempted to escape into the interior
of Russia. But their illegal stay was possible only with the connivance
of a corrupt police. Even then the numerous police raids at midnight
or early dawn (oblavy—literally “hunts”), accompanied by an excess
of brutality, made the life of these illegal residents one of fear and
torment.
(b) Outside the Pale. The privileged five per cent. that was granted
the theoretical right of free travel and residence throughout the
Empire, was also continually harassed by arbitrary police and judicial
measures which practically nullified their privilege. This class
comprises:
Artisans, permitted free residence by the law of 1865; but
constant restrictions and new interpretations of the term have
reduced the number of Jews enjoying this status to a bare fraction
of the Jewish population.
Merchants of the First Guild, allowed to leave the Pale after five
years’ membership in their guild, and on condition of the payment of
an annual tax of 800 roubles ($400) for ten years, after removal
from the Pale. Numerically insignificant to begin with, this class was
further reduced by police blackmail until it became almost negligible.
Jewish graduates of Russian institutions of higher education. The
operation of the “percentage” rule, however, reduces these to a
minimum. (See pp. 33–34.)
Prostitutes. Jewish women who have become prostitutes are
permitted to live outside the Pale.

2. Occupational Restrictions
The public service of the Empire, or of any of its political
subdivisions, is practically closed to Jews. Jews may not be teachers
(except in Jewish schools), or, as a rule, farmers. These artificial
restrictions operate to drive the Jews into the occupations permitted
to them, chiefly trade and commerce, thus overcrowding the ranks
of tradesmen and artisans.

3. Property Restrictions
Jews may not buy or sell, rent, lease or even manage land or real
estate outside the Pale or outside of the city limits within the Pale.
The artisans privileged to practise their handicraft outside the Pale
may under no circumstances own their homes. The ownership, direct
or indirect, of property in mines or oil fields is also forbidden to
Jews.

4. Fiscal Burdens
The Jews pay, in addition to the normal taxes, a candle tax,
designed for the support of Jewish schools, and a meat tax,
originally destined for Jewish religious purposes; but in practice
these funds are diverted to general, non-Jewish, purposes, and even
used, in part, for the enforcement of police measures against the
Jews.

5. Educational Restrictions
Jews are not admitted to the secondary or higher educational
institutions and universities, except in proportions varying from 3 to
15 per cent. of the entire number of non-Jewish pupils. (For high
schools: 10 per cent. within the Pale and 5 per cent. outside the
Pale, except in the two capitals St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it
is only 3 per cent.; and for universities all over the Empire, about 3
per cent.)
A ministerial decree issued in August, 1915, permits the
children of all Jews actively connected with the war to enter
any educational institution in the country regardless of the
percentage norm; but in practice this decree, like the decree
abolishing the Pale, is entirely subject to interpretation and
modification by the local authorities, who have, so far,
virtually ignored it.
The result of the percentage norm applied to the admission of
Jews to secondary schools and universities is that in the towns to
which the Jews are restricted by the domiciliary regulations and
where they constitute in many cases a very large proportion of the
population, the great majority of the Jewish youth are denied
the means of a higher education. In Warsaw, the Jews
constitute 36.30 per cent. of the population; in Lodz, 47.59 per
cent.; in Lomza, 39.42 per cent.; in Kovno, 54.60 per cent.; in Vilna,
40 per cent.; in Grodno, 52.45 per cent.; in Bialostock, 65.62 per
cent.; in Brest Litovsk, 78.81 per cent.; in Pinsk, 80.10 per cent.; in
Berditcheff, 87.52 per cent., etc., yet in all these towns only the
stipulated percentage of Jewish students may be admitted.
In addition to this restriction, many secondary schools (School of
Military Medical Hygiene, School of Railroad Engineering, School of
Electricity, etc.), are entirely closed to Jews. Even commercial
schools, maintained by Merchants’ Guilds, admit Jews only in
proportion to the Jewish membership of the Guilds.
The Government also restricts the establishment of higher
schools under Jewish auspices. In 1884, it closed the Technical
Institute of Zhitomir (founded in 1862), on the ground that, in the
southwestern Pale provinces, the Jews contributed a majority of the
artisans, and a special Jewish technical school would increase this
disproportion. In 1885 it closed the Teachers’ Institute (a noted
center of Jewish learning) because “there was no further need for
it.”
As a consequence of these limitations and restrictions there has
been a scramble among Jews to gain admission to these institutions.
Parents have employed every expedient to have their children
enrolled. Another consequence is that many Jewish young men
emigrated to Switzerland, Germany and France, to obtain a higher
education, and thereafter to return to Russia to enter professional
life. A recent calculation shows that about 3,000 Jewish students
from Russia annually exile themselves in order to attend foreign
universities.

