An Ambassador's Memories

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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER I JULY 20-23, 1914

St. Petersburg to Peterhof---The Tsar takes me on his yacht to meet the President of the Republic.---Conversation with His Majesty on the subject of William II.--In Cronstadt Roads.---Arrival of the warship France.---First meeting of the two heads of State.---Banquet at Peterhof.---The Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna.--The Russian Court.---The President of the Republic discusses general politics.--The President's visit to St. Petersburg.---The fortress of SS. Peter and Paul.---At the tomb of Alexander III.---Diplomatic reception at the Winter Palace.---The President's conversation with the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.---Banquet at the Embassy.---Disorderly strikes in the industrial quarters.---Luncheon at Peterhof.--The Minister of the Court.---At Krasnoe-Selo camp.---Evening service.--Banquet given in honour of the President and the Tsar by the Grand Duke Nicholas.---The Montenegrin Grand Duchesses.---Review at Krasnoe-Selo.--Farewell banquet on board the France.---The toasts.---Last meeting of the President and the Tsar.---The French squadron leaves.---I accompany the Tsar on his yacht.---An exchange of impressions.---A sea trip.---Return to St. Petersburg.
Monday, July 20, 1914. I left St. Petersburg at ten o'clock this morning on the Admiralty yacht and went to Peterhof. Sazonov, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Isvolsky, the Russian Ambassador to France, and General de Laguiche, my military attach, accompanied me. All four of us had been invited by the Tsar to lunch on the imperial yacht before going to meet the President of the Republic at Cronstadt. The staff of my Embassy, the Russian ministers and Court functionaries will go by rail direct to Peterhof. The weather was cloudy. Our vessel steamed at high speed between low banks towards the Gulf of Finland. Suddenly a fresh breeze from the open sea brought us a heavy shower, but as suddenly the sun burst forth in his splendour. A few pearl-grey clouds, through which the sun s rays darted, hung here and there in the sky like sashes shot with gold. As far as the eye could reach, in a limpid flood of light the estuary of the Neva spread the immense sheet of its greenish, viscous, changing waters which always remind me of Venice. At half-past eleven we stopped in the little harbour of Peterhof where the Alexandria, the Tsar's favourite yacht, was lying under steam. Nicholas II, in the uniform of an admiral, arrived at the quay almost at once. We transferred to the Alexandria. Luncheon was served immediately. We had at least an hour and three-quarters before us until the arrival of the France. But the Tsar likes to linger over his meals. There are always long intervals
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between the courses in which he chats and smokes cigarettes. I was on his right, Sazonov on his left and Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, was opposite us. After a few commonplaces the Tsar told me of his pleasure at receiving the President of the Republic. "We shall have weighty matters to discuss," he said. "I'm sure we shall agree on all points . . . But there's one question which is very much in my mind---our understanding with England. We must get her to come into our alliance. It would be such a guarantee of peace!" "Yes, Sire, the Triple Entente cannot be too strong if it is to keep the peace." "I've been told that you yourself are uneasy about Germany's intentions." "Uneasy? Yes, Sire, I am uneasy although at the moment I have no particular reason to anticipate a war in the immediate future. But the Emperor William and his Government have let Germany get into a state of mind such that if some dispute arose, in Morocco, the East---anywhere---they could neither give way nor compromise. A success is essential at any price and to obtain it they'll risk some adventure." The Tsar reflected a moment: "I can't believe the Emperor wants war . . . If you knew him as I do! If you knew how much theatricality there is in his posing! ... "Perhaps I am doing the Emperor William too much honour in thinking him capable of willing, or simply accepting the consequences of his acts. But if war threatened would he, and could he prevent it? No, Sire, I don't think so, honestly I don't." The Tsar sat silent and puffed at his cigarette. Then he said in a resolute voice: "It's all the more important for us to be able to count on England in an emergency. Unless she has gone out of her mind altogether Germany will never attack Russia, France and England combined." Coffee had just arrived when the French squadron was signalled. The Tsar made me go up on the bridge with him. It was a magnificent spectacle. In a quivering, silvery light the France slowly surged forward over the turquoise and emerald waves, leaving a long white furrow behind her. Then she stopped majestically. The mighty warship which has brought the head of the French State is well worthy of her name. She was indeed France coming to Russia. I felt my heart beating. For a few minutes there was a prodigious din in the harbour; the guns of the ships and the shore batteries firing, the crews cheering, the Marseillaise answering the Russian national anthem, the cheers of thousands of spectators who had come from St. Petersburg on pleasure boats and so forth. At length the President of the Republic stepped on board the Alexandria. The Tsar received him at the gangway. As soon as the presentations were over the imperial yacht steered for Peterhof. Seated in the stern the Tsar and the President immediately entered into conversation, I should perhaps say a discussion, for it was obvious that they were talking business, firing questions at each other and arguing. As was proper it was
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Poincar who had the initiative. Before long he was doing all the talking, The Tsar simply nodded acquiescence, but his whole appearance showed his sincere approval. It radiated confidence and sympathy. Before long we were at Peterhof. Through its magnificent trees and sparkling fountains, Catherine II's favourite residence appeared above a long terrace from which a foaming cascade poured its majestic waters. At a sharp trot our carriages ascended the drive leading to the palace entrance. At every bend we had a fleeting glimpse of some fresh vista, a line of statues, fountains or terraces. Though the detail is somewhat meretricious one scents something of the keen and delicious atmosphere of Versailles in the balmy, sunlit air. . At half-past seven there was a banquet in the Empress Elizabeth room. Thanks to the brilliance of the uniforms, superb toilettes, elaborate liveries, magnificent furnishings and fittings, in short the whole panoply of pomp and power, the spectacle was such as no court in the world can rival. I shall long remember the dazzling display of jewels on the women's shoulders. It was simply a fantastic shower of diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, beryls---a blaze of fire and flame. In this fairy milieu Poincar's black coat was a drab touch. But the wide, sky-blue ribbon of St. Andrew across his breast increased his importance in the eyes of the Russians. And then it was soon seen that the Tzar was listening to him with the closest and most sympathetic attention. During dinner I kept an eye on the Tsaritza Alexandra Feodorovna opposite whom I was sitting. Although long ceremonies are a very great trial to her she was anxious to be present this evening to do honour to the President of the allied Republic. She was a beautiful sight with her low brocade gown and a diamond tiara on her head. Her forty-two years have left her face and figure still pleasant to look upon. After the first course she entered into conversation with Poincar who was on her right. Before long however her smile became set and the veins stood out in her cheeks. She bit her lips every minute. Her laboured breathing made the network of diamonds sparkle on her bosom. Until the end of dinner, which was very long, the poor woman was obviously struggling with hysteria. Her features suddenly relaxed when the Tsar rose to propose his toast. The imperial speech was received in a composed silence, for it was the reply which was most eagerly awaited. Poincar spoke without notes instead of reading his speech as the Tsar had done. Never had his diction been more clear, lucid and pointed. What he said was only the stale and formal official verbiage but in his mouth the words acquired a remarkable wealth of meaning and authority. The effect was quite marked on that audience, brought up as it was in the traditions of despotism and the discipline of courts. I'm sure that of those decorated functionaries more than one thought: "That's how an autocrat should talk." After dinner the Tsar held a levee. The general eagerness to be presented to Poincar showed he had been a success. Even the German clique, the ultra-reactionary group, sought the honour of an introduction to the President. At eleven o'clock a procession was formed. The Tsar conducted the President of the Republic to his room. There Poincar kept me in conversation a few minutes. We exchanged impressions, and very good they were. .
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When I returned to St. Petersburg by rail at a quarter to one in the morning, I heard that this afternoon the principal factories went on strike---for no reason and on a signal from no one knows where. There have been collisions with the police at several points. My informant knows the working-class quarters well and tells me that the movement has been instigated by German agents. Tuesday, July 21, 1914. The President of the Republic has spent to-day visiting St. Petersburg. Before leaving Peterhof he was in conference with the Tsar. They discussed seriatim all the questions on the diplomatic tapis at the moment: the strained relations between Greece and Turkey; the intrigues of the Bulgarian Government in the Balkans; the Prince of Wied's arrival in Albania; the application of the AngloRussian Agreements in Persia; the political orientation of the Scandinavian States, etc. They concluded their review with the problem of the Austro-Serbian dispute, a problem which becomes more worrying every day owing to the arrogant and mysterious attitude of Austria. Poincar has insisted with great force that the only way of saving the peace of the world is an open discussion between all the Great Powers, taking care that one group is not opposed to another. "It's the method that served us so well in 1913," he said. " Let's try it again . . .!" Nicholas II entirely agreed. . At half-past one I attended the President at the imperial quay near to Nicholas Bridge. The Naval Minister, the Prefect of Police, the Commander of the Fortress and the municipal authorities were there to receive him. In accordance with the old Slav rites Count Ivan Tolstoy, the Mayor of the capital, offered him bread and salt. Then we mounted our carriages to visit the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul which is the Bastille and the St. Denis of the Romanovs. As tradition decrees the President laid a wreath on the tomb of Alexander III, father of the alliance. Escorted by the Guard Cossacks, whose scarlet tunics flamed in the sunshine, our carriages passed along the Neva at a smart trot. A few days ago, when I was settling with Sazonov the final details of the President's visit he had said to me with a smile: "The Guard Cossacks have been told off to escort the President. You see what a fine figure they'll cut! They're splendid fellows, fearful fellows. Besides they're dressed in red. I rather think Monsieur Viviani does not dislike that colour." I had replied "No, he doesn't dislike it but his artistic eye doesn't enjoy it thoroughly except when it's next to white and blue." In their scarlet tunics these long-haired, bearded and bristly Cossacks are certainly a formidable sight. When our carriages disappeared with them through the gateway of the fortress a spectator with a turn for irony, or a lover of historical antitheses. might well have asked whether it was not to the State Prison that they were conducting these two certificated and avowed "revolutionaries," Poincar and Viviani, not to mention
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myself, their accomplice. The moral contradiction in terms, the tacit paradox in the background of the Franco-Russian Alliance, has never struck me more forcibly. At three o'clock the President received the deputations of the French colonies in St. Petersburg and throughout Russia. Some of them had come from Moscow, Kharkov, Odessa, Kiev, Rostov, Tiflis. In presenting them to Poincar 1 could say with perfect sincerity: "Their eagerness to come and greet you in no way surprises me. Every day I see practical proofs of the fervent and pious love of the French colonies in Russia for their distant homeland. In no province of our old France, Monsieur le Prsident, will you find better Frenchmen than those here before you." . At four o'clock the procession was reformed to take the President to the Winter Palace where a diplomatic levee was to be held. We received an enthusiastic welcome all along the route. The police had arranged it all. At every street corner a group of poor wretches cheered loudly under the eye of a policeman. At the Winter Palace it was a full-dress occasion. Etiquette required that the Ambassadors should be introduced one by one to the President who had Viviani on his left. It was my function to present my foreign colleagues. The first to enter was the German Ambassador, Count Pourtals, doyen of the Corps Diplomatique. The President received him with the greatest affability. He asked him about the French origin of his family, his wife's relationship to the Castellanes, a motor tour which the Count and Countess were proposing to make through Provence and particularly Castellane, etc. Not a word of politics. I next presented my Japanese colleague, Baron Motono, whom Poincar knew in Paris in the old days. Their conversation was short but not without importance. In a few words the principle of the accession of Japan to the Triple Entente was formulated and virtually agreed. After Motono I introduced my English colleague, Sir George Buchanan. Poincar assured him that the Tsar was determined to show himself most conciliatory in the Persian question and added that the British Government must ultimately realize the necessity of transforming the Triple Entente into a Triple Alliance. His conversation with the ambassadors of Italy and Spain was merely superficial. At last there appeared my Austro-Hungarian colleague, Count Szapary, a typical Hungarian nobleman, dressed to perfection. For two months he has been away from St. Petersburg at the bedside of his invalid wife and son. He came back unexpectedly yesterday. I inferred from his sudden return that the AustroSerbian difference is getting more acute; there is going to be a rupture and the ambassador must be at his post to play his part in the dispute and take his share of responsibility. I told Poincar what I thought and he replied: "I'll try and clear up this business." After a few words of sympathy on the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the President asked Szapary:
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"Have you any news of Serbia? " "The judicial enquiry is proceeding," Szapary replied coldly. Poincar continued: "Of course I'm anxious about the results of this enquiry, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. I can remember two previous enquiries which did not improve your relations with Serbia ... Don't you remember ... the Friedjung affair and the Prochaska affair?" Szapary replied in a dry tone: "Monsieur le Prsident, we cannot suffer a foreign government to allow plots against our sovereignty to be hatched on its territory!" In a more than conciliatory tone Poincar endeavoured to point out that in the present state of public feeling in Europe every government should be twice as cautious as usual. "With a little good will this Serbian business is easy to settle. But it can just as easily become acute. Serbia has some very warm friends in the Russian people. And Russia has an ally, France. There are plenty of complications to be feared!" Then he thanked the ambassador for his call. Szapary bowed and went out without a word. When we three were alone again Poincar said: "I'm not satisfied with this conversation. The ambassador had obviously been instructed to say nothing . . . Austria has a coup de thtre in store for us. Sazonov must be firm and we must back him up. . ." We then went to the next room where the ministers of the minor powers were in line in order of seniority. As he was pressed for time, Poincar passed swiftly down the line shaking hands with each minister in turn. Their disappointment could be read in their faces. Each was hoping he would make some substantial and veiled observation on which he could make a long report to his government. The President only stopped to speak to the Serbian minister, Spalaikovitch, for whom he had a few words of sympathy. . At six o'clock a visit to the French Hospital where the President laid the first stone of a public dispensary. At eight o'clock banquet at the Embassy. Ninety-six covers. The Embassy has been entirely renovated and looks very fine. The Garde-Meuble National has let me have a splendid series of gobelins, including Natoire's Triumph of Mark Antony and the Triumph of Mardocheus, ---superb decoration for my banqueting-hall. Last, but not least, the Embassy was carpeted with roses and orchids. The guests arrived, each more resplendent than the last. Their selection has put me on the rack owing to all the rivalries and jealousies life at Court involves. The question of seating has been an even more difficult problem. But I've received such excellent assistance from my secretaries that dinner and the evening passed off without a hitch. Promptly at eleven o'clock the President withdrew. I accompanied him to the City Hall where the Petersburg Duma was giving a soire to the officers of the French squadron. It is the first time that the head of a foreign state has honoured a Municipal Council's reception with his presence so his reception was
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exceedingly warm. At midnight the President returned to Peterhof by water. . The violent demonstrations continued to-day in the industrial quarters of St. Petersburg. This evening the Prefect of Police assured me that the agitation had been stopped and that work will resume to-morrow. He has also confirmed the fact that among the arrested leaders several notorious agents in the German espionage service have been identified. From the point of view of the Alliance the incident gives one food for thought. Wednesday, July 22, 1914. At midday the Tsar gave a luncheon in Peterhof Palace to the President of the Republic and the officers of the French squadron. No ladies were present, not even the Tsaritsa. We sat down at small tables for ten to twelve covers. It was very hot outside but cool, sweet breezes wafted through the open windows from the leafy shade and fountains and cascades of the park. I was at the same table as the Tsar and the President with Viviani, Admiral Le Bris (commanding the French squadron), Goremykin, President of the Council, Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, Sazonov and Isvolsky. I was on Viviani's left and he had Count Fredericks on his right. Count Fredericks, who will soon be seventy-seven, is the very personification of court life. Of all the subjects of the Tsar none has received more honours and titles. He is Minister of the Imperial Court and household, aide-de-camp to the Tsar, cavalry general, member of the Council of Empire, Chancellor of the Imperial Orders, Head of his Majesty's Cabinet and military establishment, etc. He has passed the whole of his long life in palaces and ceremonies, in carriages and processions, under gold lace and decorations. In virtue of his functions he takes precedence of the highest dignitaries of the empire and he knows all the secrets of the imperial family. In the Tsar's name he dispenses all the favours and gifts, all the reproofs and punishments. The grand dukes and grand duchesses overwhelm him with attentions for he it is who controls their households, hushes up their scandals and pays their debts. For all the difficulties of his task he is not known to have an enemy, such is his charm of manner and tact. He was also one of the handsomest men of his generation, one of the finest horsemen, and his successes with women were past counting. He has kept his lithe figure, his fine drooping moustache and his charming manners. From a physical and moral point of view he is the ideal type for his office, the supreme arbiter of the rites and precedences, conventions and traditions, manners and etiquette. At half-past three we left by the imperial train for the camp at Krasnoe-Selo. . A blazing sun lit up the vast plain, a tawny and undulating plain bounded on the horizon by wooded hills. While the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, the President of the Republic, the grand dukes, grand duchesses and the entire imperial staff were inspecting the cantonments of the troops, I waited for them with the ministers and civil functionaries on an eminence on which tents had been pitched. The lite of Petersburg society were crowded into some stands. The light toilettes of the women, their white hats and parasols made the stands look like azalea beds.
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Before long the imperial party arrived. In a four-horse calche was the Tsaritsa with the President of the Republic on her right and her two elder daughters opposite her. The Tsar was galloping by the side of the carriage, followed by a brilliant escort of the grand dukes and aides-de-camp. They all dismounted and assembled on the low hill dominating the plain. The troops, without arms, were drawn up in serried ranks as far as the eye could reach before the row of tents. The front line ran along the very foot of the hill. The sun was dropping towards the horizon in a sky of purple and gold. On a sign from the Tsar an artillery salvo signalled evening prayer. The bands played a hymn. Everyone uncovered. A non-commissioned officer recited the Pater in a loud voice. All those men, thousands upon thousands, prayed for the Tsar and Holy Russia. The silence and composure of that multitude in that great plain, the magic poetry of the hour, the vision of the alliance which sanctified everything, gave the ceremony a touching majesty. From the camps we returned to the village of Krasnoe-Selo, where the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevitch,(1) Commander of the Imperial Guard, G.O.C. the St. Petersburg military area and subsequently generalissimo of the Russian armies, gave a dinner to the President of the Republic and the sovereigns. Three long tables were set in half-open tents around a garden which was in full flower. The beds had just been watered and from them the fresh scent of flowers---a delicious change after the baking day---rose into the warm air. I was one of the first to arrive. The Grand Duchess Anastasia and her sister, the Grand Duchess Militza, gave me a boisterous welcome. The two Montenegrins burst out, talking both at once: "Do you realize that we're passing through historic days, fateful days! ... At the review to-morrow the bands will play nothing but the Marche Lorraine and Sambre et Meuse. I've had a telegram (in pre-arranged code) from my father to-day. He tells me we shall have war before the end of the month.... What a hero my father is! . . . He's worthy of the Iliad! Just look at this little box I always take about with me. It's got some Lorraine soil in it, real Lorraine soil I picked up over the frontier when I was in France with my husband two years ago. Look there, at the table of honour: it's covered with thistles. I didn't want to have any other flowers there. They're Lorraine thistles, don't you see! I gathered several plants on the annexed territory, brought them here and had the seeds sown in my garden ... Militza, go on talking to the ambassador. Tell him all to-day means to us while I go and receive the Tsar . . ." At dinner I was on the left of the Grand Duchess Anastasia and the rhapsody continued, interspersed with prophecies . "There's going to be war . . . There'll be nothing left of Austria . . . . You're going to get back Alsace and Lorraine .... Our armies will meet in Berlin ... Germany will be destroyed . . . ." Then suddenly: "I must restrain myself. The Emperor has his eye on me." Under the Tsar's stern gaze the Montenegrin sybil suddenly lapsed into silence. Thursday, July 23, 1914. Review at Krasnoe-Selo this morning. Sixty thousand men took part. A magnificent pageant of might and majesty. The infantry marched past to the strains of the Marche de Sambre et Meuse and the Marche Lorraine. What a wealth of suggestion in this military machine set in motion by the Tsar of all the Russias before the President of the allied republic, himself a son of Lorraine! The Tsar was mounted at the foot of the mound upon which was the imperial tent. Poincar was seated on the Tsaritsa's right in front of the tent. The few glances he exchanged with me showed me that our thoughts
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were the same. . This evening we had a farewell dinner on the France. The moment it was over the French squadron was to prepare to leave for Stockholm. The Tsaritsa had made a point of coming with the Tsar. All the grand dukes and grand duchesses were there. About seven o'clock a momentary squall did some slight damage to the floral decorations of the deck but the table looked very fine all the same. It had indeed a kind of terrifying grandeur with the four gigantic 30 mm. gun raising their huge muzzles above the heads of the guests. The sky was soon clear again; a light breeze kissed the waves; the moon rose above the horizon. Conversation between the Tsar and the President never ceased. In the distance the Grand Duchess Anastasia raised her champagne glass towards me more than once, indicating with a sweep of her arm the warlike tackle all about us. As the second entre was about to be served a servant brought me a note from Viviani, scribbled on a menu: "Be quick and prepare a communiqu for the press." Admiral Grigorovitch, Naval Minister, who was next to me, whispered in my ear: "It seems to me you're not left in peace for a minute!" I took my own and my neighbour's menus and hastily drew up a note for Havas Agency, using the neutral and empty phraseology suitable for documents of this kind. But to end up I alluded to Serbia in the following terms: The two governments have discovered that their views and intentions for the maintenance of the European balance of power, especially in the Balkan Peninsula, are absolutely identical. I sent my note to Viviani who read it and then shook his head at me across the table. At length the toasts were reached. Poincar delivered his concluding phrase like a trumpet call: The two countries have the same ideal of peace in strength, honour and self-respect. These last words---words to be heard really to be appreciated---were followed by thunderous applause. The Grand Duke Nicholas, the Grand Duchess Anastasia and the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch turned flaming eyes upon me. As we were rising from the table Viviani came up to me: "I don't much like the last sentence of your note: I think it involves us a little too much in Russia's Balkan policy . . . Wouldn't it be better to leave it out?" "But you can't publish an official report of your voyage and pretend not to know that there are serious differences, a threat of open conflict between Austria and Serbia. It might even be thought that you were engaged in some scheme here which you dare not mention."
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"That's true. Well, give me another draft." A few minutes later I brought him this version: The visit which the President of the Republic has just paid to H.M. the Emperor of Russia has given the two friendly and allied governments an opportunity of discovering that they are in entire agreement in their views on the various problems which concern for peace and the balance of power in Europe has laid before the Powers, particularly in the East. "Excellent !" said Viviani. We immediately went to discuss the matter with the President of the Republic, the Tsar, Sazonov and Isvolsky. All four unreservedly approved the new draft and I sent it at once to the Havas Agency. The time for departure was approaching. The Tsar told Poincar he would like to continue the discussion a few minutes longer. "Suppose we go on the bridge, Monsieur le President?... It will be quieter." Thus I found myself alone with the Tsaritsa who asked me to take a chair on her left. The poor lady seemed worn out. With a forced smile she said in a tired tone: "I'm glad I came to-night ... I was afraid there would be a storm . . . The decorations on the boat are magnificent . . . The President will have lovely weather for his voyage . . . " But suddenly she put her hands to her ears. Then with a pained and pleading glance she timidly pointed to the ship's band quite near to us which had just started on a furious allegro with a full battery of brass and big drums. "Couldn't you? . . ." she murmured. I guessed the cause of her trouble and signalled sharply to the conductor who did not understand but stopped his band at once. "Thank you, thank you!" sighed the Tsaritsa. The young Grand Duchess Olga, who was sitting at the other end of the ship with the rest of the imperial family and the members of the French mission, had been observing us for some minutes with an anxious eye. She suddenly rose, glided towards her mother with graceful case and whispered two or three words in her ear. Then addressing me, she continued: "The Empress is rather tired, but she asks you to stay with her, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, and to go on talking to her." I resumed our conversation as she went off with quick, light steps. At that very moment the moon appeared in an archipelago of flaky, slow-moving clouds. The whole Gulf of Finland was lit up. My subject was found for me. I enlarged on the charm of sea voyages. The Tsaritsa listened to me in silence, her gaze vacant and strained, her cheeks livid, her lips motionless and swollen. After ten minutes or so which seemed to me an eternity the Tsar and the President of the Republic came down from the bridge.(2) It was eleven o'clock. Preparations for the departure were in progress. The guard shouldered arms. Sharp commands rang out. The Alexandria's launch greeted the France. The farewells were said to the strains of
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the Russian national anthem and the Marseillaise. The Tsar spoke very warmly to the President of the Republic. I myself said goodbye to Poincar who kindly asked me to call on him in Paris in a fortnight's time. As I was bowing to the Tsar at the top of the gangway he said to me: "Will you come with me, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur? We can talk undisturbed on my yacht. You'll be taken straight back to Petersburg." From the France we transferred to the Alexandria. Only the imperial family accompanied their majesties. The ministers, functionaries, military staffs and my personal staff returned direct to Petersburg in an Admiralty yacht. It was a splendid night. The milky way stretched, a pure band of silver, into unending space. Not a breath of wind. The France and her escorting division sped rapidly towards the west, leaving behind them long ribbons of foam which glistened in the moonlight like silvery streams. When the imperial suite was on board Admiral Niloff came to the Tsar for orders. The latter said to me: "It's a wonderful night. Suppose we go for a sail." The Alexandria steered for the coast of Finland. The Tsar made me sit behind him in the stern of the yacht and told me of the conversation he had just had with Poincar: "I'm delighted with my talk with the President. We see absolutely eye to eye. I am not less peace-loving than he, and he is not less determined than I to do everything necessary to prevent the cause of peace being compromised. He fears some Austro-German manoeuvre against Serbia and thinks we should reply with the united front of a common diplomatic policy. 1 think the same. We must show ourselves firm and united in our efforts to find possible solutions and the necessary adjustments. The more difficult the situation becomes the more important will unity and firmness become." "That policy seems to me the essence of wisdom; I'm afraid we shall have to resort to it before long." "You are still uneasy?" "Yes, sire." "Have you any fresh reason for your apprehension?" "I have at least one---the unexpected return of my colleague Szapary, and the air of cold and hostile reserve he adopted towards the President of the Republic the day before yesterday. Germany and Austria are preparing a shock for us." "What can they want? A diplomatic success at the expense of Serbia? To score a point off the Triple Entente? . . . No, no; notwithstanding appearances the Emperor William is too cautious to launch his country on some wild adventure, and the Emperor Francis Joseph's only wish is to die in peace." For a minute he sat in silence, lost in thought as if he were following up some vague line of thought. Then he rose and paced the deck. Around us the grand dukes were standing waiting for the moment to approach their master who grudgingly
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dispensed a few commonplaces among them. He called them up in turn and seemed to show them an unrestrained frankness, an affectionate familiarity, as if he wanted them to forget that he usually kept them at a distance and made it a rule never to talk politics with them. The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevitch, the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch, the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch and the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna came up to me, congratulating themselves and me that the presidential visit had been so supreme a success. In the court code that meant that the sovereign was satisfied. The Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militza, "the two Montenegrins," got me in a corner: "What a glorious speech the President made It was just what wanted saying, just what we've been waiting for so long! Peace in strength, honour and self-respect. Remember those words, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur; they will mark a date in the history of the world . . ." At a quarter to one the Alexandria dropped anchor in Peterhof bay. After leaving the Tsar and Tsaritsa I transferred to the escort yacht, Strela, and was taken to Petersburg which 1 reached at half-past two in the morning. As we sailed up the Neva I was thinking of the eager prophecy of the Montenegrin sybils.
Chapter Footnotes
1. Born on November 6, 1856. His father, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevitch, was the third son of the Tsar Nicholas I. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. 2. To amplify and confirm the nature of the conversations between the President of the Republic and the Tsar on this voyage it is not perhaps superfluous to refer here to the letter which Nicholas II sent to M. Poincar on May 13. 1916, when M. Viviani was on another visit to Russia: It has been a great pleasure to see M. Viviani, Keeper of the Seals, again. I had met him before and his visit reminds me of my last interview with you. At that time all we thought of was the peaceful development of our two countries while the enemy was already plotting against the peace of Europe in the hope of gaining the hegemony of the world . . .
Chapter Two Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER II JULY 24-AUGUST 2, 1914

Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia.---The Russian Government at once adopts a conciliatory attitude.---Vain efforts of Sazonov, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, to induce England to range herself immediately on the side of Russia and France.---The uncompromising tone of the German and Austro-Hungarian Ambassadors.---At my request Sazonov agrees off-hand to all the steps France and England think likely to avert war.---General mobilization of the AustroHungarian army.---Threatening action of the German Ambassador.---Military preparations of the Russian General Staff.---Bombardment of Belgrade.---The Russian Government's last effort for peace. ---Exchange of telegrams between the Tsar Nicholas and the Emperor William.---The German ultimatum to Russia.--The declaration of war.--- "There is a divine justice!. . ."---General mobilization of the French army.---The Tsar's proclamation to his people.---Religious ceremony at the Winter Palace: the oath of 1812.
Friday, July 24, 1914. Tired by these four days of continuous high pressure I was hoping for a little rest and had told my servant to let me sleep on this morning. At seven o'clock, however, the telephone bell woke me with a start: I was informed that Austria had presented an ultimatum to Serbia yesterday evening. As I was half asleep the news at first produced a curious impression of amazement and authority. The occurrence seemed to me unreal and yet definite, imaginary but authentic. I seemed to be continuing my conversation of yesterday with the Tsar, putting forward my theories and conjectures. At the same time I had a sensation, a potent, positive and compelling sensation, that I was in the presence of a fait accompli. During the morning details of what had happened in Belgrade began to come in. At half-past twelve, Sazonov and Buchanan came to the Embassy to confer on the situation. Our discussion was interrupted by lunch but we resumed immediately afterwards. Taking my stand on the toasts exchanged between the Tsar and the President, the declarations of the two Foreign Ministers and the communiqu to the Havas Agency yesterday, I had no hesitation in advocating a Policy of firmness. "But suppose that policy is bound to lead to war? . . ." said Sazonov. "It will only lead to war if the Germanic powers have already made up their minds to resort to force to secure the hegemony of the East. Firmness does not exclude conciliation. But it is essential for the other side to be prepared to negotiate and compromise. You know my own views as to Germany's designs. The Austrian ultimatum seems to me to provoke the dangerous crisis I have anticipated for a long time.
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Henceforth we must recognize that war may break out at any moment. That prospect must govern all our diplomatic action." Buchanan assumed that his government would desire to remain neutral and was therefore apprehensive that France and Russia would be crushed by the Triple Alliance. Sazonov protested: "At the present juncture England's neutrality would be tantamount to her suicide!" "I'm certain of that," Sir George replied sadly. "But I'm afraid public opinion with us is still far from realizing what our national interests so imperiously require." I emphasized the decisive part England could play in quenching Germany's warlike ardour; I cited the view the Tsar Nicholas expressed to me four days ago--- "Unless Germany has lost her reason altogether, she will never dare to attack Russia, France and England combined." Thus it was urgently necessary for the British Government to announce its adhesion to our cause, which was the cause of peace. Sazonov warmly advocated the same course. Buchanan promised to make strong representations to Sir Edward Grey in favour of the policy of resistance to Germanic arrogance. At three o'clock, Sazonov left us to go to Ielaguin Island to which Goremykin, the President of the Council, had summoned the ministers. . At eight o'clock in the evening I went to the Foreign Office where Sazonov was closeted with my German colleague. A few minutes later I saw Pourtals come out, his face purple and his eyes flashing. The discussion must have been lively. He furtively shook my hand as I entered the minister's room. Sazonov was still agitated over the dispute in which he had just been engaged. He has quick, nervous movements and his voice is dry and jerky. "What's happened? " I said. "As I anticipated, Germany wholeheartedly supports the Austrian cause. Not the slightest suggestion of conciliation. So I told Pourtals quite bluntly that we should not leave Serbia to settle her differences with Austria alone. Our talk ended in a very acrimonious tone." "Really?" "Yes ... Can you imagine what he had the audacity to tell me? He reproached me, me and all other Russians, with disliking Austria and having no scruples about troubling the last years of her aged Emperor. I retorted: 'No, of course we don't like Austria . . . Why should we like her? She has never done us anything but harm. As for her aged Emperor, he owes it to us that he still has his crown on his head. Just remember how he showed his gratitude in 1855, 1878 and 1908 . . . What! Reproach us with not liking Austria! That's a bit too much! ' " "It's a bad business, Minister. If conversations between Petersburg and Berlin are to continue in this strain
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they won't last long. Very soon we shall see the Emperor William rise in his 'shining armour.' Please be calm. Exhaust every possibility of compromise! Don't forget that my government is a government based on public opinion and can only support you effectively if it has public opinion behind it. And think of English opinion also." "I shall do everything possible to avoid war. But like you I am very uneasy about the turn events are taking." "Can I give my government an assurance that you have not yet ordered any military preparations?" "None whatever. All we have decided is privately to withdraw the eighty million roubles we have on deposit in the German banks." He added that he would endeavour to obtain from Count Berchtold an extension of the time fixed for the Serbian reply in the ultimatum so that the powers might have an opportunity of forming an opinion on the legal aspect of the dispute and finding some peaceful solution. The Russian ministers are to meet again to-morrow with the Tsar presiding. I recommended to Sazonov the greatest caution as to the advice he is to give. Our conversation was enough to soothe his nerves. He continued with calm deliberation: "You needn't fear! Besides you know the Tsar's caution. Berchtold has put himself in the wrong. It's our business to make him solely responsible for everything that comes. I even consider that if the Vienna cabinet resorts to action the Serbians ought to let their territory be invaded and confine themselves to denouncing Austria's infamy to the civilized world. Saturday, July 25, 1914. Yesterday the German ambassadors in Paris and London read to the French and British governments a note to the effect that the Austro-Serbian dispute must be settled by Vienna and Belgrade alone. The note ended thus: The German Government is extremely anxious that the conflict shall be localised as any intervention by a third power may, by the natural operation of alliances, have incalculable consequences. The policy of threats is already beginning At three o'clock in the afternoon Sazonov received me with Buchanan. He told us that an extraordinary council was held this morning at Krasnoe-Selo, with the Tsar presiding, and that His Majesty has decided in principle to mobilize the thirteen army corps which are ultimately earmarked for operations against Austria-Hungary. Then he turned to Buchanan very gravely and pleaded with all his might that England should hesitate no longer to range herself on the side of Russia and France in a crisis in which the stake is not merely the European balance of power but the very liberties of Europe itself. I backed up Sazonov and concluded with an argument ad hominem, pointing to the portrait of the great Chancellor Gortchakoff which adorns the room in which we were talking: "In July, 1870, on this very spot, my dear Sir George, Prince Gortchakoff said to your father(1) who was warning him of the danger of German ambition: 'There's nothing to worry Russia in the increase of German power.' Don't let England make the same mistake to-day which cost Russia so dear then!"
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"You know you're preaching to the converted," said Buchanan with a weary smile. Public feeling is rising every hour. The following note has been communicated to the Press: The Imperial Government is closely following the development of the Austro-Serbian conflict which cannot leave Russia indifferent. Almost simultaneously Pourtals informed Sazonov that as Austria's ally she naturally supported the legitimate claims of the Vienna cabinet against Serbia. Sazonov on his part has advised the Serbian government immediately to invite the mediation of the British Government. . At seven o'clock this evening I went to the Warsaw station to say goodbye to Isvolsky who is returning to his post in hot haste. There was a great bustle on the platforms. The trains were packed with officers and men. This looked like mobilization. We rapidly exchanged impressions and came to the same conclusion: "It's war this time." When I returned to the embassy I was informed that the Tsar had just ordered the measures preliminary to mobilization in the military areas of Kiev, Odessa, Kazan and Moscow. Further, the cities and Governments of St. Petersburg and Moscow have been declared in a state of siege. Lastly, the camp at Krasnoe-Selo has been broken up and from this evening the troops are being sent back to their usual garrisons. At half-past eight my military attach, General de Laguiche, was summoned to Krasnoe-Selo to confer with the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevitch and General Sukhomlinov, the War Minister. Sunday, July 26, 1914. When I went to see Sazonov this afternoon my impressions were better. He had just received my Austro-Hungarian colleague, Count Szapary, and had asked him for "a frank and honest explanation." Then, article by article, he read through the text of the ultimatum presented to Belgrade, bringing out the impossible, ridiculous and insulting character of the principal clauses. All this in a most friendly tone: "The intention behind this document is legitimate enough if your only object is to protect your territory against the plots of Serbian anarchists. But its form is indefensible . . ." He concluded with some warmth: "Withdraw your ultimatum; modify the wording, and I'll guarantee the result." Szapary seemed moved, even half persuaded by this language, but he reserved the views of his government. This evening Sazonov is therefore proposing to Berchtold to open direct conversations between Petersburg and Vienna with a view to co-operation in the changes to be made in the ultimatum. I congratulated Sazonov on having given the conversation such a happy turn. He replied:
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"I shall not depart from this attitude. I shall negotiate to the very last moment." Then, passing his hand across his eyes as if some terrible vision flashed through his mind, he asked me in a trembling voice: "Honestly between ourselves, do you think we can still save peace?" "If we had only Austria to deal with I should be hopeful ... But there is Germany. She has promised her ally a great personal triumph. She is convinced that we dare not resist her to the bitter end and that the Triple Alliance will give way as it has always given way. But this time we cannot give way, on pain of ceasing to exist. We shall not avert war." "Oh my dear Ambassador! It's terrible to think of what's to come." Monday, July 27, 1914. In official circles the day has been calm. Diplomacy methodically pursues its ordained course. Overwhelmed with telegrams and callers, my head in a whirl, I went out before dinner for a walk on the islands. I left my car in the shady and solitary avenue alongside the Ielaguin Palace. The hour fostered reflection. A soft silken light filtered through the thick, glistening foliage of the great oaks. Not a breath of air stirred in the branches, but every now and then I could smell the damp odours which seem the fresh breath of plants and streams. My reflections were utterly pessimistic. Whatever I did to fight them they always brought me back to the one conclusion---war. The hour for combinations and diplomatic artifices had gone. Compared with the underlying and remote causes which have produced the present crisis the incidents of the last few days were nothing. Individual initiative existed no longer; there was no longer any human will capable of withstanding the automatic mechanism of the forces let loose. We diplomats had lost all influence on the course of events. All we could do was to try and forecast them and insist on our governments regulating their action accordingly. Judging by the agency telegrams public spirit in France would appear to be high. No neurotic outbursts, no war fever: a calm, strong confidence; perfect national solidarity. And to think that this is the same country which but a short time back was in ecstasies over the scandals of the Caillaux trial and wallowing in the outpourings of the law courts! Throughout Russia public feeling is becoming exasperated. Sazonov is trying hard and is still successful in restraining the press. But he is obliged to give the journalists a sop to assuage their hunger and has had to tell them, " If you want, go for Austria, but be moderate towards Germany." Tuesday, July 28, 1914. At three o'clock this afternoon I went to the Foreign Office. Buchanan was in conference with Sazonov. The German Ambassador was waiting his turn to be received. I addressed him quite frankly: "So you've decided to calm down your ally at last? You're the only one of us in a position to make Austria listen to wisdom."
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He protested at once in a jerky voice: "But it's here that they ought to calm down and stop egging on Serbia!" "I assure you on my honour that the Russian Government is perfectly calm and ready for any conciliatory solution. But don't ask it to let Serbia be crushed. It would be to ask the impossible." "We cannot abandon our ally," he darted at me in a dry tone. "Let me speak freely to you, my dear colleague. This is a grave moment and I think we respect each other enough to have the right to speak our minds without reserve . . . . If the Austro-Serbian differences are not composed in twenty-four hours, or two days at most, it means war, a general war, a catastrophe such as the world has never known. This calamity may still be averted as the Russian Government is peace-loving, the British Government is peace-loving and your Government itself claims to be peace-loving." At these words Pourtals burst out: "Yes, indeed, I call God to witness! Germany is peace-loving! For forty-three years we have preserved the peace of Europe! For forty-three years we have pledged our honour not to abuse our strength! And it is we who are now accused of desiring to precipitate war ... History will prove that we have right on our side and our conscience has nothing to reproach us for." "Have we already got as far as finding it necessary to invoke the verdict of history? Is there then no chance of safety?" Pourtals' agitation was such that he could speak no more. His hands trembled. His eyes were a mist of tears. Quivering with anger he repeated: "We cannot, we will not abandon our ally ... No, we will not abandon her!" At this point the British Ambassador came out of Sazonov's room. Pourtals rushed in, looking fierce, without even shaking Buchanan's hand as he passed. "What a state he's in!" Sir George said to me. "The situation is worse. I don't doubt that Russia will go through with it: she is thoroughly in earnest. I have just been begging Sazonov not to consent to any military measure which Germany could call provocative. The German Government must be saddled with all the responsibility and all the initiative. English opinion will accept the idea of intervening in the war only if Germany is indubitably the aggressor ... Please talk to Sazonov to that effect." "That's what I'm always telling him." At that moment the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador arrived. He looked pale. His stiff aloofness towards us was a contrast to his usual easy and courteous affability. Buchanan and I tried to get him to talk. "Have you had any better news from Vienna? " I asked. "Can you ease our minds a bit?" "No, I know nothing more . . . The machine is in motion." Without volunteering any further explanation he repeated his apocalyptical metaphor "The machine's in motion."
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Realizing it was no use pressing I went out with Buchanan. As a matter of fact I did not want to see the minister until he had received Pourtals and Szapary. A quarter of an hour later I sent in my name to Sazonov. He was pale and agitated: "I think things are very bad," he said very bad. It is quite clear now that Austria is refusing to treat with us and Germany is secretly egging her on." "So you haven't managed to get anything out of Pourtals?" "Nothing except that Germany cannot abandon Austria. But am I asking her to abandon Austria? All I ask is simply that she should help me to solve this critical problem by peaceful means. As a matter of fact Pourtals had lost his self-control; he didn't know what to say; he stammered and looked scared. Why that fear? You and I are not like that; we haven't lost our sang-froid or self-control." "Pourtals is agitated because no doubt his personal responsibility is involved. I'm afraid he has helped to drive his government into this terrible adventure by asserting that Russia would not face the music and that if she did not yield---which was unthinkable---France would denounce the Russian Alliance. Now he sees the abyss into which he has hurled his country." "You're quite certain of that? " "Practically certain . . . Only yesterday Pourtals assured the Dutch Minister and the Belgian Charg d'Affaires that Russia would give way and it would be a great triumph for the Triple Alliance. I have this from the best source." Sazonov heaved a despondent sigh and sat silent. I continued: "The die is cast so far as Berlin and Vienna are concerned. It's London we must think of now. I do ask you to resort to no military measures on the German front and even to be very cautious on the Russian front until Germany has definitely shown her hand. The least imprudence on your part will cost us England's help." "That's my opinion too, but our General Staff are getting restless and even now I am having great difficulty in holding them in." These last words worried me; an idea came into my head: "However great the danger may be and however remote the chance of salvation, you and I ought to leave nothing undone to save the cause of peace. I do want you to realize that I am in a position which is unprecedented for an ambassador. The head of the State and the head of the Government are at sea. I can only communicate with them at intervals and through very uncertain channels; as their knowledge of the situation is incomplete, they cannot send me any instructions. The ministry in Paris is without its chief, and its means of communication with the President of the Republic and the President of the Council are as irregular and defective as mine. My responsibility is thus enormous and that's why I ask you to pledge yourself henceforth to accept all the proposals France and England may make to you to save peace." "But it's impossible! How can you expect me to accept beforehand proposals of which I know neither the object nor the terms?" "I have just said that we must even attempt the impossible to save the cause of peace, so I must insist upon my request."
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After a brief hesitation he replied "All right! I accept." I regard your undertaking as official and I'm going to wire it to Paris." "You can do so." "Thank you. You've taken a great weight off my mind." Wednesday, July 29, 1914. I think we have reached the last scene of the prologue to the drama. Yesterday evening the Austro-Hungarian Government ordered the general mobilization of the army. The Vienna cabinet is thus refusing the suggestion of direct conversations proposed by the Russian Government. About three o'clock this afternoon, Pourtals came to tell Sazonov that if Russia did not stop her military preparations at once Germany also would mobilize her army. Sazonov replied that the preparations of the Russian General Staff were the result of the uncompromising obstinacy of the Vienna cabinet and the fact that eight Austro-Hungarian army corps were already on a war footing. At eleven o'clock to-night, Nicholas-Alexandrovitch Basily, Deputy-Directory of the chancellery of the Foreign Office, appeared at my embassy. He came to tell me that the imperious language used by the German Ambassador this afternoon has decided the Russian Government (1) to order this very night the mobilization of the thirteen corps earmarked for operations against Austria-Hungary; (2) secretly to commence general mobilization. These last words made me jump: "Isn't it possible for them to confine themselves provisionally at any rate-to a partial mobilization? " "No. The question has just been gone into thoroughly by a council of our highest military officers. They have come to the conclusion that in existing circumstances the Russian Government has no choice between partial and general mobilization as from the technical point of view a partial mobilization could be carried out only at the price of dislocating the entire machinery of general mobilization. So if to-day we stopped at mobilizing the thirteen corps destined for operations against Austria and to-morrow Germany decided to give her ally military support, we should be powerless to defend ourselves on the frontiers of Poland and East Prussia. Besides, isn't it as much to France's interest as our own that we should be able to intervene promptly against Germany? " "Those are strong arguments but I still think that your General Staff should take no step without previous discussion with the French General Staff. Please tell M. Sazonov from me that I should like his most serious consideration of this matter and a reply in the course of the night."(2) Thursday, July 30, 1914. Basily had hardly got back to the Foreign Office before Sazonov rang up to ask me to send him my First Secretary, Chambrun, "to receive a very urgent communication." At the same time my Military Attach, General de Laguiche, was sent for by the General Staff. It was 11 :45 p.m.
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The Tsar Nicholas had received a personal telegram from the Emperor William this evening and decided to suspend general mobilization as the Emperor William had told him "that he is doing everything in his power to bring about a direct understanding between Austria and Russia." The Tsar has come to his decision on his own authority and in spite of the opposition of his generals who have once more insisted upon the difficulties, or rather the dangers of a partial mobilization. I have therefore informed Paris of the mobilization only of the thirteen Russian corps destined for eventual operations against Austria. We awoke this morning to find the papers announcing that yesterday evening the Austro-Hungarian army opened the attack on Serbia with the bombardment of Belgrade. The news has quickly spread among the public and produced intense excitement. I have been rung up from all quarters to ask if I have any detailed information on the matter, whether France has made up her mind to support Russia, and so forth. Excited groups argued in the streets and below my window, on the Neva quay, four moujiks who were unloading wood stopped their work to listen to their employer who read the paper to them. Then all five made long speeches with solemn gestures and indignation writ large all over their faces. They crossed themselves when the discussion came to an end. . At two o'clock this afternoon Pourtals went to the Foreign Office. Sazonov received him at once and from his first words I guessed that Germany would refuse to put in the restraining word at Vienna which could save peace. The very attitude of Pourtals was only too eloquent. He seemed a lost man, for he realizes now the consequences of the uncompromising policy of which he has been the instrument, if not actually the author. He sees the inevitable catastrophe and is collapsing under the weight of his responsibility. "For Heaven's sake," he said to Sazonov, "make me some proposal I can recommend to my government. It's my last hope!" Sazonov at once put forward the following ingenious formula: If Austria will recognize that the Austro-Serbian question has assumed the character of a European question and declare her readiness to delete from her ultimatum the points which encroach upon the sovereign rights of Serbia, Russia undertakes to stop her military preparations. Still in a state of collapse Pourtals staggered from the room, stammering feebly and his eyes staring. An hour later Sazonov was ushered into Peterhof Palace to make his report to the Tsar. He found his sovereign sorely moved by a telegram the Emperor William had sent him during the night. Its tone was almost menacing. If Russia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary the rle of mediator which I have undertaken at your urgent request will be compromised, if not made impossible. The whole weight of the decision to be taken now rests on your shoulders and you will have to bear the responsibility for war or peace. Sazonov read and re-read this telegram and shrugged his shoulders in despair. "We shall not escape war now! Germany is obviously evading the mediatorial intervention for which we asked her and all she is after is to gain time to complete her military preparations in secret. In these
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circumstances I don't think Your Majesty can postpone the order for general mobilization any longer." The Tsar was deadly pale and replied in a choking voice "Just think of the responsibility you're advising me to assume! Remember it's a question of sending thousands and thousands of men to their death!" Sazonov replied: " Neither your Majesty's conscience nor mine will have anything to be reproached with if war breaks out. Your Majesty and the Government will have done everything to spare the world this terrible visitation. But now I feel certain that diplomacy has finished its work. We must henceforth think of the safety of the empire. If Your Majesty stops our preliminary mobilization all you will do is to dislocate our military organization and disconcert our allies. The war will break out just the same at Germany's appointed time--and will catch us in hopeless confusion. " After a moment's reflection the Tsar said in a firm voice: "Sergei Dimitrievitch, ring up the Chief of Staff and tell him I order general mobilization." Sazonov went down to the hall of the palace where the telephone cabinet was and transmitted the imperial order to General Janushkevitch. It was exactly four o'clock. . The battleship France with the President of the Republic and the President of the Council on board, arrived yesterday at Dunkirk without calling at Copenhagen and Christiania as had been arranged. At six p.m. I received a telegram dispatched from Paris this morning and signed by Viviani. After once more emphasizing the. pacific intentions of the French Government and imposing caution on the Russian Government, Viviani added: France is determined to meet all the obligations of the alliance. I went to tell Sazonov, who replied very simply: I was sure of France." Friday, July 31, 1914. The mobilization decree was issued at dawn. Enthusiasm is general in the city, in the working-class districts as much as in the rich and aristocratic quarters. I am told there is cheering in the Winter Palace Square and in front of Our Lady of Kazan. The Tsar Nicholas and the Emperor William are continuing their telegraphic dialogue. This morning the Tsar telegraphed to the Kaiser: It is technically impossible for me to suspend my military preparations. But as long as conversations with Austria are not broken off my troops will refrain from taking the offensive anywhere. I give you my word of honour on that. To which the Emperor William has replied: I have gone to the utmost limits of the possible in my efforts to save peace. It is not I who will bear the responsibility for the terrible disaster which now threatens the civilized world. You and you alone can still avert it. My friendship for you and your Empire, which my grandfather
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bequeathed to me on his deathbed, is still sacred to me and I have been loyal to Russia when she was in trouble, notably during your last war. Even now you can still save the peace of Europe by stopping your military measures. Sazonov, always on the look out to win over English opinion and anxious to do everything possible up to the last moment to avert war, has accepted without discussion certain changes Sir Edward Grey asked him to make in the proposal put forward to the Berlin Cabinet yesterday. The new draft runs: If Austria agrees to stop the march of her armies on Serbian territory and, recognizing that the Austro-Serbian conflict has assumed the character of a question interesting all Europe, allows the Great Powers to examine what satisfaction Serbia could give the Austro-Hungarian Government without prejudice to her rights as a sovereign state and her independence, Russia guarantees to maintain her waiting attitude. . At three o'clock in the afternoon Pourtals requested an audience of the Tsar who asked him to come to Peterhof at once. Received with the greatest kindliness Pourtals confined himself to enlarging on the theme set out in the Kaiser's last telegram. "Germany had always been Russia's best friend ... Let the Emperor Nicholas consent to revoke his military measures and the peace of the world would be saved." The Tsar replied by emphasizing the possibilities for conciliation which Sazonov's proposal, as revised by Sir Edward Grey, still offers for an honourable settlement of the dispute. At eleven o'clock in the evening Pourtals presented himself at the Foreign Office. He was received immediately and announced to Sazonov that if within twelve hours Russia did not suspend her mobilization, both on the German and Austro-Hungarian frontiers, the whole German army would be mobilized. Then with a glance at the clock which showed twenty-five minutes past eleven, he added: "The time will expire at midday to-morrow." Without giving Sazonov time to make a single remark he continued in a trembling, hurried voice: "Agree to demobilize! . . . Agree to demobilize! . . . Agree to demobilize!" Sazonov, quite unruffled, replied: "I could only confirm what His Majesty the Emperor has told you. As long as the conversations with Austria continue, as long as there's any chance of averting the war, we shall not attack. But it's technically impossible for us to demobilize without dislocating our entire military organization. It is a point the soundness of which your General Staff itself could not deny." Pourtals went out, scared out of his wits. Saturday, August 1, 1914. During yesterday the Emperor William proclaimed Germany "in danger of war." The announcement of the Kriegsgefahrzustand means the immediate calling up of the reservists and the closing of the frontiers. If it is
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not the official mobilization it is at any rate the prelude and opening move. On receiving this news the Tsar telegraphed to the Kaiser: I understand that you are compelled to mobilize but I should like to have the same guarantee from you that I gave you myself---that these measures do not mean war and that we shall continue our negotiations to save the general peace so dear to our hearts. With God's help our long and tried friendship should be able to prevent bloodshed. I confidently await a reply from you. The time given by the ultimatum expired at midday to-day, but it was not before seven this evening that Pourtals appeared at the Foreign Office. His eyes were swollen and he was very red in the face and choking with emotion as he solemnly handed Sazonov a declaration of war, which concluded with this theatrical and mendacious phrase: His Majesty the Emperor, my august sovereign, in the name of the empire accepts the challenge and considers himself in a state of war with Russia. Sazonov replied "This is a criminal act of yours. The curses of the nations will be upon you." Then, reading aloud the declaration of war, he was amazed to see between brackets two versions, a matter of slight importance in itself. For instance, after the words: Russia having refused to acknowledge . . . there was: (not having considered there was any obligation to reply to . . . ). And later on, after the words: Russia having shown by their refusal . . . there was: (by this attitude). It is probable that these two different versions have been suggested from Berlin and that owing either to inadvertence or haste on the part of the copyist they have both been inserted in the official text. Pourtals was so overcome that he could not explain this curious form which will for ever set the brand of ridicule upon the historic document which was to he the origin of so many evils. When he had finished reading, Sazonov repeated: "This is a criminal act!" "We are defending our honour!" "Your honour was not involved. You could have prevented the war by one word: you didn't want to. In all my efforts to save peace I haven't had the slightest help from you. But there's a divine justice!" Pourtals repeated in a dull voice, with a look of desperation: "That's true . . . there's a divine justice . . . a divine justice!" He went on muttering a few incomprehensible words and staggered towards the window which is on the right of the door, opposite the Winter Palace. There he leaned against the embrasure and burst into tears. Sazonov, trying to calm him, tapped him on the shoulders. Pourtals stammered: "So this is the result of my mission!" Finally he rushed to the door, which he could hardly open with his trembling fingers, and went out murmuring:
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"Goodbye! Goodbye!" A few minutes later I went to Sazonov who described the scene. He also told me that Buchanan had just requested an audience of the Tsar to hand him a personal telegram from his sovereign. In this telegram, King George makes a supreme appeal to the peace-loving nature of the Tsar and begs him to continue his efforts for conciliation. The step has no object now that Pourtals has handed in the declaration of war. But the Tsar will receive Buchanan at eleven to-night in any case. Sunday, August 2, 1914. General mobilization of the French army. The order reached me by telegraph at two o'clock this morning. So the die is cast! The part played by reason in the government of nations is so small that it has only taken a week to let loose world madness! I do not know---history will judge the diplomatic operation in which I have just been concerned with Sazonov and Buchanan; but all three of us have a right to claim that we have conscientiously done everything in our power to save the peace of the world without, however, sacrificing to it those two other and still more precious possessions, the independence and honour of our countries. During this decisive week the work of my embassy has been very hard: night has been as busy as day. My staff have been models of industry and self-control. All of them-my counsellor, Doucet, my military attachs, General de Laguiche and Major Wehrlin, and my secretaries, Chambrun, Gentil, Dulong and Robirn, have given me help as active and intelligent as spontaneous and devoted. . At three o'clock this afternoon I went to the Winter Palace where the Tsar was to issue a proclamation to his people, as ancient rites decree. As the representative of the allied power, I was the only foreigner admitted to this ceremony. It was a majestic spectacle. Five or six thousand people were assembled in the huge St. George's gallery which runs along the Neva quay. The whole court was in full-dress and all the officers of the garrison were in field dress. In the centre of the room an altar was placed and on it was the miraculous ikon of the Virgin of Kazan, brought from the national sanctuary on the Nevsky Prospekt which had to do without it for a few hours. In 1812, Field-Marshal Prince Kutusov, before leaving to join the army at Smolensk, spent a long time in prayer before this sacred image. In a tense, religious silence, the imperial cortge crossed the gallery and took up station on the left of the altar. The Tsar asked me to stand opposite him as he desired, so he said, "to do public homage in this way to the loyalty of the French ally." Mass began at once to the accompaniment of the noble and pathetic chants of the orthodox liturgy. Nicholas II prayed with a holy fervour which gave his pale face a movingly mystical expression. The Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, stood by him, gazing fixedly, her chest thrust forward, head high, lips crimson, eyes glassy. Every now and then she closed her eyes and then her livid face reminded one of a death mask. After the final prayer the court chaplain read the Tsar's manifesto to his people---a simple recital of the events which have made war inevitable, an eloquent appeal to all the national energies, an invocation to the Most High, and so forth. Then the Tsar went up to the altar and raised his right hand toward the gospel held
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out to him. He was even more grave and composed, as if he were about to receive the sacrament. In a slow, low voice which dwelt on every word he made the following declaration: "Officers of my guard, here present, I greet in you my whole army and give it my blessing. I solemnly swear that I will never make peace so long as one of the enemy is on the soil of the fatherland." A wild outburst of cheering was the answer to this declaration which was copied from the oath taken by the Emperor Alexander I in 1812. For nearly ten minutes there was a frantic tumult in the gallery and it was soon intensified by the cheers of the crowd massed along the Neva. Suddenly the Grand Duke Nicholas, generalissimo of the Russian armies, hurled himself upon me with his usual impetuosity and embraced me till I was half crushed. At this the cheers redoubled, and above all the din rose shouts of "Vive la France! ... Vive la France! . . ." Through the cheering crowd I had great difficulty in clearing a way behind the sovereigns and reaching the door. Ultimately I got to Winter Palace Square where an enormous crowd had congregated with flags, banners, ikons, and portraits of the Tsar. The Emperor appeared on the balcony. The entire crowd at once knelt and sang the Russian national anthem. To those thousands of men on their knees at that moment the Tsar was really the autocrat appointed of God, the military, political and religious leader of his people, the absolute master of their bodies and souls. As I was returning to the embassy, my eyes full of this grandiose spectacle, I could not help thinking of that sinister January 22, 1905, on which the working masses of St. Petersburg, led by the priest Gapon and preceded as now by the sacred images, were assembled as they were assembled to-day before the Winter Palace to plead with "their Father, the Tsar"---and pitilessly shot down.
