But towards the end of the twelfth century Latvia was invaded by German " Kultur " in the form of the Teutonic Crusaders, who impersonated at once German militarism, commerce, and religion. For some time these Knights of the Sword had been actively engaged in Jerusalem ; but when Abbot Berthold procured a Pope's Bull to sanction a crusade for the Christianising of the Letts, the Teutonic members of the Order of the Sword (forced by this time to withdraw from the Holy Land) were only too pleased to transfer their activities to Latvia. Despite the superior military power and science thus brought to bear upon the country, Latvia, though conquered, was never wholly subdued until, in the eighteenth century, Germany and Russia united forces. Then, in consequence of German cunning and Muscovite brutality, Latvia sank practically into oblivion. What little there is of her history since that time may be summed up as one of intense and bitter racial antagonism towards her powerful oppressors.
From the outset of the Great War the Letts sided with the Allies. They fought at first in the Russian army, but later in their own volunteer corps. Out of the young manhood of the country 80,000 found a grave on the battlefield—that is to say, 30 per cent, of all the Letts mobilised. And 40 per cent, of the population forsook their homes, some under compulsion, but the greater part voluntarily, preferring the life of the refugee to that which would have been