6. Military Service
The Jews constitute only 4.05 per cent. of the population of the
Empire, but the proportion of Jews in the annual army contingent
was estimated, at the outbreak of the Japanese war, at 5.7 per cent.
This is due to the fact that a great many exemptions which the law
provides for non-Jews are made inapplicable to Jews. In the army
the Jews can achieve no rank higher than that of corporal. A
penalty of 300 rubles ($150) is placed upon each Jewish defection,
and the whole family, including parents and relatives by marriage of
the person accused, is held responsible therefor.
The results of these repressions and persecutions are known.
Politically outlawed, socially and economically degraded, the Jewish
population imprisoned in the Pale has festered in misery. The
merchants have been obliged to resort to fearful competition.
Workingmen, overcrowding their industries, have been compelled to
work for starvation wages. Most of the Jewish homes in Russia are
miserable hovels, with little air or light. In the great cities, the
proportion of paupers approximates a fifth of the Jewish population.
In Odessa in 1900, of a population of 150,000 Jews no less than
48,500 were supported by charity; 63 per cent. of the dead had
pauper burials, and a further 20 per cent. were buried at the lowest
possible rate. In the Governments of Ekaterinoslav, Bessarabia,
Pietrikov, Chernigov and Siedlets, the number of charity cases at the
Passover festival increased from 41.9 per cent. to 46.8 per cent. in
four years.
 THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR
It was against this background of ever-spreading persecution and
misery that the great war broke upon the Jews. They accepted it as
loyal Russian citizens, and not without hope that it might lead to
some improvement in their own conditions.
The Kehillas (communities) of Petrograd, Odessa and other cities
officially sent large sums in gold for the reservists, established
hospitals for the use of the wounded without distinction of race or
creed, held great patriotic demonstrations in the synagogues, at
which the Rabbis urged the Jewish youth to render their full share of
military service, and in other ways, presented, as the Mayor of
Odessa said, “an example of readiness to sacrifice everything for the
army.”
The spirit of the Jews of Russia at the outbreak of the war is well
expressed in the appeal which the Jewish community of Vilna, the
oldest in Russia, at the very heart of the Pale, issued in connection
with the establishment of a military hospital:
“Our beloved Fatherland—the great Russian Empire—has been provoked to
bloody, terrible conflict. It is a struggle for the integrity and greatness of Russia.
All true sons of Russia have risen as one man to shield their country, with their
own breasts, against the onslaught of the enemy. Our brothers of the Jewish faith,
all over the Russian Empire, have also responded to the call of duty ... and many
have voluntarily joined the army which has gone forth to the field of battle. But
circumstances now demand that those of us who have not been fortunate enough
to be called forward to fight for our country with weapons in our hands should
also make whatever sacrifices we can. We owe a sacred obligation to those who
have left their families behind, those who are defending our country, and us, with
their blood and their lives. It is our duty to assume all responsibility for the families
of the reservists. It is our duty to take care of those who will fall wounded or ill in
the war. No doubt this sacred duty will be assumed by the entire Jewish population
of the Empire, by individuals no less than by entire communities. The history of all
past wars, especially those of the nineteenth century, beginning with the war of
1812, shows that the Jews have honestly and sacredly fulfilled their duty as
citizens and were ever ready to sacrifice upon the altar of their country their
wealth, their blood and even their lives.... In like manner, at this great crisis in the
life of our country, we, the representatives of the Jewish community of Vilna, the
oldest in Russia and at the very heart of the present conflict, take the liberty of
appealing to our co-religionists to begin at once the work of organizing relief for
the wounded and for the families of the reservists. We must care equally for all
the soldiers of our glorious army, without distinction of race or creed, for
all are brothers, sons in common of our great Fatherland....”
The Jewish press also gave resonant voice to this spirit of loyalty
and devotion. The “Novy Voskhod,”[14] one of the leading Jewish
organs in Russia, issued this call:
“We were born and brought up in Russia. Our ancestors
are buried here. We Russian Jews are bound to Russia by
ties which cannot be broken, and our brothers who have
been driven beyond the ocean by cruel fate cherish their
memories of Russia all through life. Custodians of the
commandments of our forefathers, nucleus of the entire
Jewish nation, we, the Jews of Russia, are nevertheless
united inseparably with the country in which we have dwelt
for hundreds of years, and from which neither persecution
nor oppression can tear us away. At this historical moment,
when our country is threatened by foreign invasion, when
brute force has taken up arms against the great ideals of
humanity, the Jews of Russia will bravely go forth to battle
and will fulfil their sacred duty....”
The Jewish contingent in the Russian army numbered from
350,000 (an estimate made by the Mayor of Petrograd before the
Conference of Russian Mayors in August, 1914), to 400,000 (the
estimate made by the Jewish Colonization Association, Petrograd).
The thousands of Jewish students who have matriculated at foreign
universities because the “percentage rule” had closed the Russian
universities to them, returned to enroll under the colors, even
though they knew that there was no hope of preferment for them.
On the field of battle the Jewish soldiers distinguished themselves
for valor. Over one thousand received the Medal or Cross of St.
George. From the many letters of appreciation and affection written
by Russian officers to the relatives of Jewish soldiers under their
command who had been disabled or killed, it was evident that the
Jews had won the affection and respect of the fighting men in the
field. But it was their eternal misfortune that the war, by the logic of
military geography, had to be fought out, on the Eastern side, in
Poland; for between the Poles and the Jews there had long been a
state of open conflict—and the developments of the campaign in
Poland foredoomed the Jews to disaster appalling and almost
irretrievable.

POLES AND JEWS

The conflict between the Poles and Jews dates back to the earliest
period of Jewish life in Poland.
In its early stages it was purely religious. The Church Synod of
1542 declared that: “Whereas the Church tolerates the Jews
for the sole purpose of reminding us of the torments of the
Savior, their number must not increase under any
circumstances.”[15]
The Synod of 1733 reiterated this gospel of hate by declaring that
the reason for the existence of the Jews is:
“That they might remind us of the tortures of the Savior,
and by their abject and miserable condition might serve as
an example of the first chastisement of God inflicted upon
the infidels.”[16]
In its later stages the struggle was chiefly political and economic.
When Russia acquired Poland, through the several partitions in the
eighteenth century, it frankly adopted the old Roman principle of
DIVIDE ET IMPERA. It persistently fomented hostilities between the
Polish and Jewish population by crowding them together in a
restricted area where neither could make a decent livelihood, by
pitting them against each other in an economic struggle conducted
on the lowest possible plane and on the most hopeless terms, by
playing off religious and racial prejudices and by every other device
possible to a government with unlimited power and an unprincipled
policy. And the Poles, politically undeveloped, instead of combining
with the other victims of Russia against the common oppressor,
turned upon their fellows with a ferocity truly unparalleled in
European history.
Several years before the war broke out this struggle came to a
climax over the election of a deputy to the Duma. The Jews of
Poland felt that they were entitled to at least one member to
represent them in the Duma, particularly in the city of Warsaw,
where they constitute nearly half of the population. It happened,
however, that in the city of Lodz they unexpectedly elected one
Jewish deputy, Bomash. The Jews, therefore, seeking to conciliate
the Poles and not to wound their national pride by insisting upon the
election of a Jewish deputy from Warsaw, the ancient Polish capital,
offered to compromise, stipulating only that the Polish candidate be
not an avowed anti-Semite. The Poles, however, insisted upon
putting up a notorious anti-Semite. The Jews, equally unable to
support such a candidate in self-respect or to elect one of their own,
united on a Polish Socialist candidate, electing him to the Duma. This
led to retaliation in the form of a boycott directed not only at Jewish
tradesmen, but even at Jewish physicians, artisans and other
workingmen, which soon spread destitution throughout Poland,
affecting, as it did, Jews and Poles alike. So ugly and bitter a form
did the boycott assume that at times even the Russian government
was compelled to take the part of the Jews as against the Poles.