Chapter Footnotes
1. Sir Andrew Buchanan, then ambassador at St. Petersburg. 2. The accurate chronology of events obliges me to refer here to a document which did not come to light until six months later. On this July 29 the Tsar Nicholas, obeying the promptings of his heart and feeling disinclined to consult anyone, telegraphed to the Emperor William a proposal to refer the Austro-Serbian dispute to the Hague Tribunal. The Kaiser had only to accept this suggested arbitration and war would have been definitely averted. But he did not even reply to the Tsar's proposal. Events then moved at such a pace that Nicholas II omitted to inform M. Sazonov of the personal step he had thought it his duty to take. The telegram of July 29 was not discovered among the Tsar's papers until January 30, 1915; it was at once published in the Official Messenger of the Empire.
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Chapter Three Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER III AUGUST 3-17, 1914
The war creates a wave of patriotic enthusiasm among the whole Russian nation.--The Grand Duke Nicholas is appointed Generalissimo.---England ranges herself on the side of France and Russia.---The Tsar receives me at Peterhof: his gratitude to France.---The general scheme of military operations; a fight to the death.---The Grand Duke Nicholas then receives me.---Promise of an immediate and direct offensive against Germany. ---Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.--Enthusiasm of the Russian army. ---Meeting of the Duma on August 8: all parties united.---The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna.---Slavism and Germanism; German influences in Russia.---General offensive of the Russian armies.---The Grand Duke Nicholas's manifesto to the Polish nation.
Monday, August 3, 1914. The Minister for the Interior, Nicholas-Alexeivitch Maklakov, tells me that general mobilization is in progress in perfect order in the whole territory of the empire amid a great outburst of patriotism. I had no doubts on that score; the most I feared was local incidents. B-------, one of my informants, who moves in advanced circles, said to me: "No strike or disorder is to be anticipated at this moment. The national enthusiasm is too strong. In all the factories and workshops the leaders of the Socialist Party have therefore advocated resignation to military duty; besides, they're convinced that this war will lead to the triumph of the proletariat." "The triumph of the proletariat . . . even in case of victory?" "Yes, because the war will effect a fusion of all the social classes; it will bring together the peasant, the workman and the student; it will once more reveal the scandal of our bureaucracy and that will compel the Government to reckon with public opinion. Lastly it will introduce a liberal and even democratic element--the lieutenants of the reserve---into the aristocratic officer caste. This element played an important political part even during the Manchurian War . . . The military revolts of 1905 would not have been possible without it." "Our first business is to win. We shall see what comes afterwards." The President of the Duma, Michael Vladimirovitch Rodzianko, has also spoken to me in very reassuring terms---for the present. "The war," he said, "has suddenly put an end to all our domestic strife. Throughout the Duma the one
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thought is of fighting Germany. The Russian people has not known such a wave of patriotism since 1812." . The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch has been appointed generalissimo, provisionally, as the Tsar reserves the right to assume personal command of his armies at a more convenient season. This appointment led to a very lively discussion in the council His Majesty held with his ministers. His Majesty wanted to put himself at the head of his troops at once. Goremykin, Krivoshein, Admiral Grigorovitch and particularly Sazonov respectfully persisted that he should not risk compromising his prestige and authority in the direction of a war which promises to be a very severe and dangerous struggle and at the outset of which anything might happen. "It's to be expected," said Sazonov, "that we may be forced to retreat during the first few weeks. Your Majesty ought not to be exposed to the criticism such a retreat would be bound to give rise to in the nation and even in the army." The Tsar in protest referred to the example of his ancestor, Alexander I in 1805 and 1812. Sazonov judiciously replied: "If your Majesty would graciously read the memoirs and correspondence of that period you would see how your august ancestor was criticised and blamed for taking command of the operations in person. You would also see how many evils might have been avoided if he had remained in his capital to control affairs from the head." Ultimately the Tsar adopted this advice. General Sukhomlinov, Minister for War, who has long coveted the august post of generalissimo, is furious at finding himself passed over in favour of the Grand Duke Nicholas. Unhappily, he's the sort of man who wants his revenge . . . . Tuesday, August 4, 1914. Yesterday Germany declared war on France. . General mobilization is in active progress throughout the empire and without the least incident. As a matter of fact five or six hours has been gained on the time table of the covering troops. . Sazonov, whose virtue of disinterestedness and integrity I have often appreciated, has of late shown himself in a light which raises him even higher in my eyes. In the present crisis he sees not only a political problem to be solved, but also---and in fact primarily---a moral problem in which religion itself is involved. The whole working of his mind is governed by the secret promptings of his conscience and his faith. Several times he has said to me: "This action of Austria and Germany is as wicked as absurd: there's not a single element of morality about it; it outrages all the divine laws."
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Seeing him utterly worn out this morning, with dark rings round his fevered eyes, I asked him how he managed to get through such an enormous amount of work with his delicate health. His reply was "God sustains me." . Every day processions, with flags and ikons, have passed under the embassy windows, to a chorus of " Vive la France! Vive la France! " Very mixed crowds they are, too: workmen, priests moujiks, students, male and female, servants, shop assistants, etc. Their enthusiasm seems genuine. But how far are the police responsible for these numerous demonstrations which take place at such regular intervals? I put this question to myself at ten o'clock this evening when I was told that a mob had attacked the German Embassy and sacked it from top to bottom. The German Embassy is a kolossal edifice in the most important square of the city, between the Cathedral of St. Isaac and the Marie Palace. It has a heavy faade in Finland granite, massive architraves, cyclopean masonry. On the roof two enormous bronze horses, with giants holding their bridles, all but bring down the whole building. Hideous as a work of art it is none the less a powerful piece of symbolism. With its coarse and blatant eloquence it emphasizes Germany's claim to domination in Russia. The mob has invaded the building, smashed the windows, torn down the tapestries, ripped up the pictures, thrown all the furniture (including the Renaissance marbles and bronzes which formed Pourtals' admirable private collection) out of the windows. By way of conclusion the marauders hurled the equestrian group on the faade down into the street. The sack lasted more than an hour under the tolerant eye of the police. Has this act of vandalism any symbolic meaning Can it be said to presage the ruin of German influence in Russia? . My Austro-Hungarian colleague, Count Szapary, is still in Petersburg and cannot understand why his government is apparently in so little of a hurry to break off relations with the Russian Government. Wednesday, August 5, 1914. To-day at Notre-Dame de France the French colony in St. Petersburg held a solemn mass to pray for the divine blessing on our armies. At five o'clock this morning Buchanan rang me up to say that during the night he had received a telegram from the Foreign Office announcing England's participation in the war. I had therefore given orders that the British flag was to be added to the French and Russian flags which draped the high altar. In the church I had my usual place in the right transept. Buchanan arrived almost simultaneously. "My ally! My dear ally!" he said with great emotion. In the centre of the front row two chairs were placed, one for Prince Bielosselsky, the Emperor's first aidede-camp, representing His Majesty, and the other for General Krupensky, the Grand Duke Nicholas's aidewww.gwpda.org/memoir/FrAmbRus/pal1-03.htm 3/20
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de-camp, representing the generalissimo. In the left transept were all the Russian ministers with perhaps a hundred officials, officers, etc., behind them. A silent and composed assembly filled the whole church. I could see the same expression of happy surprise on the face of every one who entered. The Union Jack over the altar told them all that England was henceforth our ally. The flags of the three nations blend very eloquently. Composed of the same colours, blue, white and red, they are a very picturesque and striking expression of the interdependence of the three nations of the coalition. At the end of mass the choir sang in turn: Domine salvam fac Rempublicam ... Domine, salvam fac Imperatorem Nicolaum Domine, salvam fac Regem Brittannicum ... When mass was over Sazonov told me that the Tsar would like to see me in the afternoon at Peterhof. . I reached the little Alexandria Cottage about three o'clock and was immediately ushered into His Majesty's study. As etiquette decreed I was in full dress, but the usual ceremonial had been simplified. A Master of Ceremonies conducted me from Petersburg to Peterhof, an aide-de-camp announced me and there was the inevitable courier of the imperial household in XVIIIth century costume. The Tsar's study on the first floor gets its light from wide windows from which the Gulf of Finland can be seen stretching away to the horizon. The furniture consist solely of two tables, piled high with papers, a settee and six leather chairs, and a few engravings of military subjects. The Tsar, in field uniform, received me standing: "I wanted to tell you," he said, "all my gratitude, all my admiration for your country. In showing herself so faithful an ally France has given the world an immortal example of patriotism and loyalty. Please convey my very warmest thanks to the Government of the Republic." He uttered the last sentence in a penetrating voice which trembled a little. His emotion was obvious. I replied: "The Government of the Republic will greatly appreciate your Majesty's thanks. It deserves them for the promptitude and resolution with which it has accepted its obligations as an ally when once it had to recognize that the cause of peace was irreparably lost. It did not hesitate an instant and from that moment onwards my only task has been to convey assurances of support and solidarity to your ministers." "I know, I know! . . . I have always believed in France's word." Then we talked of the struggle which is about to open. The Tsar thinks it will be very severe, protracted and perilous:
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"We must arm ourselves with courage and patience. Speaking for myself, I shall fight to the bitter end. To win victory I shall sacrifice my last rouble and my last soldier. As long as a single one of the enemy is on Russian or French soil I shall never sign peace." It was in a very calm and firm tone that the Tsar made this solemn declaration. In his voice---and still more in his look---there was a curious hotchpot of resolution and placidity, a kind of ruthless determination and passivity, dreaminess and precision; as if he were not expressing his own will but rather obeying some external power, some decree of Providence or destiny. Less tutored than he in the creed of fatalism I summoned up all the vigour at my command to represent the terrible danger France would have to face in the first phase of the war: "The French army will have to face the formidable onset of twenty-five German corps. I therefore beg Your Majesty to order your troops to take the offensive immediately. If they do not do so there is a risk that the French army will be crushed. Then the whole German mass will turn en bloc against Russia." He replied, emphasizing each word: "The moment mobilization is complete I shall order an advance. My troops are most enthusiastic. The attack will be pressed with the greatest vigour. No doubt you know that the Grand Duke Nicholas is extraordinarily forceful." The Tsar then asked me about various military technical matters, the effectives of the German army, the joint plans of the French and Russian General Staffs, the assistance of the English army and fleet, the eventual attitude of Turkey and Italy and so on---all of them questions on which he seemed to me very well informed. The audience had lasted an hour when the Tsar suddenly lapsed into silence. He seemed embarrassed and looked at me gravely in a somewhat gauche manner with his hands half held out. All at once he took me in his arms: "Monsieur I'Ambassadeur, let me embrace in you my dear and glorious France!" . From the modest Alexandria Cottage I went to the sumptuous Znamenka Palace, the Grand Duke Nicholas's residence, which is quite near. The generalissimo received me in his enormous study where maps were spread out on all the tables. He came towards me with his quick, firm stride, and just as three days ago at the Winter Palace squeezed the life out of me: "God and Joan of Arc are with us!" he exclaimed. "We shall win! . . . Isn't it providential that this war is for such a noble cause, that our two nations have responded so enthusiastically to the mobilization decree, and the circumstances are so propitious?" I did my best to rise to this note of military and mystic grandiloquence, the naive form of which did not prevent me realising its generous inspiration; but I refrained from invoking Joan of Arc; at the moment it is our business not to "hunt the English out of France," but to get them there, and as soon as possible. Without feeling my way I broached the question---the most serious of all:
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"How soon will you order the offensive, Monseigneur?" "I shall order the offensive as soon as the operation is feasible and I shall attack fond ... Perhaps I shan't even wait till the concentration of all my corps is complete. As soon as I feel myself strong enough I shall attack. It will probably be the 14th August." He then explained to me his general plan of operations (1) a group of armies operating on the Prussian front (2) a group of armies operating on the Galician front (3) a mass in Poland with the task of bearing down on Berlin as soon as the southern armies have succeeded in holding up " and "fixing" the enemy. His whole being exhaled a fierce energy as he stood thus, unveiling his plans, his finger on the map. His incisive, measured speech, flashing eyes and quick, nervous movements, hard, steel-trap mouth and gigantic stature personify the imperious and impetuous audacity which was the dominant characteristic of the great Russian strategists such as Suvorov and Skobelev. But there is something else about Nicholas Nicholaievitch, something irascible, despotic and implacable which places him in the true line of the Muscovite voivodes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And does he not share with them their childlike devotion, their superstitious credulity, their taste for the crude and vigorous life? Whatever there may be in this historical relationship I can certainly say that the Grand Duke is a man of high spirit and that the supreme command of the Russian armies could not be confided to stronger or more loyal hands. Towards the end of our conversation he said: "Please convey to General Joffre my heartiest compliments and the assurances of my unshakable confidence in victory. Tell him that side by side with my own Commander-in-Chief's flag I shall carry the flag he gave me when I was at the French manoeuvres two years ago." He shook my hand vigorously and led me to the door: "And now," he cried, "into God's hands! " At half-past five I rejoined the imperial train which brought me back to Petersburg. . A German army entered Belgian territory this evening. Thursday, August 6, 1914. This morning my Austro-Hungarian colleague, Szapary, handed Sazonov a declaration of war. This declaration alleged two reasons: (1) the attitude adopted by the Russian Government in the Austro-Serbian dispute; (2) the fact that according to a communication from Berlin, Russia had taken it upon herself to commence hostilities against Germany. The Germans are entering western Poland. Since the day before yesterday they have occupied Kalish, Czenstschowa and Bendin. This swift advance shows how wise the Russian General Staff were in 1910 in withdrawing their frontier garrisons and concentration zone a hundred kilometres further east---a step which met with vigorous criticism in France at the time. . At midday I left for Tsarkoe-Selo where I was to lunch with the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch(1) and
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his morganatic wife, the Countess von Hohenfelsen, with whom I have been very friendly for many years. During the whole run my car was catching up and passing infantry regiments on the march with their field equipment. Each regiment was followed by an interminable string of vehicles, ammunition waggons, baggage carts, Army Service Corps lorries, ambulances, field kitchens, telegas, lineikas, peasants' carts, etc., The vehicles followed each other in any sort of order; sometimes they cut across the fields in a jumbled and picturesque confusion which reminded one of an Asiatic horde. The infantrymen looked fine though their march was hampered by rain and mud. Many women had joined the column to accompany their husbands to the first halt---for the last goodbye. Several had children in their arms. One of them made a very touching impression on me. She was very young and had a delicate face and fine neck, a red and white scarf tied round her fair hair, a blue cotton sarafane drawn in at the waist by a leather belt, and she was pressing a baby to her breast. She was striding out as well as she could to keep pace with the man at the rear of the file---a fine fellow, tanned and muscular. They did not exchange a word but gazed fixedly at each other with loving, haggard eyes. Three times in succession I saw the young mother offer the baby to the soldier for a kiss. The Grand Duke Paul and Countess von Hohenfelsen had invited only one guest in addition to myself, Michael Stakhovitch, Member of the Council of Empire for the zemstvo of Orel, one of the Russians who are particularly impregnated with French ideas. Thus I found myself in an atmosphere of warm and intimate sympathy. As I entered they all greeted me with a loud: "Vive la France." In the simple and straightforward manner which is all his own the Grand Duke expressed his admiration for the burst of generous enthusiasm with which the French nation had rushed to help its ally: "I know your Government did not hesitate a moment to support us when Germany forced us to defend ourselves . That alone is splendid. But it is extraordinary, nay sublime, that the whole nation at once realized its duty as an ally and that there has not been the slightest reluctance or protest in any class of society or any political party! Stakhovitch chimed in: "Yes, quite sublime! Of course France to-day is only following up her historical tradition; she has always been the land of the sublime." I agreed, speaking with some emphasis: "That's perfectly true. The French nation has frequently been accused of scepticism and frivolity, but unquestionably no nation has so often thrown itself into a conflict for purely disinterested motives or sacrificed itself for the cause of idealism." Then I gave my guests an account of the long series of events which have marked the last two weeks. On their part they told me a large number of facts and episodes which furnish proof of the unanimous determination of all the Russians to save Serbia and beat Germany. "No one in Russia would hear of us allowing the little Serbian nation to be crushed," said Stakhovitch. I then asked him what were the views on the war of the members of the Extreme Right in the Council of Empire and the Duma, that large and influential party which, through the mouth of Prince Mestchersky, Stcheglovitov, Baron Rosen, Purichkievitch and Markov, has always advocated an understanding with German imperialism. He assured me that that doctrine, which has always been inspired mainly by considerations of domestic policy, had been utterly ruined by the attack upon Serbia and added:
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"The war now beginning is a duel to the death between Slavism and Germanism. There is not a Russian who does not know it." On rising from the table I only gave myself time to smoke a cigarette and then left for Petersburg. Near Pulkovo I passed a regiment of light infantry of the Guard which was leaving for the frontier. Its commander, a general, recognized the French Ambassador's car from the livery of my servant. He sent one of his officers to ask me to get out so that he could parade his men before me. I got out and went up to the General who leaned down from his horse to embrace me. At a sharp word of command the regiment halted, the ranks closed and dressed and the band went to the head of the column. While these preliminaries were in progress the General yelled at me: "We'll destroy these filthy Prussians! . . . There must be no more Prussia, no more Germany! . . . William at St. Helena! . . .'" The march-past began. The men looked proud and well set-up. As each company passed the General rose in his stirrups and gave the order: "Franzovski Pasol! The French Ambassador! Hurrah!" The men cheered frantically: "Hurrah! Hurrah!" When the last file had passed the General leaned down to embrace me again and said in a grave tone: "I'm very pleased to have met you, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. All my men will share my feeling that it's a good augury to have met France at the first stage." Then he galloped off to join the head of the column and as I was getting back into my car he bellowed his war cry: "William at St. Helena! William at St. Helena ! . . ." . At four o'clock I had a long conversation with my Italian colleague, Marquis Carlotti di Riparbella: I was at some pains to show him that the present crisis offers his country an unhoped-for opportunity of realizing its national aspirations: "Whatever my personal convictions may be I'm not presumptuous enough to guarantee that the armies and fleets of the Triple Entente will be victorious. But I have a clear right---especially after my conversation with the Tsar yesterday---to assure you of the spirit which animates the three powers and their implacable determination to crush Germany. All three are at one in their resolution to put an end to the German tyranny. The problem being stated thus, you can judge for yourself on which side are the chances of success and draw the inevitable inferences." We left together and I went to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs where I had a multitude of questions to settle---the blockade, repatriation, telegraphic correspondence, press, police and so on, not to mention diplomatic questions.
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Sazonov tells me he sent for Diamandy, the Rumanian Minister, to ask for the immediate help of the Rumanian army against Austria. In exchange he offers the Bucharest Cabinet the right to annex all AustroHungarian territory now inhabited by a Rumanian population, i.e., the larger part of Transylvania and the western Bukovina. In addition the Triple Entente powers will guarantee Rumania the integrity of her territory. Lastly Sazonov has telegraphed to the Russian Minister at Sofia to ask him to secure the benevolent neutrality of Bulgaria in return for the promise of certain districts to be detached from Serbian Macedonia if Serbia acquires direct access to the Adriatic Sea. Friday, August 7, 1914. Yesterday the Germans entered Lige; some of the forts are still resisting. . Sazonov is proposing to the French and British Governments to enter into immediate negotiations at Tokio for the accession of Japan to our alliance. The allied powers would recognize the Japanese Government's right to annex the German territory of Kiaochau; Russia and Japan would mutually guarantee the integrity of each other's Asiatic possessions. . This evening I dined at the Yacht Club on the Morskaa. In this eminently conservative body I found confirmation of what Stakhovitch told me yesterday as to the feeling of the Extreme Right towards Germany. The very men who last week were protesting most loudly that it was necessary to strengthen orthodox Tsarism by a close alliance with Prussian autocracy are now swearing that the bombardment of Belgrade is an intolerable insult to the whole Slav world and showing themselves as warlike as any. Others say nothing or confine themselves to the remark that Germany and Austria have dealt a mortal blow at the monarchical principle in Europe. Before returning to the Embassy I called in at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs as Sazonov wanted to see me. "I'm rather perturbed," he said, "at some news I've had from Constantinople. I'm very much afraid that Germany and Austria are there engaged in a scheme against us after their own hearts." "Whatever is it?" "I'm afraid that the Austro-Hungarian fleet is going to take refuge in the Sea of Marmora. You can imagine the result!" Saturday, August 8, 1914. Yesterday a French army entered Belgium on its way to succour the Belgian army. Is the fate of France once more to be decided between the Sambre and the Meuse? . To-day there was a sitting of the Council of Empire and the Duma. After August 2, the Tsar announced his
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intention of convoking an extraordinary session of the legislature "so that I may be in perfect union with my people." This convocation would have been regarded as perfectly natural and necessary in any other country but here it has been interpreted as a manifestation of "constitutionalism." In liberal circles the Tsar is regarded all the more kindly for it is not forgotten that the President of the Council, Goremykin, the Minister of the Interior, Maklakov, the Minister of justice, Stcheglovitov, and the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Sabler, affect to regard the Duma as the lowest and most negligible part of the state organism. I sat with Sir George Buchanan in the front row of the diplomatic gallery. The session opened with a moving speech by the President, Rodzianko. His eloquent and sonorous oratory roused the assembly to great enthusiasm. Next the aged Goremykin tottered to the tribune. Forcing out his words with difficulty in a feeble voice, which seemed every now and then to be exhausted and about to expire. he declared that "Russia did not desire the war, that the Imperial Government had done everything possible to save the cause of peace, clinging even to the slightest chance of damming the deluge of blood which threatens to engulf the world." He concluded by saying that Russia could not shrink from the challenge thrown down to her by the German powers and in any case "if we had yielded our humiliation would not have changed the course of affairs." In emphasizing these last words his voice became a little stronger and his feeble old eyes flamed up for a moment. It might be said that this sceptical old man, laden with labours, honours and experience, found a malicious pleasure in proclaiming his disillusioned fatalism. Sazonov followed him on the tribune. He was pale and nervous. From the very outset he cleared his conscience: "When history brings the day of unbiased judgment I am convinced it will justify us." He vigorously reminded his audience that "it was not Russian policy which imperilled the peace of the world," and that if Germany had so desired she could "with one word, one authoritative word," have stopped Austria in her bellicose career. Then in warm tones he exalted "magnanimous France, chivalrous France which has risen at our side in the defence of right and justice." At these words all the deputies rose, turned towards me and gave round after round of cheers for France. All the same I observed that the cheers were not very enthusiastic on the benches occupied by the Left: the liberal parties have never forgiven us for prolonging the life of Tsarism by our financial subsidies. The cheering broke out afresh when Sazonov said that England also had recognized the moral impossibility of remaining indifferent to the outrage on Serbia. His peroration accurately translated the thought which has inspired all our actions and reflections in the last weeks: "We will not accept the yoke of Germany and her ally in Europe." He descended from the tribune to the accompaniment of further cheers. After the sitting was suspended all the party leaders furnished proof of their patriotism by declaring their readiness to make any sacrifice to save Russia and the Slav peoples from German hegemony. When the President put the credits asked for by the Government to the vote the Socialist Party announced that it would abstain from voting, being unwilling to accept any responsibility for the policy of Tsarism: but it exhorted the democracy of Russia to defend its native soil against foreign invasion. "Workmen and peasants, summon up all your energies to defend our country; we will free it afterwards!" Except for the abstention of the Socialists the military credits have been voted without a single dissentient voice. When I left the Tauride Palace with Buchanan our cars had some difficulty in making their way through the crowd that swarmed round and warmly cheered us. My impression of this session is satisfactory. The Russian people did not want the war and has even been surprised by the war, but it is firmly resolved to face the effort it requires. On the other hand the Government and the ruling classes realise that the fate of Russia is henceforth indissolubly associated with the destinies of France and England. This second point is not less important than the first.
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Sunday, August 9, 1914. Yesterday the French Troops entered Mulhausen. . The Grand Duke Nicholas, who has not yet transferred his headquarters to the army front, sent me his Chief of Staff, General Janushkevitch, to tell me that mobilization has been all but completed under the best auspices and that the concentration is quite up to time. He added that as the Government had every confidence in the maintenance of order in St. Petersburg the troops in the capital and its suburbs were now to be sent to the front. We then talked about the operations in prospect. General Janushkevitch confirmed (1) that the Vilna Army will take the offensive in the direction of Knigsberg; (2) that the Warsaw Army will at once be thrown on to the left bank of the Vistula to guard the flanks of the Vilna Army; (3) that a general offensive will begin on August 14. At half-past six I took my car to Tsarskoe-Selo, to dine with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna.(2) The Grand Duchess had with her her eldest son and daughter-in-law, the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch and the Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, her son-in-law and her daughter, Prince Nicholas of Greece and the Grand Duchess Helena Vladimirovna, and her maids of honour and some close friends. The table was set in the garden in a tent three sides of which were open. The air was pure and soft. From the rose beds a balmy odour filled the air. The sun, which was high in the sky notwithstanding the late hour, shed a soft light and scattered diaphanous shadows around us. Conversation was general, frank and warm. Of course the only subject was the war. But one topic came up every moment---the distribution of the higher commands and the composition of the staffs. Some criticized the appointments already made. Others tried to guess the appointments the Tsar had still to make. All the rivalries of the court and the drawing-rooms betrayed themselves in the various suggestions. Every now and then I thought I was living through a chapter of Tolstoy's War and Peace. When dinner was over the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna took me to the bottom of the garden and made me sit by her on a seat. "Now we can talk without restraint," she said. "I have a feeling that the Emperor and Russia are playing for a supreme stake. This is not a political war as so many others have been. It is a duel between Slavism and Germanism. One of the two must succumb. I have seen many people these last few days; my ambulances and hospital trains have brought me into contact with folk of all social circles and classes. I can assure you that no one has any illusions about the serious nature of the struggle on which we have embarked. From the Tsar down to the humblest moujik all are determined to do their duty unflinchingly. We shall not shrink from any sacrifice. If our beginning is unfortunate---which God forbid!---you'll see the miracles of 1812 again." "It is certainly probable that we shall have great difficulties at the outset. We must expect anything, even a disaster. All I ask of Russia is to hold fast." "She will hold. Don't doubt it!"
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To induce the Grand Duchess to speak her mind on a more delicate subject I congratulated her on the high courage she was showing, for I was bound to assume that her firm-mindedness was not divorced from a terrible inward wrench. "I'm glad I can speak freely with you. Many a time in the last few days have I turned the searchlight on my conscience. I have seen into the very depths of my soul. But neither in my heart nor my mind have I found anything which is not utterly devoted to my Russian fatherland. And I have thanked God for that! Is it because the first inhabitants of Mecklenburg and their first rulers, my ancestors, were Slavs? It may be so, but I rather think that it is my forty years' residence in Russia---all the happiness I have known here, all the dreams that have come to me, all the affection and kindness I have received---which has given me a wholly Russian soul. I am only a Mecklenburger on one point: in my hatred for the Emperor William. He represents what I have been taught from my childhood to detest the most---the tyranny of the Hohenzollerns. Yes, it is the Hohenzollerns who have perverted, demoralized, degraded and humiliated Germany and gradually destroyed in her all elements of idealism and generosity, refinement and charity." She thus gave vent to her anger in a long diatribe which made me feel all the sentiments of inveterate hatred, of mute and tenacious detestation which the small and once independent states of Germany have for the despotic house of Prussia. About ten o'clock I took my leave of the Grand Duchess as a mass of work awaited me at the embassy. The night was clear and warm. The moon, a wan and ghostly moon, drew silver scarves here and there across the great. featureless plain. In the west, where the Gulf of Finland lies, the horizon was veiled in coppery wreaths. When I got back at half-past eleven a bundle of telegrams which had arrived during the evening were brought to me. It was nearly 2 a.m. when I got into bed. Too tired to sleep I took a book, one of the few books one can open in this hour of universal agitation and historical convulsion---the Bible. Once more I read the Revelation and stopped at this passage: And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword . . . And I looked and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. To-day it is men who will play the part of the "beasts of the earth." Monday, August 10, 1914. Sazonov is pressing the Italian Government to join our alliance. He is proposing a compact based on the following terms: (1) The Italian army and fleet will immediately attack the Austro-Hungarian army and fleet; (2) after the war Trent and the ports of Trieste and Valona will be annexed by Italy. From Sofia our impressions are not reassuring. The Tsar Ferdinand is capable of any infamy or crime when his vanity or his hatreds are at stake. I certainly know of three countries which are the object of his
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implacable hatred---Serbia, Rumania and Russia. I said as much to Sazonov but he interrupted me: "What! The Tsar Ferdinand has a grudge against Russia! Whatever for?" "In the first place he accuses the Russian Government of having taken Serbia's side, and even Rumania's in 1913. Then there are his old grudges which are innumerable . . ." "But what grudges? We have always loaded him with favours. When he came here in 1910 the Tsar treated him with the same honour and respect as if he had been the sovereign of a great kingdom. What more could we have done?" "Why, it's that visit of 1910 which is one of his bitterest complaints. Just after he got back to Sofia he sent for me to the palace and said: 'My dear Minister, I've sent for you because I want your help in disentangling the impressions I have brought with me from St. Petersburg. The truth is I haven't succeeded in finding out which they hate most, my people, my work or myself.'" "He must be mad!" "It's not too strong a word . . . . Undoubtedly this individual shows signs of nervous degeneracy and psychic disturbances---impulses, hallucinations, ides fixes, melancholia, megalomania, a dread of persecution. They only make him all the more dangerous for he brings consummate skill and an uncommonly astute mind to the service of his ambitions and hatreds." "I don't know how much would be left of his cleverness if the perfidy were eliminated from it. However that may be we cannot keep too watchful an eye on the doings of Ferdinand. I thought I ought to let him know that if he intrigues with Austria against Serbia, Russia will definitely withdraw her friendship from the Bulgarian people. Savinsky, our minister at Sofia, is very shrewd; he will carry out his task with all the tact desirable." "That's not enough. There are other arguments which appeal very strongly to the clique of Bulgarian politicians. We should have recourse to them without delay." "I think so, too. We'll discuss this again." . The war appears to have created an extraordinary wave of patriotism among the Russian people. The information, both official and private, which reaches me from every part of Russia is always the same. In Moscow, Yaroslav, Kazan, Simbirsk, Tula, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Rostov, Samara, Tiflis, Orenburg, Tomsk, Irkutsk---in fact everywhere---there are the same popular demonstrations, the same grave and religious enthusiasm, the same impulse to rally round the Tsar, the same faith in victory, the same exaltation of the national conscience. No opposition, no dissentient voice. The bad days of 1905 seem to have gone from the memory of all. The collective soul of Holy Russia has never manifested itself so forcibly since 1812. Tuesday, August 11, 1914. The French troops which had occupied Mulhausen with such gay boldness have been obliged to evacuate it.
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. The popular hatred of the Germans continues to manifest itself throughout Russia in deeds of violence, causing much material damage. The supremacy Germany had won in every department of Russian economic life---a supremacy which was usually tantamount to a monopoly---justifies only too thoroughly this brutal reaction of national sentiment. It is difficult to give an exact figure for the number of German subjects in Russia, but it would not be far wrong to fix it at 170,000, compared with 120,000 AustroHungarians, 10,000 French, and 8,000 English. The table of imports is even more eloquent. During last year German goods were imported to the value of 643,000,000 roubles, whereas English imports totalled 170,000,000 only, French imports 56,000,000, and Austro-Hungarian imports 35,000,000. To the elements of German influence in Russia must be added a whole population of German immigrants, speaking the German language, retaining German traditions and counting not less than 2,000,000 souls, settled in the Baltic Provinces, the Ukraine and the valley of the lower Volga. Lastly---and above all---there are the "Baltic Barons," who have gradually made a "corner" in all the high court appointments and the best posts in the army and the administrative and diplomatic services. For one hundred and fifty years the feudal castes of the Baltic Provinces has supplied Tsarism with its most devoted servants and its most formidable reactionary weapon. It was the Baltic nobility which ensured the triumph of autocratic absolutism by crushing the insurrection of December, 1825. It is the Baltic nobility again which has always directed the work of repression whenever the liberal or revolutionary spirit has awakened from its slumbers. It is the Baltic nobility which more than anything else has contributed to make the Russian state a great police bureaucracy in which the machinery of Tartar despotism and the methods of Prussian despotism are combined in a strange amalgam. It is the Baltic nobility which is the main framework of the rgime. To realize the aversion in which the "Baltic Barons" are held by the real Russians I have only to listen to E----. the Director of Ceremonies, with whom I am on terms of confidence and whose uncompromising nationalism amuses me. He came to see me yesterday about some routine matter and displayed even more than his usual fire in railing against the Germans at court---Count Fredericks, the Minister of the Imperial Household, Baron Korff, Grand Master of the Ceremonies, General von Grnewaldt, Grand Equerry, Count Benckendorff, Grand Marshal, and the whole tribe of Megendorffs, Budbergs, Heydens, Stackelbergs, Nieroths, Kotzebues, Knorrings, etc., who encumber the imperial palaces. Emphasizing his words with an expressive gesture he wound up with: "After the war we'll wring the necks of the Baltic Barons." "But when you've wrung their necks are you quite sure you won't regret it? " "What? ... What do you mean?. . . Do you really think the Russians aren't capable of governing themselves?" "I'm sure they're perfectly capable. But it's dangerous to remove the tie beam of a structure without having another handy to take its place." Wednesday, August 12, 1914. While the military forces are mobilizing all the social organizations are equipping themselves for war. As usual the signal is given by Moscow, the true centre of the national life and the place where the spirit of enterprise is more awake and developed than anywhere else. A congress of all the zemstvos and municipalities of Russia is about to be held there to co-ordinate the multifarious branches of social activity
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for the purposes of the war---Red Cross work, relief for the poorer classes, distribution of man power, production of food, medicaments, clothing, etc. The idea behind the movement is to go to the help of the Government in the fulfilment of the complex tasks which the bureaucracy, idle, corrupt and blind to the needs of the people, is incapable of performing itself. It is devoutly to be hoped that the tchinovniks, with their usual suspicion, will not oppose this fine, spontaneous impulse as a matter of routine! In the Nevsky Prospekt, the Liteny and the Sadovaa I have every day passed regiments on their way to the Warsaw station. These fine and well-equipped men made an excellent impression upon me with their grave and determined air and firm, rhythmical step. As I looked at them I reflected that a large number of them were already marked out for death. But what will be the feelings of those who return? What notions, reflections and clamours, what new spirit or new soul will they bring back with them to their own firesides? Every great war has brought the Russian people a deep domestic crisis. The war of liberation of 1812 prepared that silent work of emancipation which all but swept away Tsarism in December, 1825. The unfortunate Crimean war resulted in the abolition of serfdom and necessitated the "Great Reforms" of 1860. The Balkan War of 1877-1878 with its costly victories, was followed by the explosion of nihilist terrorism. The ill-omened Manchurian War ended in the revolutionary outbreaks of 1905. What will follow the present war? The Russian nation is so heterogeneous in its ethnical and moral composition, it is formed of elements so incongruous and anachronistic, it has always developed in such defiance of logic, through such a maze of clashes, shocks and inconsistencies, that its historic evolution utterly defies prophecy. . This evening I dined with Madame P----- and Countess R-----, whose husbands have just left for the front. They themselves are about to join a front line ambulance in Galicia as Red Cross sisters. On the strength of various letters they have received from the provinces and the country they assured me that mobilization has proceeded everywhere in a stimulating atmosphere of national pride and heroism. We talked about the terrible test which modern weapons of war impose on the moral of the combatants; never before have human nerves been subjected to such a strain. Madame P--- said to me: "In that respect I'll guarantee the Russian soldier. He has no equal in remaining unshaken in the presence of death." Countess R-----, however, who is usually so mentally alert and a great talker, was very silent. Leaning forward in her chair, her hands folded on her knees, her brows contracted, her eyes fixed on the ground, she seemed lost in thought. Madame P----- asked her: "What are you thinking of, Daria? You look like a sybil on her stool. Are you going to utter oracles?" "No, I'm not thinking of the future, I'm thinking of the past, or rather of what it might have been. You're going to give me your opinion, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. Yesterday I called on Madame Taneev---you know, Anna Vyrubova's mother. There were five or six people present, the flower of the Rasputin set. They were arguing very seriously and looked very excited. My arrival was a cold douche as I'm not one of their crowd. Not I! After a somewhat awkward silence Anna Vyrubova reopened the conversation. In a peremptory tone---as if she wanted to teach me something---she declared that there would certainly have been no war if Rasputin had been at St. Petersburg, instead of half dead at Pokrovskok, when things began to go wrong between us and Germany(3). More than once she said:
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"If the staretz(4) had been there, we should have had no war. I don't know what he would have done or advised but God would have inspired him, whereas the ministers have proved incapable of seeing or preventing anything. It's an absolute disaster that he hasn't been here to open the Emperor's eyes! Just look what determines the fate of empires. A harlot revenges herself on a dirty moujik; the Tsar of all the Russias at once loses his head. And here's the whole world on fire!" Madame P----- interrupted in a shocked tone "Daria, you shouldn't say things like that in front of the Ambassador, even in fun. It's dreadful to think that such talk goes on among the intimate friends of Their Majesties!" Serious again, Countess R----- resumed "All right! I'll be serious. Do you think the war was inevitable, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. Could any personal influence have averted it? I replied: "In the way the problem was set by the will of Germany the war was inevitable. In Petersburg, as in Paris and London, everything was done to save the cause of peace. It was impossible to go further in the path of concession. There was no alternative but to bow the knee to the Germanic powers and capitulate. Would Rasputin have advised the Tsar to do that? " "You can't doubt it!" cried Madame P----- with indignation flaming in her eyes. Thursday, August 13, 1914. The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch has informed me that the Vilna and Warsaw armies will take the offensive at dawn to-morrow. The armies earmarked for operations against Austria will do the same a little later. The Grand Duke leaves Petersburg this evening, taking with him my first Military Attach, General de Laguiche, and the English Military Attach, General Williams. General Headquarters is at Baranovici, between Minsk and Brest-Litovsk. I am keeping my second Military Attach, Major Wehrlin, and my Naval Attach, Commander Galland. . The Rumanian Government has declined the proposals of the Russian Government on the ground of the long and intimate friendship between King Carol and the Emperor Francis Joseph. But it has taken note of these proposals, the friendly nature of which it highly appreciates, and come to the conclusion that in the present phase of the conflict which divides Europe its duty is to confine its efforts to the maintenance of the balance of power in the Balkans. The warning Sazonov asked me to convey to our navy a week ago has been in vain. Two large German cruisers, the Goeben and Breslau have succeeded in taking refuge in the Sea of Marmora. It is not even possible to doubt that the Turkish Government has been their accomplice. There is great excitement at the Admiralty where the material damage to be expected from an attack on the Russian Black Sea coast, and still more its moral effect, is greatly feared. Sazonov is looking still further ahead:
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"By this surprise the Germans have doubled their prestige at Constantinople," he said. " If we don't take immediate action Turkey is lost to us ... not merely lost to us but she'll come out against us! And then we shall have to distribute our forces over the Black Sea coast and the Armenian and Persian frontiers!" "What do you think should be done?" "I've not yet come to any definite conclusion. At first sight it seems to me we ought to offer Turkey a solemn guarantee of her territorial integrity as the price of her neutrality; we could add a promise of great financial advantages at the expense of Germany." I encouraged him to explore that path for the solution which is so urgently required. "Now I'm going to tell you a secret, a great secret," said Sazonov. "The Emperor has decided to re-establish Poland and grant her a large measure of autonomy. His intentions will be announced to the Poles in a manifesto which will shortly be published by the Grand Duke Nicholas. His Majesty has ordered me to draw it up." "Excellent! It's a magnificent move and it'll produce an enormous impression, not merely on the Poles but in France and England and throughout the world. When will the manifesto be issued?" "In three or four days. I've submitted my draft to the Emperor and he has approved it. I'm sending it this evening to the Grand Duke Nicholas who may possibly require certain modifications of detail." "But why does the Emperor entrust the publication of the manifesto to the Grand Duke. Why doesn't he issue it himself as a direct expression of his sovereign will? The moral effect would be all the more striking." "That was my first idea too; but Goremykin and Maklakov who are hostile to the reconstitution of Poland observed, not without justice, that the Poles of Galicia and Posen are still under Austrian and Prussian domination; that the conquest of these two provinces is only an anticipation, a hope, so that the Emperor cannot consistently with his dignity address himself to future subjects, while the Grand Duke Nicholas, on the other hand, would not exceed his functions of Russian Commander-in-Chief if he addressed himself to the Slav peoples he has come to deliver. The Emperor came round to this view." Then we philosophized about the accession of strength Russia would gain from the reconciliation of the two nations under the sceptre of the Romanovs. German expansion eastwards would thus be definitely arrested; all the problems of eastern Europe would wear a new aspect, to the great advantage of Slavism. Lastly, and chiefly, a wider, more generous and liberal spirit would be introduced into the relations of Tsarism with the various racial groups of the Empire. Friday, August 14, 1914. On the faith of God knows what rumours emanating from Constantinople, there is an idea in Paris and London that Russia is meditating an attack upon Turkey and is keeping back part of her forces for this onslaught in the near future. Sazonov, who has been informed of this simultaneously by Isvolsky and Benckendorff, displayed some bitterness in telling me of his disappointment at finding himself the object of so unmerited a suspicion in the eyes of his allies: "How could they attribute such an idea to us? It's not merely false but ridiculous! The Grand Duke Nicholas told you himself that all our forces without exception are concentrated on the western frontier of the Empire, for one purpose and one purpose only: to crush Germany. Only this morning when I made my report to the
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Tsar His Majesty declared in his own words: I have told the Grand Duke Nicholas to force his way to Berlin at the earliest possible moment and at any cost. I regard our operations against Austria as of secondary importance only. Our primary object is the destruction of the German army. What more could anyone want? " I soothed him as well as I could: "Don't take things too much to heart. It's not in the least surprising that Germany is trying to make the Turks believe that you are preparing to attack them. Hence a certain amount of agitation in Constantinople. The French and English Ambassadors have reported the fact to their governments. That's all! The excellent news you have just given me will be all the more appreciated." Saturday, August 15, 1914. The Belgians are offering a stout resistance at Hasselt. Will the French army arrive in time to save them? . The Grand Duke Nicholas has sent to tell me from Baranovici that the concentration of his armies is proceeding at an appreciable advance on the time table, so that he proposes to extend his offensive. Yesterday a Russian advance-guard entered Galicia at Sokal on the Bug and threw back the enemy in the direction of Lemberg. This afternoon I had a long talk with General Sukhomlinov, the War Minister, with a view to a speedy settlement of a great number of military questions: transport, munitions, supplies, etc. Then we spoke of the operations in progress. The general plan is as follows: (1) The north-western armies.---Three armies, comprising a dozen corps, have taken the offensive. Two of these armies are operating north of the Vistula; the third is operating south of that river and has already struck west from Warsaw. A fourth army of three corps will advance on Posen and Breslau and connect up these three armies with the forces operating against Austria. (2) The south-western armies.---Three armies, comprising twelve corps, have the task of overrunning Galicia. There is something about General Sukhomlinov that makes one uneasy. Sixty-two years of age, the slave of a rather pretty wife thirty-two years younger than himself, intelligent, clever and cunning, obsequious towards the Tsar and a friend of Rasputin, surrounded by a rabble who serve as intermediaries in his intrigues and duplicities, he is a man who has lost the habit of work and keeps all his strength for conjugal joys. With his sly look, his eyes always gleaming watchfully under the heavy folds of his eyelids, I know few men who inspire more distrust at first sight. . Three days hence the Tsar is to go to Moscow to make a solemn proclamation to his people from the Kremlin. He has invited Buchanan and me to go with him. Sunday, August 16, 1914.
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The Grand Duke Nicholas's manifesto to the Polish nation is published this morning. The press is unanimous in its satisfaction and most of the papers devote enthusiastic articles to celebrating the reconciliation of Poles and Russians in the bosom of the great Slav family. The document is quite a work of art and has been drafted, on lines indicated by Sazonov, by one of the departmental heads of the Foreign Office, Prince Gregory Troubetzkoy. The translation into Polish has been done by Count Sigismund Wielopolsky, President of the Polish Group in the Council of Empire. It was the day before yesterday that Sazonov asked Wielopolsky to come and see him, without giving him any reason. In a few words he told him what was afoot and then read him the manifesto. Wielopolsky listened, holding his breath, his hands clasped. After the moving peroration-----may the sign of the Cross, the symbol of the sufferings and resurrection of the peoples, glow in this new dawn!---he burst into tears and murmured: Blessed be God! Blessed be God!" When Sazonov told me all this I quoted to him what Father Gratry said in 1863: "Since the partition of Poland Europe has been in a state of mortal sin." "Then I've done good work for the salvation of Europe!" he cried. From Poland we turned our conversation to Turkey. Sazonov is proposing to the French and British Governments to join with him in making the following declaration to the Ottoman Government: (1) If Turkey will observe strict neutrality, Russia, France and England will guarantee the integrity of her territory; (2) On the same condition the three allied powers undertake, in case of victory, to secure the insertion in the peace treaty of a clause liberating Turkey from the oppressive tutelage imposed on her by Germany in matters economic and financial. For example this clause would provide for the cancellation of the contracts for the Bagdad railway and other German enterprises. I congratulated Sazonov on this double proposal which seemed to me wisdom itself. In fact I referred specifically to the first paragraph: "So even if we are victorious Russia will make no claims, either territorial or political, on Turkey? . I'm sure you realize the importance I attach to my question. No doubt you know that the absolute independence of Turkey is one of the guiding principles of French diplomacy." Sazonov replied "Even if we are victorious we shall respect the independence and integrity of Turkey provided she stays neutral. The utmost we shall ask is that there shall be a new regime for the Straits, a regime generally applicable to all the Black Sea states, Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Rumania. Monday, August 17, 1914. The French troops are making progress in the Upper Vosges and Upper Alsace. The Russian troops have embarked on a vigorous offensive on the frontier of East Prussia, on a line from Kovno to Knigsberg. The manifesto to the Poles is the subject of conversation everywhere. The general impression it has created remains excellent. The only criticism, more or less express, comes from partisans of the Extreme Right where an understanding with Prussian reaction has always been considered a vital condition for the
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maintenance of Tsarism. The suppression of Polish nationalism is of course the very foundation of that understanding. . At eight o'clock this evening I left for Moscow with Sir George and Lady Georgina Buchanan.
