The Law of the Jungle

Franz's worries had been unnecessary. Before the Vienna Government could issue any reminder, the Tsarist Government had already begun acting.

Its methods were somewhat immature, however. Perhaps because it had made no prior preparations, the evidence produced by the Russians was not very convincing.

There were no films yet, makeup had not become one of the four great dark arts, and special effects did not even have a shadow. Faking photographs was still rather difficult.

No, to be precise, the Tsarist Government had no concept of forgery at all.

The Berlin Government had already launched a propaganda offensive, while the Prussian Army at the front had long been ordered to observe military discipline. Naturally, it was not easy to catch the Prussian Army by the tail at this time.

Quite a few of the photographic exhibits supplied by the Tsarist Government had been generously sponsored by the Austrian Government.

They had been taken inadvertently while the Austrian military was collecting battlefield information. Very few were shot from the ground; most had been taken from airships.

There was naturally no point hoping for clarity. It was already good enough if blurred human silhouettes could be seen. On one hand, they had been flying too high; on the other, the cameras were not advanced enough.

Had the newspapers not deliberately sought to stir up controversy for the sake of sales, the scant evidence provided by the Tsarist Government probably would not even have raised a ripple before being suppressed.

Whatever the case, having something to argue about was better than having no controversy at all. By convention, this sort of public debate usually drifted off-topic as people argued.

In the mentor's words: "The Russian Army are robbers, and the Prussian Army are bandits." In short, neither was any good.

As one side