Anti-Semitism in Poland
A significant observation upon the economic character of the
Polish-Jewish struggle was made by the well known Russian
journalist, Madam A. E. Kuskova.
“I found red-hot anti-Semitism everywhere in Poland. We have anti-Semitism in
Russia, but of a different kind.... Anti-Semitic papers like ‘Dva Grosha’ accused all
Jews of all sorts of crimes, without protest from the Progressive press, and
succeeded in arousing the Polish people. In Pyasechna, a ruined place near
Warsaw, where ten-day battles took place, I spoke to many peasants who accused
the Jews of many of their troubles, but could never explain what they really
blamed them for. We Russians held a meeting to try to find the causes of this
feeling.... We came to the conclusion that ... the Polish-Jewish question is
really a Russian-Polish-Jewish question, and touches us as much as the
Poles. They have not room enough to live, and more and more Jews are
coming there. Even democratic organizations are compelled to take cognizance of
this. One peasant organization expresses through its organ the idea that it is true
that the Jews are a burden to Poland, but it warns the peasants against anti-
Semitism nevertheless.”[17]

THE WAR IN POLAND

When the fighting armies overran Poland, the Poles saw their
chance and seized it. The dream of a free Poland had never been
absent from their minds. When the world catastrophe came the
Poles saw in it not only an opportunity to regain their land, that had
been dismembered more than a century before, but also an
opportunity to avenge themselves on the hated Jews. Just as the
Russians had always played the Poles against the Jews, so now the
Poles hoped to play Russian, German, Austrian and Jew against each
other. It was indeed to the interest of both Russia and Austria to
court the sympathy of Poland. And the Poles seized the occasion to
denounce the Jews, now to the Russians, now to the Germans, as
spies and traitors.
The position of the Jews under this cross-fire became unbearable.
Here are several cases, selected at random, showing its effect upon
the Jewish population:
One of the first towns in Russian Poland captured by the Austrians
was Zamosti, near the Hungarian frontier, taken by a detachment of
Sokol troops in September, 1914. They were soon driven out by the
Russians; and at once the Poles of the town denounced the Jews to
the Russian commander, accusing the Jews of having given aid to
the enemy during the Austrian occupation of the town. Twelve Jews
were arrested. They denied their guilt but were sentenced to death.
Five of them had already been hanged, when, in the midst of the
execution, a Russian priest, carrying an image of the Virgin,
appeared and with his hand on the image took oath that the Jews
were innocent and that the accusation was merely a product of
Polish vindictiveness. He proved that the Poles of the town
themselves had supported the Austrians and that even a telephone
connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven remaining Jews
were then set free. But five had already been hanged.[18]
At Lemberg, in September, 1914, the Poles accused the Jews of
firing on Russian troops; as a consequence a great many Jews were
arrested, and nearly seventy were attacked and wounded; but an
investigation proved them all innocent, and Drs. Rabner and
Diamond, the Jews who had been taken as hostages, were released.
[19]

At Kieltse and Radom the Poles plundered many Jewish shops and
when the Russians returned after the German retreat the Poles
denounced the Jews as German sympathizers. Here also those Jews
who were arrested were found to be innocent and released after
investigation.[20]
At Mariampol, near the East Prussia frontier, because of a similar
accusation, the entire Jewish male population, with their Rabbi,
Krovchinski, at their head, were compelled to work the roads for
three days—September 22–24 (October 5–7), 1914 (the first two of
these days falling on the Sukkoth holiday.)[21]
In this town, also, one Gershenovitz was sentenced to penal
servitude for six years because he acted as Mayor during the
German occu­pation, although the inquiry held by the Russians
showed that he had been forced by the Germans to accept the
office.[20]
At Jusefow the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells.
Seventy-eight were killed outright, many Jewish women were
violated and all the houses and shops plundered.[22]
 In Drsukenihi a mill owner, Chekhofski, was accused of having
given a signal for the German bombardment of the town by blowing
his mill whistle. When the Russians reoccupied the town he was
brought to trial before the Military Tribunal and the charge was
proven to be groundless.[23]
These are only a few instances, taken at random, of Polish
slanders. In not a single known case were the charges
justified; on the contrary, their gross absurdity was
demonstrated on numerous occasions before military
tribunals that could not possibly be charged with prejudice
in favor of the Jewish side of the issue. A perfect illustration of
this is furnished by the story of the villages of Groitsi and Nove-
Miasto, near Warsaw.