Chapter Footnotes
1. Born September 21, 1860. A brother of the Tsar Alexander III; shot by the Bolshevists on January 30, 1919. 2. Daughter of the Grand Duke Frederick Francis II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Born, May 14, 1854; married, August 28, 1874, to the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch who died on February 17. 1909. 3. On June 29, 1914, Rasputin, who had just arrived at Pokrovskoe, his native village, was stabbed in the stomach by a Petersburg prostitute, Khinia Gusseva, whose lover he had been. For a fortnight he hung between life and death. His recovery seemed likely to be a long business. The Tsaritsa telegraphed to him every day. Khinia Gusseva was sent to a lunatic asylum. As she struck Rasputin she cried out: "I've killed the Antichrist!" Then she tried to kill herself. A rather pretty girl of twenty-six, she was the most characteristic type of Russian prostitute, at once hysterical, a drunkard and a mystic. It is easy to imagine her in one of Tolstoy's or Dostoevsky's novels. 4. Literally "the old man." Although Rasputin is barely forty-three his disciples thus refer to him, as a sign of respect, much as monks are described. The exact meaning of staretz is thus: "Father" or "the Venerable." But even in this sense the style is grammatically improper as Rasputin is merely a moujik and not in holy orders.
Chapter Four Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER IV AUGUST 18-SEPTEMBER 11, 1914
The Tsar at Moscow.---Imposing ceremonies.---Popular excitement.---Memories of 1812.---Sazonov's views on the future of Germany.---Death of Pope Pius X.--The German march on Paris.---The Russian offensive in East Prussia.---The Soldau disaster: "We owe this sacrifice to France. . ."---The capital of the Empire henceforth to be called Petrograd.---The character of Nicholas I.---His superstitious fears bred of his ill luck.---The Declaration of London: no separate peace.---Operations of the Russian armies in Galicia, Poland and Prussia.---The victory of the Marne.
Tuesday August 18, 1914. When I arrived at Moscow this morning I went with Buchanan about half-past ten to the great Kremlin Palace. We were ushered into the St. George's hall, where the high dignitaries of the empire, the ministers, delegates of the nobility, middle classes, merchant community, charitable organizations, etc., were already assembled in a dense and silent throng. On the stroke of eleven o'clock the Tsar, the Tsaritsa and the imperial family made their ceremonial entry. The grand dukes had all gone to the front and besides the sovereigns there were only the four young grand duchesses, the Tsar's daughters, the Tsarevitch Alexis, who hurt his leg yesterday and had to be carried in the arms of a Cossack, and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the Tsaritsa's sister, abbess of the Convent of Martha-and-Mary of Pity.(1) The imperial party stopped in the centre of the hall. In a full, firm voice the Tsar addressed the nobility and people of Moscow. He proclaimed that, as the traditions of his ancestors decreed, he had come to seek the moral support he needed in prayer at the relics in the Kremlin. He declared that a heroic national impulse was sweeping over all Russia, without distinction of race or nationality, and concluded: "From this place, the very heart of Russia, I send my soul's greeting to my valiant troops and my noble allies. God is with us!" A continuous burst of cheering was his answer. As the imperial group moved on the Grand Master of the Ceremonies invited Buchanan and myself to follow the royal family, immediately after the grand duchesses. Through the St. Vladimir room and the Sacred Gallery we reached the Red Staircase, the lower flight of which leads by a bridge with a purple awning to the Ouspensky Sobor, the Cathedral of the Assumption. The moment the Tsar appeared a storm of cheering broke out from the whole Kremlin where an enormous
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crowd, bare-headed and struggling, thronged the pavements. At the same time all the bells of the Ivan Veliky chimed in chorus, and the Great Bell of the Ascension, cast from the metal saved from the ruins in 1812, sent a thunderous boom above the din. Around us Holy Moscow, with her sky-blue domes, copper spires and gilded bulbs, sparkled in the sun like a fantastic mirage. The hurricane of popular enthusiasm almost dominated the din of the bells. Count Benckendorff, Grand Marshal of the Court, came up to me and said: "Here's the revolution Berlin promised us!" In so saying he was probably interpreting everyone's thoughts. The Tsar's face was radiant. In the Tsaritsa's was joyous ecstasy. Buchanan whispered: "This is a sublime moment to have lived to see! Think of all the historic future being made here and now!" "Yes, and I'm thinking, too, of the historic past which is seeing its fulfilment here. It was from this very spot on which we now stand that Napoleon surveyed Moscow in flames. It was by that very road down there that the Grand Army began its immortal retreat!" We were now at the steps of the cathedral. The Metropolitan of Moscow, surrounded by his clergy, presented to their Majesties the cross of Tsar Michael Feodorovitch, the first of the Romanovs, and the holy water. We entered the Ouspensky Sobor. This edifice is square, surmounted by a gigantic dome supported by four massive pillars, and all its walls are covered with frescoes on a gilded background. The iconostasis, a lofty screen, is one mass of precious stones. The dim light falling from the cupola and the flickering glow of the candles kept the nave in a ruddy semi-darkness. The Tsar and Tsaritsa stood in front of the right ambo at the foot of the column against which the throne of the Patriarchs is set. In the left ambo the court choir, in XVIth century silver and light blue costume, chanted the beautiful anthems of the orthodox rite, perhaps the finest anthems in sacred music. At the end of the nave opposite the iconastasis the three Metropolitans of Russia and twelve archbishops stood in line. In the aisles on their left was a group of one hundred and ten bishops, archimandrites and abbots. A fabulous, indescribable wealth of diamonds, sapphires, rubies and amethysts sparkled on the brocade of their mitres and chasubles. At times the church glowed with a supernatural light. Buchanan and I were on the Tsar's left, in front of the court. Towards the end of the long service the Metropolitan brought their Majesties a crucifix containing a portion of the true cross which they reverently kissed. Then through a cloud of incense the imperial family walked round the cathedral to kneel at the world-famed relics and the tombs of the patriarchs. During this procession I was admiring the bearing and attitudes of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, particularly when she bowed or knelt. Although she is approaching fifty she has kept her slim figure and all her old grace. Under her loose white woollen hood she was as elegant and attractive as in the old days before her widowhood, when she still inspired profane passions. To kiss the figure of the Virgin of Vladimir which is set in the iconostasis she had to place her knee on a rather high marble scat. The Tsaritsa and the young grand duchesses who preceded her had had to make two attempts---and clumsy attempts--www.gwpda.org/memoir/FrAmbRus/pal1-04.htm 2/17
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before reaching the celebrated ikon. She managed it in one supple, easy and queenly movement. The service was now over. The procession was reformed and the clergy took their place at its head. One last chant, soaring in triumph, filled the nave. The door opened. All the glories of Moscow suddenly came into view in a blaze of sunshine. As the procession passed out I reflected that the court of Byzantium, at the time of Constantine Porphyrogenetes, Nicephorus Phocas or Andronicus Paleologue, can alone have seen so amazing a display of sacerdotal pomp. At the end of the covered-in passage the imperial carriages were waiting. Before entering them the royal family stood for a time facing the frantic cheers of the crowd. The Tsar said to Buchanan and myself: "Come nearer to me, Messieurs les Ambassadeurs. These cheers are as much for you as for me." Amid the torrent of acclamations we three discussed the war which had just begun. The Tsar congratulated me on the wonderful ardour of the French troops and reiterated the assurance of his absolute faith in final victory. The Tsaritsa tried to give me a few kind words. I helped her out: "What a comforting sight for your Majesty! How splendid it is to see all these people swept by patriotic exaltation and fervour for their rulers!" Her answer was almost inaudible but her strained smile and the strange spell of her wrapt gaze, magnetic and inspired, revealed her inward intoxication. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth joined in our conversation. Her face in the frame of her long white woollen veil was alive with spirituality. Her delicate features and white skin, the deep, far-away look in her eyes, the low, soft tone of her voice and the luminous glow round her brows all betrayed a being in close and constant contact with the ineffable and the divine. As Their Majesties returned to the palace Buchanan and I left the Kremlin amidst an ovation which accompanied us to our hotel. . I spent the afternoon seeing Moscow, lingering particularly over the places hallowed by memories of 1812. They stood out in sharp relief by contrast with the present moment. At the Kremlin the ghost of Napoleon seems to rise up at every step. From the Red Staircase the Emperor watched the progress of the fire during the baneful night of September 16. It was there that he took counsel of Murat, Eugne, Berthier and Ney in the midst of the leaping flames and under a blinding shower of cinders. It was there that he had that clear and pitiless vision of his impending ruin: "All this," he said repeatedly, "is the herald of great disasters!" It was by this road that he hastily went down to the Moskowa accompanied by a few officers and men of his guard. It was there that he entered the winding streets of the burning city. "We walked," says Sgur, "upon an earth of fire, under a sky of fire, between two walls of fire." Alas! does not the present war promise us a second edition of this Dantesque scene? And how many copies to the edition? North of the Kremlin and between the Church of St. Basil and the Iberian Gate lies the Red Square, of glorious and tragic memory. If I had to give a list of those spots in which the visions and sentiments of the past have most vividly passed before my eyes I should include the Roman Campagna, the Acropolis at Athens, the Eyub cemetery at Stambul, the Alhambra in Granada, the Tartar city of Pekin, the Hradschin in Prague and the Kremlin of Moscow. This curious conglomeration of palaces, towers, churches,
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monasteries, chapels, barracks, arsenals and bastions, this incoherent jumble of sacred and secular buildings, this complex of functions as fortress, sanctuary, seraglio, harem, necropolis and prison, this blend of advanced civilization and archaic barbarism, this violent contrast of the crudest materialism and the most lofty spirituality---are they not the whole history of Russia, the whole epic of the Russian nation, the whole inward drama of the Russian soul? Towering above the banks of the Moskowa to the south of the Red Square the Church of St. Basil rears its prodigious and paradoxical architecture, the architecture of dreamland. The most conflicting styles, Byzantine, Gothic, Lombard, Persian, and Russian seem to have been incorporated. Yet an imposing harmony emerges from all these slender, aspiring, twisting, many-hued forms and all this riot of imagination. It pleases me to think that the Italian Renaissance was introduced into the Kremlin by Sophy Paleologue, niece of the last Emperor of Constantinople, who fled to Rome. In 1472 she married the Tsar of Moscow, Ivan III, known to history as "Ivan the Great." It was through her that he henceforth regarded himself as heir to the Byzantine Empire. He took the two-headed eagle as Russia's new arms. She surrounded herself with Italian artists and engineers. In her reign a gentle breeze of Hellenism and classical culture tempered the rigours of Muscovite barbarism for a time. Towards evening I ended my walk on Sparrow Hill, the view from which embraces Moscow and the whole vale of the Moskowa. It used to be called the "Hill of Salvation," because Russian travellers, when they had their first glimpse of the holy city from this spot, used to stop for a moment to cross themselves and offer up a prayer. Thus for the Slav Rome Sparrow Hill awakes the same memories as Monte Mario for the Latin Rome. The same feeling of wondering and pious admiration made the pilgrims of the Middle Ages fall on their knees when they beheld the City of Martyrs from the heights which crown the banks of the Tiber. At half-past two in the afternoon of September 14, 1812, in brilliant sunshine, the advance guard of the French army ascended Sparrow Hill in open order. They stopped, as if smitten dumb with the majesty of the sight. Clapping their hands they cried out gleefully: "Moscow! Moscow!" Napoleon came up. In a transport of delight he called out: "So this is the famous city!" But he immediately added: "It was high time!" Chateaubriand has summed up the scene in a metaphor rich in picturesque romanticism: "Moscow, a European princess on the frontier of her empire, arrayed in all the glories of Asia, seemed to have been brought there to wed Napoleon." Did any vision of that kind flit through the mind of the Emperor? I doubt it. Thoughts far more serious, uneasy forebodings, already claimed him. . At ten in the evening I left for St. Petersburg. From the political point of view to-day's happenings have left me with two strong impressions. The first came to me in the Ouspensky Sobor as I watched the Emperor standing before the iconostasis. His person, his entourage and the whole setting of the ceremony seemed an eloquent interpretation of the very principle of Tsarism as it was defined in the imperial manifesto of June 16, 1914, ordering the dissolution of the first Duma: As it is God himself who has given Us our supreme power it is before His altar alone that We are responsible for the destinies of Russia. My second impression is the frantic enthusiasm of the Muscovite people for their Tsar. I never thought that
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the monarchical illusion and imperial fetishism were still so deeply rooted in the heart of the moujik. There are very many Russian proverbs which express this unshakeable faith of the poor and lowly in their master: "The Tsar is good: it is his servants who are bad ... The Tsar is not guilty of the sufferings of his people; the tchinovniks hide the truth from him!" But there is also another proverb it is wise to remember because it explains, on the other side of the shield, all the desperation and protest of the popular mind: It's very high up to God! It's a very long way to the Tsar! And to set a true value on the ovations which the Tsar received this morning on the Red Square one must not forget that on this same spot, on December 22, 1905, it was found necessary to fire on the crowd which was singing the Marseillaise. Wednesday, August 19, 1914. I returned to St. Petersburg this morning. The French troops are making progress in the valleys of the Vosges on the Alsace side. The forts of Lige are still resisting but the German army is not allowing itself to be held up by these forts and is marching straight on Brussels. The Russian troops are rapidly concentrating on the frontier of East Prussia. Thursday, August 20, 1914. Sazonov came for a tte--tte luncheon with me to-day. We discussed in an academic sort of way the objects it will be our business to attain when peace comes, objects we shall only obtain by force of arms. Indeed, we have no doubt that Germany will accept none of our demands until we have put her out of the field. The present war is not the kind of war that ends with a political treaty after a battle of Solferino or Sadowa. It is a war to the death in which each group of belligerents stakes its very existence. "My formula's a simple one," said Sazonov. "We must destroy German imperialism. We can only do that by a series of military victories so that we have a long and very stubborn war before us. The Emperor has no illusions on that score ... But great political changes are essential if Kaisertum is not to rise at once from its ashes and the Hohenzollerns are never again to be in a position to aspire to universal dominion. In addition to the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France, Poland must be restored, Belgium enlarged, Hanover reconstituted, Slesvig returned to Denmark, Bohemia freed and all the German colonies given to France, England and Belgium. etc." "It's a gigantic programme. But I agree with you that we ought to do our utmost to realize it if we want our work to be lasting." Then we worked out the forces of the respective belligerents, their reserves of man-power and financial, industrial, agricultural, etc., resources. We looked into our chances of deriving advantage from the internal dissensions of Austria and Hungary---a subject which inspired me to remark: "There's another factor we must not neglect---public opinion among the German masses. It is very important that we should be well informed as to what is going on there. You ought to organize an intelligence service in the great socialist centres which are nearest to your territory, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Breslau."
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"It's very difficult to organize." "Yes, but indispensable. Don't forget that after a military defeat it will undoubtedly be the German Socialists who will force the jack-boot caste to make peace. If we could only help them . . ." Sazonov started. In a sharp, dry voice he exclaimed: "Not that! No, no! Revolution will never be one of our weapons!" "You may be quite certain that it's a weapon our enemies will use against you! Germany hasn't waited for a possible defeat of your armies---nor even for the outbreak of war---to establish an intelligence service in your working class circles. You won't deny that the strikes which broke out in Petersburg during the President of the Republic's visit were instigated by German agents." "I know that only too well. But I tell you again revolution will never be one of our weapons, even against Germany." Our conversation rested there. Sazonov had ceased to be at all expansive. The evocation of the spectre of revolution had suddenly frozen him. To ease his mind I took him to Krestovsky Island in my car. There we walked about under the splendid trees which stretch to the sparkling, chequered waters of the Neva estuary. We spoke of the Tsar. I said to Sazonov: "What a wonderful impression he made on me the other day at Moscow! He was the living embodiment of resolution , persistence and strength." "He made the same impression on me and it seemed to me a very happy augury---but a much needed augury, for after all ... " He stopped abruptly as if he dare not pursue his thought. I pressed him to continue. He took my arm and said in a tone of affectionate confidence: "Don't forget that the Emperor's salient characteristic is a mystic resignation." Then he told me the following significant anecdote he had heard from his brother-in-law, Stolypin, exPresident of the Council, who was assassinated on September 18, 1911. It was in 1909 when Russia was beginning to forget the nightmare of the Japanese War and the troubles which followed it. One day Stolypin asked the Tsar's approval of a serious piece of domestic legislation. Nicholas II listened to him absent-mindedly and then shrugged his shoulders in a sceptical, indifferent sort of way, as much as to say: "That or something else, what does it matter?" At last he remarked in a melancholy tone: "Peter Arkadievitch. I succeed in nothing I undertake, I've no luck at all .... And anyhow the human will is so impotent!" Stolypin, a courageous and resolute character, protested vigorously. The Tsar then asked him: "Have you ever read the Lives of the Saints?"
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"Yes .... some of it at any rate. If I remember rightly there are quite twenty volumes of it." "And do you know on what day my birthday falls?" "How could I forget it? It is May 6." "What Saint's day is it?" "Forgive me, Sire, I'm afraid I've forgotten." "The Patriarch Job." "Then God be praised! Your Majesty's reign will end gloriously, for Job, after piously enduring the most cruel tests of his faith, found blessings and rewards showered upon his head!" "No, no, Peter Arkadievitch, believe me! I have a presentiment---more than a presentiment, a secret conviction---that I am destined for terrible trials . . . but I shall not receive my reward on this earth. How often have I not applied to myself the words of Job: "Hardly have I entertained a fear than it comes to pass and all the evils I foresee descend upon my head." It is certain that this war is going to compel all the belligerents to put forth their last ounce of moral strength and organizing power. The story Sazonov has just told me brings me to an observation I have often made since I came to live among the Russians, an observation which in a way sums up their national physiognomy. If the word mysticism is used in its broad sense the Russian is pre-eminently a mystic. He is a mystic not merely in his religious life but also in his social, political and emotional life. Behind all the reasoning which dictates his actions a certain belief is always apparent. He reasons and acts as if he believes that human events are produced by secret, superhuman forces, by occult, arbitrary and autocratic powers. This disposition, more or less avowed and conscious, is directly connected with his imagination which is naturally uncontrolled and dispersive. It is also the product of his atavism, geographical position, climate and history. Left to himself he feels no need to enquire how things happen, or what are their practical and necessary determining factors, or by what rational and successive agencies they can be produced or averted. Indifferent to logical certainty he has no taste for considered and accurate observation or analytical and deductive enquiry. He relies less on his intelligence than on his imagination and emotional faculties; he cares less about understanding than about "sensing" and divination. Usually he acts only on intuition or by routine and natural helplessness. From the religious point of view his faith is contemplative, visionary, filled with vague hopes, superstitious fears and Messianic expectations; always in search of direct communication with the invisible and the divine. From the political point of view the conception of effective cause is utterly foreign to him. Tsarism seems to him a metaphysical entity. He attributes to the Tsar and his ministers intrinsic virtue, self-contained dynamic force and a kind of magic power to govern the empire, redress abuses, effect reforms, establish the reign of justice, etc. By what legislative measures, through what administrative machinery can they effectually do so? That is their business, their secret.
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In his emotional life also, the Russian constantly feels himself the submissive instrument of strange forces which lead him where they will. By way of apology for his sins and shortcomings, extravagances and surrenders, he usually pleads ill luck, fate, the mysterious influence of the Beyond and frequently even sorcery and the enchantments of the devil. Such views do not exactly promote personal, responsible effort and manly, sustained action, and that is why the Russian so often surprises us with his indifference, his "wait and see" attitude and his passive and resigned inaction. Conversely---and though it is almost impossible to appeal to his soul---he is capable of the most splendid impulses and the most heroic sacrifices. And his whole history proves that he is always true to himself when he feels himself really called on . . . . Pope Pius X died last night. Will any conclave ever open in graver circumstances or in the midst of a greater upheaval of human affairs? Will the College of Cardinals find in its ranks a pontiff with sufficient humanity, depth of piety, strength of character and astuteness of intellect to play the capital and unprecedented role which the war offers to the Holy See? Friday, August 21, 1914. On the Belgian and French fronts our operations are taking a bad turn. I have received an order to make representations to the Imperial Government to accelerate the projected offensive of the Russian armies as much as possible. I went to the War Minister and put the French Government's request to him with considerable vigour. He sent for an officer and immediately dictated to him from my dictation---a telegram to the Grand Duke Nicholas. Then I questioned General Sukhomlinov about the operations in progress on the Russian front. I took note of what he told me in the following terms: (1) The Grand Duke Nicholas is determined to advance full speed on Berlin and Vienna, more especially Berlin, passing between the fortresses of Thorn, Posen and Breslau. (2) The Russian armies have taken the offensive along the entire front. (3) The forces attacking East Prussia have already advanced 20 to 45 kilometres on hostile territory; their line is approximately Soldau-Neidenburg-Lyck-Angerburg-Insterburg. (4) In Galicia the Russian troops advancing on Lemberg have reached the Bug and the Sereth. (5) The forces operating on the left bank of the Vistula will advance straight on Berlin the moment the northwestern armies have succeeded in "fixing" the enemy. (6) The twenty-eight corps now at grips with Germany and Austria represent approximately 1,120,000 men. .
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Yesterday the Germans entered Brussels. The Belgian army is withdrawing to Antwerp. Between Metz and the Vosges the French army has been compelled to retire after suffering heavy losses. Saturday, August 22, 1914. The Germans are outside Namur. While one of their corps is bombarding the town their main body is continuing its progress towards the sources of the Sambre and the Oise. The plan of the German offensive through Belgium is now being revealed in all its grandeur. Sunday, August 23, 1914. Our allies from across the Channel are now beginning to appear on the Belgian front. As a matter of fact an English cavalry division has already scattered a German column---at Waterloo! Wellington and Blcher ought to have turned in their graves. A great battle is opening between Mons and Charleroi. . The Russians are advancing in East Prussia; they have just occupied Insterburg. Monday, August 24, 1914. The Ministry wires me from Paris: Information from an unimpeachable source has brought to our knowledge the fact that two active(2) corps which were originally opposed to the Russian army have now been transferred to the French front and replaced on Germany's eastern frontier by landwehr formations. The German General Staff's plan of campaign is too clear for there to be any need for us to insist on the necessity of the Russian armies prosecuting their offensive outrance in the direction of Berlin. Inform the Russian Government at once and insist. I made immediate representations to the Grand Duke Nicholas and General Sukhomlinov and simultaneously informed the Emperor. This evening I am in a position to assure the French Government that the Russian army is continuing its march on Knigsberg and Thorn with all possible energy and speed. An important action is about to open between the Narev and the Vkra. This very afternoon Prince Catacuzene, an aide-de-camp of the Grand Duke Nicholas, has been brought to the French Hospital in St. Petersburg. He was shot through the chest near Gumbinnen. Doctor Cresson, the Senior Medical Officer, had a few minutes' talk with him. The wounded officer is still quivering with the ardour, the spirit of the offensive, which animates the Russian troops. He has enthusiastically affirmed that the Grand Duke Nicholas is bent on forcing his way to Berlin at any cost. Tuesday, August 25, 1914. The Germans have won at Charleroi. They have also inflicted a serious check upon us near Neufchteau, south of the Belgian Ardennes. All the French and English armies are retreating on the Oise and the Semoy.
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These tidings, though doctored by the censorship, have started a current of vague alarm in St. Petersburg against which I struggle to the best of my ability, availing myself of a subterfuge which Tolstoy attributes to Prince Bagration in War and Peace. It is a subterfuge that ought to find a place in the moral breviary of all Commanders-in-Chief. On the battlefield of Austerlitz the Prince was receiving one alarming message after another. He received them with the most perfect composure and even an air of approval, as if what he was being told was exactly what he had expected. In the north of East Prussia the Russians have cut the crossings of the Alle and the Angerapp; the Germans are withdrawing towards Knigsberg. . Japan declared war on Germany the day before yesterday. A Japanese squadron is bombarding Kiaochau. Wednesday, August 26, 1914. The French and English armies are continuing their retreat. The entrenched camp at Maubeuge is invested. An advance guard of German cavalry is passing through the suburbs of Roubaix. I have seen to it that these events should be presented by the Russian press in the most suitable (and perhaps truest) light, i.e., as a temporary and methodical retirement, a prelude to a volte face in the near future for the purpose of a more formidable and vigorous offensive. All the papers support this theory. The Grand Duke Nicholas has sent me a message through Sazonov: "The withdrawal ordered by General Joffre is in conformity with all the rules of strategy. We must hope that henceforth the French army will expose itself as little as possible, refuse to let itself be broken through or demoralized and reserve all its offensive capacity and liberty to manoeuvre until the time when the Russian army is in a position to deal decisive blows." I asked Sazonov: "Won't that time be soon? . . . Don't forget that our losses are enormous and that the Germans are 250 kilometres from Paris! " "I believe that the Grand Duke Nicholas has decided to start an important operation to retain the largest possible number of Germans on our front." "Somewhere round Soldau and Mlava, no doubt "Yes." In that short answer I thought I detected a certain reticence so I begged Sazonov to be a little more explicit. "Think what a serious moment this is for France!" I said. "I know. I'm not forgetting what we owe France. The Tsar and the Grand Duke don't forget it either; you can count on our doing everything in our power to help the French army . . . But from the practical point of view the difficulties are great. General Jilinsky, who is commanding the north-western front, considers that an offensive in East Prussia is doomed to certain defeat. because our troops are still too scattered and their concentration is meeting with many obstacles. You know how Masuria is intersected by forests, rivers and
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lakes. Janushkevitch, Chief of the General Staff, shares Jilinsky's views and is protesting strongly against the offensive. But Danilov, the Quartermaster-General, is insisting, not less forcibly, that we have no right to leave our ally in danger and ought to attack at once, notwithstanding the indubitable risks of the plan. The Grand Duke Nicholas has just ordered an immediate attack. I shouldn't be surprised if the operation had already begun." Thursday, August 27, 1914. The Germans are at Pronne and Longwy. A Ministry of National Defence has been established in Paris. Viviani remains President of the Council, without portfolio; Briand becomes Minister of Justice; Delcass, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Millerand, War Minister; Ribot, Finance Minister. Two Unified Socialists, Jules Guesde and Marcel Sembat, enter the Cabinet. This combination has produced an excellent effect here. It is interpreted as both a striking demonstration of our national solidarity and a guarantee of the inflexible resolution with which France will prosecute the war. Friday, August 28, 1914. The Grand Duke Nicholas has kept his word. On his imperative and repeated orders General Samsonov's five corps attacked the enemy yesterday in the Mlava-Soldau region. The point of attack has been chosen well to compel the Germans to bring up a large force, for a Russian victory in the direction of Allenstein would have the double result of clearing their path to Allenstein and cutting the line of retreat of the German army which has just been beaten at Gumbinnen. Saturday, August 29, 1914. The battle at Soldau is still raging furiously. Whatever may be its ultimate result it is very satisfactory that the action should be drawn out so that the French and English armies may have time to reform and advance once more. The Russian southern armies are forty kilometres from Lemberg. Sunday, August 30, 1914. As I entered Sazonov's room this morning I was struck with the gloomy and strained look in his face "Anything new?" I said. "Nothing good." "Aren't things going well in France?" "The Germans are approaching Paris." "Yes, but our armies are intact and their moral is excellent. I am confidently awaiting their volte face . . . And what about the Battle of Soldau? "
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He was silent, biting his lips and with gloom written all over his face. I went on: "A check? " "A great disaster . . . but I've no business talking to you about it. The Grand Duke Nicholas doesn't want the news known for several days. It will get about only too soon and too fast as our losses have been ghastly." I asked him for details but he told me he had had no precise information: "Samsonov's army has been destroyed. That's all I know." After a short silence he continued in a simple, natural tone: "We owed this sacrifice to France as she has showed herself a perfect ally." I thanked him for this thought. Then, in spite of the heavy weight we both had on our minds, we turned to the discussion of current affairs. In the city no one as yet knows anything about the Soldau disaster but the continued retreat of the French army and the rapid march of the Germans on Paris are giving rise to the most pessimistic anticipations among the public. The leaders of the Rasputin clique are even announcing that France will soon be compelled to make peace. To the highly-placed individual who came to tell me of this I replied that the character of the statesmen who have just come into power makes such a suggestion utterly unthinkable, that in any case the game is anything but lost and perhaps the day of victory is nigh at hand. Monday, August 31, 1914. At Soldau the Russians have lost 110,000 men, 20,000 killed or wounded and 90,000 prisoners. Two of the five corps engaged, the XII1th and XVIth have been surrounded. All the artillery has been lost. The anticipations of the High Command were only too accurate: the offensive was premature. The initial cause of the disaster was the inadequate concentration of the troops and the extreme difficulty in which the transport found itself in a region intersected by rivers and dotted with lakes and forests. It appears too that the disaster was aggravated by a great strategical mistake. It is said that General Artamanoff, who was in command of the left wing, fell back twenty versts without informing General Samsonoff. One point where the battle raged most fiercely was the village of Tannenberg, thirty-five kilometres north of Soldau. It was here that in 1410 King Vladislas V of Poland overthrew the Teutonic Knights---the first victory of Slavism over Germanism. The Teutons have waited five hundred and four years for their revenge but it has been all the more terrible. Tuesday, September 1, 1914. Sazonov told me this morning that according to a telegram from Isvolsky the Government of the Republic has decided to remove to Bordeaux if the Commander-in-Chief considers that the higher interests of national defence compels him not to bar the German road to Paris. "It is a grievous but splendid decision," he said to me, and one I should have expected from French patriotism."
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Then he read out to me the telegrams sent on August 30 and 31 by Colonel Ignatiev, Attach at French G.H.Q. Every word went to my heart like a knife: The German army, turning the left flank of the French army, is advancing irresistibly on Paris by stages averaging thirty kilometres . . . In my opinion the entry of the Germans into Paris is now only a question of days unless the French have sufficient forces at their disposal to carry out a counter-attack against the turning group without running a risk of being separated from the other armies. Fortunately he recognizes that the spirit of the troops remains excellent. Sazonov asked me: "Is there really no means of defending Paris? I thought that Paris was so well fortified! . I cannot hide from you that the capture of Paris would have a deplorable effect here---especially after our Soldau disaster. People are ultimately bound to find out that we have lost 110,000 men at Soldau." Taking up Colonel Ignatiev's telegrams I combated his conclusions to the best of my ability: I asserted that the entrenched camp of Paris was strongly armed and insisted that General Gallini's character guaranteed a stubborn resistance. . A ukase, signed yesterday evening, decrees that the city of St. Petersburg will henceforth be called Petrograd. As a political demonstration and a protest of Slav nationalism against German intrusion the step is as emphatic as opportune. But from a historical point of view it is a mistake. The present capital of the Empire is not a Slav city; it represents only the recent past of Russian life; it is situated in a Finnish region, at the gates of Finland where Swedish culture predominated so long and on the borders of the Baltic provinces where German influence still holds sway. Its architecture is wholly western, its physiognomy quite modern. That is exactly what Peter the Great desired to make St. Petersburg---a modern, western city. The name Petrograd is thus not merely a mistake but a historical contradiction in terms. Wednesday, September 2, 1914. The Russian General Staff's communiqu announces the Soldau disaster in the following terms: In the south of East Prussia the Germans, disposing of very superior forces, have attacked two of our army corps which have sustained considerable losses. General Samsonov has been killed. The public is not deceived by this economy of language. Everywhere all sorts of versions of the battle are being hawked round in undertones. The losses are put still higher. General Rennenkampf is accused of treason. It is said that the Germans have spies even among the men around General Sukhomlinov himself. It is also said that General Samsonov has not been killed but killed himself, refusing to survive the destruction of his army. General Bielaiev, Chief of Staff of the Army at the Ministry of War, assures me that the vigorous offensive of the Russians in East Prussia and the rapidity of their advance on Lemberg are compelling the Germans to bring back east the troops which were on their way to France: "I can assure you," he said, " that the German General Staff never expected to see us in the field straight away. They thought our mobilization and concentration would be a far slower business. They had
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calculated that we could not take the offensive anywhere before the 15th or 20th September, and they thought that between now and then they would have time to finish with the French army. So I consider that henceforth. the Germans have failed in the execution of their original design." Thursday, September 3, 1914. From the Oise to the Vosges the seven German armies, a terrible steel monster, are proceeding with their enveloping movement at a speed and with a skill in manoeuvre and a concentration of force such as no other war has ever known. At the present moment the line of the French and English armies runs thus from east to west: Belfort-Verdun-Vitry-le Franois-Szanne-Meaux-Pontoise. . Fortunately in Galicia the Russians have been brilliantly successful. They entered Lemberg yesterday. The retreat of the Austro-Hungarians has assumed the character of a rout. Since August 27 the Russians, starting from the Kovel-Rovno-Proskurov line, have advanced 200 kilometres. In this operation they have captured 70,000 men and 300 guns. On the Lublin-Kholm front the Austro-Hungarians are still offering resistance. Friday, September 4, 1914. The threat hanging over Paris has started a wave of pessimism in Russian society and the victory of Lemberg is almost forgotten. No one doubts that the Germans will storm the entrenched camp of Paris. And then France will be obliged to capitulate, so it is said. Germany will then bring her whole mass against Russia. Where do these rumours come from? By whom are they spread? Only too much light has been thrown on this subject by a conversation I have just had with one of my secret informers, N-----. I have my doubts about him, like all men of his trade, but he is well informed about what is said and done in the immediate entourage of the sovereigns. Besides, at the moment he has a special and tangible reason for telling me the truth. After praising the wonderful patriotism with which France is inspired he continued: "I have come to your Excellency to be cheered up a little, as I shall not hide from you that I am hearing the most sinister prophecies on all sides." "Surely they could wait for the result of the battle which is beginning on the Marne! And even if this battle turns out unfavourably for us the issue will be in no way desperate. . ." I supported my statement with a number of facts and reasonable anticipations which left me in no doubt, so I said, of our ultimate victory so long as our sang-froid and tenacity did not fail us. "That's true," continued N-----, "quite true! It does me good to hear you talk like this. But there's one factor you have not allowed for and which plays a large part in the pessimism I have observed in every quarter .... and particularly in high places." "How do you mean, particularly in high places
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"Yes, it's in the upper ranks of the court and society that the greatest nervousness is shown-among those who are in daily touch with the sovereigns." "Why? " "Well, because . . . because it is in that quarter that people have long been convinced that the Emperor is dogged by ill-luck. They know that he fails in everything he undertakes, that fate is always against him, in short that he is manifestly doomed to misfortune. Besides it's said that the lines of his hand are terrifying." "Do you mean to say that people let themselves be swayed by that sort of tomfoolery!" "What do you expect, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur? We are Russians and therefore superstitious ... Anyhow, isn't it obvious that the Tsar is predestined to disasters?" Lowering his voice-as if he were telling me some terrible secret---and fixing me with his sharp, yellow eyes in which dull flames glowed from time to time, he gave me a list of the incredible series of accidents, miscalculations, reverses and disasters which has marked the reign of Nicholas II in the last nineteen years. The series opens with the coronation when two thousand moujiks were crushed to death in a stampede in Khodynsky meadows, near Moscow. A few weeks later the Tsar went to Kiev and saw a steamer with three hundred spectators founder in the Dnieper under his eyes. After a further few weeks he saw his favourite minister, Lobanov, die in his train quite suddenly. Living as he did in constant peril of the bombs of anarchists his whole soul was longing, for a son, a Tsarevitch. Four girls were successively born to him and when God at last gave him an heir the child bore the germ of an incurable disease. As he has no taste for either pomp or company all he desires is to forget the responsibilities of power in the tranquil delights of family life. His wife is an unhappy neurotic who carries an atmosphere of unrest and worry about with her. But that's not all. The Tsar had dreamed of the ultimate reign of peace on earth but was dragged by a few schemers at his court into the war in the Far East. His armies were beaten, one after another, in Manchuria. His fleets were sunk, one after another, in the Chinese seas. Then a fierce tempest of revolution swept across Russia. Risings and massacres followed each other in uninterrupted succession in Warsaw, the Caucasus, Odessa, Kiev, Vologda, Moscow, the Baltic provinces, Kharkov, St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. The murder of the Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovitch opened the era of political assassinations. And just when the hurricane had begun to die down Stolypin, the President of the Council who was hailed as the saviour of Russia, fell one evening under the revolver of a member of the Secret Police right in front of the imperial box in Kiev theatre. Having reached the end of this lugubrious list N----- concluded: "Your Excellency will admit that the Tsar is doomed to misfortune and that we have a right to quake when we contemplate the prospects before us in this war." "But it's not by quaking that one controls fate, for I'm one of those who believe that fate is obliged to reckon with us. But as you are so sensitive to evil influences have you failed to observe that to-day the Tsar has among his adversaries a man who takes second place to no one, so far as ill-luck is concerned-the Emperor Francis Joseph? There's no risk at all in a bout with him; you simply can't help winning!" "Yes, but there's Germany, too. We're not equal to beating her!" "No, not by yourselves. But you have France and England at your side ... So for goodness' sake don't start with the assumption that you're not equal to beating Germany. Fight with all your might, all the heroism you are capable of, and you will see that victory will seem more certain every day!"
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. Cardinal della Chiesa has been elected Pope. He is taking the name of Benedict XV. Since the far-away days of Gregory VII no rle so magnificent and pre-eminent has been offered to the Vicar of Christ. Saturday, September 5, 1914 Agreement has been reached in London as to the wording of the declaration whereby France, England and Russia engage not to make peace separately. This clause appeared in the Franco-Russian military convention of 1892. The accession of England to our alliance has made this new agreement necessary and its solemn announcement will probably have a very great effect. The Russians have occupied Strij, eighty kilometres beyond Lemberg. Their cavalry advance-guard have approached the Carpathian passes. Vienna is in a panic. Sunday, September 6, 1914. At the moment the whole interest of the war is focussed on the western front. The German First Army under the command of General von Kluck, which is operating on the extreme right of the enveloping wing, has just turned suddenly southwards leaving Paris on its right, as if it were trying to outflank our left wing and throw it back over the Seine in the direction of Fontainebleau. Thus the decisive hour has struck. Is the French army going to stand fast at last? In the events now opening the stake is nothing less than the future of France, the future of Europe, the future of the world. Monday, September 7, 1914. In Galicia the operations of the Russian army are developing splendidly. The Austro-Hungarians have just suffered two severe reverses, one in front of Lublin and the other in the neighbourhood or Rava Russka. On the other hand the Russians are giving way before the German thrust in East Prussia. In France the battle continues stubbornly. For the moment the Germans seem to have given up the idea of a direct attack on Paris. Tuesday, September 8, 1914. Maubeuge surrendered yesterday after a frightful bombardment lasting eleven days. On the rest of the front, and particularly north-cast of Paris there is violent and uninterrupted fighting. But nothing decisive has happened yet. General Bielaiev has confided to me that Hindenburg's army, which is operating in East Prussia, has received considerable reinforcements and the Russians are compelled to evacuate the region of the Masurian Lakes. "From the point of view of sound strategy our retreat ought to have begun several days ago, but the Grand Duke Nicholas wanted to do everything to take the weight off the French army." Wednesday, September 9, 1914.
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East of Paris, from the Ourcq to the environs of Montmirail the French and English troops are slowly advancing. A general decision cannot be far away now. Russian public opinion, with a very true instinct, has taken far more interest in the battle of the Marne than in the victories in Galicia. It is plain that the issue of the war is being fought out on the western front. If France goes down Russia will be compelled to abandon the struggle. The fighting in East Prussia proves that afresh every day. It shows that the Russians are not in the same category as the Germans who overwhelm them by their superior tactical training, generalship and the wealth of transport facilities at their disposal. On the other hand the Russians seem to be quite equal to the Austro-Hungarians and even their superior in the matter of lan and tenacity under fire. Thursday, September 10, 1914. East of the Vistula, on the frontiers of western Galicia and Poland, the Russians have broken the enemy's line between Krasnik and Tomassof. But in East Prussia General Rennenkampf's army is in confusion. From France the news is satisfactory. Our troops have crossed the Marne between Meaux and ChateauThierry. Outside Szanne the Prussian Guard has been thrown back north of the marshes of St. Gond. If our right wing, the "hinge" between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun, holds firm the whole German line will be dislocated. Friday, September 11, 1914. Victory! We have won the Battle of the Marne! Along the whole front the German armies are retreating northwards! Paris is now out of reach! France is saved! The Russians, too, have won a great victory between Krasnik and Tomassof. The Austro-Hungarian forces, supported by German reinforcements, amounted to more than a million men. Their artillery comprised more than 2,500 guns. On the other side of the shield General Rennenkampf's army has had to evacuate East Prussia. The Germans are in occupation of Suvalki.
Chapter Footnotes
1. Widow of the Grand Duke Serge-Alexandrovitch, who was assassinated at Moscow on February 27.1905. She herself was murdered by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918. 2. As opposed to reserve corps (Tr.).
Chapter Five Table of Contents
17/17
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter V.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER V SEPTEMBER 12--OCTOBER 28, 1914
Rasputin's return to Petrograd.---Conversation with Count Witte: his pessimism.--" This stupid adventure must be liquidated as soon as possible." ---At St. Alexander Nevsky Monastery; Russian piety. A performance at the Marie Theatre: Life for the Tsar.---General Sukhomlinov, the War Minister.---The Russian offensive against Germany.---Rasputin reappears; his past; his influence at court.---Turkey closes the Straits.--- The Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna.---Moscow, the Sacred City: "God's Kingdom on Russian Soil."--The assassination of the Grand Duke Sergius in 1905; Tanganka prison; the Grand Duchess's visit to the assassin; the execution in Schlusselburg prison; her farewell to the world; the Convent of Martha and Mary.---The general offensive of the Russian armies.---The Polish question and dreams of Constantinople.---The death of King Charles I of Rumania.---The anarchist Lenin.---The Holy Synod and the Marseillaise.---Patriotism of the students.---Successes of the Russian armies in Poland and Galicia.
Saturday, September 12, 1914. The Marne victory is hailed as a deliverance in all Russian social circles. Congratulations are pouring in to the Embassy. But the recent disaster at Soldau and disquieting rumours in the last two days as to the course of the great battle in progress in the cast of East Prussia are casting a general gloom over men's minds and rendering them almost indifferent to the brilliant successes in Galicia. And even if the public pays a generous tribute to the heroism of the French army and General Joffre's skill in manoeuvre, it does not fail to add that if it were not for the terrible hecatomb of Soldau the Germans would now be in Paris. . Rasputin has recovered from his wound and has returned to Petrograd. It has been easy for him to prove that his recovery is striking proof of divine protection. When he speaks of the war it is only in veiled, ambiguous, and apocalyptic terms, and the conclusion is drawn that. he does not approve of it and anticipates great misfortunes. . Someone else has just come back to Petrograd on whose return I have equally little cause to congratulate myself, as he has done nothing but give vent to lugubrious prophecies since his arrival---I mean Count Witte, who was at Biarritz when war broke out. He called on me the day before yesterday.
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My personal acquaintance with him is confined to a single meeting in Paris in the autumn of 1905. He was' returning from America after signing the Peace of Portsmouth and he spoke very bitterly of France, which he accused of giving insufficient support to her ally, Russia, against Japan. At the time I was much struck by his acute mind, broad views, and the somewhat contemptuous authority of his language and his whole personality. Let me give a few biographical details. Sergius Yulievitch Witte was born on June 29, 1849, in the Caucasus, where his father was rector of the university department. His mother, a Fadeev, belonged to an old Russian family. He took the mathematics course at Odessa University, but lack of means soon compelled him to break off his studies. He then obtained a post in the South Western railways. He was still only a stationmaster at Popielna, a little hamlet near Kiev, when Vishnegradsky, the President of the Company, "discovered him" and promoted him at one step to the post of manager. In 1889, Vishnegradsky was made Finance Minister and he immediately sent for Witte to come to St. Petersburg and made him his right-hand man. Their close co-operation promptly raised Russian credit to a level it had never reached before. In 1892, however, Vishnegradsky had to retire, worn out by work. Witte succeeded him. His strength of character, experience, and talents soon secured him an outstanding place among the political leaders of the Empire. He became President of the Committee of Ministers at the end of 1903, but he did not succeed in foiling the insane combination of intrigue and speculation which led to the outbreak of the Manchurian war on February 8 following. After the disasters of Mukden and Tsushima it was universally recognized that he alone was of a stature to conduct the peace negotiations. On September 5, 1905, he had the melancholy honour of signing the Treaty of Portsmouth. As a reward for his services Nicholas II gave him the title of count, but at the bottom of his heart he hated this proud and ironical nature and cold, penetrating and acid intellect, in contact with which he always felt himself gauche and disarmed. Revolutionary troubles rapidly grew worse, however, and the dynasty was threatened. Hitherto Witte had always been a sincere advocate of autocracy. In his view the western states had no particular reason to boast of their constitutional dogmas and Tsarism, though part of its machinery could perhaps do with renovation, was perfectly adapted to the instincts, manners, and powers of the Russian people. But faced with this urgent peril he did not hesitate. On October 30, after interminable discussions with the terrified Tsar, he induced him to sign the famous Manifesto which seemed destined to be Russia's Magna Charta and, conceding the principle of various fundamental liberties, summoned an imperial Duma for an early date. A week later he was appointed President of the Council of Ministers. During the following months the situation did anything but improve. Emboldened by their first success the parties of the Left put forward new claims. The arrogance and audacity of the revolutionaries greatly increased. Simultaneously a violent reaction, the handiwork of the "Black Bands," mobilized the rural masses in the cause of orthodox absolutism. Massacres of liberals, intelligentsia and Jews occurred in every part of the Empire. Witte soon realized that he could never come to terms either with the Duma---because it was pursuing a programme of sedition---or with the Conservatives, because they would never forgive him for the manifesto of October 30. Preferring to keep himself for the future he offered his resignation to the Tsar who was only too glad to see him go. But before surrendering his portfolio he gave himself the pleasure of a last success in the service of which he is a past master---finance. On April 16, 1906, he negotiated in Paris a loan of two thousand million francs on terms very favourable to the Russian treasury. On May 5, Nicholas II finally accepted his resignation and appointed as his successor Ivan Loguinovitch Goremykin, the present President of. the Council. .
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He arrived here from Biarritz a week ago and, as I have said, called on me the day before yesterday. As an excuse for his visit he reminded me of our meeting in Paris in the autumn of 1905, and at once, without any preliminaries, opened a discussion, head erect, eyes fixed on me, and his speech firm, precise, and slow: "This war's madness," he said. "It has been forced on the Tsar's prudence by stupid and short-sighted politicians. It can only have disastrous results for Russia. France and England alone can hope to derive any benefit from victory. . . . and, anyhow, a victory for us seems to me highly questionable." "Of course the benefits to be derived from this war---as from any other war---depend upon victory. But I presume that if we are victorious Russia will get her share, and a large share, of the advantages and rewards. . . . After all, forgive me for reminding you that if the world is now on fire it is in a cause which interested Russia first and foremost, a cause which is eminently the Slav cause and did not affect either France or England." "No doubt you're referring to our prestige in the Balkans, our pious duty to protect our blood brothers, our historic and sacred mission in the East? Why, that's a romantic, old-fashioned chimra. No one here, no thinking man at least, now cares a fig for these turbulent and vain Balkan folk who have nothing Slav about them and are only Turks christened by the wrong name. We ought to have let the Serbs suffer the chastisement they deserved. What did they care about their Slav brotherhood when their King Milan made Serbia an Austrian fief? So much for the origin of this war! Now let's talk about the profits and rewards it will bring us. What can we hope to get? An increase of territory. Great Heavens! Isn't His Majesty's empire big enough already? Haven't we in Siberia, Turkistan, the Caucasus, Russia itself, enormous areas which have not yet been opened up? . . . Then what are the conquests they dangle before our eyes East Prussia? Hasn't the Emperor too many Germans among his subjects already? Galicia? It's full of Jews! Besides, the moment we annex Austria and Prussia's Polish territories we shall lose the whole of Russian Poland. Don't you make any mistake: when Poland has recovered her territorial integrity she won't be content with the autonomy she's been so stupidly promised. She'll claim ---and get---her absolute independence. What else have we to hope for? Constantinople, the Cross on Santa Sophia, the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles? It's too mad a notion to be worth a moment's consideration! And even if we assume a complete victory for our coalition---the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs reduced to begging for peace and submitting to our terms---it means not only the end of German domination but the proclamation of republics throughout Central Europe. That means the simultaneous end of Tsarism! I prefer to remain silent as to what we may expect on the hypothesis of our defeat." "What practical conclusion do you come to?" "My practical conclusion is that we must liquidate this stupid adventure as soon as possible." "You'll appreciate that I can't follow you in your criticisms of your Government for its support of Serbia. But you argue as if it was responsible for the war. It was not your Government which wanted the war, nor indeed the French or British Governments. I can guarantee that the three governments did all that was honourably possible to save peace. In any case our business at the moment is not to ascertain whether the war could or could not have been avoided, but to win the victory. Why, the conclusions to which you yourself come on the assumption of our defeat are so terrifying that you daren't mention them! As for 'promptly liquidating this stupid adventure,' it's an idea which astonishes me in a statesman of your intelligence. Can't you see that the gigantic struggle in which we are involved is a duel to the death, and that a compromise peace would mean the triumph of Germany?" Looking incredulous, he replied: "So we've got to go on fighting!"
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"Yes, until victory." He half shrugged his shoulders. Then after a moment's hesitation he resumed: "I'm afraid you credit certain idle rumours and believe me inspired by ill-feeling towards France; that's how, you account for everything you don't like in what I have said." "If I had credited you with ill-feeling towards France, particularly at the present moment, I shouldn't have received you, Monsieur le Comte; at any rate I should have broken off our conversation long ago. All I know is that you are hostile to the policy of the Triple Entente." "Yes, but I've always been an advocate of the French alliance." "On condition that it was completed by an alliance with Germany." "I admit it." "What about Alsace-Lorraine? How would you deal with that in your combination?" "The difficulty did not seem to me insurmountable. In any case I should never have sacrificed the French alliance to the German alliance. I have given convincing proof of that." "Are you referring to what happened at Bjork between the Emperor Nicholas and the Emperor William in July, 1905?" "Yes; but it's a subject on which I'm bound to silence. . . . Do you mind my asking what you know about it?" "Our information about the incident is very imperfect, and in the interests of the alliance itself we have not tried to clear up the semi-confidences my predecessor, Monsieur Bompard, received from you. If I had to sum up the various pieces of information I should say that at the Bjork meeting the Emperor William proposed to the Tsar an agreement incompatible with the French alliance and that, owing to your personal intervention, the scheme came to nothing." "That's quite accurate." "Forgive me for asking you a question in return. Did the agreement proposed by the Emperor William bind France to make common cause with Germany in future?" "I'm sworn to secrecy on this matter. . . . All I can tell you is that the Emperor William has never forgiven me for having brought his scheme to nought. And yet they accuse me of being a Germanophile! As a matter of fact, the Emperor Nicholas hates me far more, not only because I frustrated the German intrigue, but--and this is my worst offence---because shortly afterwards I submitted for his signature the famous manifesto of October 30, 1905, which gave legislative power to the Duma. Since then the Emperor has regarded me as his enemy and goes about telling his intimates that I dream of succeeding him as President of the Russian Republic. How absurd! What a pity! From the Emperor's feelings towards me you can imagine what the Empress thinks! But enough of all these trifles! I'm afraid I've kept you too long, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, and perhaps forced my effusions upon you. Only please remember that in one important affair I proved myself a true friend to France." "I shall never forget it, and I'm grateful for your confidences."