The Case of Nove-Miasto

The Germans, in their first advance on Warsaw, in September–
October, 1914, occupied these villages for a few days. When the
Russian troops recaptured the towns the Poles at once denounced
the Jews as having welcomed the German troops and having aided
them in every possible way—whereas the Poles, according to their
own account, had accepted the German rule passively, doing only
whatever they were forced to do by the military authorities. They
pointed out seven persons, five Jews and two Germans, who had
demonstrated such devotion to the invaders as to merit trial for
treason and the death penalty. One Jew, Goldberg, it was charged,
had revealed to the Germans the hiding place of ten Russian
soldiers, resulting in their capture; another Jew had shown them
where they might requisition horses and food, and had acted as
guide.
The case was brought to trial before the military guard, and there,
under strict examination, it assumed an entirely different aspect. A
priest, Zemberzhusky, testified that Jews and Poles had acted
precisely alike toward the Germans; that their reception of the
Germans expressed no joy, that all alike had complained of the
invaders’ requisition and pillage, and that it was only due to the
tactful conduct of the citizens that the town of Nove-Miasto was not
entirely demolished. It was shown that not a single Russian soldier
had been captured by the Germans and that the Goldberg charge
was entirely false. All the other charges were similarly disproved. It
developed that they were based on two facts. In the preliminary
investigation the trial officers, being ignorant of Polish, were
compelled to employ interpreters. One of these interpreted the
statement of a Polish witness to the effect that he had seen a certain
Zilberberg walk the streets arm in arm with a German officer. The
fact brought out in the new trial was that the witness had
actually seen the German officer seize Zilberberg by the
neck! In the second place, the story had been started in sheer
malice by two notorious gangsters, whose evidence was unworthy of
any consideration. All of the accused were therefore acquitted.[24]
The significance of this episode lies in the fact that the Colonel in
command in this particular case happened to be a kindly man, who,
being unwilling to see injustice done, went to the trouble to have the
case carefully investigated. Hundreds of other cases based on
equally groundless accusations came to court without the possibility
of such a fair investigation.
Another case of this sort is reported from Suvalki. It was charged
by the Poles that the Jews of Suvalki had met the Germans with
bread and salt (the national Russian custom in welcoming guests).
The facts were that practically the entire population of Suvalki had
fled at the approach of the Germans. The Germans, however, had,
with their usual thoroughness, made out in advance a list of the
leading citizens of Suvalki who were to be appointed to the
deputation that was “to welcome” the Germans. Only one Jew was
on this list.
Not all the Poles were bitterly hostile to the Jews, as may be seen
from the following story, reprinted from the Polish paper, “Novo
Gazeta,” in “Rasviet,” February 8 (21), 1915, p. 36:
 “An army officer, a Pole, reports this: Where our detachment was stationed, I
found a group of soldiers surrounding a muzhik, who was telling them that the
Jews had cut the telegraph wires. The soldiers were furious and ready to take
revenge on the miserable Jews. I approached the group and said to the muzhik: ‘I
am glad to see that your patriotic impulses urge you to expose these Jew traitors.
You must take me to them at once. You say you know the guilty ones. Show us
how we can capture them and dispose of them.’
“The muzhik became confused at once. He stammered: ‘I didn’t—say anything
about them. I didn’t see them myself. I didn’t see anything myself. People say so.
Everybody says so.’
“I assumed a severe attitude and said to him: ‘You know these people perfectly
well, but you don’t want to expose them. You are trying to shelter these traitors.
You must take me to them at once!’ After more evasions, the muzhik broke down
completely. Thereupon the soldiers turned upon him, and wanted to beat him, but
I took him under my protection. He confessed completely to me and I sent him off
and told him to beg his priest to preach on the following Sunday on the text ‘Love
thy neighbor as thyself.’
“Another instance was this. In a Warsaw street car filled with passengers, I saw
a Polish woman physician looking out at a Jewish automobile ambulance. ‘Look
here,’ she cried, ‘These Jews also have motor ambulances. I think they must be
stolen.’ I took it upon myself to ask her for an explanation of this. She was decent
enough to admit that she knew nothing at all about it and that she had said these
words without thinking.
“In these two cases it happened that I came out as a Pole defending the honor
of Poland, because I believe that Poland does not require such outrageous
falsifications and slanders for its regeneration. If they were not so painful to relate,
I could give you a whole series of such incidents.”
Even the Polish clergy, usually anti-Semitic, felt compelled to
protest against the excesses of their followers. Thus in January,
1915, the priests of Plotsk, headed by Archbishop Kovalsky,
interceded on behalf of the Jews with the Russian authorities who
had made numerous arrests upon the denunciations of Polish
agitators.
So outrageous was the attitude of the Poles that at a Conference
of Progressive Deputies of the Duma held at Petrograd in January,
1915, resolutions were passed to extend no help whatever to the
Polish Deputies in any of their nationalist projects in the Duma
because of their attitude toward the Jews.
 The Polish weekly, “Glos Polsky,” published in Petrograd, contains
an interview with Professor Milyukov on the Polish question:
“Our point of view is that along the River Vistula live not only Poles, but that
there also lives another people, the Jewish people, which has a right to be
recognized....
“When the Polish question will be taken up in the legislative chambers, we shall
demand that the fundamental act should guarantee the rights of the Jewish
minority as well....”[25]
At several conferences of Russian, Polish and Jewish communal
workers which took place in Petrograd and Moscow in January, 1915,
the majority of the Russians expressed their solidarity with
the Jews in this matter.[26]
Even the most reactionary Russians foresaw danger to Russia in
the Polish campaign of vilification against the Jews. Thus the “True
Russian” (anti-Semitic) leader, Orloff, after a visit to Poland,
declared: “I have seen nothing bad on the part of the Jews,
although the Poles made up all sorts of accusations against them.
But in these Polish reports you feel prejudice, vindictiveness, hatred,
nothing else.... The Jews are loyal and brave, and it is most
inadvisable to pursue a policy which might convert six
million subjects into enemies.”[27]

The Kuzhi Case

But the Russian military authorities, seeking a scapegoat for their
own failures, eagerly seized upon the Polish stories, and gave them
official standing and wide circulation. The notorious Kuzhi incident
illustrates the methods used. The story, as first published in the
military paper “Nash Viestnik,” the official organ of the northwestern
army, on May 5 (18), 1915, in the official daily newspaper issued by
the Russian government, the “Pravitelstvenny Viestnik,” May 6 (19),
1915, and elsewhere, ran as follows:
“On the night of April 28th, in Kuzhi, northwest of Shavli, the Germans attacked
a detachment of one of our infantry regiments resting there. This disclosed the
shockingly treacherous conduct of a part of the population—especially the Jewish
part—towards our troops. The Jews had concealed German soldiers in their cellars
before our troops arrived, and at a signal they set fire to Kuzhi on all sides. The
Germans, leaping out of the cellars, rushed to the house which our regimental
commander was occupying. At the same time two of the battalions, supported by
cavalry, attacked our outposts and captured the village. The house in which the
commander had his headquarters soon fell in. Colonel Vavilov ordered that the
regimental colors be burned, and, refusing to surrender to the Germans, was
killed. Our reinforcements then arrived, drove the Germans out of Kuzhi at the
point of the bayonet, and saved the remnants of the burning standard. All the
local inhabitants who had taken part in this terrible affair were brought before a
court-martial and the ringleaders will be sent to Siberia. This sad incident again
demonstrates the need of keeping constant guard, particularly over all those
Jewish towns which have at any time been held by the enemy.”
This story, in all its circumstantial details, was spread broadcast
throughout the Empire, in all the official and semi-official organs of
the government, on the bulletin boards, wherever the Russian
populace congregates. By military order it was brought to the
attention of every man in the army, down to the last private. Country
editors were ordered to reprint the story under threat of prosecution.
Not a hamlet in all Russia but shuddered at the monstrous treachery
of the Jews. In Tashkent the clergy offered a prayer in the Cathedral,
petitioning God to deliver the Russian army from the machinations of
Jewish traitors. Even the Liberals, usually sympathetic toward the
Jews, were silent, as no defense was possible in so black a case.
Then it occurred to someone to make an investigation. Three
deputies of the Duma went to the spot in person and discovered that
in the entire village of Kuzhi there were only six Jewish
families—all but one living in miserable huts without cellar
space; that the one cellar in a Jewish house was only nine
by seven and too low for a man to stand upright in; that it
could not possibly hide enough German soldiers to attack,
much less annihilate, a Russian detachment; that the few
Jews of the town had left it, with the permission of the
military authorities, on April 27th, the day before the town
had been attacked by the Germans, and were known to have
spent the night of April 27–28 at another village, Minstok;
and, finally, that no Jews had been tried, convicted or
executed at Kuzhi; in brief, that the story was, from
beginning to end, an absolute fabrication.
This Kuzhi story was branded as a lie by the Jewish Deputy
Friedman in the Duma on July 19 (August 1), 1915. He was
supported by the non-Jewish Deputy Kerensky, who denounced the
fabrication in these words:
“I declare now from this rostrum that I personally went to the town of
Kuzhi to verify the accusation that the Jewish population of Kuzhi had
committed a treacherous assault on the Russian army, and I feel it my
duty to reiterate that this is but an ignominious slander. There was no
such case, and under local conditions there could be none.”
But the refutation of the lie was not spread throughout Russia. It
has been consistently suppressed by the military censor, and to this
day the great majority of the Russian people, in the absence of
disproof, fully believe the story.

The Shavli Case

Another spy story widely circulated in the anti-Semitic press was
that the Jews of Shavli had been expelled from Kurland because
they were detected in the act of leading the German troops on to
Shavli. This also was printed in all the military and semi-official
newspapers of Russia and from there reprinted in the general press.
The newspaper “Dehn” pointed out the absurdity of this and similar
charges:[28]
“Accepting the story as it stands, without demanding the names of the Jews
found guilty, or any other details, let us simply examine the map. Shavli is not in
Kurland at all. It is in the province of Kovno, and is 50 versts from the nearest
point in Kurland, and more than 50 versts from the nearest point inhabitated by
Jews. The Germans, we know, moved to Shavli, not through Kurland, but from the
opposite direction. The charge, if true, would therefore mean that the Jews
of Kurland went 100 versts out of their way in an entirely strange
territory in order to commit treason by communicating with Germans.
This is obvious nonsense. Nor is it less obvious that this fiction has been
manufactured out of whole cloth. And this is how it was manufactured:
Reports reached the newspapers that the Jews of Kurland were being expelled.
The anti-Semitic papers at once argued that if the Jews were being expelled they
must have committed some treason, and since the line of the German advance
was known to be in the general direction of Shavli, and since these people
were too lazy to consult the map, they promptly decided that the
expulsion must have been due to the fact that the Jews of Kurland had
guided the Germans to Shavli.”
And so this preposterous story was started on its way.