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He rose from his chair and, straightening himself awkwardly after the manner of tall men, he took his leave in the most friendly terms. When he had gone I went for a walk on the Islands. As I strolled in the solitary avenue which is my favourite haunt, I turned this long conversation over in my mind. I could still see the tall figure of the old statesman---an enigmatic, unnerving individual, a great intellect, despotic, disdainful, conscious of his powers, a prey to ambition, jealousy, and pride. I feel that if the war goes badly for us his strength of character will bring him to the front again. But I also think how evil an influence the spread of his ideas on the war may have in a country in which public opinion is so emotional and unstable, and how dangerous it is to tell a Russian that "this stupid adventure must be liquidated as soon as possible."(1) Sunday, September 13, 1914. In France the Germans are still retreating, abandoning prisoners, wounded and unwounded, guns and transport. The left wing of the French army has crossed the Aisne., the centre is making progress between the Argonne and the Meuse; the right wing is forcing the enemy back in the direction of Metz. In the east of East Prussia General Rennenkampf's army looks as if it ought to escape the catastrophe with which it was threatened; it has practically succeeded in forcing a passage through the Masurian Lakes and is falling back on Kovno and Grodno. In Galicia the Russians have crossed the lower San and in the Bukovina they have occupied Czernowitz. . To-day is the birthday of Saint Alexander Nevsky, the Tsar of Novgorod, who defeated the Swedes and the Teutonic Knights on the banks of the Neva in 1241. On the spot where the national hero won his victory Peter the Great built a monastery as vast and sumptuous as the famous Lauras at Kiev and Serghievo. Girt with walls and moats like a monastic citadel the Laura of Petrograd comprises a cathedral, eleven churches, numerous chapels, the Metropolitan's residence, the monks' cells, a seminary, an ecclesiastical academy and three cemeteries. I often take my walk there to enjoy the charm of peace and silence it gives, the atmosphere of religious resignation and sweet humanity it breathes. To-day a huge crowd filled the courts and sanctuaries. In the Cathedral of the Trinity---one great cloud of incense---the pious were swarming round the shrine of Saint Alexander. The throng was quite as great in the Church of the Annunciation, round the bronze slab on which this modest and eloquent epitaph may be read: Here lies Suvorov. Women were in a large majority. They were praying for their husbands, brothers, and sons fighting away at the front. Several groups of peasants, men and women, made a touching picture with their grave and wrapt gaze. I was particularly struck by one moujik, an old man with snow-white hair and beard, swarthy complexion, broad and deeply wrinkled forehead, melancholy, luminous and distant eyes---the typical patriarch. Standing before an ikon of Saint Alexander he was turning his cap in his bony fingers, nor did he stop for a moment except to cross himself fervently while bowing low. He muttered an interminable prayer, a prayer very different no doubt from those which are being offered up at the present time in the churches of France; for the way of prayer varies with different races. When a Russian soul beseeches God's help what it expects is not so much the strength to will and act as the strength to suffer and endure. This old man's face and pose were so expressive that he seemed to me to personify the patriotism of the Russian peasant. . In the evening I went to the Marie Theatre for a performance of Glinka's Life for the Tsar. The Director of the imperial theatres had invited my English and Japanese colleagues, the Belgian and Serbian Ministers and myself to be present this evening as a demonstration in honour of the Allies had been prepared. Before
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the curtain rose the orchestra played the Russian national anthem, the Boje Tsaria Kranie, which Prince Lvov composed about 1825, a hymn with a broad sweep which produces a noble, religious effect. How many times had I heard it before? But I had never realized so forcibly how foreign the melody of the national anthem is to Russian music and how German it is---in the direct tradition of Bach and Hndel. But that did not prevent the public from listening to it in a patriotic silence which ended in an outburst of prolonged cheering. Next came the Marseillaise, received with transports of delight. Then Rule Britannia which was likewise hailed with loud cheers. Buchanan was in the box next to mine and I asked him why the orchestra played Rule Britannia and not God Save the King. He replied that as the latter was the same as the Prussian national anthem the authorities feared a mistake which would have shocked the public. Next came the Japanese national anthem, suitably greeted. I calculated that it was only nine years since Mukden and Tsushima! At the opening notes of the Brabanonne a storm of grateful and admiring cheers burst. Everyone seemed to be saying: "Where should we be now if Belgium had not resisted?" The ovation to the Serbian national anthem was more restrained, in fact very restrained. Many people seemed to be reflecting: "If it had not been for the Serbs we should still be at peace!" Then we had to sit through the Life for the Tsar, a stale and frigid work with its too official loyalty and its too old-fashioned Italianism. The public enjoyed it all the same for Glinka's drama touches the very fibres of the Russian conscience. Monday, September 14, 1914. In France the Germans are slowly retiring northwards. They seem to have prepared strong positions on the Aisne. If they manage to hold us up in these lines the victory of the Marne will not have been as decisive as we could have hoped. It is only by the results of the pursuit that the importance of a victory can be measured. Anyhow I was not surprised by a telegram I receive this morning in which Delcass instructs me to impress on the Russian Government that it is essential for the Russian armies to press home their direct offensive against Germany. The fact is that Bordeaux is afraid that our Allies may have had their heads turned by their relatively easy successes in Galicia and may neglect the German front in order to concentrate on forcing their way to Vienna. This very morning I went to the War Office and told General Sukhomlinov of the French Government's concern. He replied: "But our direct offensive against Germany began on August 16 and we're continuing it vigorously and on the largest possible scale! You know as much as I do about our operations in East Prussia. What more can we do, I ask you?" "How soon will the Niemen and Narev armies be able to resume their advance? " "Oh, not for a long time yet! They've suffered too heavily. I'm afraid they may even have to retreat a little further yet . . . but I don't mind telling you---in strict secrecy---that the Grand Duke Nicholas is contemplating and preparing an operation on a wide front in the direction of Posen and Breslau." "Excellent!" "I mustn't hide from you that it will take a long time to organize this operation. We can't take any more risks. Don't forget, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, that we've already sacrificed 110,000 men at Soldau to help the French army!"
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"We should have made the same sacrifice to help the Russian army. . . . But without diminishing the practical importance and moral effect of the service you then rendered us forgive me for remarking that it was not our fault if General Artamanov retreated 20 versts on the left wing without notifying his Army Commander!" We returned to the matter which was the reason for my visit. I reiterated my desire to obtain an assurance that the Russian armies would not allow themselves to be deflected towards Vienna and neglect their principal objective---the German objective: "I am not forgetting," I said, " that the final decision as regards operations is the province of the generalissimo, but I know also that the Grand Duke Nicholas always attaches great importance to your views and suggestions. So I'm relying on you to back up my request to the Grand Duke." He fixed his eyes on me, eyes that were sharp and cunning under their heavy lids: "But we can't stop our advance in Galicia where we are gaining brilliant successes every day! Remember that since the campaign started the Austrians have already lost 200,000 men killed or wounded, in addition to 60,000 prisoners and 600 guns!" "Your Excellency too must remember that the Germans are only 70 kilometres from Paris! What would you say if they were 70 versts from Petrograd, half-way between Luga and Gatchina? . . . Besides, I'm not asking you to suspend your operations in Galicia but merely not to get too involved there and forget that our main object the destruction of the German armies." A smile, a hypocritically pleasant smile, spread over his face: "We're both absolutely agreed on that! Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, I'm quite sure we shall always understand one another." "So I can rely on you to telegraph to the Grand Duke Nicholas?" "I'll do more than that. I'll send him one of my officers this very evening." Before withdrawing I asked the Minister about the result of the recent fighting in East Prussia. He replied that it had been extremely severe at Tilsit, Gumbinnen and Lyck, but that the Russian army had succeeded in making its way out of the Mazurian Lakes region and at the moment was falling back on Kovno. "So all East Prussia has been lost? "Yes." "What are your losses? "I don't exactly know." "A hundred thousand men?" "Perhaps." Tuesday, September 15, 1914.
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As I distrust General Sukhomlinov and all the doubtful intrigues in which he is an agent I again took up the question of the direct offensive against Germany with Sazonov this morning and asked him to put our representations before the Emperor on my behalf. "For greater accuracy," he said, " draft the answer yourself that you want His Majesty to give." I then drafted the following: "As soon as the Austro-Hungarian armies in Galicia have been put out of action the direct offensive of the Russian armies against Germany will be pressed with the greatest energy." "That's all right," Sazonov said. "I'll write to His Majesty at once." . At eleven this evening the Tsar had me informed that he accepted my draft and had wired accordingly to the Grand Duke Nicholas. Wednesday, September 16, 1914. The Battle of the Marne is being continued on the Aisne ---with the difference that the Germans have dug themselves in on strong defensive positions, so that the struggle is assuming the character of siege warfare. The Russians are on the heels of the Austrians between Sandomir and Jaroslav. . Since mobilization the Government has prohibited the sale of spirits, vodka, in the whole territory of the Empire. This great reform was introduced by the rescript of February 13, 1914, and the whole credit for it is the Emperor's. It is being carried out so methodically and strictly as to leave one astonished at the Russian bureaucracy. The effects of the reform are seen in a decrease in crimes of violence and an appreciable increase in the output of labour. Thursday, September 17, 1914. The Grand Duke Nicholas has just issued a proclamation to the nations of Austria-Hungary, inviting them to throw off the Hapsburg yoke and realize their national aspirations at last. Simultaneously Sazonov is pressing the Rumanian Government to occupy Transylvania and join in the occupation of the Bukovina by the Russian troops. Saturday, September 19, 1914. The bombardment of Rheims and destruction of the cathedral are affecting Petrograd very deeply. No event of the war has made such a striking impression on the Russian imagination---an imagination excessively emotional, hungering after melodrama, indifferent and all but blind to reality except when it appears in the form of picturesque and theatrical happenings, or moving and dramatic scenes. Sunday, September 20, 1914. The Emperor is on a tour of inspection to the army fronts.
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As a rule the meetings of the Empress and Rasputin take place in Madame Vyrubova's little house on the Sredniaya. But yesterday the staretz was received at the palace itself and his visit lasted nearly two hours. Tuesday, September 22, 1914. This morning I was called on by a Frenchman, Robert Gauthiot, professor at the cole des Hautes-tudes in Paris. He has come straight from Pamir where he was engaged on an ethnological and linguistic expedition. In the second week of August he was in the neighbourhood of Chorog, a valley 4,000 metres high on the slopes of the Hindu Kush. He had proceeded a twelve-days' march beyond the last Russian post guarding the frontier of Ferghana, the ancient Sogdiana. On August 16 a native who had gone to get him supplies from this post told him that Germany had declared war on Russia and France. He started back immediately and has reached Petrograd in one stage, via Marghelan, Samarkand, Tiflis, and Moscow. I told him the extraordinary series of events which has marked the last two months. He told me how very impatient he was to get back to France and rejoin his territorial regiment. Then we explored the future. We calculated what a colossal effort will be required of us to destroy the power of Germany, and so on. I am particularly interested in his views because he has paid frequent and long visits to Germany. Among the most noteworthy of his remarks was this: "I have spent a good deal of time among the German Socialists; I know their doctrines well and their habit of mind even better. You may be quite certain, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, that they will do all they can to help in the war and fight as hard as the most inveterate junker. Why, I'm a Socialist myself; I'm actually antimilitarist. But you can see it doesn't prevent me from going to defend my country." I congratulated him on his eagerness to perform his military duty and have asked him to lunch with me tomorrow. When he had gone I reflected that I had had before me eloquent proof of the patriotism with which the French intellectuals are inspired, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary. Here is one of them who hears of the war when he is in the depths of the Pamir, 4,000 metres up, on the "Roof of the World." He is alone, left to his own resources, away from the contagious fever of the sublime national impulse which is sweeping over France. Yet he does not hesitate a moment. All his socialist and pacifist theories, the interest of his scientific expedition and his own personal interests vanish before the vision of "La Patrie" in danger. He rushes to the rescue.(2) . Count Kokovtsov, ex-President of the Council, whose clear-eyed patriotism and high intelligence I so much admire, has been to see me at the Embassy.(3) He has just returned from an estate of his near Novgorod. "You know," he said, "that temperamentally I'm not prone to optimism, but all the same I think the war is going well for us. As a matter of fact, I never thought our war with Germany could have any other beginning. We've suffered some reverses, but our armies are intact, and our moral is excellent. In a few months from now we shall be strong enough to crush our terrible opponent." Then he talked about the terms of peace we shall have to impose on Germany, and expressed himself with a violence which astonished me in a man who usually weighs his words so carefully:
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"When the hour of peace strikes we must be ruthless . . . ruthless! Public opinion will drive us to ruthlessness, anyhow. You've no idea how furious the moujiks are with Germany." "That's really most interesting! You noticed it yourself? " "Only the day before yesterday. . . . I was leaving that morning and taking a walk in my grounds. I saw a very old peasant who lost his only son a long time ago and has his two grandsons in the army. On his own initiative and without my asking him he told me how much he feared that the war would not be fought out to the bitter end, the hateful German brood destroyed and the evil weed of the Niemetz(4) rooted out of the soil of Russia. I congratulated him on his patriotism in accepting the risks to which the two grandsons, his sole means of support, were exposed. He replied: 'Look, barin. If we're unlucky enough not to destroy the Niemetz, they'll come here; they'll reign over the whole of Russia and then they'll harness you and me---yes, you as well---to their ploughs! . . .'That's what our peasants are thinking." "Their reasoning is very sound, at any rate in a symbolical sense." Thursday, September 24, 1914. I have had a talk with the Minister for Agriculture, Krivoshein, whose personal authority, lucid intellect and political talents seem to have won him a high degree of confidence and favour with Nicholas II. Yesterday he had a long conference with the Emperor whom he found in excellent spirits. During the conversation His Majesty casually remarked: "I shall fight this war to the bitter end. To wear down Germany I shall exhaust all my resources; I'll retreat to the Volga if necessary." The Tsar also said: "In starting this war the Emperor William has dealt a terrible blow to the monarchical principle." Saturday, September 26, 1914. In accordance with the promise I received from the Emperor on September 15, the Russian army is about to resume the offensive in the direction of Berlin, via Breslau. All the preparations are complete and a cavalry corps, consisting of 120 squadrons, has already been sent forward with infantry support. On this subject General de Laguiche writes to me as follows from Baranovici: I have received a formal promise that they will not allow themselves to be deflected towards Vienna. I can assure you that there is no dissentient voice on this subject, not one which. asks anything but an advance on Berlin. The Austrian is. not the enemy now; we are attacking Germany with our whole soul in our task and a burning desire to close with her at the first possible moment. I am touched to see how anxious the military leaders are about French intentions and aspirations. Everything is being done with a single eye to coming up to the expectations of our Ally. This has struck me very forcibly. Sunday, September 27, 1914. 1 have lunched at Tsarskoe-Selo with Countess B----- whose sister is very friendly with Rasputin. I asked
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her about the staretz. "Has he seen much of the Emperor and Empress since his return?" "Not much. I've an idea that their Majesties are keeping him away to a certain extent at the moment. For example, yesterday he was at my sister's house, quite near here. He telephoned, in our presence, to the palace to ask Madame Vyrubova if he could see the Empress in the evening. She replied he had better wait a few days. He seemed very annoyed at this answer, and left us at once, without even saying good-bye! . . . In other days he wouldn't even have asked if he could go to the palace; he'd have gone straight there." "How can you account for this sudden decline in his fortunes?" "Simply by the fact that the Empress has been torn from her old fits of melancholia. From morning to night she's busy with her hospitals, sewing committees and hospital train. She has never looked so well." "Is it true that Rasputin has told the Emperor that this war will be disastrous to Russia and must be stopped at once?" "I doubt it. . . . Last June, just before Khinia Gusseva's attempt on his life, Rasputin was frequently telling the Emperor to beware of France and make friends with Germany; of course, he was only repeating the words old Prince Mestchersky had had such difficulty in teaching him. But since his return from Pokrovskoe he has been talking in a very different strain. Only the day before yesterday he said to me: 'I'm very pleased this war has come: it has delivered us from two great evils, drink and German friendship. Woe to the Tsar if he stops the conflict before Germany has been crushed!' " "Good! Bat does he talk in the same way to the sovereigns? Only a fortnight ago I had a very different report about what he was saying." "He may have said something different. Rasputin is not a politician with a system or programme from which he draws his inspiration in all circumstances. He's a moujik, illiterate, impulsive, visionary, capricious and a bundle of contradictions. But as he's very cunning and feels that his position at the palace is shaken I should be surprised if he spoke openly against the war." "Are you under his spell?" "I? Not in the least! Physically I find him disgusting; he has dirty hands, black nails and an unkempt beard. Horrors! I'll admit he amuses me all the same. He has extraordinary verve and imagination. At times he is actually eloquent. He has a gift for metaphor and a deep sense of mystery." "Is he really so eloquent?" "Yes. I assure you that some days he has a very original and arresting way of speaking. He is familiar, mocking, violent, merry, ridiculous and poetical by turns. And with all this not a trace of pose! On the contrary, the most unexampled effrontery and the most staggering cynicism." "You describe him to the life." "Tell me, honestly, wouldn't you like to know him? "No, indeed! He's too compromising. But please keep me au fait with all he is saying and doing, as I'm uneasy about him."
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Monday, September 28, 1914. I, told Sazonov what Countess B----- told me yesterday about Rasputin. He went purple in the face at once. "For Heaven's sake don't mention that man's name to me! I loathe him. . . . He's not merely an adventurer and a charlatan: he's the incarnation of the Devil himself; he's Antichrist!" So many legends have already gathered round the staretz that it seems to me useful to give some authentic facts. Grigory Rasputin was born in 1871 at Pokrovskoe, a wretched hamlet on the borders of Western Siberia, between Tiumen and Tobolsk. His father was a simple moujik, a drunken, thieving horse-dealer. His name was Eflin Novy. The surname of Rasputin, which young Grigory soon received from his comrades, is eloquent of this period of his life and prophetic of the future; it is a term of peasant slang, derived from the word rasputnik which means "debauchee," "rake," "woman-chaser." Grigory was often thrashed by enraged fathers, and even publicly whipped by order of the ispravnik, but one day he found his "road to Damascus." The exhortations of a priest whom he was driving to Verkhoturie monastery suddenly awakened his mystic instincts. But his robust temperament, strong passions and unbridled imagination immediately drove him into the licentious sect known as the Khlisty, or "Flagellants." Among the innumerable sects which are more or less detached from the established Church and reveal so strangely the lack of moral discipline among the Russian people, their hunger for mystery and their taste for the indefinite, the extreme and the absolute, the Khlisty are distinguished by the gross excesses and sensuality which mark their practices. They inhabit principally the regions of Kazan, Simbirsk, Saratov, Ufa, Orenburg, and Tobolsk; their number is put at about 120,000. The most lofty spirituality seems to inspire their doctrine as they aim at nothing less than communicating direct with God, steeping themselves in the Word, and incarnating Christ. But to attain this celestial communion they resort to all the indulgences of the flesh. The faithful, men and women, assemble at night, sometimes in an isba, sometimes in a forest clearing. There, calling upon God, singing hymns and yelling chants, they dance in a ring, faster and faster. Soon they are overcome with giddiness and fall down in ecstasy or convulsions. The leader of the dance whips those whose energies flag. Then, filled and intoxicated with the "divine influx," the couples close like brute beasts. The service ends with monstrous scenes of sensuality, lust and incest. Rasputin's richly-endowed temperament marked him out as ripe for the "divine influx." His exploits in the nocturnal radnis soon won him popularity. His gifts for mysticism developed simultaneously. Travelling through the villages he delivered evangelical addresses and told parables. Gradually he ventured into prophecy, exorcism and incantations. He even boasted of having performed miracles. For a hundred versts around Tobolsk no one doubted that he was a holy man. Yet even in this period he had some tiresome brushes with justice over too glaring peccadilloes. He would have come out of them rather badly if the ecclesiastical authorities had not already taken him under their wing. In 1904 his reputation for piety and the odour of his virtues reached Petersburg. The famous visionary Father John of Kronstadt, who had consoled and sanctified the dying moments of Alexander III, desired to know the young Siberian prophet. He received him at the Monastery of Saint Alexander Nevsky and congratulated himself on observing, from signs unmistakable, that he was marked out by God. After this appearance in the capital Rasputin returned to Pokrovskoe, but from that day the horizon of his life was extended. He entered into relations with a whole gang of more or less illuminist, charlatan and dissolute priests, hundreds of whom may be met with among the dregs of the Russian clergy. It was then that he took as his acolyte a vulgar, blustering, erotic and "miracle-working" monk, worshipped by the mob, but a fierce
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enemy of liberals and Jews. He was Father Heliodorus who was later to raise the standard of revolt in his monastery at Tsarytsin and keep the Holy Synod in check by the violence of his reactionary fanaticism. Before long Grigory was not satisfied with the company of moujiks and priests. He was seen gravely walking with archpriests and abbots, bishops and archimandrites who all agreed with John of Kronstadt in seeing in him "a spark of God." Yet he had to withstand the continuous assaults of the Devil, and often enough he yielded. At Tsarytsin he deflowered a nun whom he had undertaken to exorcise. At Kazan he was drunk one fine June evening and came out of a drinking den driving before him a naked prostitute whom he thrashed with his belt---a proceeding which caused a great scandal in the town. At Tobolsk he seduced Madame L-----, the wife of an engineer and a woman of a great piety and he drove her to such a pitch that she went everywhere proclaiming her passion and glorying in her shame. It was she who initiated him into the refined joys of society women. By such exploits, which accumulated as time went on, his reputation for holiness increased from day to day. People knelt in the streets as he passed; they kissed his hands, touched the hem of his robe, called out "Our Christ, our Saviour, pray for us, poor sinners! God will hear thee. . . ." He would reply: " In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I bless you, little brothers. Trust and obey. Christ will soon return. Be patient , remembering his death! Mortify your flesh for love of Him!" In 1905 the Archimandrite Theophanes, Rector of the Theological College at Petersburg, a prelate of the greatest piety and the Empress's confessor, was unhappily inspired to summon Rasputin to see for himself the marvellous effects of grace upon this simple soul which the powers of evil tormented so pitilessly. Touched by his frank fervour he took him under his wing and introduced him into his own particular circle, a very considerable circle. At its head was a very influential group---the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch, then Commander of the Imperial Guard and now Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, his brother the Grand Duke Peter, their wives, the Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militza, daughters of the King of Montenegro. Grigory had only to make his appearance to amaze and fascinate this idle and credulous company, given to the most absurd practices of spiritualism, occultism, and necromancy. In all the "mystic" coteries there was quite a scramble for the Siberian prophet, the Bojy tchelloviek, the " Man of God." The Montenegrin Grand Duchesses distinguished themselves by their excessive devotion to him. As early as 1900 they had brought the magician, Philip of Lyons, to the Russian Court. It was they who presented Rasputin to the Tsar and Tsaritsa in the summer of 1907. Yet when on the point of granting him an audience the sovereigns had one last hesitation. They took counsel of the Archimandrite Theophanes who fully reassured them "Grigory Efimovitch," he said, "is a peasant, a man of the people. Your Majesties will do well to hear him, for it is the voice of the Russian soil which speaks through him. . . . I know all the charges against him. . . I know his sins which are numberless and most of them heinous. But there dwells in him so deep a passion of repentance and so implicit a trust in divine pity that I would all but guarantee his eternal salvation. Every time he repents he is as pure as the child washed in the waters of baptism. Manifestly God has called him to be one of His chosen." From the moment of his entrance into the palace Rasputin obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over the Tsar and Tsaritsa. He wheedled them, dazzled them, dominated them. It was almost like sorcery. Not that he flattered them. Quite the contrary. From the first day his manner towards them was rough and he treated them with a bold and disingenuous familiarity in which the two sovereigns, nauseated with adulation and sycophancy, thought they recognized "the voice of the Russian soil." He soon became the friend of Madame Vyrubova, the Empress's inseparable companion, and by her was initiated into all the secrets of the imperial couple and the Empire. All the intriguers at court, all the place-hunters and aspirants for titles and livings naturally tried to enlist his support. His humble residence on the Kirotchnaa, and later the Anglisky Prospekt, was besieged day and night by applicants, generals and officials, bishops and archimandrites,
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Councillors of the Empire and Senators, aides-de-camp and chamberlains, maids of honour and society women. There was an unending procession of them. When he was not with the sovereigns or the Montenegrin Grand Duchesses he was usually to be found at the house of old Countess Ignatiev, whose salon on the French Quay comprised the official champions of autocracy and theocracy. The highest dignitaries of the Church liked to congregate about her. Promotions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, nominations to the Holy Synod, the gravest questions of dogma, discipline and Church liturgy were discussed before her. Her moral authority, which was universally recognized, was a valuable help to Rasputin. Sometimes she had celestial visions. One evening, during a spiritualistic sance, Saint Seraphin of Sarov, who was canonized in 1903, had appeared to her with a flaming halo round his head. He had declared: "A great prophet is among you. It is his mission to reveal the will of Providence to the Tsar and to lead him into glorious paths." She had realized at once that he was referring to Rasputin. The Emperor was immensely impressed with this oracle for, as supreme guardian of the Church, he had taken a decisive part in the canonization of the blessed Seraphin and had a very special reverence for him. Among Rasputin's patrons in his early days was another curious individual, the therapeutist Badmaiev. He is a trans-Baikal Siberian, a Buriat Mongol. Although he has not a single university degree he carries on the profession of medicine, not clandestinely but openly, in the public eye. It is a very curious sort of medicine, a kind of alchemy with a flavour of sorcery. When he first knew Rasputin, in 1906, a very unfortunate thing had just happened to him, a tribulation such as occasionally overtakes even the most honest of men. Towards the close of the Japanese War a highly-placed client of his had marked his gratitude by sending him on a political mission to the hereditary chiefs of Chinese Mongolia. He was commissioned to distribute two hundred thousand roubles among them to secure their support. When he came back from Urga he had presented a report enumerating the brilliant results of his journey, and on the strength of this document had been appropriately congratulated. But a little later it had been discovered that he had kept the two hundred thousand roubles for himself. The incident was beginning to have a somewhat ugly look when the intervention of the highly-placed client had settled everything. The therapeutist had then returned to his cabalistic operations with an easy mind. Never before had the sick and ailing flocked in such numbers to his consulting-room on the Liteny, for it was rumoured that he had brought back from Mongolia all sorts of medicinal herbs and magic remedies, obtained with immense difficulty from Thibetan sorcerers. Secure in his ignorance and illuminism Badmaiev does not hesitate to treat the most difficult and obscure cases in the whole realm of medicine. Yet he has a preference for nervous diseases, mental affections and the baffling disorders of feminine physiology. He has established a secret pharmacopoeia. Under grotesque names, and in equally grotesque forms, he himself prepares the medicaments he orders. Thus he carries on a dangerous trade. in narcotics, stupefactives, ansthetics, emmenagogues, aphrodisiacs. He christens them with names such as Elixir du Thibet, Poudre de Nirvritti, Fleurs d'asokas, Baume de Nyen-Tchen, Essence de lotus noir, and so on. And all he does is to get the substances for his drugs from a chemist who is in league with him. On several occasions the Emperor and Empress have called him in to the Tsarevitch when ordinary doctors seemed powerless to stop the child's hmorrhage. It was thus that he met Rasputin. Their respective charlatanisms at once recognized each other and coalesced. But ultimately the sane elements in the capital were roused at all the scandals which gathered round the name of the staretz of Pokrovskoe. At long last his perpetual presence in the imperial palace, the part he had admittedly played in certain arbitrary or unfortunate actions on the part of the supreme authority, the insolent licence of his talk and the cynical effrontery of his morals roused a storm of indignation in all quarters. In spite of the strict censorship the press denounced the ignominy of the Siberian "magician," of course being careful not to refer to their Majesties. But the public read between the lines. The "Man of God" felt that it would be advisable to disappear for a time. In March, 1911, he took the pilgrim's staff and departed for Jerusalem. This unexpected decision filled his devotees with grief and admiration. None but a sainted soul could give such a reply to the calumnies of the wicked! Then he spent the summer at Tsarytsin
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with his excellent friend and colleague, the monk Heliodorus. The Empress, however, kept in constant touch with him by letter and telephone. In the autumn she told him she could endure his absence no longer. Besides, since the staretz had been allowed to go the Tsarevitch's attacks of hemorrhage had become more frequent. Suppose the child died! . . . The mother had not a single day's peace; she was a prey to an unending series of nervous crises, muscular spasms and fainting fits. The Tsar loves his wife and is absolutely devoted to his son, and he had a most trying time. At the beginning of November Rasputin returned to Petersburg. The insanities and orgies immediately began again, but already certain dissensions began to be observable among his disciples: some thought him compromising and unduly licentious; others were concerned at his growing influence on Church and State affairs. As it happened the ecclesiastical world was still quivering with indignation over a shameful appointment forced on the weak-willed Emperor; Grigory had obtained the bishopric of Tobolsk for one of the friends of his youth, an illiterate, obscene and debauched peasant, Father Varnava. About the same time it was learned that the Procurator of the Holy Synod had received orders to ordain Rasputin a priest. This time there was an explosion. On December 29, Monsignor Hermogenes, Bishop of Saratov, the monk Heliodorus and certain priests had an altercation with the staretz. They abused and buffeted him, shouting out: "Accursed!". "Sacrilegious priest!" . . . "Fornicator!" . . . "Filthy beast!". . . "Devil's viper!" . . . Taken aback at first and crouching against the wall Grigory tried to reply with a volley of counter-abuse. Then Monsignor Hermogenes, who is a giant, struck him hard on the head several times with his pectoral cross and cried out: "Down on your knees, you wretch! On your knees to the sacred ikons! Ask God's pardon for all your filthy knaveries! Swear that you'll never pollute the palace of our beloved Tsar with your dirty presence again!" Rasputin, quivering with fear and bleeding at the nose, beat his breast, stammered out prayers and swore never to appear in the Emperor's presence again. He left the room under a fresh shower of curses and abuse. The moment he was out of this trap he went straight to Tsarskoe-Selo. He had not long to wait for the joys of revenge. A few days later, on the express orders of the Procurator, the Holy Synod deprived Monsignor Hermogenes of his see and exiled him to the monastery of Khirovitsy in Lithuania. The monk Heliodorus was arrested by gendarmes and shut up in the penitentiary monastery of Floristchevo, near Vladimir. At first the police were powerless to prevent this scandal from leaking out. Speaking in the Duma, the leader of the Octobrist Party, Gutchkov, attacked Rasputin's relations with the Court in veiled terms. In Moscow, the religious and moral metropolis of the Empire, the best and most respected interpreters of orthodox Slavism, Count Cheremetiev, Samarin, Novosilov, Drujinin, and Vasnetsov, protested publicly against the servility of the Holy Synod. They even demanded the convocation of a national ecclesiastical council to reform the Church. The Archimandrite Theophanes himself raised a dignified voice against Grigory. His eyes had at length been opened to the true character of "the Man of God," and he could not forgive himself for having introduced him to the Court. Although he was the Empress's confessor, by an immediate decree of the Holy Synod he was sent to Taurida. The President of the Council at this time was Kokovtsov, who was also in charge of the Ministry of Finance. A upright, honest, and courageous character he did what was possible to enlighten his master as to the unworthiness of the staretz.. On March 1, 1912, he begged the Emperor to let him send Grigory back to his home: "This man has obtained Your Majesty's confidence by false pretences. He is a charlatan and libertine of the worst description. Public opinion is roused against him. The papers . . ." The Emperor interrupted his minister with a scornful smile: You mean to say you take notice of what the papers say ?" " Yes, sire, when they attack my sovereign and the prestige of the dynasty. At the present time it is the most loyal papers which are most severe in their criticism." The Emperor, irritated, interrupted him again: "These criticisms are ridiculous. I hardly know Rasputin." Kokovtsov hesitated to continue, but proceeded: "Sire, in
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the name of the dynasty, of your heir, I beg you to let me take the steps necessary to secure the return of Rasputin to his village and prevent him from coming back again." In cold tones the Emperor replied: "I shall tell him myself to go and never return." "May I conclude that this is Your Majesty's decision?" "Yes, it is my decision." Then, with a glance at the clock, which showed the time as half-past twelve, the Emperor held out his hand to Kokovtsov: "Good-bye, Vladimir Nicolaievitch, I need not detain you any more." At four o'clock the same day Rasputin rang up Senator D----, a close friend of Kokovtsov. and said to him in a contemptuous tone: "Your friend, the President, tried to frighten Papka this morning. He said all sorts of nasty things about me; but he had no luck at all. Papka and Mamka still love me. You can ring up Vladimir Nicolaievitch and tell him so from me." On May 6 following all the ministers were present, in full uniform, in the imperial palace to con congratulate the Empress whose birthday it was. When Alexandra Feodorovna passed Kokovtsov she turned her back on him. A few days before this ceremony the staretz had left for Tobolsk. He did not go because he was told to, but of his own free will, to see how things were getting on in his little place at Pokrovskoe. As he bade farewell to the sovereigns he had uttered this formidable prophecy with a fierce scowl: "I know that the wicked are watching. me. Don't listen to them. If you abandon me you will lose your son and your crown within six months." The Empress had exclaimed: "How could you think of our abandoning you! Are you not our only protector, our best friend?" Then she had knelt down and asked his blessing. In October the imperial family stayed for a time at Spala in Poland, where the Tsar often went to enjoy the hunting in the wonderful forest of Krolova. One day the young Tsarevitch was coming back from a sail on the lake and miscalculating his jump on to the landing stage caught his hip against the deck. At first the contusion seemed superficial and harmless. But a fortnight later, on October 16, a swelling appeared in the groin; the thigh began to inflame, and then his temperature suddenly rose. Doctors Feodorov, Derevenko, and Rauchfuss were hastily summoned and diagnosed a sanguinous tumour which was becoming septic. An operation was necessary, but the hmophylic tendency of the child made any incision out of the question.(5) Yet his temperature rose every hour: on October 21 it reached 39'8. The parents never left the sick boy's bedroom as the doctors did not conceal their extreme anxiety. In Spala Church the priests prayed day and night in relays. By order of the Emperor a solemn service was simultaneously held in Moscow before the miraculous ikon of the Iverskaia Virgin. And from morning to night the people of Saint Petersburg, thronged Our Lady of Kazan. On the morning of the 22nd the Empress came down for the first time to the drawing-room where she was met by Colonel Narishkin, aide-de-camp on duty, Princes Elizabeth Obolensky, her lady-in-waiting, Sazonov, who had come to make his report to the Emperor, and Count Ladislas Wielopolsky, Director of the imperial hunting establishments in Poland. Alexandra Feodorovna was pale and emaciated, but she wore a smile. To the anxious questions which were put to her she replied in a calm voice: "The doctors notice no improvement yet, but I am not a bit anxious myself now. During the night I have received a telegram from Father Grigory and it has reassured me completely." When she was pressed for details she simply read out this wire: "God has see your tears and heard your prayers. Grieve no more Your son will live." On the next day, the 23rd, the invalid's temperature fell to 38'9. Two days later the tumour in the groin began to dry. The Tsarevitch was saved. During the year 1913 several persons made further attempts to open the eyes of the Tsar and Tsaritsa to the behaviour and moral degeneracy of the staretz.
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The first was the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna and she was followed by the Empress's sister, the pure and noble Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, And how many more! But to all these warnings and pleadings the sovereigns returned the same imperturbable reply: "These are all calumnies. The saints are always exposed to calumny." . In the religious jargon with which Rasputin habitually clothes his erotic fancy, one idea is perpetually recurring: "It is by repentance alone that we can win our salvation. We must therefore sin in order to have an opportunity for repentance. So when God places temptation in our way it is our duty to yield, so that we may secure the necessary condition precedent to a salutary penitence. Besides, was not the first word of life and truth which Christ uttered to mankind 'Repent'? But how can we repent if we have not sinned?" His homely sermons abound with ingenious disquisitions on the pardoning power of tears and the redemptive virtue of contrition. One of his favourite arguments, an argument which has the greatest effect on his feminine clientele, is the following: "It is not a horror of sin which usually prevents us from yielding to temptation, for if sin was really a horror to us we should not be tempted to commit it. Does a man ever want to eat anything he thoroughly dislikes? No, what really stops us and frightens us is the hurt to our pride which repentance involves. Absolute contrition implies absolute humility. No one likes humbling himself, even before God. That is the whole secret of our resistance to temptation. But the Sovereign Judge is not deceived, not for a moment! And when we are in the valley of Jehoshaphat he will know how to remind us of all the chances of salvation he has offered us which we have rejected. . . ." These sophisms were employed by a Phrygian sect even as early as the second century of our era. The heretic Montanus calmly put the same proposition to his fair Laodicean friends and secured the same practical results as Rasputin. . If the activities of the staretz were confined to the spheres of lust and mysticism, so far as I am concerned he would remain nothing but a more or less curious psychological---or physiological---study. But by the force of circumstances this ignorant peasant become a political 'instrument. Around him has gathered a regular clientle of influential people who have linked their fortunes with his. Of these the most eminent is the Minister of justice, Stcheglovitov, who is also leader of the Extreme Right in the Council of the Empire. He is a man of intellect, fluent and acid of speech, and he brings a good deal of calculation and elasticity to the realization of his designs. But he is only a recent acquisition to Rasputinism. Almost as important is the Minister of the Interior, Nicholas Maklakov, whose amiable docility is highly agreeable to the sovereigns. Then comes the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Sabler, a contemptible and servile character; through him the staretz as it were controls the whole episcopate and all the high ecclesiastical offices. Next in order I should place the First Procurator of the Senate, Dobrovolsky, then Sturmer, Member of the Council of the Empire, then the Governor of the imperial palaces, General Voyeikov who is a son-in-law of the Minister of the Court. At the end I should place Bieletzky, Director of the Police Bureau, a very bold and cunning individual. It is easy to imagine the enormous powers represented by a coalition of such influences in an autocratic and centralized state like Russia. To counterbalance the evil influence of this cabal I can find only one man in the personal entourage of the sovereigns---Prince Vladimir Orlov, son of the former ambassador in Paris and Director of His Majesty's Military Chancellery. A man of upright judgment, proud and wholeheartedly devoted to the Emperor, he has always denounced Rasputin and never ceased to fight against him---a fact which has naturally involved the enmity of the Empress and Madame Vyrubova.
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Wednesday, September 30, 1914. In the Galician Carpathians the Austro-Hungarians are putting up a fierce defence of the Uszok Pass which leads into Transylvania. In the east of East Prussia the Germans are making great efforts to cross the Niemen between Kovno and Grodno, at the very points which the Grand Army crossed on June 25, 1812. Thursday, October 1, 1914. The Turkish Government has closed the Straits on the pretext of the presence of an Anglo-French squadron off the entrance to the Dardanelles. This action does incalculable harm to Russia, which is left without maritime communications except by Vladivostok and Archangel. Now it must be remembered that Vladivostok is 10,500 kilometres from Petrograd and that the port of Archangel may be closed by ice at any time now until the end of May. The closing of the Straits is all the more serious because for some time I have been receiving reports from Moscow, Kiev and Kharkov that the old Byzantine dream is reviving. "This war will have no meaning for us unless it brings us Constantinople and the Straits. Tsarigrad must be ours, and ours alone. Our historic mission and our holy duty is to set the cross of Pravoslavie, the cross of the Orthodox Faith, on the dome of Saint Sophia once more. Russia would not be the chosen nation if at long last she did not avenge the ageold wrongs of Christianity." That is what is being said and spread in political, religious, and university circles and even more in the obscure depths of the Russian conscience. Friday, October 2, 1914. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister of the Empress and widow of the Grand Duke Sergius, is a strange creature whose whole life is a series of enigmas. Born at Darmstadt on November 1, 1864, she was a flower of exquisite loveliness when at the age of twenty she married the fourth son of the Emperor Alexander II. I remember dining with her in Paris a few years later, somewhere about 1891. I can still see her---tall and slender, with limpid, frank and penetrating eyes, sweet, soft lips, delicate features and a straight, aristocratic nose. All her lines were pure and graceful and there was a delightful rhythm about her movements and gestures. Her conversation revealed a charming woman's mind unaffected, contemplative and gentle. Since that time a good deal of mystery had gathered round her. Certain details of her married life remained inexplicable. Physically Sergius Alexandrovitch was very tall. He had a good figure but a disagreeable face, distinguished by greyish-white eyebrows and a hard look. Morally he was quarrelsome and despotic by nature, and both his intellect and education were poor. On the other hand his artistic perceptions were very well developed. He was a very different man from his brothers, Vladimir, Alexis and Paul. He lived to himself, preferred solitude and had a reputation for oddity. After his marriage he was even less understood. He certainly showed himself the most suspicious and inquisitorial of husbands. He would not allow his wife to remain alone with anyone or to go out by herself. He spied on her correspondence and her books, even forbidding her to read Anna Karanina for fear of its
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arousing unhealthy curiosity or too violent emotions. He was always finding fault with her in harsh and cutting terms. Even in public he sometimes spoke rudely to her. A calm and docile nature she merely bowed under the lash of his bitter tongue. Alexander III, the kind and considerate giant. was sorry for her and showed his affection, but observing that he was arousing his brother's jealousy he had to give it up before long. One day after a violent outburst on the part of the Grand Duke old Prince B-----, who had witnessed the scene, offered the young woman his sympathy! She seemed surprised and answered in a frank tone: "I'm not to be pitied. . . People may say what they like, but I'm happy because I'm very dearly loved." He certainly did love her---but in his own way, a way that was sthetic and irritable, wayward and ambiguous, covetous and incomplete. In 1891 the Grand Duke Sergius was appointed Governor-General of Moscow. It was the period when the famous Procurator of the Holy Synod, Constantine Pobiedonostsev, the "Russian Torquemada," enjoyed unbounded influence over Alexander III and was trying to restore the doctrines of theocratic absolutism and bring Russia back into the traditions of Byzantine Muscovy. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth had been baptized in the Lutheran Confession. The new Governor-General could not, however, decently appear in the Kremlin with a heretical wife and so he ordered her to abjure Protestantism and accept the national faith. It is said that she had already been inclined that way for some considerable time. Whatever the reason she adopted the creed of the Russian Church with her whole soul. No conversion was ever more sincere, thorough and complete. Hitherto the cold, dry observances of Lutheranism had been but poor sustenance to the imaginative faculties of the young woman: the experience of marriage had not been any better. All her instinct for dreams and emotion, fervour and tenderness suddenly found its outlet in the mysterious rites and pomp and pageantry of orthodoxy. Her piety soared to amazing levels. She knew heights and depths whose existence she had never even suspected. In the glory of his position as Governor-General, which equalled that of a viceroy, Sergius Alexandrovitch soon blossomed out as a protagonist of the reactionary crusade which was the sum total of the domestic policy of the "Most Pious Tsar" Alexander III. One of his first acts was the expulsion en masse of the Jews who had gradually made their way into Moscow. They were roughly driven back into their ghettoes in the western provinces. Then he issued a whole series of vexatious edicts imposing all sorts of restrictions on the professors and students of the University. Finally he adopted a haughty attitude towards the bourgeois just to remind them that their liberalism, mild though it was, was not to his taste. As always happens in such cases, the officers and officials around him were only too glad to improve on his dictatorial ways. The general hatred he thus aroused filled him with pride. In May, 1896, the coronation of Nicholas II marked a glorious date in the history of orthodox autocracy. The ideal of the Muscovite Tsars---the intimate association of Church and State---was seen to be the leitmotiv of the new reign. Only the catastrophe in Khodinsky meadows, where two thousand moujiks perished through the carelessness of the police, cast a sinister, though passing, shadow over the brilliant gaiety of the Holy City. Two years later the monument of the "Martyr Tsar," Alexander II, was unveiled in the Kremlin in front of the Cathedral of the Archangel. During the ceremonies on this occasion the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Constantine Pobiedonostsev, received the highest honour the Empire could give, the Order of Saint Andrew, founded in 1698 by Peter the Great. The "orthodox and most Christian" army was associated in the festivities by a magnificent review.
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In 1900 Nicholas II took it upon himself to revive an ancient custom of his ancestors which had fallen into desuetude for more than fifty years; he came to perform his pascal duties in Moscow, to confirm once more, as he put it, the religious and national sentiments which joined the hearts of the sovereign and his people. Nothing was left undone to make these solemnities as impressive as possible. Throughout Holy Week services and processions succeeded one another with unprecedented pomp both in the Kremlin and the principal sanctuaries of the city. Before leaving Moscow the Emperor addressed the following rescript to the Grand Duke Sergius: Your Imperial Highness, By the grace of God I have realized my great desire, and the desire of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, to be with our children and spend the days of Holy Week, receive Holy Communion and stay in Moscow for the most solemn of all ceremonies among the greatest of our national sanctuaries under the protecting shadow of our age-old Kremlin. Here, where lie the mortal remains of the saints beloved of the Lord, among the tombs of the sovereigns who brought Russia unity and organization, the very cradle of autocracy fervent prayers have been offered up to the King of Kings, and a sweet joy has possessed Our soul as it has filled those of the faithful children of Our dear Church who have thronged the temples. May God hear those prayers! May He strengthen the believers, succour those whose faith is shaken, bring back those who have strayed from the true path and bless the Empire of Russia which rests firmly on the unshakable foundation of orthodoxy, the holy guardian of the eternal Verities, love and peace. Associating myself with the prayers of my people I draw fresh strength to serve Russia for her good and her glory, and I rejoice to be able at this moment to convey to Your Imperial Highness---and through you to the City of Moscow, Moscow so dear to my heart---the sentiments by which I am inspired. Christ is risen (Signed) Nicholas. Moscow, April 9, 1900. Thus from time to time some great religious, political, or military ceremony draws the eyes of the Russian people and the Slav world to the sacred mount on which the Kremlin stands. . In this active and brilliant life Elizabeth Feodorovna played her part. She made a graceful hostess at the magnificent receptions in the Alexander and Illinskoie palaces. She threw herself enthusiastically into much religious, charitable, educational and artistic work. The picturesque setting and moral atmosphere of Moscow had a profound effect on her sthetic sensibilities. She had once been told that the mission assigned by Providence to the Tsars was to realize the Kingdom of God on the soil of Russia. The thought that she was helping, however modestly, in such a task fired her imagination. Satisfied with the part assigned to her, a miracle of purity and charm, reserve and guilelessness, with her graceful lines and exquisite toilettes she exhaled a perfume of idealism, mystery and voluptuous charm which made her all that life could wish . . . .
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Yet the ultra-reactionary policy, of which the Grand Duke Sergius boasted of being one of the principal authors, aroused a spirit of opposition in intellectual circles and the working masses throughout Russia which became more violent every day. A group of fearless anarchists, Guerchouny, Bourtzev, Savinkov and Azev, founded a "Fighting Organization," the exploits of which were soon to equal the Nihilist feats of 1877-1881. Plots and assassinations followed one another at short intervals with alarming regularity. A Minister of Education, two Ministers for the Interior, Commissioners of Police, provincial governors and magistrates were struck down one after the other. Towards the end of 1904 the situation, particularly in Moscow, suddenly became much worse owing to the disasters in the Far East. The Grand Duke Sergius immediately took the most radical measures. With his fierce scowl and cruel sneer he let everyone know that he would not show the slightest mercy. On February 17, 1905, as he was driving across the Kremlin and about to reach the Senate Square at three o'clock in the afternoon, the terrorist Kalaiev threw a bomb at him. It caught him on the breast and blew him to pieces. At that moment the Grand Duchess Elizabeth was in the Kremlin where she was organizing a Red Cross sewing guild for the armies in Manchuria. When she heard the dreadful sound of the explosion she ran out, just as she was, without a hat. She was seen to throw herself on the corpse of her husband whose head and arms, torn from the body, lay among the debris of the carriage. Then she returned to the grand-ducal palace and passed the whole of her time in prayer. She remained in prayer continuously for the five days preceding the funeral. This long communion with the Deity inspired her to a curious step. On the night before the obsequies she sent for the Prefect of Police and ordered him to take her at once to Tanganka prison where Kalaiev was waiting his summons to appear before a court martial. When she was shown into the assassin's cell she asked him: "Why did you kill my husband? Why have you burdened your conscience with such a horrible crime?" The prisoner had at first received her with a look of angry suspicion, but he observed that she spoke in gentle tones to him and said "my husband," and not "the Grand Duke." "I killed Sergius Alexandrovitch," he replied, "because he made himself the instrument of tyranny and the exploitation of the working class. I have done justice in the name of the socialist and revolutionary people." "You are wrong. My husband loved the people and thought of nothing but their welfare. So there is no excuse for your crime. Close your ears to your pride and repent. If you tread the path of re repentance I will plead with the Emperor to give you your life. and I will pray to. God to forgive you as I have already forgiven you myself." Touched and amazed at this language, he was yet brave enough to reply: "No, I'm not sorry. I must die for my cause. I shall die." "Then, as you have deprived me of any means of saving your life and will certainly soon appear before God, at any rate let me do what I can to save your soul. Here's the Gospel; promise me to read it carefully until the hour of your death." He shook his head. Then he replied: "I'll read the Gospel if you, in turn, will promise me to read this story of my life which I've just finished writing. It will help you to understand why I killed Sergius Alexandrovitch." "No., I won't read your diary. All I can do is to go on praying for you." She went out, leaving the Gospel on the table.