Other Spy Stories

No story was too absurd to be given credibility and systematic
circulation. It was reported, and seriously believed, that at a place
unnamed and a time unknown some Jew had enclosed a million and
half roubles in a coffin and shipped the coffin to Germany. The chief
Rabbi and the Jewish community of Warsaw telegraphed to the
“Novoe Vremya” and several other leading papers, protesting against
this monstrous slander against the Jews at a time when their sons
were shedding their blood freely on the battlefields. The “Novoe
Vremya” declined to publish the telegram.[29]
The Jewish community of Petrograd appealed to the Grand Duke
Nicholas, then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, in these
words:
“The entire Jewish people would cast out, with scorn and
indignation, those base criminals who, forgetting duty and
conscience, would, in this year of universal sacrifice, break their
sacred vows of loyalty to the fatherland. Such treachery is alien
to our faith and was never known to exist among Jews to any
greater extent than among other peoples. And never yet, in
the course of the centuries, no matter to what
persecutions the Jews, under the influence of prejudice
created by their devotion to their ancient faith and
customs, may have been subjected, has any government
denounced ALL of its subjects as traitors to their
country. This is the first time in all history that such an
attitude has been assumed by any government toward
 the Jews. At the very time that our sons are fighting in
the ranks of the Russian army for the honor and glory of
Russia, we, their fathers, are held responsible for the
acts of a few criminals and are being persecuted for
their vile deeds, aimed at the betrayal of our own sons.
Never has any man or any people been subjected to
torment greater than this, to humiliation less bearable
or more offensive to honor or self-respect.... Your Imperial
Highness! In this sad hour of trial we long to implant in our
people faith in a brighter future, we long to preserve that tie of
loyalty towards our common country which is so essential for
the welfare of all the peoples inhabiting Russia, and which was
demonstrated so powerfully when the insolent enemy first threw
down the gauntlet to Russia. We do not wish to admit discord,
despair and sorrow where should reign only unity, harmony,
hope. And we dare to appeal to your Imperial Highness
in the hope that measures insulting to us will cease to
be applied, that the stamp of outcast be removed from
our faces and that we may be permitted, as loyal sons of
our country, freed from all suspicion, to use our whole
strength in the struggle with the common enemy.”
No reply was received to this appeal; on the contrary, the policy of
fastening upon the Jews all the blame for Russian defeats was
carried out consistently by the military machine. The “Russki
Invalid,” the official journal of the War Department, in the spring of
1915, definitely accused the Jews of disloyalty to the State and of
sympathy for Germany, and openly attributed Russian disaster to this
cause.[30]
Military orders like the following were common:
ORDER No. 89.
Issued to the Soldiers of theFortified Region, Fortress Novogeorgievsk,
Nov. 27, 1914.
 “The German newspapers print articles declaring that among
the Russian Jews the Germans find reliable allies who, besides
supplying them with food, are often the best and unpaid spies,
ready to enter any service injurious to the cause of Russia, and
that in German victory the Jews see their salvation from
Imperial oppression and Polish persecution. Similar information
continues to come in from the army.
In order to protect the army from the harmful activities of the
Jewish population, the Commander-in-Chief has ordered that
the forces of occupation take hostages from among the Jewish
population, warning the inhabitants that in case of treacherous
activities on the part of any one of the local inhabitants not only
during the period of our occupation of a given inhabited point,
but also after our leaving it, the hostages will be executed,
which order is to be carried out in case of necessity.
Upon occupation of inhabited points, careful searches are to
be made to find out whether there are any arrangements for
wireless telegraphy, signaling, pigeon stations, underground
telegraphs, and so forth, and the full penalty of the law is to be
meted out to anyone connected with this.
Reference: Telegram by General Oranovsky of this year under
No. 3432. Signed, Chief of the Fortified Region.
General of the Cavalry, Bobyr.”
This order was issued from the press at six o’clock in the evening,
December 2, 1914, and immediately proved profitable to the dregs
of the Russian soldiery, as was demonstrated at a court martial held
in Lomza, where it was proven that three members of a signal corps
had “planted” a telephone in the motion picture theater of a Jew
named Eisenbiegel, and had then arrested him and demanded 5,000
roubles blackmail. In the course of the trial it developed that one of
the men was responsible for the hanging of no less than
seventeen innocent Jews as spies solely because they were
unable or unwilling to pay the blackmail demanded by him.
[31]

Even the loyalty of Jewish soldiers was officially questioned. Order

No. 1193 of the General Staff, dated April 27–May 10, 1915,
commands all the troops “To watch the Jewish soldiers—especially
their readiness to surrender as prisoners—and in general, their entire
conduct.”
But the publication and circulation of orders like these reacted
disastrously upon the Russian arms. By branding the entire Jewish
population as traitorous the military authorities encouraged the Poles
to fabricate new slanders, the spread of which only served to
heighten the distrust of the populations and to make the fighting
area of Poland a quagmire for the Russian armies. The troops did
not know whom to trust or distrust. Instead of fighting on friendly
ground, welcomed and supported by the moral and economic
resources of the civilian population, the Russians fought on ground
undermined by hatred, dissension and distrust.
When they began to realize this state of affairs some of the
Russian commanders made desperate efforts to check the spy
mania.
General P. Kurlov issued the following order in the Baltic provinces
on February 25, 1915:
ORDER No. 27
“Of late, more and more anonymous denunciations and
reports concerning crimes and actions closely connected with
the peculiar conditions of war times are coming in in the
provinces given over to my supervision. Such reports not only
lack confirmation in most cases, but investigations prove that
they are caused in the majority of cases not by a patriotic desire
to help the military authorities, but by personal reasons of
revenge, not only not admissible in war time, but also
particularly criminal. By distracting the attention of officials from
 their necessary duties, these reports promote disorder and
excitement among the local population.
“I have asked the various Governors to order the police
officials under their supervision not to institute any
investigations on the basis of anonymous denunciations except
in extraordinary cases (Article 300 of the Criminal Code), but to
forward these denunciations to me and wait for orders.
“In the case of signed denunciations and reports, the police
officials must first of all question the denunciator, warning him
of the consequence of a false denunciation, and if any signs of
crime should be established in the courses of the examination,
he should be dealt with according to Articles 250 to 261 of the
Criminal Code, or the Governors should impose penalties in their
administrative capacity. I order the police officials to strictly
follow Article 254 of the Code when making an investigation.
Witnesses found to bear false reports shall be subjected to
criminal prosecution according to Article 940 of the Code.
“In view of the particularly criminal character of false
denunciations in war time, I shall apply the most rigorous
measures to those found guilty of this offense.
“I have asked the Governors to make this order public to
all.”[32]

SUPPRESSION OF YIDDISH PRESS AND

SPEECH
It appears also that the similarity of the Yiddish and German
languages further laid the Jews open to distrust. The use of Yiddish,
in conversation, in correspondence, over the telephone, in the
theatre, etc., was prohibited by legal, military and civil authorities
under penalty of heavy fine and imprisonment. In Lodz, Vilna, Riga,
Warsaw, and other Jewish centers, the performance of plays in
Yiddish was prohibited and theatres closed.
 Letters from foreign countries to Russia, in any language except
Yiddish were generally passed by the censor after scrutiny, but
letters in Yiddish were as a rule not delivered at all.
In July, 1915, the commander of the Russian forces issued the
following absolute order:
“On the basis of the power entrusted to me according to Paragraph 6, Article
415, Section 6, I prohibit postal and telegraph communications within the district
occupied by the army entrusted to me, in the Jewish, German, and Hungarian
languages.”[33]
By this order the Russian government not only branded the entire
Jewish people as spies and traitors, but also prevented hundreds of
thousands of Jewish soldiers at the front from communicating with
relatives and friends, because many of the soldiers had been
prevented by educational restrictions from learning to read and write
Russian. To the Jewish soldier unable to read or write was thus
denied even that scant comfort which his Russian comrades might
derive from the stereotyped communications checked on the
regulation postal card and mailed by field-post.
At the beginning of the war the military censors assumed
command of the entire press of Russia. That they used their power
with the utmost unfairness against the Jewish press was charged
without contradiction in the Duma by Professor Milyukov, Deputies
Bomash, Suchanov and others, who pointed out that if the aim of
the censor was to suppress every truth and encourage every lie
against the Jews, they could not possibly have pursued a more
consistent policy. Deputy Bomash furnished the following concrete
instances of perversion of facts by the censorship.
1. It systematically expunged or mutilated the names of Jews
to whom the cross of St. George had been awarded.[34]
2. When the Mayor of Petrograd congratulated the Jewish
community upon the heroic conduct of a lad of 13, named
Kaufman, the censor suppressed the fact that Kaufman was a
Jew, and that the community referred to was the Jewish
community.
 3. Stories in the Russian press of the valor of Jews in the
French armies are either suppressed or the Jewish names cut
out.
4. A news item referring to the fact that General Semenov,
whom Jewish soldiers had saved from capture by the Germans,
was treating Jews kindly was suppressed by the censor.
5. Letters of regimental commanders to the parents of Jewish
hussars congratulating them on the valor of their sons, or
notifying them of medals of honor bestowed upon them, were
suppressed by the censor.
6. The military censorship also suppressed news of an
absolutely non-military nature, whenever it might in any manner
have been construed as friendly to Jews. Thus, a news item
referring to the non-sectarian activities of the National Relief
Committee, headed by the Princess Tatyana, daughter of the
Czar, was suppressed. A news item regarding the disapproval of
the Council of Ministers of the policy of expelling Jews en masse
and of wholesale charges of treachery was also suppressed.
7. Even the official declaration of Count Bobrinski, Military-
Governor of Galicia, referring to the correctness of the conduct
of the Jews of Galicia, was suppressed.
8. But—outrageously false items published in the notoriously
anti-Semitic papers were generally passed by the censor without
hesitation. The “Novoe Vremya,” the “Russkoe Znamya,” and
other anti-Semitic organs, systematically published reports of
wholesale Jewish desertions, treachery, spying, etc., without at
any time producing an iota of evidence. Thus, “Russkoe
Znamya,” declared that the loyalty of not a single Jewish soldier
could be depended upon. The “Novoe Vremya” declared that
the Jews were without exception embittered enemies of the
Russian army, and that during the Japanese war 18,000 out of
27,000 soldiers voluntarily surrendered as prisoners to the
Japanese. Stories without name, date or place to the effect that
 small Polish boys warned the Russian soldiers to take nothing
from Jews because everything they would furnish was poisoned
were passed by the censor, and made much of by the press.
The notorious Kuzhi canard was not only passed by the censor
and printed in the official and semi-official press of Russia, but
the censors even hinted to that section of the press which
hesitated to publish a tale so manifestly absurd that future
relations with the censorship might be imperilled if the story
were not given proper publicity. Editors received a continuous
stream of circulars forbidding the touching of questions which
had absolutely no relation to the war.
9. When the great writers and publicists of Russia decided
that it would be desirable, for the honor of Russia, to speak a
good word for the Jews and thereby indirectly deprecate before
the world the merciless governmental policy, the pamphlet
containing their symposium was suppressed by the military
censor. Even the preliminary letter of inquiry sent out by these
eminent Russians, soliciting information as to the participation
of Jews in the war, was suppressed. The Jewish weekly, the
“Novy Voskhod,” was fined 2,000 roubles and ultimately
suppressed because of the publication of this letter.
In spite of these suspensions, however, the six million Jews of
Russia still continued, in a measure, to inform themselves as to the
conduct of their sons in the field, and as to matters of Jewish
interest in general, through the half dozen, or more, Jewish
newspapers, which managed to struggle on in spite of the repeated
fines and suspensions imposed by the censor. But on July 5, 1915,
the entire Jewish press was suppressed. Lately several papers have
been revived in new form, but today the Jews of Russia are
practically in the dark. They have no effective means of
communicating with one another or with the Russian public. They
can neither prevent the instigation of calumnies nor refute them
when spread abroad. They live in a constant state of terror lest
some new Kuzhi slander set the country aflame against them.
 WHOLESALE EXPULSIONS
This public official distrust of the Jewish population of Russia
increased with the Russian reverses, and the assumption by the
authorities that the loyalty of all the Jews was open to suspicion
gave added impetus to the spy mania, set the Jews apart as a
dangerous people and delivered them helpless into the hands of the
Cossack soldiery and the hostile Poles. The atrocities committed
upon the Jews in Poland and Galicia have already been referred to.
But a more disastrous, though less spectacular, consequence of the
governmental attitude towards the Jews was the systematic
expulsion of the entire Jewish population from the war zone, an act
which assumed the character of a merciless war by Russia upon its
own population.
From the very beginning of the war there were individual cases of
Jews, who, being suspected of bad faith, were ordered to leave a
given locality. There were also sporadic expulsions, or rather a
forced exodus, of the entire civilian population of localities which the
authorities desired to clear for military operations. But it was in
March, 1915, that the authorities began systematically to expel
Jews from all the Polish provinces, even those not occupied
by German troops, and from the governments of Kovno and
Kurland, thus affecting about 30 per cent. of the entire Jewish
population of the Empire. Even the Jewish deputy from the Kovno
district, Friedman, was expelled, in spite of his constitutional
privileges as a member of the Duma.
The first sufferers were the Jewish inhabitants of the smaller
towns, because these were readily segregated. In a very brief space
of time the region where the Jews constitute over eighty per cent. of
the population of the small towns was absolutely denuded of Jewish
inhabitants.[35] It was only the rapid invasion of this territory by the
Germans which prevented the complete expulsion of every one of
the two million or more Jews who inhabited this area. And those
who have remained in this territory for the present have been
promised, by decree of the supreme military authorities of Russia,
immediate expulsion as soon as the Russian troops regain a foothold
here.[36]
The enforcement of the expulsion orders was carried out
ruthlessly. The time generally allowed was twenty-four hours, rarely
forty-eight hours. The Jewish inhabitants of the governments of
Kurland and Kovno were given from five to twenty-four hours’ notice.
[37]