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In spite of her rebuff she wrote to the Emperor to ask for a pardon for the assassin, but meanwhile the public had heard of her visit to Tanganka prison. The most extraordinary and romantic versions got abroad, but they all agreed that Kalaiev had agreed to plead for a pardon. A few days later she received from the prisoner a letter which ran more or less like this: You have taken advantage of my position. I did not say I was sorry, because I am not. If I agreed to hear what you had to say it was only because I regarded you as the unfortunate widow of a man whom I had executed. I was sorry for your grief, nothing more. The account you have given of our interview is an insult to me. I don't want the mercy you have asked for me. . . . The trial proceeded. The preliminary enquiries were very prolonged owing to a useless search for accomplices, the chief of which was Boris Savinkov. On April 4 Kalaiev was condemned to death. The next day the Minister of Justice, Sergius Manushkin, was making his report to the Emperor and asked him if he intended to commute Kalaiev's sentence in view of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's plea. Nicholas II remained silent, and then casually remarked: "Is there anything else you want to talk about, Sergius Serguievitch?" And he dismissed him. But the Tsar immediately sent for Kovalensky, the Director of the Police Department, and gave him secret orders. Kalaiev was then transferred to the Fortress of Schlusselburg, the famous State prison. At eleven o'clock in the evening of May 23 the Attorney-General's deputy, Feodorov, entered the cell of the condemned man, whom he had known when they were students together, and said to him: "I am authorized to tell you that if you will ask for pardon His Majesty the Emperor will deign to grant it you." Kalaiev replied, calmly and firmly: "No; I wish to die for my cause." Feodorov persisted to the best of his ability in noble and humane terms. Kalaiev broke down but was not to be moved. He concluded with the remark: "As you're so good to me, let me write to my mother." "Certainly, you may write to her, and I'll see she gets your letter at once." When the prisoner had finished his letter Feodorov made a last despairing effort to make him change his mind. Summoning up all his courage, but losing none of his unruffled calm, Kalaiev declared solemnly: "I want to die, I must die. My death will be even more useful to my cause than the death of the Grand Duke Sergius." The deputy realized that he would never succeed in overcoming such heroic resolution. He left the cell and went to the Governor of the fortress to order the execution. The scaffold had already been erected in the courtyard of the prison. The executioner, a convict in a red cap, was waiting on the steps. He was a parricide named Philippiev and had been borrowed from the penal settlement at Orel on account of his herculean strength and professional skill. The Governor's residence was at the far end of the court. It wore a festive look that evening. Merry shouts and loud laughter were heard every moment. When Feodorov entered he found a lively company, the principal officials of the fortress and all the officers stationed at Schlusselburg, who were frolicking and feasting. By way of whiling away the time preceding the execution they were swilling champagne and toasting Baron von Medem, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Imperial Corps of Gendarmes, who had been sent by the Minister of the Interior to be present for the condemned man's last moments. Now Kalaiev was extremely anxious to see his counsel, whose presence at the execution was legally permissible. This gentleman, Jdanov, had come to Schlusselburg specially the previous evening and had asked several times to be taken to his client. But he was known as an advanced socialist; the imperial police feared that Kalaiev would give him some last message for the revolutionary party, so in spite of the express provisions of the law Jdanov was refused admittance to the fortress. When Feodorov left the cell he was succeeded by a priest. The prisoner received him kindly but declined all religious assistance: "I have settled accounts with life," he said; "I need neither your prayers nor your
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sacraments. . . . All the same I am a Christian and I believe in the Holy Spirit. I feel it still within me and I am sure it will not abandon me. That's enough for me." As the priest persisted kindly in his desire to fulfil his mission Kalaiev continued: "It's very good of you to pity me. Let me embrace you!" They fell into each other's arms. At two o'clock in the morning the prisoner was taken from his cell, his hands were bound and he was led into the courtyard of the fortress. He ascended the scaffold with a firm step. Not a shade of emotion passed over his face as he listened while the verdict was read out to him, an interminable proceeding. When the clerk of the court had finished Kalaiev said, in a very simple tone: "I'm glad I've kept my composure to the end." Then two gaolers dressed him in a long white shroud which covered his head, and the executioner called out: " Get on the stool! " Kalaiev demurred: "How can I get on the stool? You've covered my head. I can't see a thing." Phillipiev took him in his strong arms, lifted him on to the stool and quickly fastened a rope round his neck. Then he swiftly knocked away the support. But the rope was too long; Kalaiev's feet still touched the floor. The victim gave a terrible start. Cries of horror rose from the spectators assembled round the scaffold. The executioner had to shorten the rope and begin all over again. . After this sinister tragedy Elizabeth Feodorovna considered that she had finished with the world. Henceforward she devoted herself exclusively to the consolations of religion. She spent all her time in works of asceticism, piety, penitence and charity. On April 15, 1910, she realized an ambition she had had in mind for a considerable period. She established a religious community for women and had herself appointed pointed abbess. Taking the name of " Martha and Mary," the convent was established in Moscow in a part of the city on the right bank. The nuns devoted themselves particularly to the succour of the sick and poor. But at the moment when she was thus saying farewell to the world Elizabeth Feodorovna made a last concession to feminine taste: she had the dress of her order designed by a Moscow artist, the painter Nesterov. The costume comprises a long robe of fine, pearl-grey baize, a cambric whimple drawn close round the face and neck and a long white woollen veil which falls over the breast in broad folds. The general effect is simple, austere and attractive. . There is a lack of warmth in the relations between the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and the Empress Alexandra. The original cause, or at any rate the principal reason, for their estrangement is Rasputin. In Elizabeth Feodorovna's eyes Grigory is nothing but a lascivious and sacrilegious impostor, an emissary of Satan. The two sisters have often had disputes about him which have several times led to an open quarrel. They never mention him now. Another reason for the coolness between them is their rivalry in piety and good works. Each of them claims superiority in knowledge of theology, observance of scriptural injunctions, meditations on the eternal life and adoration of the crucifix. The result is that the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's appearances at Tsarskoe-Selo are rare and short.(6) What is the origin of this extraordinary domination of the mystic sensibilities in the case of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and her sister, the Empress Alexandra? It seems to me it is a legacy from their mother, Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, who was married in 1862 to the hereditary prince of HesseDarmstadt and died in 1878 at the age of thirty-five. Brought up in the strictest tenets of Anglicanism Princess Alice, shortly after her marriage, conceived a strange passion---a passion wholly ethical and intellectual---for the great rationalist theologian of Tbingen, David Strauss, the celebrated author of the Life of Jesus, who died four years before herself. Under the manners of the Swabian philistine and unfrocked minister David Strauss concealed the soul of a
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romantic. In the early days of his fame he had felt the temptation of love: the bulwark of his books was not enough to save him from the spell of the "eternal feminine." A young girl, a stranger (who was dazzled by his growing fame) offered herself to him, as Bettina von Arnim offered herself to Goethe.. He had respected this naive flower, but in breathing its fragrance he had tasted mortal poison. When he recovered his selfpossession he was able to compare himself to "the fakirs of India who boast of gaining a superhuman glory by heroic mortifications while the jealous gods send them female visions to seduce them from their faith." A few years later another witch once more deranged his studious life. This time it was not a fair and frank German lily but a perverse creature, Agnes Schebest, an opera singer of great gifts and amazingly beautiful. He loved her passionately, so much so that unable to do without her, and fearing to lose her, he married her. Of course she lost no time in betraying him with a fervour of sensuality and a callous audacity which seemed to heighten her beauty. At first he refused to open his eyes. "The world," he wrote, "calls me credulous. Perhaps I am only a slave." Ultimately he was forced to admit he had been deceived. After a terrible scene he turned away the sinner. Then he went back to his work. But after the frenzy of passion he found the interpretation of Holy Writ somewhat insipid. He could not remain in one place for an inward unrest made him change his residence time and again. He carried his sorrows from Ludwigsburg to Stuttgart, from Heidelberg to Cologne, from Weimar to Munich, from Heilbronn to Darmstadt. The. historic evolution of doctrine gave him pleasure no longer; even Hegelian dreams revolted him. In this general bankruptcy his character became daily more soured, his irony more acid, his dialectics more destructive. Weary of a life from which he had nothing to expect he longed for dissolution. It was then that he first knew Princess Alice. He at once obtained a great influence over her. But the romance of their minds and hearts was still wrapped in a deep mystery, though it is impossible to doubt that he shook her faith to the depths and that she passed through a terrible crisis. Thus it may be that her daughters have inherited from her their tendency towards religious exaltation. Perhaps, too, they betray the influence of an atavism far more ancient. Have I not found the names of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Mary Stuart among their female ancestry? Saturday, October 3, 1914. The Grand Duke Nicholas is making preparations for a general offensive in Poland and Galicia. The operations will develop in the region of Warsaw and extend to the San and the Carpathians. If they succeed the Russian army will immediately make a bee-line for Cracow and Breslau. Monday, October 5, 1914. At the moment the Emperor is making a round of the battle fronts to encourage his troops and receive their salute: Ave, Csar, morituri te salutant! According to General Bielaiev, Chief of Staff of the Army, the Grand Duke Nicholas means to carry through the next offensive with the greatest possible vigour and intensity "in the hope of deciding the war with one great blow." Thursday, October 8, 1914. The Russian offensive is general all along the line There is violent fighting from the confluence of the Bzura, which joins the Vistula 60 kilometres above Warsaw, to the source of the San, i.e., the western chain of the Carpathians. The front of attack thus measures more than four hundred kilometres.
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The transport movements which have preceded this vast operation have been carried out with the most perfect skill and organization. Simultaneously the Russian troops have gained a brilliant success between Augustov and Suvalki on the frontier of East Prussia. Sunday, October 11, 1914. Count Joseph Potocki, who arrived yesterday from his Antoniny property in Volhynia, has been to lunch at the Embassy. He has confided to me the disappointment of his Polish compatriots. "The manifesto of August 16 filled us with a great hope. We thought that Poland was to be reborn. . . When the manifesto was issued I had it read out in church by the priest. We all dissolved in tears; I wept like a child. But we are already feeling that the Russians are trying to get out of their promises. They are giving us to understand---and later on it will be their excuse---that the manifesto was signed by the Grand Duke Nicholas and not by the Emperor; that it is an impulse of the military authorities, not an act of the supreme power. They will resort to other subterfuges no doubt. And in any case these magnificent promises are conditional on the conquest of Prussian Poland! Do you really think the Russian army will ever enter Posen? Here we are seventy-two days after mobilization and it has only reached the Vistula! Anyhow, the Russians can't hold their own with the Germans. I simply daren't tell you all I think, all I anticipate. . . . No! No! The day of Poland's resurrection is a long way off yet!" I did my best to revive his faith: "The promise to restore Poland has been sworn in the face of Europe. I can assure you that it is the Emperor's personal intention. . . . No doubt the reactionaries are secretly working to secure that the manifesto of August 16 shall remain a dead letter; I often hear of their intrigues. But their calculations are much too obvious. In opposing the restoration of Poland they are merely trying to pave the way for a reconciliation between Russia and Germany. Thus the whole policy of the alliance is involved, and on that point the Emperor will never give way. The Allies will see to that, if necessary. . . . As to your military anticipations, forgive me if I regard them as an impression, not an opinion. This war will be very long and very stern, but our victory is not in doubt so long as we display tenacity and loyalty." He shrugged his shoulders sceptically and then talked about the evil situation in which most Polish families find themselves at the present moment. "To begin with," he said, "most of the fighting is on Polish ground. It is our towns, fields and estates which are being ravaged, burnt and looted by both sides! But that isn't all. Owing to the partition of Poland this war is having the most dreadful effects. Look at my family! I'm a Russian subject; my brother's an Austrian subject. One of my brothers-in-law is a German subject, another a Russian; all my cousins and nephews are similarly distributed by the necessities of inheritance among the three countries. Though all of the same race, we are condemned to civil war!" . At the Marie Theatre this evening we had Tchaikovsky's ballet, the Lac des Cygnes, a picturesque and poetical work of high symphonic qualities. The theatre was filled with a brilliant audience as on a subscription night in the days before the war.
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Is the inference that Russian society is indifferent to the war? No, indeed! On the battlefields the Russian officers show a wonderful spirit of dash and heroism. In the front line dressing-stations the finest of society ladies are rivalling each other in courage, endurance and devotion. In every quarter public generosity is at work on an unparalleled scale. Gifts are flowing in from every side, particularly anonymous gifts which are almost always the largest. In every part of the Empire relief work for the wounded, sick, necessitous and refugees is going on under most ingenious forms. Taking the Russian people as a whole, their social and patriotic solidarity is all that could be desired. There is no ground, whatever for charging them with not taking seriously the terrible trial in which the future of the nation is at stake. But it would be vain to ask them to go without their theatres, music and ballets. One might as well ask the Spanish to give up their bull fights. Nor are the observations to which I have been inspired to-day by contemplation of the brilliant audience at the Marie Theatre confined to the upper and propertied classes, for the cheaper seats were crammed to the roof. The numberless theatres of Petrograd are full every night, and it is the same in Moscow, Kiev, Kazan, Kkarkov, Odessa, Tiflis, &c. In one of the intervals I called on Teliakovsky, the Director of the Imperial Theatres; I found him with General M----- and two officers who have just come from the front. Of course we talked about the great battle which is developing west of the Vistula, the opening moves of which have been terribly sanguinary. "In short," said Teliakovsky, "we're letting thousands and thousands of men be massacred for the sake of restoring Poland! I hope to goodness we shan't persevere in this mad course!" General M- broke in: "But we've made a promise, a solemn promise! It's an obligation of honour to restore Poland!" "That's all right!" replied Teliakovsky; "let's take Posen---if we can. But we should go on and take everywhere else that really wants us; let's have Armenia and Constantinople!" As I went back to my box I passed Potocki, looking as gloomy as ever: "Oh Ambassador!" he sighed. "I've been thinking over what you said this morning. I'm sorry to say you haven't convinced me at all!" Monday, October 12, 1914. The King of Rumania, Charles I, died yesterday in his seventy-sixth year. A submissive vassal of the German powers he was always an admirer, I might almost say under the spell, of their military, political and moral superiority, and never harboured the slightest doubt about their victory in the immediate future. As long as he was alive we had no chance whatever of rallying Rumania to our cause. The new king, Ferdinand I, will have an open mind and his hands free. Besides, his wife, Queen Marie, is the granddaughter of Queen Victoria through her father, the Duke of Edinburgh, who succeeded the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1893. Her mother is the Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of the Tsar Alexander II, and her sister is the Grand Duchess Victoria, wife of the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimorovitch. She thus has family ties, ties which are very close and affectionate, with the English and Russian courts. Tuesday, October 13, 1914. Warsaw is in danger from a violent counter-attack by the Germans north of the Pilica. The Russian
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resistance is magnificent. Wednesday, October 14, 1914. A Jew from Odessa, employed to buy corn by a large exporting house, came to see me this morning on a business matter. Struck by his intelligence and sagacity I questioned him about the state of public feeling among the lower classes, especially the moujiks. I could not have found a better authority on this subject as his work obliges him to travel continuously in every part of the Empire and brings him into daily contact with the million. This is more or less what he says: "The patriotic impulse has not died down among the masses. On the contrary, hatred of Germany seems even more marked than in the first days of the war. Everyone is determined to carry the struggle through to victory. No one doubts that victory: . . . In Moscow, I however, there is some uneasiness owing to the rumours coming from Petrograd. The Empress and those about her are suspected of carrying on a secret correspondence with Germany; this suspicion extends to the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the Empress's sister, abbess of the Convent of Martha and Mary in Moscow, who spends her life in good works. The Emperor's weakness with the Empress, Vyrubova and Rasputin comes in for severe criticism. On the other hand, the popularity of the Grand Duke Nicholas increases every day. . . . People are beginning to talk a good deal about Constantinople, particularly in the southern provinces. . . ." Thursday, October 15, 1914. The German thrust at Warsaw has been stayed. The Russians are extending their offensive, but the operations are greatly hampered by the state of the roads which have been turned into quagmires by the autumn rains: in places the mud is more than a metre deep. In 1807, in the same region and at the same time of the year, Napoleon had to admit the impossibility of manoeuvring troops on such a spongy soil. The remarks made to me by the Jewish broker from Odessa yesterday have been confirmed somewhat curiously this morning. A French manufacturer, Goujon, who has been established in Moscow for forty years, came to see me this morning, and said: "Several of my Russian friends, commercial and industrial leaders, have asked me on their behalf to put a question to you which will no doubt appear somewhat strange. Is it true that the court clique have succeeded in shaking the Emperor's determination to continue the war until Germany is completely defeated? My friends are extremely anxious. They say they are quite positive about it, so much so that they've come to Petrograd with me this morning and intend to ask an audience of the Emperor. But before doing so they want to consult you, and will be extremely grateful if you'll receive them." I told Goujon all that I know about the intrigues in progress in the Empress's entourage, intrigues which need very careful watching. As to the Emperor's determination I told him of the accumulation of evidence I am continually receiving: "You can assure your friends from me that I have unlimited confidence in the Emperor's word, his loyalty to the alliance and his determination to carry the war through to final and complete victory. . . . They will understand, of course, that I cannot receive them; it would look as if I were coming between the Tsar and his subjects. If you hear anything definite about the intrigues at the palace don't neglect to let me know." I have just told Sazonov of this conversation and he has entirely approved what I said. He added:
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"I'm very glad indeed about this; it's enabled you to feel the pulse of Russia: you can see for yourself it beats strongly." Monday, October 19, 1914. At two o'clock this afternoon there was a memorial, service for King Carol in the chapel of the Winter Palace. While the interminable funeral service was in progress I had a talk with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Vladimir Sabler, the successor and rival of the formidable Pobiedonostsev, fierce guardian of orthodox traditions and, discipline; otherwise a nice, kind man. "Ambassador," he said, "why weren't you present yesterday evening at the sacred concert got up by the clergy of Petrograd in aid of the wounded? There was nothing but religious music in the programme. We began with the Russian national anthem and then---the Marseillaise! . . . It's a fact, the Marseillaise sung by Russian clergy! They put their hearts into it, too! And I of all people, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, actually encored the Marseillaise! "You were absolutely right, Your Excellency! The Marseillaise was in no way out of place in your sacred concert. At the present moment it is an epitome of every Frenchman's national faith." Then he smilingly told me of the terrible scandal at court and in Russian high society when the Tsar Alexander III allowed the Marseillaise to be played in his presence in July, 1891, during the visit of the French fleet to Kronstadt. Tuesday, October 20, 1914. The Russian offensive is in full career on a front of 450 kilometres from Vloslavsk to Jaroslav. In the Constantinople quarter the sky is even darker the storm is approaching. Sazonov tells me that the Grand Duke Nicholas will not allow himself to be deflected from his plan by the threat from Turkey; he will spare as little as possible for the defence of the Caucasus and will keep all his troops for the principal theatre of operations. It is in Berlin where all the accounts will be taken. General de Laguiche writes to me in the same strain. Wednesday, October 21, 1914. West of the Vistula the Germans are retreating all along the line. A terrible battle is in progress in France and Belgium, in the region of Arras and on the line of the Yser. Thursday, October 22, 1914. The victory of the Russian armies is becoming more pronounced and extending It is a case of now or never for Rumania to take the field against Austria-Hungary, especially as she is no longer held back by the objections of King Carol. But Bratiano, the President of the Council who is now the sole master of Rumanian policy, is showing himself increasingly undecided and timid.
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Friday, October 23, 1914. Up to the present the students of Russian universities have been exempted from military service so that they can finish their courses. A ukase has now been issued authorizing the Minister for War to call them to the colours. The reason for this measure is the enormous losses suffered by the Russian armies in Poland and Galicia. After a six months' course in certain special schools students possessing certain degrees will be granted commissions as second-lieutenants. This ukase has come in for severe criticism in conservative circles. One of the leaders of the Right in the Council of the Empire said to me: "It's ridiculous! Our corps of officers is to be contaminated. . . . All these students are nothing but revolutionary virus which will infect the army. . ." In the university towns such as Petrograd, Moscow, Kazan and Kiev, the students have been organizing patriotic demonstrations. The Moscow students have even thought the best way to prove their nationalist fervour is to loot the shops of Germans. Saturday, October 24, 1914. Following up their campaign against everything German the Government has decided that the Petrograder Zeitung, the influential Petersburg Gazette, which has been published in German since 1726, is to be suppressed on December 31 next. The German party in Russia, the party of the "Baltic Barons" will thus lose its official organ. In many ways the animosity against the Germans, even Germans who are Russian subjects throughout the Empire, recalls the nationalist outburst of 1740 which put an end to the regime of the Birens, Ostermanns, Munnichs, Lowenwoldes and all the other German favourites of which Herzen wrote so picturesquely: "They wrangled over Russia as if it were a jug of beer." Sunday, October 25, 1914. Sazonov has shown me a letter he has just received from a student at Kazan. It runs as follows "Your Excellency, "I have not the honour of knowing you. I am about to join the army. If this war is to bring us Constantinople I will die twenty times, and gladly. But if we are not to have Constantinople I shall die but once, with death in my heart! I beg Your Excellency to reply with a simple yes' or 'no' on the enclosed postcard, on which I have given my name and address." Monday, October 26, 1914. I have dined quite privately at Tsarskoe-Selo with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna. The Grand Duchess is absolutely delighted at the great successes the Russian army has just gained in Poland:
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"I attach the greatest importance to these successes," she said. "We may legitimately call them a victory. In. the first place the German army has lost its prestige in the eyes of our men. They thought it invincible! In the second place it has removed any possibility of a premature peace with Germany." I made cautious enquiries about Rasputin. She replied: "Alas! Some believe in him more than ever! He is more than ever the "Man of God"! Some do not doubt that our successes are due to his prayers! Some have even asked him more than once to give his blessing to the plan, of campaign. . . . What a pity!" " Does he ever talk about peace? " " I don't know, but I should be greatly surprised if he had. He's too cunning not to feel that he would not be listened to at a time like this." Wednesday, October 28, 1914. For the Jews of Poland and Lithuania the war is one of the greatest disasters they have ever known. Hundreds of thousands of them have had to leave their homes in Lodz, Kielce, Petrokov, Ivangorod, Skiernewice, Suvalki, Grodno, Bielostock, etc. Almost everywhere the prelude to their lamentable exodus has been the looting of their shops, synagogues, and houses. Thousands of families have taken refuge in Warsaw and Vilna; the majority are wandering aimlessly like a flock of sheep. It's a miracle that there have been no pogroms---organized massacres. But not a day passes in the zone of the armies without a number of Jews being hanged on a trumped-up charge of spying. Incidentally, Sazonov and I have been talking of the Jewish question and all the religious, political, social and economic problems it raises. He informed me that the Government was considering what modifications could be made in the far too arbitrary and vexatious regulations to which the Russian Jews are subjected. A new law is about to be issued in favour of the Jews of Galicia who will become subjects of the Tsar. I have encouraged him to be as tolerant and liberal as possible: "I'm speaking to you as an ally. In the United States there is a very large, influential and wealthy Jewish community who are very indignant at your treatment of their co-religionists. Germany is very skilfully exploiting this quarrel with you---which means a quarrel with us. It 's matter of importance for us to win the sympathy of Americans."
Chapter Footnotes
1. The documents published by the Bolsheviks in September, 1917, have completely revealed what happened between the two Emperors when they met on July 23, 1905, on board the Hohenzollern in Bjork roads. It is now known that the Emperor William suddenly proposed to the Tsar Nicholas a treaty of alliance between Germany and Russia; this treaty, aimed at England, stipulated for the subsequent adhesion of France. The Russian Government undertook to do everything necessary to obtain the signature of the French Government. Dazzled by the Kaiser's eloquence, Nicholas II signed at once without even taking time to consult his Foreign Minister, Count Lamsdorff, who had remained behind at St. Petersburg. As Willam II insisted that the document, drafted beforehand in Berlin, must be countersigned (for that purpose he had brought with him a high diplomatic official, Tchirsky, subsequently
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Secretary of State at the Foreign Office and then Ambassador in Vienna), the Tsar called up his Naval Minister, Admiral Birilev, one of his cronies who was on board, covered the text of the treaty with his hand and ordered him to sign his name at the bottom of the page. The Admiral, with touching docility, did so at once. When he got back to Tsarskoe-Selo the Tsar Nicholas told Count Lamsdorff the results of his fortunate negotiations. Lamsdorff could hardly believe his eyes or ears. With all the necessary tact he brought home to his august master what an appalling mistake he had made. Just at this time Count Witte, who had just signed the peace treaty with Japan at Portsmouth, arrived in St. Petersburg. Although he had long advocated an alliance between Russia, Germany, and France, he was too intelligent not to realize that an affair begun in so idiotic a fashion could never lead to anything. For that reason he supported Lamsdorff against the Tsar. When the Russian Ambassador in Paris, Nelidov, was informed of the proposal he too lost no time in replying that France would never consent to join Germany against England. Nicholas II thus found himself compelled to go back on his signature. He instructed Count Osten-Sacken, his ambassador in Berlin, to inform the German Chancellery that the Russian Government regarded the Treaty of Bjork as inoperative in view of the fact that one of its essential provisions, i.e., the adhesion of France, had become impossible of realization. A personal letter from the Tsar to the Kaiser confirmed this official communication. Seeing his scheme vanish into thin air William, II was simply furious; he tried to regain his hold over Nicholas II by arguments drawn from the realms of mysticism: "We have joined our hands," he telegraphed on October 12, 1905. "We have signed before God, who heard our oath. I am sure that the treaty can be carried out perfectly well. If you want some modifications of detail, make your own suggestions. But what has been signed is signed. God is our witness!" The matter went no further. It is difficult to judge the part played by Nicholas II in this affair. In signing the Treaty of Bjork did he show himself disloyal to France? No. The conclusion of the adventure itself is enough to acquit him. But unquestionably in his ignorance and blindness he went much too far. 2. Robert Gauthiot died of wounds in September, 1916. He was forty years of age. As a linguist he was in the front rank. In him our knowledge of Indo-European languages has lost the most brilliant heir of Burnouf and Darmesteter. 3. Vladimir Nicolaievitch-Kokovtsov was born on April 19, 1853. After serving for several years in the Penitentiary Department he turned to matters of finance and public accounts and was therefore in 1890 appointed Under-Secretary of State in the Accounts Department. He became Count Witte's assistant and in February, 1904, was made Finance Minister. He laid down this office in 1905, but was reappointed in May, 1906. Appointed President of the Council of Ministers on September 24,, 1911, he saw himself abruptly deprived of his high office on February 12, 1914, thanks to the agitation of Rasputin and his gang, whom he had the courage to oppose. It was not without regret that the Tsar dismissed this loyal servant whose ability, upright character and disinterestedness he valued highly. He made Kokovtsov a count as a reward for his services. 4. The Germans. 5. Hmophilia is a congenital disease, very uncommon and peculiar. It is supposed to be a sign of degeneracy. The characteristic symptom is change in the blood which more or less loses the power to congeal. The result is frequent hmorrhage which it is sometimes impossible to stop. The least trauma, such as nose bleeding, a slight blow, a prick, or even a trifling accident like a
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fit of coughing, or a false step is enough to cause a great effusion of blood. In most cases the haemorrhage is internal; it floods the tissue and invades the joints and the intestines. The ordinary haemostatic treatments are powerless to control it. Injections of physiological serums are sometimes efficacious. Two-thirds of all haemophylic subjects die before the age of eleven. Very few survive their twentieth year. From the point view of heredity hmophilia is very curious in one way: the disposition is only transmitted to males and always by mothers who are themselves exempt. 6. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth was arrested by the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1918 and interned in the little village of Alapayevsk, north of Ekaterinburg. In the night of July 17, twenty-four hours after the massacre of the Tsar, the Tsaritsa and their children, she was beaten to death with the butt end of rifles and thrown into a mineshaft. Her remains were recovered a few weeks later when Admiral Koltchak's army approached the Urals. After many vicissitudes her coffin was brought to Pekin: it is to be placed in the Russian Convent of "Saint Mary Magdalene at the Judgment Seat" in Jerusalem.
Chapter Six Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter VI.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER VI OCTOBER 29-NOVEMBER 30, 1914
Sudden attack by Turkish destroyers on the Russian fleet at Odessa.---Allied rupture with Turkey.---A Rasputin logograph.---Victory of the Russians in Galicia.---They resume their offensive in Poland.---The utopias of Slavism; the Byzantine dream.---Intrigues of Count Witte.---England spontaneously abandons Constantinople to Russia.---An audience with the Emperor. Nicholas II gives me his views on the terms of the future peace.---The Battle of Lodz: a victory is prematurely announced by the Russians who let it slip from their grasp.---A forerunner of Rasputin; the magician Philippe; the canonization of Saint Seraphin and the birth of the Tsarevitch.
Thursday, October 29, 1914 At three o'clock this morning two Turkish destroyers entered the port of Odessa, sank a Russian gunboat and fired on the French mail boat Portugal doing considerable damage. Then they fled at top speed, pursued by a Russian destroyer. Sazonov has received the news very calmly. He immediately applied to the Emperor for orders, and then said to me: "His Majesty has decided that not a man shall be withdrawn from the German front. Our first concern is to beat Germany.. The defeat of Germany will necessarily involve the ruin of Turkey. We shall keep down to a minimum the forces required for defence against the. Turkish fleet and army." Among the general public there is great excitement. Friday, October 30, 1914. The Russian Ambassador in Constantinople, Michael de Giers, has received orders to demand his passports. At Sazonov's request the three allied Governments are still trying to keep Turkey neutral, and pressing her immediately to dismiss the German officers serving in the Ottoman fleet and army. The attempt has no chance of success, however, as Turkish cruisers have just bombarded Novorossisk and Theodosia as well. These attacks---which have not been preceded by a declaration of war or any sort of notice---this series of provocations and outrages, have made the whole Russian nation almost beside itself with fury.
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Sunday, November 1, 1914. As Turkey has refused to sever her ties with the German powers; the Russian, French and English Ambassadors have left Constantinople. West of the Vistula the Russian armies are still advancing victoriously on the whole front. Monday, November 2, 1914. The Tsar Nicholas has issued a proclamation to his people: Under German command the Turkish feet has had the treacherous effrontery to attack our Black Sea coasts. We share with all the peoples of Russia the unshakable conviction that the rash intervention of Turkey will only hasten that country's downfall and open Russia's path towards the solution of the historic problem which our ancestors have bequeathed to us on the shores of the Black Sea. I questioned Sazonov about the meaning of this last phrase which seems to have been drawn from the Sibylline Books. "We shall have to make Turkey pay dearly for her mistake of to-day," he replied. "We must have tangible guarantees on the Bosphorus. As regards Constantinople, personally I don't want the Turks to be cleared out. I'd gladly leave them the old Byzantine city with a good-sized kitchen-garden all round. But no more!" Tuesday, November 3, 1914 Two days ago Countess I---- sent me the following letter: My Dear Friend, Don't be afraid I'm going to ramble, but a strange and mysterious being has asked me to translate his thought for France and send it on to you. I warn you it's just a mass of incoherencies. I also send the Russian original, if the enclosed scrawl can be called an "original." Perhaps you will find someone better qualified than I to seize the mystic, and perhaps prophetical meaning of this letter. It is Madame Vyrubova who has sent it to me with a request to translate it for I imagine the idea has emanated from higher up. . . . Your Friend, O.I. Enclosed in this letter was a sheet of paper gashed with a large, uneven, heavy and uneducated handwriting, a jumble of jerks, stabs and contortions. The letters were so clumsy and mis-shapen that it was exceedingly difficult to make them out. But, taken as a whole, the sheet was as expressive as an etching: one could feel the trembling of the hand as it traced each word, and before one's eyes rose the vision of a being endowed with imagination and audacity, a thing of impulses and sensuality. The signature was almost easy to read: Rasputin.
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Madame L-----'s translation from the Russian runs as follows: God grant that you may live after the manner of Russia, and not of the critics of the country, the cipher for example.(1) From that moment God will give you the miracle of strength. Your armies will see the strength of Heaven. Victory is with you and on you! Rasputin.(2) The piece of paper on which this unintelligible scrawl was written has had the top left corner torn off, the corner on which the imperial arms are stamped. Rasputin must have written this note in Tsarskoe-Selo palace itself. After somewhat anxious reflection I dictated to Countess L------ a nebulous reply, which enshrines the following notion: "The French nation, whose intuition is very quick, well knows that the Russian people embody their love of their country in the person of the Tsar. . . ." My letter ended thus: "Your Prophet may be easy in his mind! France and Russia are at one in the loftiness of their common ideal." Wednesday, November 4, 1914. The strength of the Russian troops assigned for operations in Asia against the Turks is 160,000 men. The plan of the Russian General Staff is immediately to secure all the strategic positions which command the gateways into Azerbaidjan and then remain on the defensive. Countess L----- writes to me: Your answer to my letter was perfect and your letter has reached august hands. I have ascertained that I had good reason to think that the order to translate came from high up. All good wishes. O.I. Thursday, November 5, 1914. An Anglo-French squadron has bombarded the advanced forts of the Dardanelles. In Armenia the Russians have carried by storm the fortress of Bayazid which commands the road to Van. They began their campaigns of 1828 and 1877 in the same way. England is annexing the Island of Cyprus, which she has occupied since 1878 in accordance with the terms of her alliance with Turkey. In northern France and Belgium the Germans are exhausting themselves in frantic and furious efforts to force their way through to Calais. Friday, November 6, 1914. In the region of Warsaw the Germans are threatened with envelopment of their left wing and are hastening their retreat in a westerly direction.
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In Galicia the obstinate fighting which has been in progress for three weeks on the San resulted yesterday in a general and precipitate retreat by the Austrians. The Grand Duke Nicholas has asked me to forward to General Joffre the following telegram: "Following on our successes on the Vistula a complete victory has just been gained by our troops. The Austrians are in disorderly flight on the whole of the Galician front. The strategic manoeuvre of which I informed you when it began has thus come to a happy conclusion, being crowned with the most important success gained by us since the beginning of the war." Saturday, November 7, 1914. I have had a talk with the Chief of the General Staff. I asked him what would probably be the immediate effect of the rout of the Austrians on the course of the operations. I give a summary of what I took down from General Bielaiev's dictation: (1) In the Austrian theatre The Austrian army may be considered as crushed. Its debris are being mercilessly pursued into the defiles of the Carpathians. The intention of the Grand Duke is to send twelve cavalry divisions with infantry support into the upper valley of the Theiss with a view to threatening Buda-Pesth; but for the time being these troops will not proceed more than a hundred kilometres. These twelve divisions comprise 48,000 men, of which 30,000 are Cossacks. The latter include the special brigade known as the "savage brigade" because it is recruited from the fiercest and most warlike tribes of the Caucasus. The Grand Duke anticipates that this mass of cavalry will produce a panic in Hungary. (2) In the German theatre: The German armies are retreating all along the line, but it looks as if they would stop on the Thorn-Posen-Breslau-Neisse line where a series of fortified positions is being prepared in feverish haste. The German forces consist of seven corps, to which should perhaps be added five corps of recent formation (the five corps operating in East Prussia are not included in this number). The Russian forces comprise thirty-seven corps (not including the five corps in East Prussia). The Grand Duke Nicholas's intention is to press forward on Berlin on a front of approximately 250 kilometres, resting his left on the Carpathians. Sunday, November 8, 1914. Yesterday the Japanese captured Tsing-Tau and have taken 2,300 prisoners. In Poland a Russian cavalry division has advanced 250 kilometres west of Warsaw and penetrated German territory as far as Pleschen, which is 30 kilometres northwest of Kalisz. Monday, November 9, 1914. The attack by the Turks has shaken the Russian national conscience to its depths.
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Naturally the shock and indignation have been nowhere greater than at Moscow, the sacred metropolis of orthodox nationalism. In the heady atmosphere of the Kremlin all the romantic utopias of Slavism have suddenly been roused to life. As in the days of Aksakov, Kireievsky and Katkov Muscovite brains have been intoxicated the last few days with the thought of Russia's divine mission on earth. It has inspired me to re-read the poems of Tiutchev, the poet of slavianophilstvo, and particularly his verses called Russian Geography, which had such a success in days gone by: "Moscow, the City of Peter and the City of Constantine, these are the three sacred capitals of the Russian Empire. But where are its frontiers on the north and the east, on the south and the west? Destiny will show us in the future. Seven inland seas and seven great rivers; from the Nile to the Neva, the Elbe to China, the Volga to the Euphrates, the Ganges to the Danube---there is the Russian Empire, and it will last throughout the centuries! The spirit has predicted this, and Daniel has prophesied it." It was Tiutchev, too, who wrote this famous apocalypse: "Soon the days will be fulfilled, the hour will sound! And in Byzantium, born again, the ancient vault of Saint Sophia will once more shelter the altar of Christ. Kneel before that altar, O Tsar of 'Russia, and rise, Tsar of all the Slavs!" Tuesday, November 10, 1914. With his usual calm and haughty audacity Count Witte is carrying on his campaign in favour of Peace. He is going about saying: "Lose no time in liquidating this sorry adventure! Russia will never have so favourable an opportunity again. We have just beaten the Austrians and driven back the Germans. It is the utmost we can ever do. Henceforward our military power can only wane. We shall require months and months to bring our effectives up to strength and complete our artillery and supplies. But within three weeks the Germans, with the help of their railways, will return to attack us with new armies, superior in numbers and provided with all the munitions they require. And this time they'll finish us off! That's what the Emperor and his ministers have to realize---if they, are capable of realizing anything!" This specious talk, uttered in his slow, deliberate and contemptuous voice, is having a great effect. I complained to Sazonov: "What makes Count Witte's intrigues particularly ill-timed and indecent," I said, "is the fact that in France and England politicians of all parties have voluntarily submitted to strict discipline in the interests of national solidarity. Look at our socialists. Not a fault to find with them! The only false note is here. And he who utters it, nay shouts it on the house-tops, is not a private individual but a former President of the Council and still one of His Majesty's Secretaries of State, a member of the Council of Empire and President of the Higher Committee of Finance! " "You're perfectly right, I'm sorry to say! Count Witte's intrigues are not merely indecent; they're positively criminal. I've denounced them several times to the Emperor and His Majesty has been very indignant." " But why doesn't the Emperor punish him? Why doesn't he take away his title of Secretary of State and deprive him of his seat in the Council of Empire, or at any rate of the presidency of the Finance Committee?" "Because . . . because. . ."
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His words ended in a despairing sigh. I continued: "But you should take action against this pacifist propaganda: it might easily become dangerous." "I'll be seeing the Emperor in the next few days and advise him to see you, so that he can tell you himself that Count Witte's babble doesn't matter a bit." Wednesday, November 11, 1914., During the ten months of my acquaintance with Russian society one of the phenomena which have amazed me most is the freedom, or rather the licence, with which the Emperor, Empress and imperial family are discussed. In this home of autocracy where the police, the gendarmerie, the Okhrana, the Fortress of Peter and Paul and Siberia are such terrible and ever-present realities, the crime of lse-majest is the habitual sin of conversation in society. I had further proof of it to-day when I was at tea with Madame B-----. She told me of several new features in Witte's peace campaign, and then flamed up against the Emperor who tolerates this outrage: "He is mortally afraid of Witte; he'll never have the courage to deal with him. . . . He's always been the same since the beginning of his reign; he has neither courage nor will." "Is it fair to say he has no will? I should have thought that he'd held the reins pretty tight on a good many occasions." But Madame B----- was not to be appeased. Her eyes sparkling with intelligence and irritation, she continued her indictment with a frown: "No, he hasn't an ounce of will. How could he expect to have, seeing that he hasn't the slightest personality? He's obstinate, but that's a very different thing. When an idea has been put in his head---he never has ideas of his own---he takes it up and clings to it simply because he hasn't the strength of mind to want any other. . . . But what annoys me most about him is that he hasn't any courage. He's always doing underhand things. He won't enter into a frank and free discussion on a subject which is not indifferent to him. To avoid opposition he invariably acquiesces in everything which is said to him, and always complies with one's requests. The moment his back is turned he orders the opposite. . . . Look at the way he dismisses his ministers! It is just when he's determined to get rid of them that he gives them the friendliest reception and shows them special confidence and kindness. They open their newspaper some fine morning and learn from a rescript that their health obliges them to take a long rest. Have you ever heard anything more disgraceful than the dismissal of Kokovtsov at the beginning of this year? Why, I shouldn't send one of my servants away in such a humiliating fashion and without a word of explanation! . . ." Thursday, November 12, 1914 At the club to-day I had a talk with old Prince T---- and B----- (the Director of the Imperial Hunting Establishments) who were personal friends of Alexander III. In veiled terms they conveyed to me how deplorable the discredit into which the imperial family has fallen, seemed to them, and how dangerous the perpetual web of intrigues around the Empress was for Russia and the dynasty. I did not conceal from them that I, too, was very uneasy about these intrigues:
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"How can the Emperor tolerate a real hot-bed of treason within the four walls of his own palace? How can he let his own authority be flouted in this way? Why doesn't he take strong action? He could put everything right in a moment---with a word, or a stroke of his pen. . . After all, he's the master! Of course, I know Russia has passed beyond the feudal stage, the times of Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great. But the Tsar is still the Tsar, the autocrat that is to say, and his power is enormous . . " Prince T----- broke in: "His power is far less than you think. From a practical point of view he is dependent upon his officials for information or advice or the carrying-out of his orders. And he lets things slide, because he has little initiative or will and at heart is pretty much of a fatalist. It is the bureaucracy which really governs the Empire." B----- joined in: "With very few exceptions it has always been the same. The Tsars have always been more or less in the hands of their tchinovniks. You remember Madame Svetchin's remarks: 'It's marvellous how much those who can do everything cannot do!' And she was speaking of none other than Nicholas I! Saturday, November 14, 1914. This morning Buchanan told Sazonov in my presence that the British ministers had discussed at great length the new problems which had arisen in the east owing to the deeds and misdeeds of the Turkish Government; he added that Sir Edward Grey had not failed to inform them of the views of the Russian Government and the aspirations of the Russian people. He wound up with a solemn declaration: "The Government of His Britannic Majesty have been led to recognize that the question of the Straits and Constantinople must be solved in the manner Russia desires. I am happy to inform you accordingly." After a moment's surprise Sazonov's face lit up with delight, but overcoming his emotion he replied with calm dignity: "Monsieur I'Ambassadeur I accept your intimation with heartfelt gratitude. Russia will never forget the proof of friendship which England has given her to-day. Never!" Then they shook hands, and warmly congratulated one another. Sunday, November 15, 194. In Poland the operations of the Russian army are developing successfully (1) between the Vistula and the Warta, in, and around Leczyca; (2) in South-western Poland between Czestochova and Cracow. In Galicia the Russians are still making progress across the Carpathians. In East Prussia they are approaching the Gumbinnen-Angerburg front, where the German line is strongly fortified. General de Laguiche, who has Just been round the Russian army fronts in Poland, has been telling me of the enormous difficulties of their advance in the region from which the enemy has just retired. All the railways and roads have been systematically destroyed. Not a station, not a bridge is left. In many places a
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series of trenches has been cut across the roads for several versts. The troops are displaying amazing energy in the repair of the roads---such is their impatience to get on. . . . The men are in fine fettle. There are few sick; but thousands of horses have had to be replaced. The units which have suffered most are those which were engaged in operations in Galicia and have had to be sent north. Five army corps, forming a single column, spent four days in passing through forests so marshy that the trees on either side of the one available road had to be cut down to fill up the holes. After describing the retreat of the Germans in a westerly direction General de Laguiche concluded with his usual wisdom: "The enemy's retreat is voluntary, without letting himself be held and without being touched in his vitals. This enemy may therefore appear again. What is the motive behind this retirement? It is a question we should put to ourselves, if we are to be prepared against surprise and not to be embarrassed in the execution of our own plans. We are witnessing successes which are well calculated to give us every satisfaction; but the task before us is one and indivisible for there will be no victory until the enemy's armies have ceased to exist." Wednesday, November 18, 1914 Buchanan told Sazonov this morning that the British Government finds itself compelled to annex Egypt; it hopes that the Russian Government will offer no objection. Sazonov hastened to express his approval. Four days ago England abandoned Constantinople to Russia. To-day Russia has abandoned Egypt to England. Thus is fulfilled, after an interval of sixty-one years, the programme which the Tsar Nicholas I laid before Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British Ambassador, in January 1853---a programme which was the origin of the Crimean War. Thursday, November 19, 1914 Between the Vistula and the Warta---about 100 kilometres from Warsaw---the Germans are engaged in a violent offensive to hold up the Russian advance on Silesia. Near Kutno the Russians seem to have suffered a reverse which is said to have cost them 30,000 men. A great battle is about to begin further south, in the region of Lodz. The Grand-Master of the Ceremonies has informed me that the Emperor desires to see me and will receive me the day after to-morrow, Saturday, at Tsarskoe-Selo. Friday, November 20, 1914. The new Bulgarian Minister, Madjaroff, presented is credentials to His Majesty this afternoon. After declaring his friendly feelings for the Bulgarian an nation the Emperor spoke to him in a warning tone: "I must not hide from you that the attitude of your Government towards Serbia is making a very painful impression upon me and that all my people feel it as much as I myself. . . . If your Government takes
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advantage of the present situation to attack Serbia, as sovereign of the greatest of the Slav States I shall solemnly proclaim that Bulgaria has forfeited her place in the Slav family!" Saturday, November 21, 1914 This morning Sazonov said to me: "The Emperor will receive you at four o'clock. Officially he has nothing to say; but he wants to talk to you frankly and without restraint. I warn you your audience will be a long one. At three o'clock I left in a special train for Tsarskoe-Selo. Snow was falling heavily. Under the wan light from the sky the great plain in which Petrograd is set lay pale, misty and drab. It made me feel gloomy with its reminder of the plains of Poland where at this very moment thousands of men are dying and thousands others suffer the tortures of wounds. Although my audience was a private one I had to put on my full-dress uniform, as is fitting for a meeting with the Tsar, Autocrat of all the Russias. The Director of Ceremonies, Evreinov, went with me. He also was a symphony in gold braid. From Tsarskoe-Selo station to Alexander Palace is a short distance, less than a verst. In the open space before one reaches the park a little church, medival in style, raises its pretty cupola above the snow; it is the Feodorovsky Sobor, one of the Empress's favourite resorts for private devotion. Alexander Palace showed me its most intimate side, for ceremonial was reduced to a minimum. My escort consisted only of Evreinov, a household officer in undress uniform and a footman in his picturesque (Tsaritsa Elizabeth) dress with the hat adorned with long red, black and yellow plumes. I was taken through the audience rooms, then the Empress's private drawing-room, down a long corridor leading to the private apartments of the sovereigns in which I passed a servant in very plain livery who was carrying a tea tray. Further on was the foot of a little private staircase leading to the rooms of the imperial children. A lady's maid flitted away from the landing above. The last room at the end of the corridor is occupied by Prince Mestschersky, personal aide-de-camp. I waited there barely a minute. The gaily and weirdly bedecked Ethiopian who mounted guard outside His Majesty's study opened the door almost at once. The Emperor received me with that gracious and somewhat shy kindness which is all his own. The room in which he received me is small and has only one window. The furniture is plain and comfortable there are plain leather chairs, a sofa covered with a Persian rug, a bureau and shelves arranged with meticulous care, a table spread with maps and a low book case with photographs, busts and family souvenirs on the top shelf. As usual the Emperor hesitated over his preliminary remarks, which are kind personal enquiries and attentions, but soon he became more at his ease: "Let's make ourselves at home and be comfortable first, as I shall keep you some time. Have this chair. . . . We'll put this little table between us: that's better. Here are the cigarettes: Turkish. I've no business to smoke them as they were given to me by a fresh enemy, the Sultan. But they're extremely nice and, anyhow, I haven't any others. Let me have my maps. . . . And now we can talk." He lit his cigarette, offered me a light and went straight to the heart of the subject: "Great things have happened in the three months since I saw you last. The splendid French army and my dear army have already given such proof of valour that victory can't fail us now. . . . Don't think I'm under
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any illusion as to the trials and sacrifices the war still has in store for us; but so far we have a right, and even a duty, to consider together what we should have to do if Austria or Germany sued for peace. You must observe that it would unquestionably be in Germany's interest to treat for peace while her military power is still formidable. But isn't Austria very exhausted already? Well, what should we do if Germany or Austria asked for peace?" "The first question," I said, " is to consider whether peace can be negotiated if we are not forced to dictate it to our enemies. . . . However moderate we may be we shall obviously have to insist on guarantees and reparations from the Central Powers, demands they will not accept before they are at our mercy." "That's my own view. We must dictate the peace and I am determined to continue the war until the Central Powers are destroyed. But I regard it as essential that the terms of the peace should be discussed by us three, France, England and Russia-and by us three alone. No Congress or mediation for me! So when the time comes we shall impose our will upon Germany and Austria." "What is your general idea of the terms of peace, Sire?" After a moment's consideration the Emperor resumed: "What we must keep before us as our first object is the destruction of German militarism, the end of the nightmare from which Germany has made us suffer for more than forty years. We must make it impossible for the German people even to think of revenge. If we let ourselves be swayed by sentiment there will be a fresh war within a very short time. . . . As for the precise terms of peace I must tell you at once that I accept here and now any conditions France and England think it their duty to put forward in their own interest." "I thank Your Majesty for that intimation; I am certain that the Government of the Republic in turn will meet the wishes of the imperial Government in the most sympathetic spirit." "What you say encourages me to tell you all I think. But I m only giving you my own view, as I don't like to open questions of this kind without consulting my ministers and generals." He drew his chair close to mine, spread a map of Europe on the table between us, lit another cigarette and continued in an even more intimate and familiar tone: "This is more or less my view of the results Russia is entitled to expect from the war, results failing which my people will not understand the sacrifices I have require of them. . . . In East Prussia Germany must accept a rectification of the frontier. My General Staff would like this rectification to be extended to the mouths of the Vistula. That seems to me excessive; I'll look into the question. Posen and possibly a portion of Silesia will be indispensable to the reconstitution of Poland. Galicia and the western half of the Bukovina will enable Russia to obtain her natural frontier, the Carpathians. . . . In Asia Minor I shall have to consider the question of the Armenians of course; I certainly could not let them return to the Turkish yoke. Ought I to annex Armenia? I shall only do so if the Armenians expressly ask me to. Otherwise I shall establish an autonomous regime for them. Lastly, I shall be compelled to secure my Empire a free passage through the Straits." As he stopped at these words I pressed him to enlighten me further. He continued: "I am far from having made up my mind. The matter is of such grave importance. But there are two conclusion to which I am always being brought back; first, that the Turks must be expelled from Europe; secondly, that Constantinople must in future be neutral, with an international regime. I need hardly say that the Mohammedans should receive all necessary guarantees that sanctuaries and tombs will be respected. Western Thrace to the Enos-Midia line should be given to Bulgaria. The rest, from that line to the shores of the Straits but excluding the environs of Constantinople, would be assigned Russia." "So if I have understood you correctly, the Turks will be confined to Asia---as in the days of the first
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Osmanlis--- and have Angora or Koniah for their capital. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles will thus form the western frontier of Turkey." "Exactly." "Your Majesty will forgive me for interrupting again to remind you that in Syria and Palestine France has a precious heritage of historical memories and moral and material interests. May I assume that Your Majesty would acquiesce in any measures the Government of the Republic might think fit to take to safeguard that inheritance?" "Certainly!" Then he spread out a map of the Balkans and indicated broadly his view of the territorial changes we should desire: "Serbia should annex Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Northern Albania. Greece should have southern Albania with the exception of Valona, which must be assigned to Italy. If Bulgaria behaves properly she should receive compensation in Macedonia from Serbia." He carefully folded up the map of the Balkans and as carefully returned it to its exact place on his table. Then crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair he fixed his eyes on the ceiling and asked in a dreamy voice: "What about Austria-Hungary? What's to become of her? " "If the victories of your armies develop beyond the Carpathians and Italy and Rumania enter the field Austria-Hungary will hardly survive the territorial sacrifices the Emperor Francis Joseph will be obliged to accept. When the Austro-Hungarian partnership has gone bankrupt I imagine the partners won't wish to go on working together, at any rate on the same terms." "I think so too. . . . When Hungary loses Transylvania she'll have some difficulty in keeping the Croats under her sway. Bohemia will demand its autonomy at the least and Austria will thus find herself reduced to her ancient hereditary states, German Tyrol and the district of Salzburg." Hereupon he lapsed into silence for a moment, his brows contracted and his eyes half closed as if he were repeating to himself what he was about to tell me. Then he cast a glance at the portrait of his father on the wall behind me and continued: "But it is primarily in Germany that the great changes will take place. As I have said, Russia will annex the former Polish territories and part of East Prussia. France will certainly recover Alsace-Lorraine and possibly obtain the Rhine Provinces as well. Belgium should receive a substantial accession of territory in the region of Aix-la-Chapelle; she thoroughly deserves it! As for or the German Colonies, France and England will divide them as they think fit. Further, I should like Schleswig, including the Kiel Canal zone, to be restored to Denmark. . . . And Hanover? Wouldn't it be wise to revive Hanover? By setting up a small independent state between Prussia and Holland we should do much towards putting the future peace on a solid basis. After all, it is that which must guide our deliberations and actions. Our work cannot be justified before God and History unless it is inspired by a great moral idea and the determination to secure the peace of the world for a very long time to come." As he uttered these last words he sat up in his chair his voice quivered a little under the influence of a solemn religious emotion. In his eyes shone a strange light. His conscience and his faith were visibly at work. But neither in his attitude nor his expression was there a suggestion of pose: nothing but perfect
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simplicity. "Doesn't it mean the end of the German Empire?" I said. He replied in firm tones: "Germany can adopt any organization she likes, but the imperial dignity cannot be allowed to remain in the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia must return to the status of a kingdom only. . . . Isn't that your opinion also, Ambassador?" "The German Empire, as conceived, founded and governed by the Hohenzollerns, is so obviously directed against the French nation that I shall certainly not attempt its defence. France would have a great guarantee if all the powers of the German world ceased to be in the hands of Prussia. . . ." Our talk had already lasted more than an hour. After a few moments of reflection the Emperor remarked, as if he had suddenly remembered something: "We mustn't think merely of the immediate results of the war: we must consider the remoter future, too. . . . I attach the very greatest importance to the maintenance of our alliance. The work we have set out to do and which has already cost us such efforts and sacrifices will be permanent only if we remain united. As we know we are striving for the peace of the world it is essential that our work should be permanent." As he delivered himself of this finale, an obvious and necessary finale, to our conversation, I could see in his eyes the same strange, mystic light I had observed a few minutes earlier. His ancestor, Alexander I, must have worn this fervent and inspired expression when he preached to Metternich and Hardenberg about the Holy Alliance of kings against peoples. Yet in Madame von Krdener's friend there was a certain theatrical affectation, a kind of romantic exaltation. Nicholas II, on the other hand, is sincerity itself: he endeavours to contain rather than give rein to his feelings, to conceal rather than deploy his emotions. The Emperor rose, offered me another cigarette and remarked in the most casual and friendly way: "What glorious memories we shall share, my dear Ambassador! Do you remember? . . ." And he reminded me of the days immediately preceding the war, that harassing week from July 25 to August 2; he recounted even the most trivial details and laid particular emphasis on the personal telegrams which had passed between the Emperor William and himself: "He was never sincere; not for a moment! In the end he was hopelessly entangled in the net of his own perfidy and lies. . . . Have you ever been able to account for the telegram he sent me six hours after giving me his declaration of war? It's utterly impossible to explain what happened. I don't remember if I've ever told you. It was half-past one in the morning of August 2. I had just received your English colleague who had brought me a telegram from King George begging me to do everything possible to save peace. I had drafted, with Sir George Buchanan's help, the telegram with which you are familiar, which ended with an appeal for England's help in arms as the war was forced on us by Germany. The moment Buchanan had left I went to the Empress's room, as she was already in bed, to show her King George's telegram and have a cup of tea with her before retiring myself. I stayed with her until two in the morning. Then I wanted to have a bath, as I was very tired. I was just getting in when my servant knocked at the door saying he had a telegram for me. 'A very important telegram, very important indeed . . a telegram from His Majesty the Emperor William; I read the telegram, read it again and then repeated it aloud . . . but I couldn't understand a word. at on earth does William mean, I thought, pretending that it still depends on me whether war is averted or not! He implores me not to let my troops cross the frontier! Have I suddenly gone mad? Didn't the Minister of the Court, my trusted Fredericks, at least six hours ago bring me the declaration of war the
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German Ambassador had just handed to Sazonov? I returned to the Empress's room and read her William's telegram. She had to read it herself to bring herself to believe it. She said to me immediately: 'You're not going to answer it, are you? ' ' Certainly not.' "There's no doubt that the object of this strange and farcical telegram was to shake my resolution, disconcert me and inspire me to some absurd and dishonourable step. It produced the opposite effect. As I left the Empress's room I felt that all was over for ever between me and William. I slept extremely well. When I woke, at my usual hour, I felt as if a weight had fallen from mind. My responsibility to God and my people was still enormous, but at least I knew what I had to do." "I think, Sire, I could give a somewhat different explanation of the Emperor William's telegram." "Really! Let me have it! " "The Emperor William is not a man of courage "He is not." "He's a comedian and a braggart. He never dares to go right through with what he undertakes. He has often reminded me of an actor playing the murderer in melodrama who suddenly finds that his weapon is loaded and that he's really going to kill his victim. How often have we not seen him frightened by his own pantomime? When he ventured on his famous Tangier pronouncement, in 1905, he stopped quite suddenly in the middle of his scenario. . . . I am inclined to think that the moment he had issued his declaration of war he got frightened. He realized the formidable results of his action and wanted to throw all the responsibility on you. Perhaps, too, he clung to some fantastic hope of producing by his telegram some unexpected, inconceivable, miraculous event which would enable him to escape the consequences of his crime . . . . " "Well, your explanation is quite in keeping with William's character." The clock struck six. "My word, it's late!" the Emperor said. " I'm afraid I've wearied you, but I'm glad to have had an opportunity of talking freely to you." As he led me to the door I asked him about the fighting in Poland. "It's a great battle," he said, "and raging with the greatest fury. The Germans are making frantic efforts to break our line; they won't succeed and they can't remain long in their present positions. So I hope that before long we shall resume our advance." "General de Laguiche wrote to me recently that the Grand Duke Nicholas still keeps a march on Berlin as his one and only objective." "Yes, I don't yet know where we shall be able to get through. Between the Carpathians and the Oder, perhaps? Or between Breslau and Posen? Or north of Posen. It depends a good deal on the fighting now in progress around Lodz and in the neighbourhood of Cracow. But Berlin is certainly our sole objective. The fighting is equally violent on your side. This furious Yser battle is going in your favour. Your marines have covered themselves with glory. It's a serious reverse for the Germans, nearly as serious as their defeat on the Marne. . . . Well, good-bye, my dear Ambassador! Once more, I'm very glad to have been able to talk so freely with you! "
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Tuesday, November 24, 1914. The Russians are keeping the upper hand in the furious struggle raging west of Warsaw, and particularly between Lodz and Lowicz; but the issue of the battle is not yet determined. . The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna asked me to dinner this evening. Besides herself only her ladies-inwaiting and particular cronies were present. She was very anxious to know what the Emperor said to me in my last audience. I told her only as much as is good for her to know---and hand on. For instance, I told her that the Emperor had vigorously confirmed his determination to continue the war until German power was utterly overthrown: "He has also given me to understand that he cannot allow the imperial dignity to remain in the House of Hohenzollern." "Splendid! Splendid!" The Mecklenburger in her came out and once more I could see all the ancient and jealous animosity of the little German courts towards arrogant Prussia. Her eyes sparkling with rage, she continued: "We've had quite enough of the Hohenzollerns! Quite enough! They've been the curse of Germany! Munich, Stuttgart, Dresden, Darmstadt, Schwerin, Weimar, Meiningen, Coburg: none of them wants them any more. . . . It's only perhaps in Baden that there is some slight attachment for them because they're really the same family."(3) We talked about the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna: "I noticed," I said, "that the Emperor mentioned her name several times during our conversation." "That doesn't surprise me. He tells her everything---takes her opinion on everything. You may be certain that the moment you were out of his room he went and told her of the conversation." "What are the Empress's present feelings towards Germany?" "I expect I'll surprise you. She's fervently anti-German. She denies the Germans all honour, conscience or humanity. Only the other day she said to me 'They've lost the moral sense and all Christian feeling!'" Wednesday, November 25, 1914. Petrograd is delighted. It is said, with a wealth of detail, that the Germans have been totally defeated between Lodz and Lowicz; their troops are making a supreme effort to escape being surrounded. General Bielaiev, Chief of Staff, has told Sazonov that two or three German corps are surrounded already. Thursday, November 26, 1914. Sazonov is delirious with joy: "Our victory at Lodz is splendid, complete, and far more important than all our successes in Galicia. We're waiting for the fruits of our victory to be harvested before making it public."