The Jews of the city of Kovno were notified on the evening of May
3 (16) to leave not later than midnight of May 5 (18), 1915.

Cruelty of Officials
In a speech delivered in the Duma the non-Jewish deputy
Dzubinsky declared:
“As a representative of our 5th Siberian division I was myself on the scene and
can testify with what incredible cruelty the expulsion of the Jews from the Province
of Radom took place. The whole population was driven out within a few
hours during the night. At 11 o’clock the people were informed that they
had to leave, with a threat that any one found at daybreak would be
hanged. And so in the darkness of the night began the exodus of the
Jews to the nearest town, Ilzha, thirty versts away. Old men, invalids
and paralytics had to be carried on people’s arms because there were no
vehicles.
“The police and the gendarmes treat the Jewish refugees precisely like
criminals. At one station, for instance, the Jewish Commission of Homel
was not even allowed to approach the trains to render aid to the
refugees or to give them food and water. In one case a train which was
conveying the victims was completely sealed and when finally opened
most of the inmates were found half dead, sixteen down with scarlet
fever and one with typhus....
“In some places the Governors simply made sport of the innocent
victims; among those who particularly distinguished themselves were the
governors of Poltava, Minsk, and Ekaterinoslav ... who illegally took away the
passports of the victims and substituted provisional certificates instructing them to
appear at given places in one of five provinces at a given date. When they
presented themselves at these designated places they were shuttled back and
forth from point to point at the whim or caprice of local officials.
“In Poltava the Jewish Relief Committee was officially reprimanded by
the governor for assuming the name ‘Committee for the Aid of Jewish
Sufferers from the War,’ and ordered to rename itself ‘Committee to Aid
the Expelled’ on the ground, as stated explicitly in the order, that the
Jews had been expelled because they were politically unreliable—and,
therefore, presumably, deserved no help.”[38]
No distinction of age, sex or physical condition was made. As most
of the able-bodied young men were at the front, those affected by
the expulsions were the persons least able to bear up under the
suffering and privation entailed—old men and women, children, the
sick from the hospitals, the insane from the asylums, even wounded
and crippled Jewish soldiers—all were driven out en masse, without
the slightest regard for human comfort or decency. Women in labor
were given no consideration and many births occurred along the
route. Mothers were separated from their children, entire families
were broken up and dispersed all over Russia. The Jewish and liberal
Russian press is filled with long lists of victims seeking their lost
relatives. Where transportation was provided, the exiles were packed
in cattle-cars and forwarded to their destination on a way-bill, like so
much freight. In many places thousands of them were forced for
weeks at a time to stay in congested villages which were absolutely
unable to afford them a roof and shelter, or to sleep in the freight
cars or in the open fields. And tens of thousands were forced to
tramp weary distances along the open road, or, in the fear of the
soldiery, to take to the back roads, the woods and swamps, there to
die of hunger and exposure.
The total number of Jews who have been expelled to date is
unknown. Expulsions are still going on. At the beginning of June,
1915, at the deliberation of the Petrograd Central Committee for the
Relief of Jewish War Sufferers, which was participated in by the most
prominent provincial committees, it was calculated that the total
number of homeless Jews ruined by the expulsion—in Poland and
the northwestern district—is 600,000 at the least.[39] After the
Kovno-Kurland expulsions there collected in the Vilna government
alone some 200,000 exiles.[40] In Riga there gathered, by May 18
(31), some 9,600 families or 42,000 persons.[41] Up to August 6,
1915, there collected in the government of Volhynia upwards of
250,000 refugees.[42]

Hostages
There is evidence to indicate that the Russian government,
overwhelmed by the consequences of the expulsion policy, has
suggested to the military authorities the advisability of repatriating
the exiles; but these authorities have refused to consider the
suggestion except on condition that the Jews voluntarily give
hostages from among their own ranks, these hostages to include the
Rabbi and other leading Jews. This proposal has been universally
rejected by the Jews through their representative in the Duma,
Deputy Friedman, in a letter to the President of the Council of
Ministers:
“As a deputy from the province of Kovno, from which I, together with all other
Jews, have now been expelled, I consider it my duty to call the attention of your
excellency to the following:—
“According to the latest decrees of the authorities the Jews who have been
expelled from their homes are to be allowed to return on condition that they give
hostages. This monstrous condition, which the government aims to
impose upon its own subjects, the Jewish people will never accept. They
prefer to wander about homeless and to die of starvation rather than to
submit to demands which insult their self-respect as citizens and Jews.
They have honestly performed their duty toward their country and will
continue to do so to the very end. No sacrifices frighten them and no
persecutions will make them swerve from the path of honor. But neither
will any persecutions force them to accept a lie, to give testimony,
through base submission, that the monstrous accusations against them
are true. When the insolent enemy threw down the gauntlet to Russia the Jews
arose to shield their country with their breasts, and I had the honor to appear at
the historic session of the Duma as their spokesman in the expression of this
spontaneous, inspiring enthusiasm. The Jews gladly assumed all the
sacrifices demanded of them by their country because of a feeling of
duty to the land to which they are bound by century old, historic bonds,
and also because of a sincere hope for a brighter future. And I may say
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