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From the Foreign Office I went to the General Staff building, which is opposite it on the other side of Winter Palace Square. General Bielaiev confirmed what Sazonov has told me: "We've won a victory, a great victory; but between Brzeziny and Strykov the Germans are still making desperate efforts to cut their way through north. That is why in our communiqu we have confined ourselves to saying that the advantage is with our troops and the Germans are finding it very difficult to secure their retreat. Their losses, too, are enormous, and three of their corps are almost completely surrounded. I've been working all night to arrange transport for 150,000 prisoners. Personally I build great hopes on the results of this victory." In the city the public delight is to be read on every face. Out of curiosity I stopped my car at the faade of Our Lady of Kazan. The faithful were simply streaming into the great national sanctuary which is one mass of gold and precious stones. The candle-sellers at the doors cannot meet the demand, and before the "Sacred Portal" the crowds throng impatiently to kiss the miraculous ikon of the Virgin. Friday, November 77, 1914. This morning Sazonov's face was not so radiant as yesterday. When I asked him certain details about the battle of Lodz, he was inclined to evade my questions: "It's a victory for us," he said, "patently a victory. But we don't know the exact results yet. Besides, the battle is still continuing." "What about the three German corps being surrounded? " "I know nothing." "Couldn't you telephone to General Bielaiev?" "I've just done so. He knows nothing either, except that in southern Poland the Austrian army which is defending the approaches to Cracow was driven back yesterday." Saturday, November 28, 1914. The German corps, which were half-surrounded near Lodz, have succeeded in escaping at the cost of appalling hecatombs. The Russian plan failed at the last moment through the fault of General Rennenkampf who was lacking in vision and quickness of movement. The general staff has published a communiqu in the following terms: The rumours in circulation as to the magnitude of our victory between the Fistula and the Wartha originate in private correspondence, and must be accepted with reserve. . . . There is no doubt that the German plan of surrounding the Russian army on the left bank of the Fistula has completely failed. The Germans have had to retreat in unfavourable conditions and suffering huge losses. The battle is developing in our favour, but the enemy continues his stubborn resistance. The public is grievously disappointed.
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Sunday, November 29, 1914. Public opinion in Russia is certainly too nervy and imaginative; not practical enough. It is very natural that the public should be dissatisfied, or even irritated, at being misled about the results of the battle of Lodz. But in its disappointment it forgets that if the Germans have escaped a complete disaster they have none the less suffered a heavy reverse. Everywhere I find nothing but pessimism and expressions of war-weariness or disillusionment. What would it be if the Germans had won? Monday, November 30, 1914. I am getting information from every quarter that Count Witte is tirelessly carrying on his campaign in favour of peace. I had this confirmed this evening by Countess K-----, with whom I and a few close friends were dining. She does not share Witte's opinions, but she often has occasion to see him and is also well informed as to what is going on behind the scenes at the palace: "Witte's influence is very great at the moment," she told me. "His pronouncements are making a great impression. At Princess P-----'s yesterday he spent more than an hour arguing that we ought to make peace at once; otherwise he is certain that we are on the way to defeat and revolution. I have never seen him so pessimistic." "Where do France and England come in in his argument? After all, it was not Russia who came to their assistance but they who came to the assistance of Russia." "That's exactly the reply he got---that we had no right to abandon our Allies. His answer was: 'But it is as much to France and England's interest not to persist in this stupid adventure as it is to ours!' " I expressed my astonishment that such things could be said with impunity by a member of the Council of Empire, one of His Majesty's Secretaries of State "It would be so easy to silence him!" "They daren't silence him! " And she told me that the Emperor hates Witte but is very much afraid of him, afraid of his intellect, his arrogance, his pointed, acid remarks, his epigrams and his intrigues. Besides they have more than one secret between them, the revelation of which would be very awkward for Their Majesties. "You know," she went on, "that when Witte was President of the Council and Minister of Finance he was very much mixed up in the affairs of the famous Philippe, Rasputin's predecessor. You may remember, too, that the Emperor asked President Loubet to grant the magician the degree of doctor of medicine and that Monsieur Loubet naturally evaded that absurd request. But Philippe was absolutely determined to be a 'Doctor of Medicine,' and gave the Emperor no rest. Then Witte applied to the War Minister, General Kuropatkin, to have Philippe appointed medical officer on the Reserve, and he was also authorized to wear the uniform of a civil general!. . . . . As the name of Philippe has thus cropped up I will give a few details of his biography as I did earlier on for Rasputin.
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In February, 1903, the Chief of the Russian Police abroad, Ratchkovsky, whose assistance had often been profitably utilized in the minor affairs of the Alliance, prayed an audience of Delcass and expressed a desire for confidential information about the antecedents of the magician Philippe, a native of Lyons, who had been cutting a ridiculous figure at the Russian court for more than a year. "I'm afraid," he said, "that the eccentricities of this charlatan will end in some frightful scandal. The German party would certainly use him as a tool against the Alliance." Delcass put the matter in my hands. I give a summary of the information I obtained at once from the police. Philppe Nizier-Vachod was born on April 25, 1849 at Loisieux in Savoy. His relatives were humble farmers. At thirteen he came to live at Lyons with one of his uncles, who employed him in his butcher's business at la Croix-Rousse. The boy already revealed curious tastes, such as a love of solitude, a hankering after the mysterious and a strong inclination for sorcerers, fortune-tellers, mesmerists and somnambulists. He soon tried his hand at occult medicine and succeeded straight away. In 1872 he left his uncle's butcher's shop and opened a consulting-room at No. 4, Boulevard du Nord, where he treated his patients with psychic fluids and astral forces. Of medium height and heavily built, child-like in manner and simple in his ways, with his gentle voice, high forehead under thick, dark hair, and limpid, fascinating and penetrating eyes, he had an amazing fund of sympathy and magnetism which seems to have powerfully affected every one with whom he came in contact. In September, 1877 he married Jeanne Landar, one of his patients, whom he had cured. By her he soon had a daughter. In 1887 the doctors of Lyons denounced him for the illegal practice of their profession. He was convicted and fined. As always happens in such cases his conviction increased his reputation. In 1890 and 1892 he again appeared before the courts and was fined on each occasion. But at each of these trials all the evidence had been favourable to the accused. All the witnesses---including those the magician had failed to cure---had agreed in emphasizing his kindness, pity and unselfishness, the soothing and strengthening power of his presence and the gentle balm that flowed from his slightest movement. With a view to keeping on the right side of the law in future Philippe employed a Polish physician named Steintzky, who possessed a genuine degree and countersigned his prescriptions. A few years later he took as his assistant a young French doctor, Lalande, who shortly after became his son-in-law. Thereafter his consulting-room, transferred to No. 35, Rue de la Tte-d'Or, was never empty. Artisans, shopkeepers, concierges and cooks always formed the backbone of his clientele; but after 1896 they were joined by society people, well-dressed women, magistrates, actresses, officers and priests. The woman who had kept the tobacco-shop opposite and informed the police said that she was "amazed at the society folk she saw going in and out." One day she noticed a Russian prince, "a tall, thin man whose name she had forgotten and who had called several times with two fine ladies." Philippe's cook had also shown her, with great pride, a letter with large seals bearing the Russian arms. The whole quarter had been talking about it. Some time before this letter arrived two Russian ladies, Madame S----- and Madame P-----, who were passing through Lyons, called to consult Philippe. They were astounded at his gift of divination and supernatural authority. So they gave him no rest until he agreed to accompany them to Cannes where they introduced him to the Grand Duke Peter Nicolaievitch, his wife the Grand Duchess Militza and her sister, Princess Anastasia Romanovsky, Duchess Leuchtenberg, who subsequently married the Grand Duke Nicholas as her second husband in 1907: The information gathered by the police stopped there. Later on we shall see what happened afterwards. How did the magician of Lyons get into touch with the Tsar and Tsaritsa? Manuilov, who was the intermediary, told me quite recently.
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The meeting took place in September, 1901, during the visit of the Russian sovereigns to France. At that time Manuilov was in Paris, employed on a mission for the Okhrana and under the orders of the famous Ratchkovsky. The Grand Duchess Militza had informed Philippe that the Emperor and Empress would be glad to have a talk with him at Compigne. He arrived there on September 20. Manuilov was instructed to receive him at the doors of the palace and question him before conducting him to the imperial apartments. "I had before me," he told me, "a heavily-built fellow with a big moustache; he was dressed in black and looked quiet and grave, rather like a schoolmaster in his Sunday best. His clothes were absolutely ordinary, but spotlessly clean. There was nothing remarkable about him except his eyes---blue eyes half hidden by heavy eyelids, but every now and then a curious, soft light shone in them. Round his neck hung a small, black silk triangular bag. I asked him what it was. He offered mysterious excuses for his inability to answer me. When I saw him afterwards this amulet was still on his breast. One evening I was in a railway carriage alone with him and he was asleep and snoring like a trooper. I tried to take off his talisman to see what was inside. But I'd no sooner touched him than he woke with a start." From the first audience Philippe hypnotized the sovereigns who induced him on the spot to make his home in Russia. He went there almost at once. A house was got ready for him at Tsarskoe-Selo. He immediately won the full confidence of his imperial hosts who highly appreciated his quiet manner and extreme discretion as well as his attainments in magic. Once or twice a week. he carried out experiments in hypnotism, prophecy, incarnation and necromancy in their presence. The Tsar's weak will was greatly fortified by these nocturnal sances. Innumerable decisions were communicated to him by the ghost of his father, Alexander III. In all questions of health Philippe's advice was accepted implicitly. Among the confidences exchanged between the imperial couple and Philippe was a matter between the three of them, a secret of the most intimate nature, but both a state and palace secret. The Tsaritsa was married on November 26, 1894, and had given birth to four daughters, the youngest of whom, Anastasia, was born on June 18, 1901. The Tsar, the Tsaritsa and the Russian nation were anxiously awaiting the appearance of a Tsarevitch. As all the mysteries of nature were an open book to Philippe he claimed that he could not only prognosticate the sex of unborn children but actually determine it. By combining the most transcendental practices of hermetic medicine, astronomy and psychurgy the magician undertook to direct at will the evolution of the embryonic phenomena. A complicated method! In the spring of 1902 Alexandra Feodorovna was expecting another child. She had no doubt that this time it would be a son. The Emperor was no less certain. Philippe encouraged them in their belief. But on September 1 the Empress had a sudden pain and before any help could be given she saw all her hopes dashed to the ground. It was a nasty blow to Philippe's reputation. An attempt was made to spread a rumour that the Empress had never really been enceinte and that the physiological disorders observed were entirely explained by her state of nerves. But the real facts soon came out and at court there was a loud outcry against the magician of Lyons. Notwithstanding all this, the Emperor and Empress retained their loyal confidence in him, calmly accepted his explanation and lost nothing of their belief in his magic powers. Yet they did not disregard the secret warnings that reached them from religious circles. The Empress's confessor, Monsignor Theophanes, of whom they were exceedingly fond, succeeded in forcing them to grave searchings of heart. Had not their faith in the occult arts carried them beyond the permitted limits? Was not the disappointment they had just suffered a warning from God? . . . They felt impelled to perform some solemn act of Christian devotion and humility.
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For some considerable time the Holy Synod had been leisurely considering the canonization of an obscure monk, the blessed Seraphin, who had died in the odour of sanctity in the monastery of Sarov, near Tambov, somewhere about 1820. No one was interested in the matter and it dragged on through endless enquiries and adjournments. Also the promoters of the canonization were faced with a formidable obstacle: the corpse of the ascetic had passed through all the normal stages of necrosis and putrefaction. Now the Orthodox Church holds that the incorruptibility of the human corpse is an essential mark of sanctity. However that may be, the Tsar and Tsaritsa suddenly intervened most enthusiastically for the canonization of the holy man. In his capacity as supreme guardian of the Church Nicholas III furnished himself with a detailed account of the enquiry and ordered that there should be no further delay in bringing it to a conclusion. Henceforth the matter became an obsession to the sovereigns: they held continual conferences with the metropolitans of St. Petersburg, Kiev and Moscow, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, the Bishop of Tambov and the Abbot of Sarov. But what pleased them more than all was the fact that their dear Philippe, who combined his attainments in magic with a childlike and generous piety, thoroughly approved their zealous endeavour. It was all needed to disturb the slumbers of the Holy Synod which immediately discovered in the life of the hermit Seraphin an unsuspected wealth of virtues, merits and miracles. As if by enchantment all difficulties vanished, procrastination ceased and objections were overruled. On January 24, 1903, the Metropolitan of Moscow submitted to the Emperor a report recommending: (1) the admission of the Blessed Seraphin to the catalogue of saints; (2) the exhibition of his mortal remains as relics; (3) the preparation of a special service in his honour. The Tsar wrote at the foot of the report: Read with a feeling of joy indescribable and the deepest emotion. The canonization decree received the imperial assent and was issued on February 11. All that remained was to celebrate the pontifical ceremonies which definitely mark the elevation of a holy man to the rank of a saint. The Emperor decided that they should be. distinguished by unusual pomp. He would be present in person with the Empress and the whole imperial family. The preparations took several months. The ceremonies began on July 30. For a whole week Sarov had been the lodestar of all the higher clergy of the Empire, thousands of priests, monks and nuns, a crowd of officials and officers, not to mention a motley and gaping mob of one hundred thousand pilgrims. Their Majesties arrived in the evening and were received with the sound of anthems and the din of Church bells. A storm of cheering accompanied them. The whole night was taken up with the nocturnal mass for the dead. The next day, July 31, began with morning mass and the sacrament. Their Majesties participated at the sacred table. In the afternoon there was another memorial service for the eternal repose of the soul which was to be glorified. In the evening the remains of Seraphin were taken in procession through the churches and the monastery: the Emperor helped to carry the bier. About midnight the precious relics were uncovered and exhibited for the first time for the veneration of the faithful. Then prayers, litanies and psalms followed each other uninterruptedly till morning. On August 1 Monsignor Anthony, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and President of the Holy Synod, celebrated the pontifical high mass for the canonization. It lasted nearly four hours. Towards evening Seraphin's reliquary was again carried in procession through the town and the monastery. Sermons, eulogies, the chanting of hallelujahs and a whole series of minor services took up the following day. On August 3, by way of finale to these endless devotions, a church which had been recently built was consecrated under the name of the new saint. A year later, on July 30, 1904, the Empress gave birth to the present heir to the throne, the Tsarevitch
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Alexis. When this happy event took place Philippe had already lost the imperial favour. The mishap of September 1, 1902, had been strongly exploited against him. Foreseeing the decline of his fortunes many of his partisans had hastened to disown him. Some went so far as to say that he had the evil eye and even that he had the mark of Antichrist upon him. Moreover the prolonged intimacy between this foreigner and the sovereigns began to outrage national feeling. Puritan circles in Moscow were furious that the Emperor should allow his palace to be profaned by the black magic of this heretical charlatan. And again, although the magician professed to live in the non-material world and ignore the exigencies of politics, he had been more or less consciously a tool in many intrigues. Thus he had gradually become the object of implacable hatred. In the spring of 1903 attacks upon him increased. From Paris the Police Chief, Ratchkovsky, supplied their authors with arguments. Armed with information he had obtained from the French police he even sent a report direct to the Emperor, calling his attention to Philippe's three convictions. Just at this time the magician happened to have gone to Lyons on some family business. Ratchkovsky utilized his absence to affect the Tsar's mind still more adversely against him in the hope of preventing his return; but Philippe got wind of the plot against him and on April 19, 1903, he telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, imploring him to see the Emperor at once on his behalf. A fortnight had not passed before Ratchkovsky, a most important official in the imperial administration and the guardian of so many secrets, was dismissed out of hand. No compensation was given or promised him. He found himself without means on the streets of Paris.(4) Towards the end of 1903, however, diplomatic relations between Russia and Japan become more strained every day. War was patently on its way. A right understanding of the drama about to be played in the Far East was well beyond the intellect of the ex-butcher boy, yet he was bold enough to prophesy a swift and brilliant victory. He even indicated publicly the commander-in-chief, a Grand Duke, whom his intuitive genius told him the Tsar must select. The Emperor is very jealous of his authority and at once realized that a court cabal was using the magician to influence him in the exercise of his sovereign powers. He immediately dismissed Philippe on some vague excuse whilst loading him with flowers and gifts. The magician sorrowfully turned his steps homewards. After the grandeur and luxury of Tsarskoe-Selo, the Tte d'Or and its neighbourhood seemed horribly vulgar. In returning to his dull consulting-room and resuming relations with his lowly clientele of days gone by he tasted all the bitterness of human misfortune. He soon became morose and harassed, imagining himself surrounded by enemies, watched by the police, persecuted by mysterious and powerful persons. Then he lost his daughter, Madame Lalande, whom he dearly loved. Stricken with grief he retired to his country place at Arbresle where he died after a short illness on August 2, 1905.
Chapter Footnotes
1. Madame Vyrubova thinks this means that Russia should not be blamed for her monarchical principle.---(Countess L-----'s note.)
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2. See the document in facsimile facing page 178. 3. The Dowager Grand Duchess, Louise of Baden, mother of the reigning Grand Duke, is the daughter of the Emperor William I. 4. The revolutionary troubles of 1905 gave him an opportunity of recovering his position. He astounded the Okhrana by the audacity and skill of his detective exploits.
Chapter Seven Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter VII.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER VII DECEMBER 1-31, 1914
Oppressive activities of the Russian administration in Galicia.---The Germans resume the offensive in Poland; the Russians evacuate Lodz.---Pope Benedict XV and the Truce of God.---Wave of pessimism in Russian society.---Victory of the Serbs at Valievo.---The Russian operations suddenly stop.---No more rifles or ammunition.---The curse of a system.---At Kutosov's tomb.---Courage and gentleness of the Russian soldier.---Madame Vyrubova; her close friendship with the Empress.---The end of the year; gloomy forebodings.
Tuesday, December 1, 1914. Hardly has Russian authority been established in Galicia than the officials introduce the worst practices of russification as a sort of gift of welcome. When entering Galician territory two months ago the Grand Duke Nicholas issued a proclamation couched in generous terms: To you, the peoples of Austria and Hungary, Russia brings freedom and the realization of your national dreams. She desires that each of you may henceforth grow and prosper, retaining the precious heritage of its language and its religion. Of this fine programme already nothing is left. Russian nationalism stalks triumphant through Galicia. The administrative authority is concentrated in the hands of a governor-general, Count Vladimir Alexeievitch Bobrinsky. I know him well; he's an intelligent, honest and agreeable man, but perhaps the most reactionary of all the nationalists. The basis of his creed is hatred of the Uniat religion. Now the Uniat Church has not less than 3,750,000 adherents in Galicia out of a total population of five million inhabitants. Bobrinsky is in the habit of saying: "I recognize only three religions in eastern Europe: the orthodox, the Catholic and the Jewish. The Uniats are traitors to orthodoxy, renegades and apostates. We must bring them back into the true path by force." Persecution began at once. Arrest of the Uniat Metropolitan, Monsignor Szeptycki; expulsion of Basilian monks; confiscation of ecclesiastical property; destruction of Ruthene missals; replacement of Uniat priests by Russian priests; carrying off Ruthene children to Kiev or Kharkov to be brought up in the orthodox faith---such is the account for these last two months on the religious side. On the political we must add the suppression of all Ruthene papers, the closing of the University and the schools, the dismissal of all Galician officials and their replacement by a horde of Russian bureaucrats. I spoke officially to Sazonov about this situation which prejudices the future of Russian influence in these
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Galician districts in which the Hapsburgs have made themselves very popular. "I'll admit," he said, " that Bobrinsky's policy is often unfortunate and that our officials are heavy-handed. But don't expect me to take up the cudgels for the Uniats! I respect the Roman Catholics, though I regret they have fallen into error. But I hate and despise the Uniats because they are renegades." The other day the Grand Duke Nicholas was complaining of the delay in the arrival of supplies for the army in Galicia: "I'm expecting trainloads of ammunition. They send me trainloads of priests!" Wednesday, December 2, 1914. The situation of the Russian armies in Poland is becoming difficult. North of Lodz the Germans have received reinforcements from the western front and are decidedly getting the upper hand. General Rennenkampf has been relieved of his command as it was his slowness which caused the failure of the fine enveloping movement of November 25. The Germans claim to have captured 80,000 unwounded Russians in the last fortnight. Also the moral of Russia is far from improving. The pessimism I see about me is reported to be prevalent in Moscow. Kiev and Odessa also. As one would expect, Count Witte exploits it to rail against the war. His line at the moment is to attribute to the "calculated inertia of the French army" the scale and violence of the offensive the Russians are now having to withstand in Poland. With his haughty scorn and sardonic sneer he goes about saying: "The French are quite right not to fight any more as the Russians are stupid enough to let themselves be killed instead." I have had great difficulty in procuring the insertion in the press of several notes or articles setting out the great scale of our material and moral effort. Not one of the papers has had the honesty to reveal the fact that if the Russians have to deal with twenty-one German corps (not counting the Austro-Hungarians) the French and English are faced with no less than fifty-two. Saturday, December 5, 1914. Between Lodz and Lowicz stubborn fighting is still continuing; the Russians are giving way. The Grand Duke Nicholas has had me informed that he is as determined as ever to pursue his advance on Silesia; but his Chief of Staff, General Janushkevitch, sees a fatal obstacle in the transport difficulty and the high wastage. In the course of the last five weeks the Russians have lost 530,000 men---280,000 of them against the Germans. Sunday, December 6, 1914. The Russians have evacuated Lodz; the Germans entered it at once. It is no small loss to our Allies. Lodz has not less than 380,000 inhabitants, i.e., the populations of Lille and Roubaix combined. It is the centre of the textile industry, the Manchester of Poland.
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South east of Cracow the Austro-Hungarians are retreating. Pope Benedict XV has asked the Russian Government if it will consent to a suspension of hostilities during Christmas Day. While thanking the Holy Father for this merciful thought the Imperial Government has replied that it could not agree to an armistice, first because the orthodox Christmas does not coincide with the Catholic Christmas, and secondly because it could place no faith in any undertaking given by Germany. When Sazonov told me of this answer I was extremely sorry: "The idea of a ' truce of God' was splendid; you ought to have accepted it. There's nothing in your point about the two calendars; you could have claimed a second armistice on your own Christmas Day, thirteen days later. And as for Germany violating the armistice, she'd have raised the conscience of the world against her and alienated all that moral force for which the Papacy still stands." Sazonov replied in jerky, impatient tones: "No, no! It was impossible. . . impossible!" The discussion was evidently not to his liking. In his uncompromising attitude I recognized the ancient enmity between the Eastern Church and the Church of Rome. Besides, the Holy Synod must have intervened with all its routine intolerance against the step taken by the Pope. All the same I ventured further: "The Holy See can go much further along the lines it is asking us to make possible. . . . If it utters a word of pity or reproof now and then the war may possibly become less inhuman. Here's one example: isn't it a terrible thing that the wounded who fall in the wire in front of the trenches cannot be assisted and that their groans and cries for help are heard for days and days? . . . And what about the fate of prisoners? And the bombardment of open towns? What a field of action for the mediation of the Holy See! We simply must not discourage it in its first step!" But I felt that I was speaking to no purpose. Tuesday, December 8, 1914. I am getting reports from many quarters that the Russian army is running short of gun ammunition and rifles. I have been to General Sukhomlinov, the War Minister, to ask him for definite information on this matter. He gave me a very friendly reception. Between his heavy eyelids a winking smile made the little wrinkles on his brows contract. His whole personality breathes physical exhaustion and deceit. I questioned him very closely. He kept on answering "Don't worry; I've prepared for everything," and he produced to me the most comforting figures. Then, taking me to a long table laden with maps he described the operations in progress in Poland. With a fat, quivering finger he showed me all the fronts and pointed out all the objectives: "You see," he said, "how the left wing of our armies is making rapid progress towards Upper Silesia while leaving only a small force to contain the Austro-Hungarians in the south. The Grand Duke Nicholas's plan
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is to develop his offensive by this left wing with the greatest possible intensity, even if the German thrust in the direction of Warsaw compels the right wing to dig in between the Vistula and the Warta. So all's going well; I'm sure we shall hear some very good news before long." As I took my leave he gave me a sly look I shall never forget. Wednesday, December 9, 1914. The uncertainty shrouding the military operations in Poland, the only too justifiable presentiments of enormous losses suffered by the Russian armies, and last but not least the evacuation of Lodz have led to a profound melancholy among the public. Everyone I meet is downhearted. The signs of depression are to be seen not merely in drawing-rooms and clubs, but in public offices, shops and in the streets as well. This afternoon I went into an antiquary's shop on the Liteny. After a few minutes' bargaining over something or other he asked me with a look of horror in his face: "When will this dreadful war end? Is it true that we have lost a million men round Lodz?" "A million! Who told you that? Your losses are serious, but I can assure you they are nowhere near that figure. . . . Have you sons or relatives in the army? " "No, thank God! . . . But this war is too long, too terrible. Besides, we shall never beat the Germans. Then why not have done with it at once? " I revived his faith to the best of my ability and showed him that we should certainly win if we held on. He listened to me with a sceptical, frightened look. When I stopped he continued: "You French may be victorious, perhaps---but not we Russians! The game's lost. Then why in God's name let all these men be massacred? Why not have done with it at once?" How many more Russians must be arguing like that at the present moment? What a strange mentality this nation has, a nation capable of such sublime sacrifices and yet so prone to despondency, self-desertion and anticipatory resignation to the worst misfortunes! When I returned to the Embassy I found old Baron von H----- who was a force in the political world some ten years ago, but since then has confined himself to the pleasures and trivialities of the social world. He spoke about military events. "Things are going very badly. . . . No good deluding ourselves I . . . The Grand Duke Nicholas is incompetent! . . . The battle of Lodz: madness, disaster! . . . Our losses more than a million! We shall never get the better of the Germans again. . . . We must begin to think of peace." I pointed out that the three Allied countries are bound to continue the war until the defeat of Germany as nothing less than their independence and national integrity is at stake. I added that a humiliating peace would inevitaby provoke a revolution in Russia, and what a revolution! I said that I also had unlimited confidence in the loyalty of the Emperor to our common cause. H----- continued, in a low voice, as if we might be overheard: "Oh! The Emperor . . . the Emperor. . . "
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He stopped. I pressed him. "What do you mean? Go on." He resumed, looking very uncomfortable, as he was treading on dangerous ground: "At the moment the Emperor is very angry with Germany; but he'll soon realize that he's leading Russia to destruction. . . . He'll be made to realize it. . . . I can hear that low hound, Rasputin, telling him: ' Well, how much longer are you going to spill the blood of your people? Don't you see that God is abandoning you? On that day peace will be at hand, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur." At this point I broke off our conversation in a sharp tone: "It's all silly talk. . . . The Emperor has sworn on the Holy Gospels and the ikon of Our Lady of Kazan that he will never sign peace so long as there is a single enemy soldier on Russian soil. You'll never make me believe that he won't keep such an oath. Don't forget that the day he swore it he insisted on my being with him as witness and guarantor of his undertaking before God. On that point he will always be immovable. He would face death rather than break his word." Thursday, December 10, 1914. The Serbians have inflicted a defeat on the Austro-Hungarians near Valievo. The enemy left 20,000 prisoners and fifty guns in the hands of the victors. . The French Government returned to Paris yesterday. Saturday, December 12, 1914. General de Laguiche writes to me from General Headquarters: Events are taking a favourable turn in the Cracow district. In the north the status quo is maintained on the Ilno-Lowicz-Petrokov line, and I think that the positions contemplated have been reached there. Evidently operations will be less active there than on the Silesian side. Monday, December 4, 1914. Has the Russian offensive towards Silesia already been checked? Yesterday they suffered a severe reverse south of the Vistula, near Limanova, which has freed Cracow and seems bound to react on the whole South Poland front. Nothing is being said about this defeat. At the present time the Emperor is on a visit to the Caucasus front where operations are developing successfully. Tuesday, December 15, 1914. In Western Galicia the Russians are falling back towards the Vistula along the whole line. This retreat means the end of the offensive against Silesia.
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. Prince von Blow has been appointed Ambassador in Rome. The great game between Germany and Italy is about to begin. Wednesday, December 16, 1914. The series of successes which the Germans have obtained in Masuria and Poland during the last four months have all been produced by "railway strategy," that is the swift and secret transfer of a mass of manoeuvre to another part of the front for an unexpected blow. The great network of lines which run parallel to, and behind, the frontiers of Prussia, Posen and Silesia, enable these great lateral movements to be carried out in a few days, whereas the Russian General Staff needs several weeks for the slightest change in the redistribution of its troops on the line of battle. Thursday, December 17, 1914. The Grand Duke Nicholas has informed me with great regret that he has been obliged to discontinue his operations: the reason he gives for this decision is the excessive losses his troops have recently sustained and the fact---more serious still---that the artillery has used up all its ammunition. I have complained to Sazonov of the situation thus brought to my notice and my tone was pretty sharp: "General Sukhomlinov has assured me a dozen times," I said, "that all precautions had been taken to secure that the Russian artillery should always have an abundant supply of ammunition. . . . I have emphasized to him the enormous consumption which has become the normal scale of battles. He has vowed that he was in a position to satisfy all requirements and meet all eventualities. He even gave me written proof. Please mention the matter on my behalf to the Emperor." "I won't fail to tell His Majesty what you've just told Me. We left it at that. Sazonov's opinion of Sukhomlinov's character is a sufficient guarantee that he will make the most of my complaint. Friday, December 18, 1914. I learned yesterday that the Russian artillery is short of ammunition; I learn this morning that the infantry is short of rifles! I went at once to General Bielaiev, Army Chief of Staff at the Ministry for War, and asked him for an explanation. A hard worker and the soul of conscience and honour, he made a clean breast of everything: "Our losses in men have been colossal, though if it were merely a matter of replacing wastage we could soon do so as we have more than 800,000 men in our depots. But we're short of rifles to arm and train these men. Our original reserve was 5,600,000 rifles; at least we thought so. The Grand Duke Nicholas thought so; I thought so myself. We have been criminally deceived: our magazines are nearly empty. Forgive me for giving no further explanation of a very painful matter. To make good the deficit we are about to purchase a
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million rifles in Japan and America and we hope to arrive at an output of one hundred thousand a month in our own factories. Perhaps France and England could also let us have a few hundred thousand. The position is hardly less difficult as regards gun ammunition. The consumption has surpassed all our calculations and anticipations. At the beginning of the war we had 5,200,000 rounds of 76 mm. shrapnel in our arsenal. Our entire reserve is exhausted. The armies need 45,000 rounds per day. Our maximum daily output is 13,000: we hope it will reach 20,000 about February 15. Until that date the situation of our armies will not only be difficult but dangerous. In March the deliveries on orders we have placed abroad will begin to arrive; I presume we shall thus have 27,000 rounds a day about April 15 and 40,000 after May 15. . . . That is all I can tell you, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. I have kept nothing from you." I thanked him for his candour, made some notes and withdrew. Outside, under a dull grey, leaden sky an icy wind viciously lashed the banks of the Neva, whirling the snowflakes before it. The wintry desolation of the great river, frozen as far as the eye could reach between its granite quays, had never before seemed so utterly inhuman; the landscape seemed the visual embodiment of all the tragedy, the element of implacable and remorseless destiny in the history of the Russian nation. Saturday, December 19, 1914. To-day is the Emperor's name day. A thanksgiving service has been held at Our Lady of Kazan. All the court dignitaries, ministers, high officials and the diplomatic corps have attended in full dress. The public thronged the far end of the nave between the two noble rows of columns in pairs. In the dazzling blaze of the candelabra and candles, the glittering of the ikons---one mass of gold and precious stones---the national sanctuary is a superb edifice. Throughout the service the anthems followed each other with a wealth of melody, perfection of execution, breadth and solemnity which attained the highest pitch of religious emotion. Towards the end of the ceremony I singled out Goremykin, the President of the Council, and drawing him behind a pillar I taxed him with the inadequate military support given by Russia to our common cause. Buchanan and Sazonov were listening and joined in the conversation. In his slow, sceptical way Goremykin tried to defend Sukhomlinov: "But there's the same shortage of munitions in France and England as well! Yet your industries are far better equipped than ours and your machine-tool industry is on a far higher level! And how could anyone anticipate such a prodigal expenditure of ammunition?" "I don't blame General Sukhomlinov," I protested, "for not having foreseen before the war that every battle would mean a perfect orgy of ammunition; nor do I blame him for the delays inevitably involved in the backward state of your industries. But I do blame him for having done nothing to avert the present crisis in the three months since I told him, from General Joffre, that it was coming. . . . And the shortage of rifles! Isn't that even more criminal? " Goremykin made a formal protest in evasive language and weary gestures. Buchanan supported me vigorously. Sazonov acquiesced by his silence. What a strange phenomenon was this discussion between allies in the church to which Field-Marshal Prince Kutusov came to pray before starting for the war of 1812---within two paces of his tomb and under the trophies abandoned by the French during the retreat from Russia!
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Sunday, December 20, 1914. I hear from many quarters that in intellectual and liberal circles there is a good deal of criticism of France, criticism as malevolent as unjust and acrimonious. Waves of francophobia have swept over Russia four or five times since the last years of the great Catherine. French ideas, fashions and manners have periodically irritated the Russians. The last wave, to which the present symptoms are related, only affected the Intelligentsia who have never forgiven us for giving financial assistance to Tsarism and thus strengthening the autocratic regime. In 1906 Maxim Gorky had the insolence to write: This is what you have done, Oh France, you, the mother of Liberty! Your venal hand has closed the highway to independence for a whole nation. But no! The day of our emancipation will not be postponed though it will cost us far more blood, through your fault. May that blood stain your flaccid, lying cheeks! As for me I spit in your face, my loved one of yore! At the present time a silly charge is added to the grievance of the loans. It is France which has dragged Russia into the war in order to recover Alsace-Lorraine for herself at the price of Russian lives. I am doing what I can to counteract these tendencies, but my activities are necessarily limited and secret. If I have too much to do with liberal circles I shall become an object of suspicion to the Government party and the Emperor. I shall also put a formidable weapon in the hands of the reactionaries of the Extreme Right and the gang around the Empress who are preaching that the alliance with republican France is a mortal peril to orthodox Tsarism and that the only path to safety lies in a reconciliation with German Kaiserism. Monday, December 21, 1914. During my call on Madame Goremykin, a kind old lady who looks very attractive under her crown of white hair, her husband came in to join us at tea. I remarked in a tone of friendly reproach: "In Our Lady of Kazan yesterday you struck me as taking the military situation remarkably calmly." He answered in his feeble, deceitful voice: "What do you expect? I'm so old! I ought to have been in my coffin long ago! I told the Emperor so only the other day; but His Majesty wouldn't listen to me. . . And perhaps, after all, it's as well as it is. At my age men don't try and change the order of things more than is necessary. . . ." Thinking over this sceptical remark this evening I wondered whether it were not less ill-timed than I thought at first and whether, if confined to the Russian Empire, it did not contain a substantial element of wisdom. The words of Joseph de Maistre came to my mind: Woe to bad governments! Triple woe to bad governments which desire to mend their ways! Tuesday, December 22, 1914. The public have now known for two days that the Russian operations have been stayed and in the absence of official news the situation is supposed to be worse than it really is. For this reason General Headquarters decided to-day to issue the following communication:
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The taking up of a shorter front by our armies is the result of the unfettered decision of the military authority. The movement is a natural one and the consequence of the concentration of very large German forces against us. This decision will also bring us further advantages. Unfortunately it is impossible to furnish public opinion with explanations of a military nature. This communiqu, with its clumsy wording, has produced an unfortunate effect. Everyone is thinking "Things must be going badly if that's all they can tell us! " Wednesday, December 23, 1914. Madame P----- (Sister in charge of a front line hospital), who has just returned from Poland tells me that the courage and lan of the Russian troops are altogether splendid. Yet no trial is spared them: furious and uninterrupted fighting, frightful losses from artillery fire, wearying marches in the snow, the ghastly sufferings of the wounded owing to the transport difficulty and the terrible cold, &c. She also gave me several curious examples of the gentleness displayed by the Russian soldier to Austrian and German prisoners. It is a feature of the national temperament: the Russian has no bellicose instincts and a very warm heart. Contrasted with the German national epics the Russian bylinas are very eloquent from this point of view. They never glorify war and their heroes, their bogatyrs, are always in the role of the defender. The Russian peasant is also naturally charitable. A moujik must be absolutely penniless to refuse alms to anyone asking him "in the name of Christ"! And he is immediately stirred to the depths at the sight of poverty, disease or a prisoner. It is this evangelical instinct which makes the Russian soldier so ready for reconciliation and fraternization with his foe. During the 1812 retreat the French had a horrible taste of the savagery of the Cossacks and the cupidity of the Jews; but they almost invariably received sympathy and help from the regular soldiery and the peasants. There is plenty of evidence on this point. During the Crimean War also invitations to fraternize came from the Russian trenches whenever there was the slightest suspension of hostilities. Thursday, December 24, 1914. General de Laguiche, writing from Baranovici, has confirmed General Bielaiev's revelations. The reason for the suspension of the Russian operations is not the size of the German forces, but the total lack of gun ammunition and rifles. The Grand Duke Nicholas is reduced to despair but is doing everything he can to remedy this grave situation. Several thousand rifles have already been made available as the result of stringent orders. The output of the national factories is to be raised. Meanwhile military operations are to be continued so far as practicable. The invasion of Germany is still the objective. Saturday, December 26, 1914 On his return from the Caucasus the Emperor has stayed in Moscow. He had a most enthusiastic reputation and had a chance of seeing for himself the fine spirit with which all grades of Moscow society are inspired. All the Moscow papers have fastened on the occasion to affirm that the war must be fought out until the defeat of Teutonism; several have remarked, very happily, that to attain that end a "flash of enthusiasm" is
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not enough; what is needed is stubbornness of will, inexhaustible patience and a determination to face and accept immense sacrifices. The Emperor has several times said to those around him: "I feel I'm really at the heart of my people here! The atmosphere is as wholesome and bracing as at the front." Sunday, December 27, 1914. Everyone who spoke to the Emperor at Moscow talked of Constantinople, and all in the same strain: "The acquisition of the Straits is of vital interest to the Empire, far more important than all the territorial advantages Russia may obtain at the expense of Germany or Austria. . . . The neutralization of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles would be an imperfect, hybrid compromise, fraught with peril for the future. . . . Constantinople must be a Russian city. . . . The Black Sea must become a Russian lake . . . ... A French manufacturer who has come from Kharkov and Odessa tells me that the same thing is being said there. But whereas the historical, political, and mystical aspects inspire Moscow, it is the commercial argument which appeals to southern Russia. The corn of the tchernoziom and the Donetz coal basin are responsible for the cry for the Mediterranean. Monday, December 28, 1914. It is becoming ever clearer that there are two currents in Russian public opinion---one flowing on towards bright horizons and beckoning conquests, Constantinople, Thrace, Armenia, Trebizond, Persia . . . the other beating against the invincible obstacle of the Teutonic cliff and ebbing back to gloomy prospects ending in pessimism, a feeling of impotence and resignation. The really curious point is that these two currents run side by side, or at any rate frequently alternate, in the same individual, as if they both satisfied the two outstanding propensities of the Russian soul---dreams and disillusionment. Tuesday, December 29, 1914. What a curious person Madame Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova is! She is not titled, holds no office, receives no salary and appears at no ceremonies. This perpetual self-effacement and utter disinterestedness are her whole capital with the sovereigns, so accustomed to the importunity of place-hunters and selfseekers. She is the daughter of Taneev, Director of the Emperor's Privy Seal Office, and has practically no money. It is all that the Empress can do to get her occasionally to accept some cheap jewel, or a dress or cloak. Physically she is coarse and heavily-built, with a round head, fleshy lips, limpid eyes devoid of expression, a full figure and a high colour. She is thirty-two years of age. She dresses with a thoroughly provincial plainness and is very devout, but unintelligent. I have met her twice at the house of her mother, Madame Taneev (ne Tolstoy), who, by contrast, is well-informed and distinguished. We had a long talk together. Anna Alexandrovna struck me as unattractive and very dull-witted. As a girl she was maid-of-honour to the Empress who arranged her marriage with a naval officer, Lieutenant Vyrubova. After a few days of married life came divorce.
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At the present time Madame Vyrubova lives at Tsarskoe-Selo in a very modest villa at the corner of the Sredniaya and the Zerkovnaya, 200 metres from the Imperial Palace. In spite of all the decrees of etiquette the Empress frequently pays prolonged calls on her friend; she has even reserved a room for her in the palace itself. The result is that the two women are nearly always together. In any case Madame Vyrubova regularly spends the evening with the sovereigns and their children. No one else ever enters the family circle. They play draughts and patience, do puzzles; occasionally a little music. Highly proper novels, English novels for preference, are read aloud. When the children have gone to bed Madame Vyrubova stays with the sovereigns until midnight and thus takes part in all their conversation, always on AlexandraFeodorovna's side. As the Emperor never ventures to decide anything without his wife's opinion, or rather approval, the net result is that it is the Empress and Madame Vyrubova who really govern Russia! Princess R----- said to me when I was discussing the imperial court with her recently: "Isn't it grievous to think that the masters of Russia live in such an atmosphere? It's as if they lived in rooms which are never aired. Just think, no on I mean it, no one ever sees them alone or lunches with them or goes for a walk with them, or dines with them or spends an evening with them . . . not a soul except Anna Vyrubova! When I remember what my parents told me of the courts of Alexander II and Alexander III it makes me want to cry. No doubt they had their intrigues, feuds, favouritism and even scandals, as all courts have. But at any rate there was some life about them. The monarchs were approachable; you could talk quite freely with them so that they learned a good deal. In turn you got to know---and like them. But now . . . what a contrast, what a lapse! . . ." How can one place Madame Vyrubova,? What is the hidden motive for her behaviour? What is her object? What are her hopes? The favourite description of her is that she is an intriguer. But it's a curious sort of intriguer who despises honours and refuses reward! Before I met her I thought her character must have some resemblance to that of the Princesse des Ursins. I was very wide of the mark and owe a humble apology to the memory of the famous camerera mayor! She directed the married life of Philip V and Marie Louise, of course. But Saint-Simon has written of her "that she had an air of noble dignity which attracted rather than repelled," and even if she may be charged with great ambitions they were at any rate "vast ambitions, far higher than those of her sex." Lastly, she combined a genius for political intrigue with the highest and most brilliant qualities of mind, not to mention a charm of manner which survived to her old age. Compared to that splendid specimen of womanhood the Vyrubova cuts a very poor figure. To account for her position and importance in the imperial palace perhaps it is enough to refer to her personal devotion to the Empress, the devotion of a servile and inferior being to a royal lady who is always ailing, weighed down by her own power, a lady who is a prey to all sorts of terrors and feels that some horrible fate is for ever hanging over her. Wednesday, December 30, 1914. Nicholas Maklakov, the Minister of the Interior, has told me of something that happened to him when he was travelling recently, an incident which brings out a curious side of Russian mentality: "I was coming back in a troika from Jaroslavl," he said. "I was alone, and when barely a dozen versts from my destination I was caught in a snowstorm. You couldn't see two paces ahead; that didn't prevent my coachman from whipping up his horses to try and reach the town before nightfall. Before long he had lost his way: he hesitated, turned to the right, then to the left. I was beginning to get uneasy. particularly as the storm got very much worse. Suddenly the vehicle stopped. My man crossed himself vigorously three times and muttered a prayer. Then throwing his reins over the shafts he yelled at his horses: 'Gee up! Gee up! Come on, lads! Come on, little brothers!' The three horses pricked up their ears, snorted, shook their heads this way and that and then galloped off through the blinding snowflakes. My driver turned round to me and
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said: " See, barin, when you've lost your way the best thing to do is to trust to your beasts and the grace of God!" An hour later I was in Jaroslavl. I replied to Maklakov: "Your fable's very poetic; but I'll admit I should have liked it better in peace time." Thursday, December 31, 1914. In an hour's time 1914 will be over. The exile's melancholy lot! Since this war first turned the world upside down events have already so often upset the most rational calculations and mocked at the most prudent anticipations that one cannot venture into prophecy, except within the limits of near horizons and immediate contingencies. This afternoon, however, I have had a long and frank talk with the Swiss Minister, Odier. The exchange of information, interchange of ideas and difference in our points of view have widened my horizon somewhat. Odier has a lucid and accurate mind, and he combines a strong sense of reality with a wealth of experience. We came to the conclusion that Germany made a serious mistake in thinking she could finish the war straight off; that it will be a very, very long struggle and that victory will ultimately rest with the most tenacious of the combatants. The war will thus become a war of attrition and the attrition, alas, must be complete, involving the exhaustion of food supplies, industrial machinery and products, man power and moral forces! And it is plain that it is the moral forces which will bring about the decision in the last desperate hour. Looked at from this point of view the problem cannot be regarded as other than an anxious one for Russia. Russia is so prone to lose heart, to fluctuate in her desires and grow weary of her dreams. Notwithstanding its splendid gifts of heart and mind no nation records so many bankruptcies and miscarriages in its moral life as the Russian. One of the types which crops up most frequently in Russian literature is the desperate man, the man resigned to anything and everything, the "failure." I was recently reading a moving passage in a book of Tchekov's, the novelist who, next to Tolstoy and Dostoievsky, has given the best analysis of the Russian soul: Why do we tire so soon? How is it that after squandering so much fervour, passion, and faith we almost always go to ruin before the age of thirty . And when we fall how is it that we never try to rise again?
Chapter Eight Table of Contents
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Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter VIII.
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER VIII JANUARY 1-FEBRUARY 13, 1915
Opportunity for a separate peace with Austria-Hungary.---The Empress's patriotism.---The Okhrana: its origin, prerogatives and power. The palace police and the Emperor's personal police.---French policy and Austria-Hungary.--Religious feelings of the Russian people.---Evangelism and mysticism.---The sects.---At the Hermitage.---Ceremonies at Tsarskoe-Selo on January 1st (O.S.). The Emperor's firm declaration to me.---Madame Vyrubova and Rasputin.--Intelligence of the Russian peasant.---Autocracy and orthodoxy; the doctrine of pure Tsarism.---The Russian students; the University proletariat; the women students.---The moujik's charitable instincts.---The Polish question. Discovery of a telegram from the Tsar to the Emperor William; Germany's responsibility increased.---Reopening of the Duma; the dream of Constantinople.---A hero of revolutionary Socialism: Bourtzev. The French Government instructs me to obtain his pardon. The Emperor's magnanimity.
Friday, January 1, 1915. Sazonov, Buchanan and I have been amicably discussing the problems we three shall have to face in the year 1915. None of us has any illusion about the immense effort required of us by the war, an effort we have neither the opportunity nor the right to shirk as nothing less than the independence of our national life is at stake. "The military experiences of the last few months," I said, "particularly of the last few weeks, embody a valuable lesson, I think, which we should be wrong not to turn to account." "What lesson?" asked Sazonov. After warning them that I was expressing a purely personal opinion I continued: "As the German bloc is such a hard nut to crack we should endeavour to detach Austria-Hungary from the Teutonic coalition by any and every method of force or persuasion. I believe we should succeed in a very short time. The Emperor Francis Joseph is very old; we know he bitterly regrets this war and only asks to be allowed to die in peace. You have beaten his armies in Galicia again and again; the Serbs have just won a brilliant victory at Valievo;. Rumania threatens and Italy is doubtful. The Hapsburg Monarchy was in no greater peril in 1859 and 1866 yet the same Francis Joseph then accepted serious territorial sacrifices to save his crown. Quite between ourselves, my dear Minister, if the Vienna Cabinet agreed to cede Galicia to you and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Serbia would not that seem to you an adequate return for making a separate peace with Austria-Hungary?"
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Sazonov pulled a face and replied drily: "What about Bohemia? And Croatia? Would you leave them under the present system? . . . It's impossible." "As I'm speaking to you personally forgive me for saying that in this terrible hour of trial for France the Czech and Jugo-Slav problems seem to me secondary." Sazonov peevishly shook his head: "No. Austria-Hungary must be dismembered." I then resumed my original arguments and developed them. I showed that the defection of Austria-Hungary would have important consequences from the strategic and moral points of view, that Russia would be the first to derive benefit from them, that it was our obvious interest and plain duty to concentrate the whole of our offensive power and destructive forces against Germany, and if the Vienna Cabinet offered us reasonable terms of peace we should commit a grave error if we rejected them a priori. If necessary we could require that a generous measure of self-government should be granted to the Czechs and Croats: that alone would be a resounding victory for Slavism . . . . Sazonov seemed moved by my persistence: "It wants thinking about," he said. The moment I got back to the embassy I sent a report of this conversation to Delcass, reminding him of the unquestionable advantage to France of the preservation of a great political system in the Danube basin. Tuesday, January 5, 1915. The street is always an instructive sight. I often notice what a vague, preoccupied and absent-minded creature the passing moujik looks. Here is a phenomenon one may observe at an any time, a phenomenon which sometimes thrusts itself upon one's notice even without looking for it. Two sleighs approach from opposite directions; they are still twenty metres apart and exactly in line. As usual the drivers casually let the reins lie loosely on their horses' backs. They look about them in an inattentive, unseeing way. The vehicles are now no more than ten metres apart. The izvochtchiks merely begin to realize that they will collide if they do not change direction. They slowly fumble for the reins. But the presence of the obstacle immediately ahead has not entirely dawned upon them even then. When the horses' noses are all but touching there is a pull at the bridle and they swerve sharply to the right---unless the two sleighs are not already upside down in the snow. Several times I have amused myself calculating the time that elapses between the moment at which it is plain that the two sleighs are in the same track and the moment at which the izvochtchiks pull the reins to avert a collision. I have found it to be from four to eight seconds by my watch. The Paris and London driver would make up his mind at the first glance and act accordingly in less than a second. Is the inference that the moujik is slow-witted and stupid? Certainly not. But his mind is always wandering. In his brain fitful and disordered impressions chase one another continuously: they seem to have no relation to reality. His usual state of mind oscillates between reverie and mental dispersion.
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Wednesday, January 6, 1915. The Russians have just inflicted a defeat on the Turks near Sarykamish, on the Kars-Erzerum road. This success is a particularly fine piece of work as our Ally's offensive is in a region of mountains as high as the Alps, intersected by precipices and with passes often over 2,500 metres in height. It is appalling cold at this season of the year, and there are incessant snowstorms. No roads and the whole region laid waste. The army of the Caucasus is performing prodigies of valour every day. Thursday, January 7, 1915. During the last nine days there has been heavy fighting on the left bank of the Vistula, in the sector between the Bzura and the Ravka. On January 2 the Germans succeeded in carrying the important Borjymov position: their front is thus no more than sixty kilometres from Warsaw. This situation comes in for very strong comment in Moscow, if I am to credit the information given me by an English journalist who was dining in the Slaviansky Bazar only yesterday: "In all the drawing-rooms and clubs at Moscow," he said, " there is great irritation at the turn military events are taking. No one can understand this suspension of all our attacks and these continuous retreats which look as if they would never end. But it is not the Grand Duke Nicholas who gets the blame but the Emperor and still more the Empress. The most absurd stories are told about Alexandra Feodorovna; Rasputin is accused of being in German pay and the Tsaritsa is simply called the Niemka [the German woman] . . ." Several times before have I heard the Empress charged with having retained sympathies, preferences and a warm corner in her heart for Germany. The unfortunate woman in no way deserves these strictures; she knows all about them and they give her great pain. Alexandra Feodorovna is German neither in mind nor spirit and has never been so. Of course, she is a German by birth, at any rate on the paternal side, as her father was Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine. But she is English through her mother, Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria. In 1878, at the age of six, she lost her mother and thenceforward resided habitually at the court of England. Her bringingup, education and mental and moral development were thus quite English. She is still English in her outward appearance, her deportment, a certain strain of inflexibility and Puritanism, the uncompromising and militant austerity of her conscience and, last but not least, in many of her personal habits. That is all that is left of her western origin. In her inmost being she has become entirely Russian. In the first place I have no doubt of her patriotism, notwithstanding the legend I see growing up around her. Her love for Russia is deep---and true. And why should she not be devoted to her adopted country which stands for everything dear to her as woman, wife, sovereign and mother? When she ascended the throne in 1894 she knew already that she did not like Germany, and particularly Prussia. In recent years she has taken a personal dislike to the Emperor William and he it is whom she holds exclusively responsible for the war, this "wicked war which makes Christ's heart bleed every day." When she heard of the incendiarism at Louvain she cried out: "I blush to have been a German!" But her moral naturalization has gone even further. By a curious process of mental contagion she has gradually absorbed the most ancient and characteristic elements of the Russian soul, all those obscure, emotional and visionary elements which find their highest expression in religious mysticism. I have already referred to the morbid proclivities she inherits from her mother's side and which betray themselves in her sister Elizabeth as a kind of charitable exaltation and in her brother, the Grand Duke of
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Hesse, as a taste for the freakish. These hereditary tendencies, which would have been more or less checked if she had continued to live in the practical and balanced West, have found in Russia the atmosphere most favourable to their perfect development. Are not all those symptoms---moral unrest, chronic melancholy, vague sorrows, the see-saw between elation and despondency, the haunting obsession of the invisible and the life beyond, and superstitious credulity---which are outstanding features of the Empress's personality, traditional and endemic in the Russian people? Alexandra Feodorovna's submissive acceptance of Rasputin's ascendency is no less significant. She is behaving exactly like one of the old Tsaritsas of Moscow when she sees in Rasputin a Bojy tchelloviek, "a man of God," "a saint persecuted (as Christ was) by the Pharisees," or when she endows him with the gifts of prophecy, miracle-working and exorcism, or allows the success of a political step or a military operation to depend upon his blessing. She carries us back to the times of Ivan the Terrible or Michael Feodorovitch and takes her place, so to speak, in the Byzantine setting of archaic Russia. Friday, January 8, 1915. Towards three o'clock this afternoon, as the last relics of day were already submerging in a desolate darkness, I walked along the Kronversky Prospekt on my way to the French Hospital which is at the far end of Vassili Island. On my left the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul thrust forth its angular bastions under a shroud of snow from which the flat roof of the state prison barely protruded. A dense, leaden mist hung heavy over the cupola of the cathedral in which are the tombs of the Romanovs and the gilded spire above it was lost in the sombre sky. Ahead of me I had glimpses of the motionless sheet of the Neva, studded with great blocks of ice, through the leafless trees of a bare and deserted park. To heighten the sinister setting of the hour and the place the corner of a lonely avenue I passed on my right was marked by a low building with yellowing walls and barred windows, a building of secret and shameful, aspect. Two police officers came out of it together. It was the Okhrana.. This fearsome institution dates from the days of Peter the Great who created it in 1697 under the name of the Preobrajensky Prikaz. Its historical origins must be sought for much earlier on, however; they are to be found in Byzantine traditions and Tartar methods of rule. Its first Chief was Prince Romodanovsky and it immediately acquired a terrible reputation. From that time espionage, secret denunciation, torture and secret execution were the normal and regular instruments of Russian policy. From the start the Preobrajensky Prikaz applied the true principles of a State Inquisition, mystery, arbitrary action and ferocity. In the reigns of Peter II, Anna Tvanovna and Elizabeth Petrovna the institution lost something of its native vigour but the Empress Catherine II, "the friend of philosophers," lost no time in restoring its secret authority and implacable character. Alexander II kept it at that high level. It needed the genius for despotism of Nicholas I to discover that a State service which already had so many exploits to its credit was defective and inadequate. Immediately after the Decembrist conspiracy he entirely reorganized the Okhrana, which was thenceforward known as the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's private Chancellery. In all these reforms could be observed the influence of Prussian methods and a tendency to imitate Prussian bureaucracy and Prussian militarism. The direction of the department was entrusted to a general of German origin, Count Alexander Benckendorff.(1) No autocrat ever had a more potent weapon of inquisition and coercion. After a few years of this regime Russia was essentially a "Police State." In the disorganization which succeeded the Crimean War Alexander II felt the necessity of modernizing the administrative. legislation of the Empire to a certain extent. The judicial system, which offered no guarantee
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of justice whatever, was recast on lines more in keeping with western ideas. But the Third Section still retained its extravagant privileges. To realize its place in the State organization and its reputation in society it is enough to remember that three of its successive Directors were Count Orlov, Prince Dolgoruky and Count Shuvalov. The assassination of Alexander II in 1881 and the spread of the Nihilist movement gave the opponents of liberal reforms the chance of their life. Throughout his life the "Most Pious" Alexander III conscientiously devoted himself to extirpating the evil germs of "modernism" and bringing Russia back to the theocratic ideal of the Muscovite Tsars. The police of course took the lead in this work of reaction. But since August, 1880, it had ceased to be attached to the Private Chancellery of His Imperial Majesty: it was under the Ministry of the Interior where it formed a special department with the corps of gendarmes. Under the direction of General Tcherevin, a personal friend of Alexander III, it was as powerful as in the days of Nicholas 1. Shrouded in mystery, thrusting its tentacles into every part of the Empire and even abroad, outside the jurisdiction of the courts, disposing of huge funds and free of all supervision it frequently imposed its decrees on the ministers and even the Emperor himself. The superstitious reverence of Nicholas II for the memory and opinions of his father safeguarded him from making any changes in a service animated by such matchless loyalty and so zealous for the safety of the dynasty. His ukases of May 23, 1896 and December 13, 1897 confirmed and increased the powers of the police. Those powers were well illustrated during the revolutionary troubles of 1905 when the Okhrana fomented strikes, attempts at assassination and pogroms in all quarters, mobilized General Bogdanovitch's "Black Bands" and tried to rouse the fanaticism of the rural masses in favour of orthodox Tsarism. The debate in the Duma in June, 1906, the revelations of Prince Urussov, the proceedings which were subsequently taken against the ex-Chief of Police, Lopoukhin, the confessions or reticences of the police officers, Guerassimov and Ratchkovsky, brought to light the shocking part played by agents provocateurs like Azev, Gapon, Harting, Tchiguelsky and Mikhailov in the anarchist plots of the last few years. It was even thought that their handiwork could be traced in the assassinations of Plevhe, the Minister of the Interior, and the Grand Duke Sergius. What is the Okhrana contemplating now? What plot is it weaving? I am told that its present Chief, General Globatchev, is not altogether deaf to reason. But in times of crisis the spirit of an institution will always prevail against the personality of its chief. Nor can I forget that the Police Department at the Ministry of the Interior is in the hands of Bieletzky, a man entirely lacking in scruples, bold and deceitful, a tool of Rasputin and all his gang.(2) The Police Department at the Ministry of the Interior and its annex, the Okhrana, function over the general police of the Empire, the administrative, judicial, and political police. But in addition to these two great public services there is a complicated mechanism attached to the Minister of the Court's department, the duty of which is to ensure the personal safety of Their Majesties! I cannot find any monarchical state in modern history in which the safety of the sovereigns has appeared to require such active and painstaking vigilance and such a rampart of open or secret precautions. The task is accomplished in the following way. All the military and administrative organs employed in the protection of the sovereigns are under the orders of the Governor of the Imperial Palaces. His post is greatly coveted because it confers on its holder immense power and entitles him to approach the Tsar at any time. The present holder is General Vladimir Nicolaievitch Voyeikov, formerly Commander of the Regiment of Guard Hussars, son-in-law of Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court. His predecessor was General Diedulin who succeeded the famous General Trepov.
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In the first place General Voyeikov has under his orders the Cossack Escort Regiment of four squadrons, with a total strength of 650 men. The Officer Commanding the Regiment is General Count Alexander Grabb. These Cossacks are selected from the strongest and most active in the Empire, and are posted to observation, patrol and escort duty outside the palace. These are the men to be seen galloping at intervals of fifty metres day and night in the avenue which surrounds Tsarskoe-Selo Park. Then comes His Majesty's Regiment, four battalions with a total strength of 5,000 men; the commander of the regiment is General Ressin. Recruited with the greatest care from all the corps of the guard and remarkably smart in their plain uniforms, these picked infantry men supply the guards for the palace gate and the sentries scattered about the park. It also furnishes some thirty guards distributed about the vestibules, corridors, staircases, kitchens, domestic offices and cellars of the imperial residence. In addition to these cavalry and infantry contingents General Voyeikov has at his disposal a special unit, His Majesty's Railway Regiment, comprising two battalions with a total strength of 1,000 men. This regiment is commanded by General Label and is in charge of the management of the imperial trains and responsible for the inspection of the permanent way when Their Majesties are travelling. This work is of the highest importance as to "blow up the Tsar's train" is one of the ideas that obsess Russian anarchists. Not so long ago one of them succeeded in concealing himself by clinging to the undercarriage of one of the coaches with a bomb in his pocket. The protection given by these military forces is supplemented by that given by two administrative organs, appropriately equipped, the Police of the Imperial Court and His Majesty the Emperor's Personal Police. The Police of the Imperial Court, under the direction of General of Gendarmerie Ghrardi, has a strength of 250 police officers, and duplicates to a certain extent the guards and sentries posted at the gates and in the palace buildings. It watches the entrances and exits, inspects the servants, tradesmen, workmen, gardeners, visitors, &c. It observes and records everything that goes on among the entourage of the sovereigns. It spies, eavesdrops, pries into everything and gets everywhere. In the execution of its task it never makes the slightest exception. On that point I can give personal testimony. Every time I was received by the Emperor at Tsarskoe-Selo and Peterhof (and on each occasion I was in full uniform, in a court carriage and with a Master of Ceremonies at my side) I had to go through the usual process. The police officer on duty at the great gates put his head inside the carriage and was handed the regulation pass by the groom. I once expressed my surprise at such strictness to Evreinov, the Director of Ceremonies. "We can't be too careful, Ambassador," he replied. "Don't forget that towards the end of Alexander II's time the Nihilists blew up the dining-room at the Winter Palace, within a few feet of the bedroom in which poor Empress Marie lay dying! . . . Our revolutionaries are no less bold and ingenious now. They've tried to kill Nicholas II seven or eight times already." His Majesty the Emperor's Personal Police has even wider functions. It is a kind of branch of the great Okhrana, but responsible solely and directly to the Governor of the Imperial Palaces. Its Commanding Officer is General of Gendarmerie Spiridovitch, who has under his orders 300 police officers who have all gone through an apprenticeship in the ranks of the judicial or political police. General Spiridovitch's main task is to see to the safety of the sovereigns when they are outside their palace. The moment the Tsar or Tsaritsa have left the Dvoretz he is responsible for their lives. It is a particularly grave responsibility as Nicholas II is a thoroughgoing fatalist, piously convinced "that he will not die before the hour decreed by God," and therefore allows only well-screened measures for his personal safety and in particular no conspicuous deployment of police officers. To do its work thoroughly and well the Personal Police has to have an intimate knowledge of the organization, designs, schemes, plots, all the audacious, unceasing and subterranean activities of the
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subversive elements. For this purpose General Spiridovitch is furnished with all the information acquired by the Police Department and the Okhrana. The high importance of his duties also gives him the right to enter any of the administrative departments at any time and insist upon any inquiry he thinks fit. The Chief of the Personal Police is thus able to furnish his immediate superior, the Governor of the Imperial Palaces, with a formidable weapon for political and social espionage. Saturday, January 9, 1915. Delcass has just replied to my telegram of January 1, in which I reported my conversation with Sazonov about the possibility of inducing the Vienna Cabinet to make a separate peace. He gives me strict orders not to say a word which might lead the Russian Government to think that we do not hand over AustriaHungary to Russia in toto. When my Councillor, Doulcet, had read the telegram through I said to him: "You might just as well have read out the news of a military defeat: I shouldn't have been a bit more flabbergasted!" Are the Russian people as religious as is commonly asserted? It is a question I have often turned over in my mind and my answers have been pretty indefinite. Yesterday I was reading some of Merejkovsky's suggestive pages in Religion and Revolution, and the question presented itself to my mind once more. Merejkovsky says that somewhere about 1902 a number of Russians, who were uneasy in their highly devout minds, arranged at St. Petersburg a series of conferences in which priests sat with laymen under the chairmanship of a bishop, Monsignor Sergei, Rector of the Theological College: "For the first time," he writes, " the Russian Church found itself face to face with the lay world, lay culture and society, not for the purpose of forcing a superficial fusion but to strive for a free and intimate communion. For the first time questions were put which had never been raised with the same searchings of conscience and real torture of mind since the ascetic separation of Christianity and the world. . . . The walls of the room seemed to open and reveal boundless horizons. This tiny assembly seemed as it were the threshold of an oecumenical council. Speeches were made which were more like prayers and prophecies. An atmosphere of enthusiasm was created in which everything seemed possible, even a miracle. . . . A tribute must be paid to the heads of the Russian clergy. They met us more than half-way with an open mind, a holy humility, a desire to understand, to help, to save the victim of error. . . . But the line of demarcation between the two camps was deeper than we at first thought. Between ourselves and them we discovered a great abyss which it proved impossible to bridge. . . . We made tunnels towards each other but we could not meet, for we were digging at different levels. For the Church to respond something more than reform would have been required. "What was needed was a revolution: a new revelation rather than a new interpretation; not the sequel to the Second Testament but the beginning of the Third; not a return to the Christ of the first coming but an impulse towards the Christ of the second. A hopeless misunderstanding was the result. "To us religion was worship; to these priests it was routine. The sacred words of the scriptures, in which we heard the' voices of the seven thunders, to them were just as the sentences of the catechism learned by heart. We thought of the face of Christ as of the sun shining in his splendour: they were satisfied with a dark smudge on the halo of an old ikon." There lies the great religious drama of the Russian conscience. The nation is more sincere, or at any rate
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more Christian, than its Church. In the simple faith of the masses. there is more spirituality, mysticism and evangelism than in the orthodox theology and ordinances. The official Church is daily losing its hold over men's hearts by allowing itself to become the tool of autocracy and an administrative institution and police force. Fifteen years ago Tolstoy's dramatic and famous break with canonical orthodoxy revealed the full gravity of the moral crisis with which Russia is afflicted. When the Holy Synod launched its excommunication messages of approval and admiration poured into Yasnaia Poliana. Even priests raised their voices against the terrible sentence; theological students went on strike and indignation was so general that the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg thought it necessary to send an open letter to Countess Tolstoy in which he characterized the verdict of the Holy Synod as an "act of love and charity" towards her apostate husband. The Russian people are deeply evangelical. The Sermon on the Mount practically sums up their religion. What appeals to them most in the Christian revelation is the mystery of love which, emanating from God, has redeemed the world. The essential articles of their Credo are the words of the sermon in Galilee: Love one another. . . . Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you . . . pray for them which despitefully use you. . . . I ask not sacrifice, but love. Hence the moujik's infinite pity for the poor, the unfortunate, the oppressed, the humbled and all to whom fate has been unkind. It is this which gives Dostoievsky's work such a ring of national truth; it seems wholly inspired by the word of Christ, "Come unto Me all ye that are heavy-laden!" Alms, good works and hospitality take an enormous place in the life of the lowly. I have travelled over the world and never found any other race so charitable. Besides the moujik himself feeds on the sympathy he lavishes on others. His face is a study in fervour and sincerity when he murmurs the eternal response of the orthodox liturgy to the accompaniment of vigorous signs of the cross: Gospodi, pomiloui! " "Lord have mercy on me!" Next to sympathy for the afflicted the religious sentiment which strikes me as most active in the popular conscience is the admission of sin. Here again we can see the influence of the Galilean teaching. The Russian seems haunted by the idea of sin and repentance.. With the publican of the sacred parable he is always saying: O God, have mercy upon me, poor sinner! To him Christ is primarily He who said: The Son of Man is come to save the souls in peril, and who also said: I am not come to call the just but the sinners. The moujik is never tired of listening to the Gospel of Saint Luke, which is par excellence the gospel of forgiveness. What moves him to the depths of his soul is the privilege of forgiveness and the preference bestowed by the divine Master on those who hate their sins: There is more joy in Heaven for one sinner that repenteth than for ninety and nine just men that need no repentance. He never tires of hearing the parables of the prodigal son and of the strayed sheep, the healing of the Samaritan leper and the promise of the Kingdom of God to the crucified thief. Thus, contrary to common report, the Russian is very far from attaching importance to formal rites exclusively. Of course the form of worship, services, sacraments, blessings, ikons, relics, scapularies, candles, anthems, the practice of crossing himself and genuflexions play a great part in his devotions; his lively imagination makes him very susceptible to outward pomp. But the moving force with him---and by a long way the most potent---is implicit faith, pure Christianity without an element of metaphysics, the everpresent thought of the Saviour, a deliberate contemplation of suffering and death and vague meditation on the supernatural world beyond our ken and on the mystery by which we are surrounded. In many respects it is this evangelical idealism which accounts for the multitude of sects in Russia. There is no doubt that the discredit into which the official church had fallen owing to its subservience to the autocracy has contributed to the development of the spirit of sect. But the multiplicity of schisms is due to a
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more intimate need of the Russian soul. Innumerable indeed are the religious communities which have broken away from the orthodox church or sprung into being outside it. First comes the most ancient, as also the largest and most austere of them, the Raskol, which has some points of resemblance to our Jansenism. Then there are the Doukhobors who admit only one source of inspiration, spiritual intuition, and refuse to perform military service on the ground that they cannot shed blood; the Beglopopovtsy, abjuring priests who flee the satanical servitude of the official church; the Molokanes, "milk drinkers," who strive to live the Galilean life in its simple purity; the Stranniki, "Wanderers," who wander at their own sweet will through the steppes and the icy forests of Siberia in the hope of escaping from the kingdom of Antichrist; the Chtoundists, who preach agrarian communism "to put an end to the reign of the Pharaohs"; the Khlysty, who feel Christ born within them in their erotic ecstacies and whose most brilliant representative at the moment is Rasputin; the Skoptzy, who practise castration to escape the allurements of the flesh; the Bialoritzy, who dress in white "like the angels in Heaven" and go from village to village teaching innocence; the Pomortsy, who renounce the baptism they have received in infancy because "Antichrist reigns over the Church" and repeat the baptismal sacrament with their own hands; the Nikoudichniky, bitter enemies of the social order, who seek the true Kingdom of Christ on earth "further on, ever further on," where sin is impossible; the Douchitely, "stranglers" who cut short the tortured last hours of the dying by choking them, from motives of human pity and retrospective sympathy for the sufferer of Calvary. And how many more! All these sects trace their origin from the same principle. They all reveal the idea of a creed founded solely on purity of heart and the brotherhood of man, the necessity of direct communication between the soul and its God, the impossibility of believing that the clergy are an indispensable mediator between the Heavenly Father and His flock, the personal inspiration which refuses to accept the chains of the Church and, lastly and mostly, the anarchy inherent in the Russian nature. The domestic activities of these communities reveal all the forms, excesses and varieties of religious emotion---the highest spirituality and the lowest materialism, the exaltation of the spirit and the mutilation of the flesh, fanaticism and belief in miracles, illuminism and divination, ecstasy and hysteria, asceticism and lust. The faith of the Russian people being approximately as I have just described one is faced with a very vexing dilemma. How comes it that the moujik with so evangelical a spirit allows himself to be guilty of such appalling atrocities when his anger is roused? The murders, tortures, incendiarism and looting which marked the troubles of 1905 show us that he is capable of the same horrors as in the days of Pugatchev or Ivan the Terrible or any other period of his history. It seems to me the reason is twofold. In the first place the great majority of Russians have remained primitive, that is hardly beyond the stage of instinct. They are still the slaves of their impulses. Christianity has only penetrated certain parts of their nature: it in no way reaches their reason and appeals less to their conscience than to their imagination and emotions. It must be admitted, too, that when the moujik's rage has subsided he at once recovers all his Christian gentleness and humility. He weeps over his victims and says masses for the repose of their souls. He confesses his crimes publicly, beats his bosom and sits in sackcloth and ashes. He revels in repentance and excels in the art of making it impressive. The second reason is that the Gospels contain numerous precepts from which inferences can be drawn subversive of the modern State as we conceive it. The parable of the rich man who burns in Hell merely because he is rich, while Lazarus rests in Abraham's bosom, is a dangerous subject of meditation for the simple minds of the Russian proletariat and peasantry. In the same way when life is very hard and they feel the wretchedness of their social condition very deeply they like to think that it was Christ who said: "The first shall be last and the last first." Nor are they ignorant of the terrible words: "I am come to bring fire on the earth." Lastly, the tendency to communism which lurks deep down in every moujik finds more than one argument in its favour in the Galilean programme. Tolstoy has eloquently interpreted the Gospels "in the
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Russian sense," and he does not hesitate to say that private property is inconsistent with Christian doctrine, that every man has a right to the fruits of the glebe as he has to the rays of the sun and that the land should belong exclusively to those who cultivate it. Tuesday, January 12, 1915. In the endless succession of foggy and icy days which make up winter in Petrograd it is a depressing business to visit the Hermitage Museum. The Italian galleries are discovered even before the last steps of the majestic staircase leading from the vestibule have been mounted. Like the unfolding of a landscape one sees the Titians, Veroneses, Tiepolos, Tintorettos, Canalettos, Guardis and Sciavones, the whole Venetian school, with here and there a few canvases of Guercino, Caravaggio and Salvator Rosa, hardly distinguishable in the gloom. From the windows in the roof descends a yellowish, dirty light which might have been filtered through some thin material. Through this wan veil all these works of the Venetian masters, all these scenes of a luxurious life with its pomp and pageantry seem to be suffering from intolerable homesickness. Tiepolo's Cleopatra and Titian's Danae fill one with pity. Dante's lines came to my mind: O settentrional vedovo sito . . . "O land of the North, unhappy widow who knows not the splendours of the South! . . ." There is the same air of melancholy in the French rooms where the art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is superbly represented by Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Mignard, Lenain, Largillire, Van Loo, Lemoyne, de Tory, Watteau, Chardin, Pater, Greuze, Boucher, Lancret, Fragonard, Hubert, Robert, &c. . . . It is a unique collection and. several of its canvases may be reckoned among the most exquisite and radiant creations of the French genius. But in the livid atmosphere of to-day all these pictures lose their vivid colour, their freshness, brilliance, spirit and soul. The colours fade, the spell of harmonies is broken, the vibrations cease, the luminous glow is dimmed, the skies grow dark, the relief vanishes, the faces disappear. The long silent gallery seems a cemetery. Yet there is one part of the Hermitage where it is a treat to linger even on dark days: I mean the four rooms devoted to Rembrandt. The tawny half-light falling from the windows seems but an extension of the amber vapour in which the pictures are bathed. In the dim and golden fluid flowing through the gallery the art of the great visionary attains a phenomenal power of calling dead things to life. Each face seems to glow with a strange, profound, remote and boundless vitality. The external world ceases to exist: the very depths of the life of the spirit are reached: the insoluble mystery of the soul and human destiny is touched. After a prolonged contemplation of masterpieces such as Pallas, the Danae, Abraham and the Angels, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Reconciliation of David and Absalom, the Fall of Aman, the Parable of the Vineyard, the Denial of St. Peter, the Descent from the Gross, the Unbelief of St. Thomas, the Jewish Bride, the Old Man of the Ghetto, &c., it is easier to understand Carlyle's great thought: "History is a grandiose drama, played on the stage of the infinite with the stars for lights and eternity as the background." Thursday, January 14, 1915. According to the Gregorian Calendar the year 1915 begins to-day. At two o'clock under a wan sun and pearl-grey sky which here and there cast silvery shadows on the snow the Diplomatic Corps called at Tsarskoe-Selo to wish the Emperor a Happy New Year. As usual the ceremony is marked by the full display of pageantry, luxury of setting and that inimitable exhibition of pomp and power in which the Russian court has no rival.
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The carriages drew up at the foot of the steps of the immense palace which the Empress Elizabeth had built in her ambition to eclipse the court of Louis XV. We were taken into the Hall of Mirrors, a mass of gilding and glass and a blaze of light. The various missions lined up in order of seniority, each ambassador or minister having his staff behind him. Almost at once the Emperor entered, followed by his brilliant suite. He looked very well and his face was smiling and calm. He conversed for a few minutes with each mission. When he reached me I offered him my congratulations, appending the words of encouragement and good cheer which General Joffre had asked me to convey to the Grand Duke Nicholas. I added that in its recent declaration to the Chambers the Government of the Republic had solemnly affirmed its determination to continue the war to the bitter end and that that determination is a guarantee of final victory. The Emperor answered: "I have read that pronouncement of your Government and my whole heart goes with it. My own determination is no less. I shall continue this war as long as is necessary to secure a complete victory. You know I have just been visiting my army; I found it animated by splendid ardour and enthusiasm. All it asks is to be allowed to fight. It is confident of victory. Unfortunately our operations are held up by the lack of munitions. We shall have to possess ourselves in patience for a time. But it is only a temporary suspension and the Grand Duke Nicholas's general plan of campaign will in no way be changed. At the earliest possible moment my army will resume the offensive and the struggle will be continued until our enemies sue for peace. My recent journey all over Russia has shown me that I and my people are one on this point." I thanked him for these words. After a moment's reflection he drew himself up and said in a thrilling voice which stressed each word: "I should also tell you, Ambassador, that I am not unaware of certain attempts which have been made, even in Petrograd, to spread a notion that I am discouraged, that I see no possibility of crushing Germany and am even thinking of making peace. Those who spread such rumours are vile creatures, German agents. But all their intrigues and inventions are beneath contempt. It is my will alone that counts and you may be sure that I shall not change." "The Government of the Republic has absolute confidence in the feelings that inspire Your Majesty and has therefore ignored the miserable intrigues to which Your Majesty is good enough to refer. It will appreciate the more highly the declarations I shall convey to it in the name of Your Majesty." He shook my hand and continued: "And please accept my very best wishes for yourself, my dear Ambassador." Friday, January 15, 1915. A bright, sunny day---such a rare delight in these interminable winters! Although it is extremely cold I went for a walk on the Islands where the northern sun was displaying all its magic over the icy expanse of the Gulf of Finland. A few clouds, shot with flame, dotted the silvery blue of the sky. The northern lights played over the horizon. The hoar frost on the trees and the dazzling carpet of snow on the ground sparkled at intervals as if diamond dust had been scattered with a lavish hand. I reflected on what the Emperor said to me yesterday, words which once more engraved on my mind the
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splendid moral resolution which has been his attitude since the war began. His idea of duty is certainly as high and grand as possible because it is perpetually nourished, vitalized and illuminated by his religion. But otherwise I should say that as regards the exact science and the practical use of power he is patently not equal to his task. I hasten to add that there is no one who could cope with such a task; it is quite ultra vires, beyond human power. Does autocracy still meet the needs of the Russian character and the present stage of Russian civilization? It is a problem on which even the best minds hesitate to deliver an opinion. But what cannot be doubted is that autocracy is no longer compatible with the territorial expansion of Russia, the diversity of its races and the development of its economic resources. Compared with the present Empire of not less than 180,000,000 people spread over an area Of 22,000,000 square kilometres what was the Russia of Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine II, or even Nicholas I? A genius not less than Napoleon's would be required to govern a State which has reached such colossal dimensions, to control all the energies and cogwheels of such a huge machine and to unite and secure the smooth working of such complex elements. Whatever may be the intrinsic virtues of autocratic Tsarism it is a geographical anachronism. Saturday, January 16, 1915. Yesterday Madame Vyrubova was the victim of a railway accident outside Tsarskoe-Selo. She was picked up with a fractured thigh, dislocated shoulder and severe contusions on the head. She was taken to the Empress's military hospital and the Tsaritsa went at once to her friend's bedside. The injured lady was in such a state of exhaustion and shock that the surgeons considered it impossible to operate at all until she had recovered her strength. They have decided to let her rest until to-day and simply applied temporary measures of relief. Meanwhile, on the Empress's orders Rasputin was at once sent for. He was dining with some lady friends in Petrograd. A special train brought him to Tsarskoe-Selo an hour later. When he was taken into Madame Vyrubova's room she was still quite unconscious. He surveyed her calmly just like any doctor. Then he resolutely touched the poor patient's fore-head, murmuring a short prayer after which he called out three times: "Annushka! Annushka! Annushka!" At the third time she was seen to open her eyes. Then, in an even more imperious tone he ordered: "Now, wake up and rise! " She opened her eyes wide. He repeated: "Rise!" With her free arm she made an effort to get up. He continued, but in a gentle voice: "Speak to me!" And she spoke to him in a feeble voice which grew stronger with every word. Sunday, January 17, 1915. Major Langlois, who is liaison officer between the French G.H.Q. and the Russian G.H.Q., has arrived from Baranovici and leaves to-morrow for Paris via Sweden.
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He has left the Grand Duke Nicholas "full of enthusiasm and determined to resume the offensive the moment his army has received its munitions." The moral of the troops is good: strengths are low owing to the recent losses. Monday, January 18, 1915. I have been discussing the Russian peasant with Countess P-----, who spends a large part of every year on her estates, nobly doing her duty as a barina. As a matter of fact her moral inclination and a certain instinct for equity and good works make her prefer the society of the lowly. "In the West," she told me, "no one understands our moujiks. Because a very large number of them cannot read or write they are supposed to be defective in intelligence, stupid, if not barbarous. It's a tremendous mistake! They are ignorant, that is they have no knowledge; they lack positive notions; their education is very limited, and often non-existent. But though they may be untutored their intelligence is none the less remarkable for its range, elasticity, and also its activity." "Activity!" "Certainly. Their minds are always at work. The moujik does not talk much, but he is always thinking, reflecting, turning things over in his mind, and dreaming." "What does he think and dream about?" "Primarily, his material interests, his harvests, his cattle, the poverty which grinds him down---or threatens to do so, the price of clothes and tea, the burden of taxation and forced labour, the next agrarian reform, and so on. But thoughts of a much more lofty nature obsess him also and echo into the very depths of his soul. That is particularly true in winter, in the long evenings in the isba, and the monotonous walks in the snow. A slow and melancholy reverie then claims him entirely: he thinks of human destiny, the meaning of life, the parables in the Gospels, the duty of generosity, the redemption of sin by suffering, the ultimate triumph of justice on God's earth. You can have no idea what a passion for reflection and a feeling for poetry are often to be found in the souls of our moujiks. I should add, too, that they use their intelligence very cleverly. They are splendid in discussion: they argue with much skill and subtlety. They often give you most witty replies, and display a talent for waggish insinuations and a fine sense of irony." Tuesday, January 19, 1915. The Minister of justice, Stcheglovitov, leader of the Extreme Right in the Council of Empire, and the most fervent and uncompromising of the reactionaries, has just called on me to thank me for some slight service I was able to do him. We talked about the war, and I warned him it would be a very long one: "Illusions," I said, "cannot be tolerated any longer. The real test, the nature of which is becoming clear, has hardly begun, and it will be more and more severe. We must arm ourselves with an ample supply of moral and material forces, just as a ship is equipped for a long and dangerous voyage." "Of course we must! The trial which it has pleased Providence to inflict upon us promises to be a terrible one, and we are obviously only at the beginning. But with God's aid and the help of our good Allies, we shall come through triumphant. I have no doubt about our ultimate victory. But forgive me, Ambassador, if I lay stress on something you have just said. You think, and rightly, that we must equip ourselves with moral forces as much as with guns, rifles, and shells, as it is plain that this war has dreadful sufferings and terrible sacrifices in store for us. I shiver at the thought! But so far as Russia is concerned the problem of
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moral forces is comparatively simple. If the faith of the Russian people in monarchy is not troubled they will face any trial and accomplish miracles of heroism and self-effacement. Never forget that in the eyes of Russians---I mean true Russians---His Majesty the Emperor personifies not only supreme authority but religion and the Fatherland itself. Believe me, outside Tsarism there is no salvation because there would be no more Russia!" With a warmth in which I detected the thrill of rage as well as patriotism, he added: " The Tsar is the Anointed of the Lord, sent by God to be the supreme guardian of the Church and the all powerful ruler of the Empire.(3) In popular belief he is even the image of Christ upon earth. As he receives his power from God it is to God alone that he must account for it. The essential divinity of his authority has the second result that autocracy and nationalism are inseparable. Then, down with the fools who dare to assail these dogmas! Constitutional liberalism is a heresy as well as a stupid chimera. There is no national life except within the framework of autocracy and orthodoxy. If political reforms are necessary they must be carried out only in the spirit of autocracy and orthodoxy." I replied: "The main point that impresses me in what Your Excellency has just said is that the essential element of the strength of Russia is a close and intimate union between the Emperor and his people. For reasons different to yours I come to the same conclusion. I shall never cease to advocate that union." When he had gone I reflected that I had just heard an exposition of the doctrine of pure Tsarism as taught twenty years ago by the famous procurator of the Holy Synod, Pobiedonostsev, to his young pupil Nicholas II, the same doctrine which the great writer, Merejovsky, once defined in a study on the insurrectionary troubles of 1905, a masterly work in which these bold words may be found: "In the house of the Romanovs, as in that of the Atrides, a mysterious curse descends from generation to generation. Murders and adultery, blood and mud, 'the fifth act of a tragedy played in a brothel.' -Peter I kills his son; Alexander I kills his father; Catherine II kills her husband. And beside these great and famous victims there are the mean, unknown, and unhappy abortions of the autocracy such as Ivan Antonovitch, suffocated like mice in dark corners, in the cells of the Schlusselburg. The block, the rope, and poison-these are the true emblems of Russian autocracy. God's unction on the brows of the Tsars has become the brand and curse of Cain." Wednesday, January 20, 1915. Yesterday Rasputin was run over on the Nevsky Prospekt by a troika going at full speed. He was picked up with a slight wound on the head. After the accident to Madame Vyrubova five days ago, this fresh warning from Heaven is only too eloquent The war is displeasing God more than ever! Thursday, January 21, 1915. The pacifist propaganda with which Germany is so busy in Petrograd is also at work in the armies at the front. At several points proclamations in Russian have been seized inciting the soldiers to stop fighting and declaring that the Emperor Nicholas, with his fatherly heart, has already been won over to the idea of peace. The Grand Duke Nicholas has thought it advisable to protest against these allusions to the Tsar. In an Army
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Order he has denounced this insidious scheme of the enemy as a vile crime. The Order ends thus: All faithful subjects know that in Russia everyone, from the Generalissimo to the private soldier, obeys and obeys only the sacred and august will of the Anointed of God, our deeply revered Emperor, who alone has the power to begin and end a war. Monday, January 25, 1915. This afternoon some shopping took me to Vassily-Ostrov, the island which is the centre of the intellectual life of Petrograd, as it is the quarter of the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Fine Arts, the School of Mines, the Naval School, the Zoological Museum, the Historical and Philological Institutes, several schools, the physical and chemical laboratories, and all the great scholastic establishments. As the weather cleared up a little I left my car there and went for a stroll in the streets. I passed students at every step. How different they looked from the students one sees in the Latin Quarter in Paris, or the streets of Oxford and Cambridge! The faces, gestures, and voices, in fact the whole personality of French students are the personification of youth, vitality, and a happy-go-lucky enthusiasm in the work and play of life; even the eyes of those who look tired seem to sparkle with clear and frank intelligence. The outstanding characteristic of the English students, with their healthy complexion and loose limbs, is their air of determination, instinct for the practical, and cold, resolute, and well-balanced intellects. Nothing of the kind is to be seen here. In the first place, Russian students are usually a sorry spectacle with their haggard faces, drawn features, hollow cheeks, frail figures, thin arms, and pronounced stoop. These emaciated bodies in worn-out and tattered clothing are a living witness of the wretched condition of the university proletariat in Russia. Many students have no more than twenty-five roubles (60 francs) a month to live on, i.e., one-third of the bare minimum required to support a normal existence in this bleak climate. The result of this defective physiological replacement is not merely a debilitated organism; combined with the strain of an active brain and mental anxieties it involves the nervous system in a condition of permanent irritation. Hence these melancholy, or fevered, anxious, and haggard faces, these fanatical or prematurely aged looks, these features of ascetics, visionaries, and anarchists. I could not help thinking of the remark put in Crime and Punishment into judge Porphyre's mouth by Dostoievsky: "Raskolnikov's crime is the work of a mind over-excited by theories." The women students, of whom there is a large number, repay observation no less. I happened to notice one coming out of a caf in the company of four young men: they stopped on the pavement outside to resume the argument. The tall, pretty girl with bright, hard eyes under her astrakhan cap, was laying down the law. Two more students soon came out of the traktir and joined the group around her. Here before my eyes I had perhaps one of the most original types of Russian womanhood: a missionary of the revolutionary gospel. Russian novelists, particularly Turgeniev, have often said that the women of their country greatly excel the men in strength of character, decision, and the temper of their wills. In the matter of love-making it is almost always the woman who takes and retains the offensive, rouses and worries her partner, lays down the law and decides everything; it is the woman whose orders are accepted and whose will prevails. Russian women are just the same in a very different department of their activities---the domain of revolutionary political action. In the far-away era of Nihilism women, and particularly young girls, immediately won a high place among the most formidable protagonists in the heroic epoch of the Narodnaia Volia. They had no rivals in their tragic work. In their first exploits they proved themselves wonderful Emmenides. On January 24, 1878, Vera Zassulitch opened the series by firing point blank at General Trepov, the Prefect of the Saint Petersburg police. On March 13, 1881, Sophie Perovsky played an active part in the
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assassination of Alexander II. The following year Vera Figner fomented a military revolt at Kharkov. In 1887 Sophie Gunsburg organized an attempt on the life of Alexander III. A little later Catherine Brechkovsky embarked with Tchernov upon that untiring propaganda which familiarized the humblest of the moujiks with the mirages of the Socialist gospel. In 1897 the lovely Marie Vietrov, imprisoned in the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and violated in her cell by a gendarmerie officer, poured the oil of her lamp over herself and was burnt to death. In 1901 Dora Brilliant joined with Guerchuny, Savinkov and Bourtzev to found the Boievaia Organizatsya, the "Fighting Organization," and on February 17, 1905, she kept watch at the Kremlin in Moscow, in order that her comrade, Kalaiev, should be undisturbed in throwing the bomb which blew the Grand Duke Sergius to pieces. It is, of course, very difficult to find out anything about the counter-measures of the Russian police and judicial authorities in political affairs. The trials of which the public hears from time to time are always kept very quiet: they are always held in camera and the censorship only allows a short notice in the press. But I can give the names of at, any rate twenty women who have played a part in plots and attempted assassinations in the last few years: Sophie Ragozinnikov, Tatiana Leontiev, Marie Spiridonov, Seraphima Klitchoglou, Zynaida Konopliannikov, Lydia Stoure, Nathalie Klimov, Marussia Benevsky, Lydia Ezersky, Sophie Venediktov, Catherine Ismailovitch, Helene Ivanov, Anastasis Bitzenko, Marie Chkolnik, &c. The share of women in terrorist plots is thus very important and often decisive. What is the explanation of the fascination that revolutionary action has for Russian women? They obviously find in it something which satisfies the strongest instincts of their soul and temperament---their craving for excitement, their pity for the sufferings of the lowly, their genius for devotion and sacrifice, their excessive admiration of heroic deeds, their scorn of danger, their thirst for strong emotions, their hunger for independence, their taste for mystery, adventure, and a fevered, extravagant, and rebellious existence. Tuesday, January 26, 1915. I lunched at the Winter Palace with the Grand Mistress of the Court, the worthy Madame Narishkin. The other guests were Prince Kurakin, Princess Juri Troubetzkoy, Prince and Princess Shakhovskoy, Count Dimitri Tolstoy, Director of the Hermitage, Count Apraxin, &c. The only subject of conversation was the war, which was discussed in very cautious language: all were agreed that it will be a very long war, that it still has many painful shocks in store for us, but that we are obliged to continue it to victory or perish for ever. In a tte--tte with Madame Narishkin I asked her what were the Emperor's views: "He's splendid," she said. "Not the slightest sign of discouragement! Still calm, still resolute! Always ready with an encouraging word! Always the same absolute confidence in victory!" "What about Her Majesty the Empress?" Referring to Madame Vyrubova's recent accident, Madame Narishkin replied: "You know that Her Majesty the Empress has had a sore trial the last few days, and as she is very susceptible to emotional influences her health has suffered. But she is just as determined as the Emperor, and only yesterday she said to me: "We did everything we could to avert this war, and we may thus be certain that God will give us victory." B-----, who is greatly interested in the lowly and has passed a good deal of his time in the country, quoted to me to-day some expressive remarks made by a peasant he met some time ago:
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"It was at the great Lavra at Kiev," he said, "one of the pilgrims' days. In front of the Sacred Door I spied an old woman who must have been at least eighty. She was bent double, a bundle of bones, and could hardly drag herself along. I gave her a few kopecks to make her talkative, and asked her: 'You look very tired, my poor friend! Where have you come from?'" "I'm from Tabinsjk, away in the Urals." "What a long way!" "Yes, a very long way." "But you came by train, I suppose? "No, I can't afford a railway fare. I've walked." "Walked, from the Urals to Kiev! How long has it taken you?" "Several months. I don't know exactly." "I suppose you had someone with you?" No, I came alone." "Alone!" I looked at her in amazement. She continued: "Yes, alone . . . with my soul! " I slipped a twenty-rouble note into her hand: it was a lot of money for her; but her remark was worth far more. Wednesday, January 27, 1915. I have been calling on the venerable and attractive Koulomzin, Secretary of State, Member of the Council of Empire, Chevalier of the Distinguished Order of Saint Andrew; I wanted to thank him for sending me a pamphlet. He is nearly eighty, and though he has grown old in the performance of his high duties his mind is as clear as ever it was. I like talking to him, as he has a wealth of experience, good sense, and kindness of heart. On the subject of the war he was very encouraging: "Whatever our difficulties at the moment may be it is an obligation of honour for Russia to overcome them. She owes it to her Allies and herself to continue the struggle at any cost until the complete defeat of Germany. But our Allies must be patient! In any case the continuance of the war depends on His Majesty alone, and you know what his views are!" Then we talked about domestic politics. I did not conceal from him that I am uneasy about the discontent observable in all quarters and in all ranks of society. He admitted that he, too, was concerned at the state of public opinion, and that reforms were indicated; but he added in a determined tone which impressed me: "The reforms I am contemplating (it would take too long to describe them in detail) have nothing in common with those advocated by our Constitutional Democrats in the Duma, and still less---forgive plain speaking---with those so fervently recommended by certain western publicists. Russia is not a western
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country, and will never be. Our whole national temperament is averse to your political methods. The reforms I have in mind are inspired by the two principles which are the pillars of our present system, and must be retained at any cost---autocracy and orthodoxy. Never forget that the Emperor has received his authority from God Himself, in the sacrament of coronation, and that he is not only the head of the Russian State but the supreme guardian of the Orthodox Church, the supreme judge of the Holy Synod. The separation of civil and religious authority which seems so natural to you in France is impossible with us: it runs counter to our whole historical evolution. Tsarism and Orthodoxy are linked together by an indissoluble bond, the bond of divine right. The Tsar is no more free to renounce absolutism than to abjure the orthodox faith. . . . Outside autocracy and orthodoxy there is room for nought save revolution, and by revolution I mean anarchy, the total subversion of Russia. With us revolution can only be destructive and anarchist. Look what happened to Tolstoy! As the climax of his aberrations he renounces orthodoxy. He at once falls into anarchy. His break with the Church inevitably led him to deny the authority of the State." "If I understand you rightly, political reform must be accompanied, perhaps even preceded, by ecclesiastical reform---the suppression of the Holy Synod, and the restoration of the Patriarchate, for example." In obvious embarrassment he replied: "You're on a difficult question, Ambassador, a question on which the best minds are unhappily divided. But much can be done along those lines . . . . .. After a few remarks by way of digression, he turned the conversation to the eternal Russian problem in which all the others are involved, the agrarian problem. There is no one more competent. to discuss this grave question, as in 1861 he took an active part in the emancipation of the serfs, and has been concerned in all the successive reforms since that date. He is said to have been one of the first to discover that the original idea was a mistake, and to admit that the moujik should have been given personal ownership, the full and unrestricted proprietorship of his plot of land. The conveyance of the land to the mir has had the result of imbuing the Russian peasant with the essentially communistic notion that the land belongs legally to those who cultivate it. The famous ordinances issued by Stolypin in 1906, and inspired by so liberal a spirit, had no more zealous advocate than Koulomzin. He concluded as follows: "In my view, the whole future of Russia depends upon the transfer to the peasantry of as much land as possible and the establishment of peasant proprietorship among the rural masses. The effects produced by the reform of 1906 are already very substantial. If God keeps us from absurd adventures I believe that in fifteen or twenty years the system of private property will have completely ousted that of communal ownership among the peasantry." Friday, January 29, 1915. As I was passing Tauride Gardens this afternoon I met four soldiers on prison duty who, sword in hand, were conducting some wretched moujik, a ragged, haggard figure with a contrite and resigned expression, who could hardly drag his worn-out boots through the snow. The little procession was making for Chpalernaia Prison. On its way a woman stopped to gaze at it, a woman of the people half concealed in a great cloak of greenish wool lined with fur. She took off her gloves, unhooked her pelisse, rummaged in her thick skirts, drew out a purse, took a small coin from it and gave it to the prisoner, simultaneously making the sign of the cross. The soldiers walked more slowly, and stood aside to let her do so. Before my eyes I had the scene from Resurrection in which Tolstoy shows us Maslova being taken from prison to the court between two policemen and receiving alms from a moujik who approaches her and
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makes the sign of the cross in the same way. Sympathy with prisoners, convicts, all who fall into the formidable clutches of the law, is inherent in the Russian people. In the eyes of the moujik a breach of the penal code is not a crime, much less a moral wrong: it is a misfortune, a piece of ill-luck, a fatality which may happen to anyone, if God so decrees. Saturday, January 30, 1915. In a heart-to-heart talk with Sazonov I have returned to the Polish question: "I've no hesitation in mentioning it," I said, "as I know you're as anxious as I to see the kingdom of Poland restored---" "Under the sceptre of the Romanovs?" he broke in abruptly. "That's what I mean! You know my point of view. To me Poland, reconstituted in its national integrity and restored as an autonomous kingdom, is the necessary advanced guard of Slavism against Teutonism, whereas if all the political ties between Poland and Russia were severed she would inevitably fall into the orbit of Germany. Poland would thus resume her historic mission on the frontiers of Eastern Europe, the mission she performed in olden times when she fought against the Teutonic knights. At the same time it would mean a final rupture, a decree absolute of divorce between Germany and Russia." "I agree with everything you've said and that's why our Germanophiles hate me so. . . . But what do I care for their hatred, as I'm advocating one of the Emperor's pet ideas?" "I think, too, the resurrection of Poland under the sceptre of the Romanovs would be of very great advantage to the internal evolution of the Russian State. I'm not speaking as an Ally now, but rather as a friend of Russia and, to a great extent, a political theorist. What I mean is this: one of the things which has struck me most in the year I have been with you, something which is hardly noticeable at all abroad, is the importance of the non-Russian populations in the Empire. Not their numerical importance alone but rather their moral importance, their high notion of their ethnical individualism and their claim to stake out a national life distinct from that of the Russian mass. All your subject peoples---Poles, Lithuanians, Letts, Balts, Esthonians, Georgians, Armenians, Tartars and so on are suffering from your administrative centralization, particularly as your bureaucracy has a heavy hand. . . . Sooner or later you'll be compelled to introduce regional autonomy. If you don't you'll have to be on your guard against separatism! From this point of view the establishment of an autonomous Poland would be a very helpful innovation." "You're on the most ticklish and complex problem in domestic politics now. In theory I'd go a long way in the direction you suggest. But if we got down to practical solutions you'd see how difficult they are to reconcile with Tsarism. Yet to me there's no Russia without Tsarism." Sunday, January 31, 1915. The Official Messenger of Petrograd publishes the text of a telegram dated July 29 last, in which the Tsar Nicholas proposed to the Emperor William that the Austro-Serbian dispute should be referred to the Hague Tribunal. The document reads as follows: I thank you for your conciliatory and friendly telegram, whereas the communications of your Ambassador to my Minister to-day have been in a very different tone. Please clear up this difference. The Austro-Serbian problem must be submitted to the Hague Conference. I trust to
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your wisdom and friendship. Nicholas. The German Government omitted to publish this telegram in the series of messages passing directly between the two sovereigns in the critical days preceding the war. I asked Sazonov: "How is it that neither Buchanan nor I knew of so important a document?" "I didn't know of it myself! The Emperor sent it on his own initiative, without consulting anyone. In his mind it was a direct and personal appeal to the confidence and friendship of the Emperor William; he would have put forward his proposal again, and through official channels, if the Kaiser's answer had been favourable. As a matter of fact the Kaiser never replied at all. . . . The minute of the telegram was discovered the other day when His Majesty's papers were being arranged. I got the Telegraph Service to confirm that the message had actually reached Berlin." "It's alarming to think that our Governments knew nothing of this telegram. It would have made an immense impression on public opinion in all countries! Just remember: July 29 was the time when the Triple Entente was leaving no stone unturned to save the cause of peace." "Yes, it's most alarming." "And think of the Emperor William's frightful responsibility for letting the Emperor Nicholas's proposal go without a word in reply!" "The only reply to such a proposal would have been acceptance. He did not reply because he wanted war." "That is what History will say, for it is now clear that on July 29 the Emperor Nicholas offered to submit the Austro-Serbian dispute to international arbitration, that on the same day the Emperor Francis Joseph fired the train by ordering the bombardment of Belgrade, and the Emperor William presided at the famous Potsdam Council which decided upon a general war." Monday, February 1, 1915. On the left bank of the Vistula, in the region of Sochaczev, the Russians are engaged in a series of partial, short attacks which correspond closely with what the Grand Duke Nicholas has called "as active a defence as possible." In the Bukovina they are slowly retreating owing to the shortage of ammunition. Friday, February 5, 1915. I have just had a call from the Minister of Agriculture, Krivoshein. Of all the members of Goremykin's Cabinet he and Sazonov are the most Liberal and the most devoted to the Alliance. The Department of Agriculture is of vital importance in Russia; it may be said that it governs all economic and social life. In the performance of his huge task Krivoshein displays qualities very rare among Russians--a clear and methodical head, a taste for precise and accurate information, a notion of leading principles and broad outlines, the spirit of enterprise, persistence, and organization. His colonizing work in Siberia, Turkestan, Ferghana, Outer Mongolia, and the Kirghiz Steppe is showing surprising results every year.
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I asked him what were his impressions of G.H.Q., from which he has recently returned: "Splendid!" he said, "splendid! The Grand Duke Nicholas is most confident and enthusiastic. The moment his artillery gets ammunition he will take the offensive again; he is as determined as ever to march on Berlin." He then spoke to me of the declaration to be read by the Government at the reopening of the Duma next Tuesday: "I hope this declaration will have a great effect in Germany and Austria; it is certainly not less vigorous and uncompromising than that recently made by your Government to the Chambers. I can assure you that henceforth no one will wonder whether Russia is determined to continue the war to victory or not." Then he told me that the day before yesterday the Emperor detailed to him at great length his ideas of the broad principles of the future peace, and several times declared his intention of doing away with the German Empire: "I will not have," the Tsar said in a determined tone, " I'll never have another ambassador of the German Emperor at my court." Taking advantage of the friendly frankness of our relations, I asked Krivoshein if he were not afraid that the conduct of operations might soon be hampered, if not actually paralysed, by internal difficulties. After a moment's hesitation he replied: "I can rely on you, Ambassador, and I'll tell you candidly what I think. I haven't the slightest doubt about the victory of our armies, on one condition---that there's the closest co-operation between the Government and public opinion. That co-operation was perfect at the beginning of the war: I must admit, unfortunately, that it is threatened now. I spoke about it to the Emperor the day before yesterday. Unhappily this question is nothing new! The antagonism between the imperial authority and civil society is the greatest scourge of our political life. I have been watching it regretfully for a long time. A few years ago I expressed all my resentment at it in a phrase which became rather celebrated at the time. I said: The future of Russia will remain precarious so long as the Government and society continue to regard each other as two hostile camps and refer to each other as 'they' instead of using the word 'us' to designate the Russian nation. Whose fault is it? Nobody's and everybody's, as usual. You're uneasy about the abuses and anachronisms of Tsarism. You're right. But can any substantial reform be ventured upon during the war? Certainly not! For even if Tsarism has grave faults it also has some of the highest qualities, qualities for which there is no substitute. It is the potent link between all the heterogeneous elements which the work of centuries has gradually grouped around ancient Muscovy. It is Tsarism alone that constitutes our national unity. Cast away that life-giving principle and you'll see Russia at once fall apart and dissolve. To whose advantage? Certainly not that of France. One of the strongest reasons for my advocacy of Tsarism is that I believe it capable of evolution. It has been through so much evolution already! The institution of the Duma is a fact of enormous importance which has changed all our political psychology. I hold that further restriction of the imperial power is still necessary, and that the control of the Duma over the administration must be extended: I also think that there must be extensive decentralization in all our public services. But, once more, Ambassador, this can only be after the war. . . . For the moment, as I said to His Majesty the other day, the plain duty of Ministers is to remove the causes of the friction which has been observable for several months between the Government and public opinion; it is a sine qua non of victory. Tuesday, February 9, 1915. Much excitement to-day at the Tauride Palace, where the new session of the Duma has begun. The Government pronouncement is all that Krivoshein had said: I could not ask for a tone of greater
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resolution. There was a thunder of applause when Goremykin said as loudly as his feeble voice would let him: Turkey has joined our enemies; but her military forces are already shaken by our glorious Caucasian troops, and ever clearer before our eyes rises the radiant future of Russia on the shores of the sea which washes the walls of Constantinople. This was followed by a moving speech by Sazonov, who very wisely made but a passing reference to the question of the Straits: "The day is at hand which will see the solution of the economic and political problems now raised by the necessity of securing Russia access to the open sea." The orators who followed him on the tribune voiced the aspirations of the nation. Evgraf Kovalevsky, the Deputy for Voronej, declared that the war must put an end to the age-old struggle between Russia and Turkey. He was cheered to the skies as he said: "The Straits are the key of our house; they must pass into our keeping with the territories on their shores." In the same way Miliukov, the leader of the " Cadets," roused his audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm when he thanked Sazonov for his words: "We are glad to know that the realization of our national task is making good progress. We can now be certain that Constantinople and the Straits will become ours at the opportune moment through diplomatic and military measures." During a kind of interval I had a talk with the President, Rodzianko, and several deputies---Miliukov, Shingariev, Protopopov, Kovalevsky, Basil Maklakov, Prince Boris Galitzin, Tchikhatchov and others. They all brought the same impression from their provinces. All of them told me that the national conscience had been stirred to the depths, and that the Russian nation would rise as one man against a peace which was not a peace of victory and did not give Constantinople to Russia. Shingariev took me on one side and said: "What you have been seeing and hearing, Ambassador, is the real Russia, and I'll guarantee that in her France has a loyal ally, an ally who is prepared to give her last man and her last kopeck to the cause of victory. But it is true that Russia must not be betrayed by certain secret cabals---which are becoming dangerous. You are in a better position than we ourselves, Ambassador, to see many things which we can only suspect. . . . You cannot be too vigilant." Shingariev, Deputy for Petrograd, member of the "Cadet" Party, and a doctor by profession, is a distinguished and honest man; he was interpreting very accurately what all the soundest elements of the Russian public are thinking to-day.(4) Wednesday, February 10, 1915. When the war broke out many Russian Socialists felt that it was their duty to co-operate with the other forces in the country in resistance to German aggression. They thought, too, that the universal brotherhood of the popular masses would be strengthened on the field of battle, and that the domestic emancipation of Russia would be the fruit of victory. None of them was more convinced of this than one of the revolutionaries who had taken refuge in Paris, Bourtzev, who made a name for himself in showing up the agents provocateurs of the Okhrana and
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denouncing the infamous methods of the imperial police. He was also very much impressed by the lofty tone of the proclamation to the Russian people issued by the Emperor on August 2: In the dreadful hour of trial, let all intestine strife be forgotten, the bonds between the Tsar and his people be strengthened; and may Russia rise as one man to repel the attack of the insolent foe! A fortnight later the publication of the proclamation to the Poles fortified him in his views. Without in any way renouncing his doctrines, or his hopes, he bravely advocated to his comrades in exile the necessity of a temporary reconciliation with Tsarism. To prove his trust in the new spirit of the Imperial Government, he then returned to Russia, believing that he could be more usefully employed in his own country. He had hardly crossed the frontier before he was arrested. He was thrown into prison, and detained pending trial. At length he was tried for certain of his former writings, and without receiving any credit for his conduct since the beginning of the war he was condemned to penal servitude for life in Siberia "for the crime of high treason." He was immediately sent to Turukansk on the Jenissei, in the Polar Circle. This morning I received from Viviani, Minister of justice, a telegram describing the deplorable effect Bourtzev's sentence has had on the Socialists of France, and asking me to do everything in my power---but with due circumspection---to obtain a pardon for Bourtzev. Apart from the patriotic attitude displayed by Bourtzev at the beginning of the war his biography gives me no argument I can use in his favour with the imperial authorities, who utterly detest him. Vladimir Lvovitch Bourtzev, a scion of the small landed nobility, was born at Fort Alexandrovsk in 1862. At the age of twenty he was imprisoned for his revolutionary propaganda. Released a month later he was arrested again in 1885, and this time sentenced to seven years' detention in Siberia. A year later he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement, and took refuge in Geneva and subsequently in London. Although English traditions as regards hospitality to political refugees are extremely liberal he soon found himself in conflict with the law through having published in his review, Narodno Voletz (The Will of the People), a series of articles exhorting the youth of Russia "to imitate the glorious assassins of Alexander II." This incitement to regicide cost him eighteen months' hard labour. On the expiration of his sentence he returned to Switzerland, where his first act was to publish a pamphlet, Down with the Tsar, which was quite enough to justify the sentence of the English judge. By way of occupying his spare time he edited a very interesting review, Byloie (The Past), devoted to the history of liberal ideas and seditious movements in Russia. But his hatred of Tsarism, the lust of battle, his romantic taste for secret and spectacular action would not let him rest for long. In December, 1901, he joined with Guerchouny, Azev, Tchernov, Dora Brilliant and Savinkov, in starting a Fighting Organization which was to concentrate and direct all the militant energies of the Socialist Party. A plan of campaign was drawn up. Three victims of high station were selected; first, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, the fanatical theorist of autocracy, Pobiedonostsev; then General Prince Obolensky, Governor of Kharkov, and, lastly, the Minister of the Interior, Sipiaguin. The attempt on Pobiedonostsev's life failed owing to the work of an informer. Prince Obolensky was only slightly wounded, but on April 15, 1902, Sipiaguin was shot through the heart and died instantly. Thereafter terrorist exploits multiplied apace. At the end of 1903 the Russian Government protested to the Swiss Government against the facilities obtained by the revolutionaries on Swiss territory for the preparation of their plots. The information accompanying this protest was only too convincing. Bourtzev and his accomplices were accordingly expelled. They took refuge in Paris. Bourtzev took up his residence in a small house in the Boulevard Arago, where he professed to live a peaceful life devoted exclusively to historical research; but secretly and by degrees he transferred there the whole Fighting Organization with its archives, secret meetings, and store
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of explosives. At that time I was Director of the Russian Department at the Foreign Office, and it was thus that the name and activities of Bourtzev became known to me. Rataiev, the agent of the Okhrana in Paris, was not slow to discover the mysterious meeting-place in the Boulevard Arago. On April 20, 1914, the Russian Embassy asked us to expel Bourtzev, denouncing him as one of the most dangerous revolutionaries, irreconcilable, and fanatical. The note given us by the Ambassador, Nelidov, ended thus: Bourtzev possesses a remarkable faculty for exciting the pernicious instincts of the revolutionary youth and turning them in a very short space of time into fanatics committed to crimes of violence. It was this last sentence which particularly struck me; its tone was different from that of the ordinary notes we were always receiving on the subject of Russian refugees; it described an uncommon character, and suggested an individual of marked originality. The file also enclosed a photograph, with a view to facilitating the task of our police. I saw a man who was still young, a man of frail appearance with a hollow chest and narrow shoulders. His face made a strong impression upon me---a haggard, ill-looking, ascetic face brightened, or rather lit up, by his eyes that fascinated me with their gentle ardour. I at once understood this man's influence, his power to inspire and sweep others along, the strange magnetism which made him such a wonderful creator of energy in others, and so formidable an apostle of the gospel of revolution. On the back of the photograph I read this dedication: Never forget the great names of Jelabov, Sophie Perovskaia, Khalturin and Grinevitsky!(5) Their names are our standard. They died in the firm conviction that we shall follow in their glorious tracks. On April 26, the Prefecture of Police notified Bourtzev of the decree of expulsion. However, since he settled in Paris he had made friends with the leaders of French Socialism, whose admiration and sympathy he had quickly gained by all that he had gone through and the fervour of his democratic mysticism, his persuasive eloquence, and the shy and moving gentleness of his frank eyes. He implored them to save him from a fresh migration. Those were the days of the Combes Ministry, which submitted passively to the dictation of the Socialists in order to preserve its majority with the Left. Delcass was Minister for Foreign Affairs, but on all questions of domestic policy he differed from his colleagues and jealously confined himself to his diplomatic duties, in which he consulted no one. Hence his amazement and rage when Nelidov told him in June that Bourtzev was still at large in Paris! An urgent appeal by Jaurs to Combes had prevented the decree of expulsion from being carried into effect. Bourtzev, of course, made good use of the unfettered liberty he enjoyed in Paris: he brought the Fighting Organization to the highest pitch of perfection. On July 28, in one of the busiest streets of Saint Petersburg, the Ismailovsky Prospekt, the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, was killed on the spot by a bomb. Once more, and with greater insistence, the Russian Ambassador demanded the deportation of Bourtzev. Delcass brought the matter up before the Council of Ministers, sent me several times to Police Headquarters, and spoke to Combes personally. It was in vain. The all-powerful protection of Jaurs shielded the terrorist once more, and the decree of expulsion was annulled. These recollections of the "Bourtzev Case" did not exactly encourage me to open the negotiations Viviani has imposed upon me. To whom should I apply? How, and in what form, was the discussion to be opened? The problem was all the more ticklish, as questions of pardon appertain to the Minister of Justice's department. The present holder of that office is Stcheglovitov, the fiercest of all the reactionaries, the most jealous upholder of autocratic prerogatives, and a man who alleges that the alliance of Russia with the western democracies means the inevitable downfall of Tsarism.
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In my difficulty I had a friendly talk with Sazonov. He almost jumped out of his skin at first! "A pardon for Bourtzev! You're not thinking of that! However carefully you may put it, you'll give Stcheglovitov and all our wild men of the Extreme Right a terrific argument against the Alliance. . . . It's not the right moment either, indeed it isn't!" But I reasoned with him and argued that a pardon for Bourtzev would be interpreted in all quarters as an act of national solidarity; I added that the French Socialist Ministers such as Guesde, Sembat, and Albert Thomas, who were helping most patriotically in the war, needed assistance and encouragement in their task, and that an exhibition of clemency in favour of Bourtzev would do a good deal to strengthen their position with the advanced section of their party, in which all the old prejudices against Russia were still alive. I ended up by begging Sazonov to see if he could not lay my request before the Emperor personally without sending it up through Stcheglovitov: "It's not a legal matter, it's a diplomatic affair of the first rank, because it touches the moral relations of the two allied countries. My Government has no desire whatever to intervene in your domestic affairs; all it asks me to do is to suggest to you a step which will do the Russian cause a great deal of good in France. So I'm certain the Emperor will approve my appeal directly to himself. When the matter is brought to his notice in that way I'm quite certain what his reply will be." "I'll look into it, and think it over. . . . I'll mention the matter again in a day or two." After a few moments of gloomy silence Sazonov resumed, as if some fresh objection had struck him: "If you knew what infamous lies Bourtzev had the audacity to publish against the Emperor and Empress, you'd realize how dangerous your request is." "I can trust to His Majesty's great judgment." Friday, February 12, 1915. The repeated attacks to which the Russians have been treated in covering Warsaw on the Bzura line during the last ten days are only a feint. All indications point to the fact that the Germans have concentrated in East Prussia everything necessary for a very violent offensive, under the pressure of which the Russian line is already wavering. Saturday, February 13, 1915. This morning Sazonov received me with a broad smile: "I've good news for you. . . . Guess!" "What do you mean? Bourtzev's pardon?" "Yes. I was received by the Emperor yesterday evening and put your request to him. I didn't get through without a struggle! His Majesty said: 'Does Monsieur Palologue know all the infamous things Bourtzev has written about the Empress and myself?' But I persevered, and the Emperor is so kind and has such a lofty conception of his sovereign mission that he replied practically at once:
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'All right! Tell the French Ambassador that I give him the wretch's pardon.' His Majesty could not resist the temptation to add: ' I don't seem to remember my Ambassador in Paris ever intervening to secure a pardon for any French political criminal.'" I asked Sazonov to convey to the Emperor the expression of my deepest gratitude, and thanked him warmly personally for having pleaded my cause so effectively: "You may be certain," I said, "that you and I have just rendered the Alliance a great service!"(6)
Chapter Footnotes
1. Brother of the famous Princess Lieven, the friend of Guizot. 2. The Ohkrana is very liberally supplied with secret service funds. Its normal budget is 3,500,000 roubles annually. It receives another 400,000 roubles for press propaganda purposes. Further, its extraordinary expenditure is met out of the special credit of 10,000,000 roubles which is opened at the Ministry of Finance to cover unforeseen requirements of the imperial administration. It can only be drawn upon by express order of the Emperor himself. 3. The Tsar is not, as is often said, the head of the Church. He is only its supreme guardian. From the religious point of view his only privilege is that in the communion service he has the right to take the cup and the bread from the altar himself. 4. Doctor Shingariev became a member of the Provisional Government in March, 1917; he was murdered by the Bolshevists on January 20, 1918. 5. The assassins of Alexander II. 6. Bourtzev was immediately brought from Turukansk to Russia. For some months he resided at Tver under police supervision. Then he was permitted to live in Petrograd. In October, 1917, the Bolshevists threw him into prison. He was released in April, 1918, and took refuge in France.
Chapter Nine Table of Contents
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AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER IX FEBRUARY 14-MARCH 31, 1915 Precipitate retreat of the Russians in East Prussia.---The Grand Duke Nicholas and Rasputin.--Catherine II and the Jewish question.---Suspicious attitude of Bulgaria.---The Duc de Guise's mission to Sophia.---My meeting with Rasputin. His extraordinary conversation: "For more than twenty years we shall harvest nothing but sorrow on Russian soil."---An Anglo-French fleet tries to force the Dardanelles.---Russia claims Constantinople officially.---General Pau's mission; I present him to the Emperor, who declares his intention of annexing Constantinople.---The Persian agreement between England and Russia.---Lieutenant-Colonel Miassoyedov's treachery; the traitor's antecedents; his conviction.---I visit General Headquarters at Baranovici to confer with the Emperor. ---France's rights in Syria and Palestine.---The Russian armies prepare a general offensive in the direction of the Oder.---The Grand Duke Nicholas's alarming remarks.---Russian music and the Russian soul.Khovantchina; the "Red Death." The susceptibility of the masses to emotional outbursts.---An Austrian peace-feeler; the aberrations of French policy.---The Jews of Poland and Lithuania. Sunday, February 14, 1915. From the Tilsit region on the Lower Niemen to Plotzk on the Vistula the Russian army is on the retreat on a front of 450 kilometres. It has lost its entrenchments on the Angerapp and all the defiles between the Masurian Lakes which are so favourable for defence: it is retiring hastily on Kovno, Grodno, Osowiec, and the Narev. This series of reverses gives Rasputin his chance of gratifying his implacable hatred of the Grand Duke Nicholas. In his early days in St. Petersburg in 1906 the staretz had no warmer patrons than the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Peter Nicolaevitch and their Montenegrin wives, the Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militza. But one fine day the Grand Duke Nicholas realized his mistake, and as a man of courage did his best to repair it. He begged and prayed the Emperor to send the infamous moujik away; he returned to the charge several times, but nothing came of it. Rasputin has been hatching his revenge ever since. So I am not surprised to hear that he is always railing against the Generalissimo to the sovereigns. With his usual flair he has at once discovered the arguments to which they are most susceptible. On the one hand he is accusing the Grand Duke of resorting to all sorts of hypocritical methods of winning popularity with the soldiery and creating a political following in the army. On the other, he is always saying: "Nikolatcha can never succeed in any of his operations because God will never bless them. How could God possibly bless the actions of a man who has betrayed me, the Bojy tchelloviek, the 'Man of God'!"
Monday, February 15, 1915. I have been discussing Poland with Count R-----, who is a raving Nationalist. "You must admit," I said, "that the Poles have some ground for not loving Russia." "That's true enough; we've sometimes been pretty hard on Poland. But Poland has fairly paid us back." "In what way?" "By giving us the Jews." It is perfectly true that there was no Jewish question in Russia before the partitions of Poland. Before that epoch the only policy pursued by Tsarism towards the Jews was to deport or kill them off. These summary methods had to be dropped when the fate of the great Israelite communities in the annexed territories had to be determined. They were assigned a zone of residence on the western borders of the Empire and subjected to certain police regulations which were not unduly vexatious. But during the preparations for the second partition Catherine II suddenly introduced the regime of penalties and servitude from which they are not yet freed. By a ukase dated December 23, 1791, she restricted their residential zone; she forbade them to take part in agriculture; she confined them to the towns and their ghettoes, and she enunciated the abominable doctrine--which prevails even to-day---that anything which is not expressly permitted is forbidden to a Jew. This exhibition of despotism and iniquity might seem surprising in the philosopher-Empress who was the friend of Voltaire, d'Alembert, and Diderot, and the sovereign who claimed to draw her political inspiration from the Esprit des Lois. But there was a potent, though indirect, grievance which was responsible for her anger with the Jews; she loathed the Revolution, expended all her hatred and invective on it, and regarded it as a terrible menace to all thrones and a criminal and diabolical affair. On September 27, 1791, the Constituent Assembly had emancipated the Jews and granted them equal civil rights. Catherine II replied with her ukase of December 23, the evil effect of which was intensified by subsequent measures. Thus by an ironical repercussion of fate the generous initiative of the French Revolution opened an era of persecutions at the other end of Europe, persecutions which were destined to be as prolonged and grievous as any Israel has known through the ages.
Tuesday, February 16, 1915. The 9th Army is having great difficulty in extricating itself from the forest region which stretches cast of Augustovo and Suvalki. At Kolno, on the Lomza road further south, one of its columns has been surrounded and destroyed. The communiqus of the Stavka(1) are confined to an announcement thatunder the pressure of large forces the Russian troops are retiring to the fortified line of the Niemen. But the public understands. . . . This afternoon I passed the Church of the Resurrection as I was driving through the industrial Kolomna quarter. A funeral stopped there at the same moment. The procession was a long one composed solely of workmen and moujiks. I had my car stopped at the corner of the Torgovaia, and under the scandalized eyes of my footman I mingled with the humble group following the bier. Many and many a time have I watched such a crowd! Nowhere are Russian faces so expressive as in church. The mysterious darkness of the nave, the glittering candles, the play of light on ikons and reliquaries, the smell. of incense, the moving beauty of the singing, the imposing display of priestly robes, the magnificence of the whole liturgical apparatus, and the very length of the services have a sort of enchantment which gives life to dead souls and brings them before our eyes. In the faces before me two expressions could soon be distinguished---faith and resignation; a simple, contemplative and sentimental faith, a dumb, passive and sorrowful resignation. Fatalism and piety are the very essence of all Russian souls. To the great majority of them God is only the theological synonym for fate.
Thursday, February 18, 1915. The 10th Army has not yet succeeded in completely escaping the German clutches. With a strength of four corps, perhaps twelve divisions, it is said to have already left 50,000 prisoners and 60 guns in the enemy's hands. . I have been dining privately at Tsarskoe-Selo with the Grand Duke Paul. The Grand Duke questioned me anxiously about the operations which have just resulted in the loss to Russia of the invaluable pledge of East Prussia. Every detail I gave him drew a deep sigh from his lips: "What does it all mean, in God's name?" Then, recovering himself with a fine air of determination, he continued:
"It doesn't matter! We shall go through with it. If we have to retreat further we shall retreat, but I'll promise you we shall continue the war to victory. As a matter of fact, I'm only repeating to you what the Emperor and Empress said to me the day before yesterday. They're fortitude itself, both of them. Not a word of complaint or discouragement. They simply help each other to bear up. Not a soul about them, not a soul, I tell you, ever dares mention peace now!"
Friday, February 19, 1915 The three corps of the 10th Army which were in danger of being surrounded in Augustovo Forest have at last succeeded in retiring on the line of the Bobr, where reinforcements have reached them. The communiqu of the Stavka simply reads: Between the Niemen and the Fistula our troops are gradually leaving the scene of the recent actions.
Saturday, February 20, 1915. Yesterday the Anglo-French fleet bombarded the forts which command the entrance to the Dardanelles. It is the prelude to a landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula. . As I had to call on Sazonov this afternoon, I brought him away in my car. As we were crossing the Champ-de-Mars we noticed several companies of infantry who were drilling. The men had difficulty in marching in the snow. The yellow fog which hung over the great parade ground gave the whole scene a most gloomy and funereal aspect. Sazonov remarked with a sigh: "Look! There's a sad sight for you! I suppose there's about a thousand men there, and they're not conscripts being put through their paces but trained men who are no doubt leaving for the front in a few days. And there's not a rifle among them! Isn't it dreadful! For Heaven's sake, Ambassador, stir up your Government to come to the rescue. If they don't, where shall we be?" I promised him to press them again, and with the greatest vigour, to accelerate the despatch of the rifles expected from France, for the sight of these poor moujiks on their way to the slaughterhouse tore my heart. As we were continuing our drive in silence a scene from Shakespeare came to my mind---a scene in which the great dramatist seems to have concentrated all the ironic pity with which the spectacle of human follies filled him. It is at the beginning of Henry II. The merry Falstaff is presenting to Prince Henry of Lancaster a troop he has just recruited, a gang which is simply a
collection of ragged beggars without arms. "I never did see such pitiful rascals!" cries the Prince. "Tut, tut!" cries Falstaff; "food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man! mortal men, mortal men!"
Sunday, February 21, 1915. The communiqu of the Stavka announces the evacuation of East Prussia, and explains it without concealing too much. What impresses the public most is the insistence of the Russian General Staff on the advantage the enemy derives from his railway system. So the pessimists are going about saying: "That's why we shall never beat the Germans!" At the beginning of this month the Duc de Guise (son of the late Duc de Chartres) arrived incognito at Sophia. He had fallen in with Delcass's suggestion that he should use his influence with the Tsar Ferdinand to persuade him to throw in his lot with us. Ferdinand showed no anxiety to receive his nephew. On various excuses he did not receive him until he had made him wait six days. When at length he was taken to the palace the Duc de Guise strongly insisted on the political reasons for Bulgaria's joining our coalition; with even greater fervour he employed the "family arguments" which impose on the grandson of King Louis Philippe the duty of helping France. The Tsar Ferdinand heard him out with his most attentive and amiable expression, but told him point blank that he meant to retain a completely free hand. And then, quite suddenly and with that evil smile I have so often seen on his face, he continued: "Now that you've done what you were sent to do, be my nephew once more." And after that he talked commonplaces all the time. The Duc de Guise was received at the palace three times in the next few days, but he never succeeded in bringing back the conversation into political channels. On February 13 he left for Salonica. The failure of his mission is significant.
Tuesday, February 23, 1915. The Germans continue to make progress between the Niemen and the Vistula. With a reference to the weariness of his troops and the exhaustion of his ammunition supply, the Grand Duke Nicholas had me discreetly informed a few days ago that he would be glad to see the French Army take the offensive with a view to preventing the transfer of German forces to the eastern front.
In acquainting the French Government with his desire I took care to remind them that the Grand Duke Nicholas had not hesitated to sacrifice Samsonov's army on August 29 last in answer to our appeal for help. The reply has been exactly what I expected: General Joffre has just ordered a vigorous attack in Champagne.
Wednesday, February 24, 1915. This afternoon as I was calling on Madame O-----, who takes a very active part in Red Cross work, the door of the room suddenly flew open. A tall man, dressed in top boots and the long black caftan which well-to-do moujiks wear on holidays, strode towards Madame O----- and gave her a resounding kiss on the hand. It was Rasputin. With a swift glance at me he enquired: "Who is it?" Madame O----- introduced me. He continued: "Oh, yes; the French Ambassador! I'm pleased to meet him. He's the very man I want to see." He began to rattle along, so much so that Madame O-----, who acted as interpreter, had not even time to translate. Thus I had a chance of taking stock of him. Dark, long, and ill-kempt hair; stiff black beard; high forehead; broad, acquiline nose. But the whole expression of the face was concentrated in the eyes---light-blue eyes with a curious sparkle, depth, and fascination. His gaze was at once penetrating and caressing, naive and cunning, direct and yet remote. When he was excited it seemed as if his pupils became magnetic. In short, jerky phrases and with a wealth of gesticulation, he gave me a pathetic picture of the sufferings inflicted on the Russian people by the war: "There are too many dead and wounded, too many widows and orphans, nothing but ruin and tears! Think of all the poor fellows who'll never come back, and remember that each of them has left behind him five, six, ten persons who can only weep! I know of villages where everybody's in mourning. . . . And what about those who do come back! What are they like! Legless, armless, blind! . . . It's terrible! For more than twenty years we shall harvest nothing but sorrow on Russian soil!" "Yes, indeed, it's terrible enough," I said; "but it would be far worse if all these sacrifices were to be in vain. A peace that was no peace, a peace which was the result of war-weariness would be not merely a crime against our dead: it would bring with it internal crises from which our countries might never recover." "You're right. We must fight on to victory."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, as I know several people in high places who are relying on you to persuade the Emperor not to continue the war." He gave me a suspicious glance and scratched his beard. Then he shot out: "There are fools everywhere." "Yes; but the bad thing is that these fools are believed in by Berlin. The Emperor William is convinced that your friends and you yourself are using all your influence for peace." "The Emperor William . . . Why, don't you know he's inspired by the Devil? All he says and does is what the Devil tells him to. I know what I'm saying; it is the Devil alone who helps him. But one fine day the Devil will suddenly leave him, because God has so decreed. And William will fall flat like an old shirt thrown on a dunghill." "Then our victory is a certainty. It's obvious that the Devil cannot win." "Yes, we shall be the victors. But I don't know when. . . . God chooses the hour that seems good to Him for His miracles. We are not at the end of our trials; much more blood and many more tears must flow." He returned to his first topic, the necessity of alleviating the sufferings of the masses: "It will cost enormous sums, millions and millions of roubles. But there must be no consideration of expense. . . . When the people suffer too much they get bad, you see . . . They may become dangerous; they may even sometimes go so far as to talk of a republic. . . . You must tell the Emperor all this." "You can't expect me to talk evil of a republic to the Emperor!" "Of course not, but you can tell him that you can't pay too much for the happiness of the people, and that France will give him all the money he needs. France is so rich!" "France is rich because she works hard and saves hard. . . Quite recently she advanced large sums to Russia." " Advanced large sums? What sums? I'm sure it was a case of more money for the tchinovniks. The peasants wouldn't get a kopeck of it! Take my word for it! No, speak to the Emperor as I told you." "Speak to him yourself! You see him far more often than I." He did not like my obstinacy. Raising his head and pressing his lips, he replied, in a tone that was all but insolent: "That's not my business at all. I'm not the Emperor's Finance Minister: I'm the Minister of his soul!" "All right, then! I'll speak to the Emperor as you suggest the next time I see him." "Thank you! Thank you! just one word more. Is Russia going to have Constantinople?"
"Yes, if we win." "Is it certain?" "I firmly believe so." "Then the Russian people won't regret having suffered so much and will be willing to suffer more." Thereupon he embraced Madame O-----, clasped me in his arms, and strode out, banging the door behind him.
Saturday, February 27, 1915. The Anglo-French fleet is continuing its attack on the Dardanelles with the greatest vigour: all the outer forts are already silenced. The result is great public excitement in Russia, which expects to see the Allied ships off the Golden Horn any day now. The Byzantine mirage mesmerizes public opinion more and more, and, indeed, to such a pitch as to leave it almost indifferent to the loss of East Prussia---as if the defeat of Germany were not a condition precedent to the fulfilment of the Byzantine dream!
Sunday, February 28, 1915. The German advance in Poland and Lithuania has been stayed, and near Prasnyez, eighty kilometres north of Warsaw, they have even suffered a serious reverse.
Monday, March 1, 1915. This morning Sazonov called the attention of Buchanan and myself to the excitement which the Constantinople question is rousing in all ranks of Russian society: "A few weeks ago," he said, " I could still think that the opening of the Straits did not necessarily involve the definite occupation of Constantinople. To-day I have to admit that the whole country demands that radical solution. . . . Hitherto Sir Edward Grey has confined himself to informing us that the question of the Straits must be settled in conformity with Russia's
wishes. It is true that King George has gone further and said to our Ambassador, Benckendorff: Constantinople must be yours. But the hour for plain speaking has come. The Russian people are now entitled to know that they can count on their Allies in the realization of their national task. England and France should say openly that they agree to the annexation of Constantinople by Russia when the day for peace arrives. . General Pau, who commanded the army in Alsace at the beginning of the war and captured Mulhausen, has reached Petrograd via Salonica, Sofia, and Bucharest; his mission is to convey French decorations to the Russian army. The impressions of France he brings are excellent. I gave a dinner in his honour this evening: he communicated the confidence which his every word and look inspire to all present.
Wednesday, March 3, 1915. I presented General Pau to the Emperor to-day: General de Laguiche was with us. At ten minutes to one Count Benckendorff, Grand Marshal of the Court, took us to His Majesty in one of the small drawing-rooms of Tsarskoe-Selo. The Emperor was his natural and kindly self, as usual, but his questions to General Pau about our army, supplies, and operations were as obvious and casual as ever. As a matter of fact, the four young Grand Duchesses and the Tsarevitch came in with the Mistress of the Robes, Madame Narishkin. After the introductions we went straight in to luncheon. In accordance with old Russian tradition there is no dining-room in the Alexander Palace. Meals are served sometimes in one room, sometimes in another, according to circumstances. To-day the table---a round, old-fashioned family table-was laid in the library, where the sun, sparkling reflections of the snow and bright views down the garden created a light-hearted atmosphere. I was on the Empress's right and General Pau on her left. Madame Narishkin was on the Emperor's right and General de Laguiche on his left. On my right I had the eldest of the Grand Duchesses, Olga Nicolaievna, who is nineteen and a half. Her three sisters, the Tsarevitch and Count Benckendorff were the other members of the party. The conversation was quite free and natural, but nevertheless dragged a little. The Empress looked very well: she was obviously making a special effort to be gracious and smiling. She returned several times to the same subject Rasputin discussed so warmly with me---the endless chain of suffering the war means to the poor, and the political and moral duty of helping them.
The Tsarevitch found the meal long, and every now and then started playing pranks, to the despair of his sisters, who frowned at him. The Emperor and Empress smiled and pretended not to see. General Pau made an excellent impression with his natural dignity, his fine face---the face of an honest soldier ---and his reputation for military talent, honour, and religious fervour. The moment we rose from the table the Emperor drew me to the end of the room and said in a serious tone: "You may remember the talk I had with you last November. My views have not changed since then, but there is one point on which events compel me to be more precise---I mean Constantinople. The question of the Straits is preoccupying public opinion in Russia to the highest degree. It is a current which flows more strongly every day. I could not admit my right to impose on my people the terrible sacrifices of this war if I did not reward them with the realization of their time-honoured ambition. My mind is therefore made up, Ambassador. I shall adopt the radical solution of the problem of Constantinople and the Straits. The solution I outlined to you in December is the only possible and practical one. The city of Constantinople and southern Thrace must be incorporated in my Empire. Of course, I should be prepared to allow the city to be administered on special principles designed to safeguard foreign interests. You know that England has already expressed her approval. King George told my Ambassador quite recently: Constantinople must be yours. That pronouncement is, a guarantee of England's goodwill, but if any misunderstanding on questions of detail arise I shall count on the help of your Government in settling it." "May I tell my Government, Sire, that Your Majesty's views on the problems which interest France directly have not changed either?" "Certainly! I want France to emerge from this war as great and strong as possible. I agree beforehand to everything your Government wishes. Take the left bank of the Rhine; take Coblentz; go even further if you think it wise." Then he took me back to the Empress who was talking to General Pau and General de Laguiche. Five minutes later the sovereigns withdrew.
Monday, March 8, 1915. In accordance with instructions in a telegram from Delcass this evening I have told Sazonov that he may rely on the goodwill of the French Government as regards the questions of Constantinople and the Straits being solved in the manner desired by Russia. Sazonov thanked me most warmly: "Your Government," he said, "has just rendered the Alliance an invaluable service . . . perhaps
you yourself do not know how valuable."
Tuesday, March 9, 1915. The Emperor is extremely jealous of his authority. As is so often the case with weak characters, his jealousy is of the silent and suspicious, obstinate and resentful variety. Count Kokovtsov has given me a curious illustration of it: "You may remember," he said, "that after the assassination of Stolypin at Kiev, in September, 1911, the Emperor appointed me President of the Council. The moment my appointment was decided upon I left His Majesty, who was just going to the Crimea, and returned straight to Petersburg. I took up my duties as soon as possible, and after three weeks or so I went to make my report to the Emperor, who was still at Yalta. As you may imagine, I had some pretty grave matters to put before him. He received me most kindly: 'I'm very pleased with you, Vladimir Nicolaievitch,' he said with a friendly smile. 'I know you've gathered good men round you and are working in the right spirit. I feel that you won't treat me as your predecessor, Peter Arkadievitch, did.' Speaking personally, Stolypin was not a friend of mine: there was plenty of mutual respect, but little sympathy between us. But I couldn't help answering: 'Peter Arkadievitch died for Your Majesty, Sire!' 'He died in my service, true. But he was always so anxious to keep me in the background. Do you suppose I liked always reading in the papers that the President of the Council has done this . . . the President of the Council has done that? Don't I count? Am I nobody? '"
Friday, March 12, 1915. As the price of its consent to Russia's designs on Constantinople and the Straits the British Government has asked the Imperial Government to agree that the neutral zone in Persia (i.e., all the central part of Iran, including the Ispahan region) shall be incorporated in the English zone. Sazonov immediately replied to Buchanan: "Certainly!" Thus the Persian question, which has been a bone of contention between England and Russia for two centuries, has been settled in one minute!
Saturday, March 13, 1915. Count Witte died more or less suddenly from a cerebral tumour this morning; he was nearly sixty-seven. When telegraphing the news to Delcass I added With him a regular hotbed of intrigue has gone.
Sunday, March 14, 1915. It is now a week since I began to receive hints of a case of treachery on which the military authorities have preserved strict silence; I know now how serious it was. A senior gendarmerie officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Miassoyedov, who was formerly employed in the counterespionage police and was attached to the Intelligence Service of the 10th Army at the beginning of the war, has been arrested at Vilna on a charge of having intelligence with Germany. The first information was given by a Russian officer, a prisoner of war whom the German General staff offered to set at liberty if he would agree to "work" in Germany's interest on his return to his own country. The officer pretended to agree and his pretence was so convincing that he was given the name of the person to whom he was to apply for instructions as to the direction of his enquiries and the transmission of his correspondence. When he reached Petrograd he immediately denounced Lieutenant-Colonel Miassoyedov. General Bielaiev, the Chief of the General Staff, was in no way surprised at receiving this information. About 1908 Miassoyedov, who was then in command of the gendarmerie at the frontier station of Wirballen, had been implicated in an ugly case of smuggling. He had had to be placed on the retired list. He did not stay there long. His wife---a Jewish adventuress whom he had met at Carlsbad---had become a very close friend of Madame Sukhomlinov. The Minister of War yielded to his wife's entreaties and took the unfaithful officer on his personal staff. Miassoyedov took advantage of his new post to extend his dealings with Germany and Austria. But notwithstanding all his cunning and the facilities given him by his official functions, he became the subject of very scandalous rumours and the most serious insinuations. In 1911 Gutchkov, the leader of the Octobrist Party in the Duma, one day accused him publicly of being in the pay of the German General Staff. General Sukhomlinov covered his subordinate, and Miassoyedov then demanded, and obtained, satisfaction from Gutchkov. The duel was with pistols, and took place on one of the islands in the Neva. The conditions were very stringent, the distance between the duellists being fifteen paces only. Gutchkov a man of great courage and a splendid shot, placidly let his opponent fire first. When he heard the bullet whistle past his ear he
scornfully threw his weapon down and withdrew without so much as a look at the astonished Miassoyedov. When Gutchkov's seconds asked him why he had spared the traitor's life he replied: "Because I don't want to save him from his natural death---hanging!" Thereafter Miassoyedov continued his secret intrigues in complete secret. Every day he has unlimited access to the Minister of War and Madame Sukhomlinov, to whom he acted as a sort of retriever and commission broker. In August, 1914, he was put in charge of the intelligence service of the 10th Army. After securing certain subordinate officials and a flying officer as his accomplices he sent the German General Staff reports on the movements of the Russian army, its condition as regards supplies, the state of public opinion, &c. The flying officer transmitted these reports when flying over the German lines, at agreed times. There can be no doubt that these detailed and continuous reports have had a good deal to do with the series of reverses which. have just compelled the Russians to evacuate East Prussia. Before the Warsaw Court Martial Miassoyedov protested his innocence, but the evidence against him seems to have been overwhelming. He was condemned to death and hanged on March 10. The trial of his accomplices is not yet over.
Monday, March 15, 1915. The French Government has been considering the terms of peace to be imposed on Turkey by the Allies, and has instructed me to inform the Russian Government of the compensation France expects to receive in Syria. The Emperor is now at G.H.Q., but he has asked me to go there to discuss the matter with him. Sazonov is invited also.
Tuesday, March 16, 1915. I left Petrograd yesterday evening in an imperial saloon attached to the Warsaw express, and this morning woke up in Vilna from which place a special train conveyed me to Baranovici. Until half-past twelve we were traversing vast and almost deserted plains, stretching their rolling snowfields like an ermine carpet as far as the eye could reach. Baranovici is a miserable little country town on the railway which connects Warsaw and
Moscow via Brest-Litovsk, Minsk and Smolensk. General Headquarters is established several versts from the town in a clearing in a forest of pines and birches. The various Staff departments are housed in a dozen trains standing fan-wise among the trees. Here and there between them a number of military barracks and a few Cossack and gendarmerieposts can be seen. I was taken straight to the imperial train---an endless line of huge saloons with the imperial arms in gold---under the sunlit foliage. The Emperor received me immediately in his drawing-room car: "I'm glad to see you here," he said, "at the General Headquarters of my armies. It will be another memory we shall have in common, my dear Ambassador." "I already owe Your Majesty the unforgettable memory of Moscow. I cannot be in your presence here---at the heart of your armies---and remain unmoved." "Let's have luncheon first. We can talk after. You must be very hungry!" We passed into the next car, comprising a smoke-room and a long dining-room. Luncheon had been laid for twenty guests. The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch sat on the Emperor's right, the Grand Duke Peter Nicolaievitch on his left. The place opposite His Majesty was occupied, as etiquette decrees, by Prince Dolgorukov, Marshal of the Court. I was on his right and had General Janushkevitch, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, on my right. The table was narrow enough for conversation to be general. We talked freely, and there was no lack of animation, no feeling of restraint. The Emperor was in high spirits and asked me about my journey, the success the French have just gained in the Argonne, the operations of the Allied squadrons off the Dardanelles and so forth. Then, with a sudden gleam of ironic satisfaction in his eyes, he said: "And we haven't said a word about poor Count Witte! I hope his death hasn't distressed you too much, Ambassador!" "No, indeed, Sire! When I reported his death to my Government my funeral oration over him was confined to the words: With him a great hotbed of intrigue has gone!" "But that's exactly what I think! Listen, gentlemen. . ." He repeated my phrase twice. Then with a grave and solemn air he remarked: "Count Witte's death has been a great relief to me. I also regard it as a sign from God." His words revealed his fear and distrust of Witte. As soon as luncheon was over the Emperor took me into his study. It is a rectangular compartment, occupying the full width of the saloon and filled with plain furniture and large leather chairs. On a table there was a great pile of huge envelopes.
"Look at that," said the Emperor. "It's my daily budget. I've got to get through all that to-day." I know from Sazonov that he never misses this daily task, and is scrupulously careful to do the work---and it is heavy work---his position imposes. He made me sit by him, and with a kind smile gave me his whole attention: "Now, I'm ready." I described in detail the full programme of civilizing work France intends to undertake in Syria, Cilicia, and Palestine. He made me carefully point out on the map the regions which would thus come under French influence and declared: "I agree to all you ask." Our discussion on political topics was over. The Emperor then rose and took me to the other end of his study, where maps of Poland and Galicia were spread out on a long table. He showed me the general distribution of his armies, and said: "In the Narev and Niemen regions the danger is averted, but I attach even greater importance to the operations which have begun in the Carpathians. If our successes continue we shall soon be masters of the main passes, which will enable us to debouch into the Hungarian plains. When that stage is reached our operations will proceed more rapidly. By advancing along the southern slopes of the Carpathians we shall reach the defiles of the Oder and the Neisse. From there we shall penetrate into Silesia." With these cheering words the Emperor released me. "I know you're going back to-night, but we must meet again at tea. If you've nothing better to do I'll take you to see some cinematograph films of our operations in Armenia. They're very interesting." It was half-past two when I left the Emperor. After a short talk with Sazonov I called on the Generalissimo, whose train was drawn up a few metres away. The Grand Duke received me in a roomy and comfortable apartment spread with bearskins and eastern rugs. In his customary frank and decided manner, he said: "I've some serious matters I want to talk to you about. It's not the Grand Duke Nicholas talking to Monsieur Palologue: it's the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies speaking officially to the French Ambassador. In that capacity it's my duty to tell you that the immediate cooperation of Italy and Rumania is a matter of the greatest urgency. But please don't interpret these words as a cry of distress. I still think that with God's help the victory will be ours. At the same time, without the immediate co-operation of France and Italy the war will be prolonged for many months more, and we shall run terrible risks."
I replied that the French Government had never ceased to intensify its efforts to gain allies: "Japan, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Italy---Monsieur Delcass has knocked at all their doors. At this very moment he is racking his brains as to how to get the Rumanian and Italian Governments into line. But I cannot hide from you that Russia's claim to Constantinople and the Straits may perhaps make it impossible for these two Governments to join our alliance." "Oh, that's the business of diplomacy. . . . It's outside my line altogether. . . . Now let's talk as private individuals." He offered me a cigarette, made me sit beside him on a settee, and asked me questions innumerable about France. Twice he said to me: "I can't find words to express my admiration for France!" The course of conversation brought us to the question of operations. I told the Grand Duke what the Emperor had just told me about the plan of a general offensive in the direction of Silesia by the defiles of the Oder and the Neisse: "I confess I find it somewhat difficult to reconcile this plan with the disturbing prospects your statements open up." The Grand Duke's face suddenly clouded over: "I never discuss an opinion of His Majesty except when he does me the honour to ask my advice." Someone came in to say that the Emperor was waiting tea for us. The Grand Duke took me with him. On our way he showed me his saloon, which is fitted up most ingeniously and comfortably. His bedroom gets its light from four windows on one side of the carriage and is very simply furnished, but the walls are completely covered with ikons--there must be at least two hundred of them! After tea the Emperor took me to a cinematograph improvised in a hut. We had a long series of picturesque scenes from the recent operations of the Russian. army in the region of Tchorokh and Aghri Dagh. As I gazed on the gigantic walls of Eastern Armenia, that chaos of huge mountains with their knife-edged crests slashed by ravines, I could realize all the valour the Russian soldiers must have displayed in advancing over such country in thirty degrees of frost and perpetual snowstorms. When the show was over the Emperor took me back to his saloon, where we parted. At half-past seven I left for Petrograd with Sazonov.
Friday, March 19, 1915.
The Allied squadrons met with a reverse yesterday during a general attack on the forts which command the entrance to the Dardanelles. The French cruiser Bouvet struck a floating mine; the battleship Gaulois was put out of action, and two English battleships, Irresistible and Ocean, were sunk.
Saturday, March 20, 1915. The news of Miassoyedov's treachery is beginning to leak out, in spite of the silence of the press. As usual, imagination joins in and searches for accomplices even amongst the greatest of the great at court. There is much excitement. I have been shown in confidence a letter which the "Labour-Socialist" deputy, Kerensky, recently wrote to President Rodzianko asking him to secure an immediate session of the Duma with a view to questions being put about the Miassoyedov affair: "The centre of all this treachery," he wrote, "is the Ministry of the Interior. . . . Russian society knows well enough that those in charge of that department are bent solely on the restoration, at the earliest possible moment, of those old and close relations with the Prussian monarchy which were an indispensable support to our reactionary forces at home. The Duma must protect the country against these stabs in the back. In the name of my constituents I beg you, Mr. President, to insist upon an immediate meeting of the Duma so that it may perform its duty of bringing the Executive to book at so grave a moment." Of course, Rodzianko was unable to do anything.
Sunday, March 21, 1915. Feeling somewhat perturbed in mind as the result of my recent conversation with the Grand Duke Nicholas I have been to see General Bielaiev, Chief of the General Staff, and questioned him about the supply of ammunition for the Russian artillery. This is the gist of his reply: (1) The daily output of field-gun ammunition is at most 20,000 rounds at the moment; (2) If the orders placed abroad are executed by contract time, by the end of May the Russian artillery will have 65,000 rounds a day (of which 26,000 are expected from England and America). This figure will rise to 85,000 by the end of September. (3) If the methods applied by the French munitions industry are adopted our output could be increased by 10,000 after July. But if that result is to be obtained the whole organization of
Russian industry must be fundamentally changed. I am making urgent representations to Paris for the despatch of a body of technical instructors.
Monday, March 22, 1915. After an investment of four and a half months the fortress of Przemysl capitulated this morning. From the strategical point of view the incident is of very slight importance, but morally it steadies Russian public opinion a little at an opportune moment.
Tuesday, March 23, 1915. This evening I dined with Countess Marie Shuvalov, ne Komarov, widow of Count Paul Andreievitch, who was Ambassador in Berlin and Governor-General of Poland. In addition to myself she had invited the. Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, Maklakov, the Minister of the Interior, Prince Radziwill Tcharykov, formerly Ambassador in Constantinople, and others. After dinner I had a long talk with Maklakov, who asked me about my recent audience of the Emperor. I enjoyed telling him of all the proofs the Emperor had given me of his determination to continue the war. Maklakov kept on saying: "I'm very glad to hear you say so! Of course, we must go through with the war to the bitter end, yes, to the bitter end! I'm quite confident now: God will give us the victory!" But his face was deadly pale; his features were haggard, and he looked particularly downcast. For a long time he covered Lieutenant-Colonel Miassoyedov, and now he feels that the Emperor is angry with him and that the hour of his downfall is at hand. The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna was no less inquisitive about the impressions I had brought away with me from Baranovici. When I had told her what I thought, she said: "I'm always easy in my mind when the Emperor is away from the Empress. It is she who makes him go wrong." Then she added: "I want to ask you an indiscreet question." "With pleasure, Madame."
"Is it true that Miassoyedov's treachery was discovered by the French police and that the reason why the Emperor summoned you to Baranovici was to talk to you about it? And is it also true that Count Witte committed suicide when he found out that you had proof of his dealings with Germany in your possession?" "I heard of. the Miassoyedov affair only three or four days before his conviction and from a Russian officer. And as for Count Witte, I know for certain that he died quite suddenly of a cerebral tumour." "I believe you. But the public will prefer my romance to your reality."
Wednesday, March 24, 1915. Interesting as the Russian novel is as an expression of the national mind and soul, illuminating as is the work of a Turgueniev, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, Tchekov, Korolenko, or Gorky from that point of view, Russian music carries us even further into the depths of the national conscience and emotions. Renan has said of Turgueniev: "No man has ever been such an incarnation of a whole race. A world lived in him and spoke by his lips: generations of ancestors, lost in the sleep of centuries, came to life and speech through him." Is that not even truer of Borodin, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Glazounov, Balakirev, or Liadov? Songs, operas, ballets, symphonies, orchestral and piano pieces, each work bears the imprint of the land and the race. Here one finds in the most seductive, fascinating, and convincing forms the whole character and temperament of the Russians---their perpetual unrest, hasty and irresistible impulses, vague and sorrowful, impotent and conflicting aspirations; their tendency to melancholy, obsession by mystery and death, love of selfrevelation and reverie, susceptibility to emotional extravagances; their bondage to their own passions---whether the most tender and refined or the most frenzied: their capacity for suffering and resignation on the one hand, fury and savagery on the other; their sensitiveness to the appeal of Nature and her still small voices and soothing or terrifying magic; their vague realization of the atmosphere of fatality, gloom, tragedy, and enormity which shrouds the soil, the soul, and the history of Russia. This afternoon I was deeply impressed by all this when I called on Madame S----- who for two hours sang me excerpts from Moussorgsky's works, Eremushka's Cradle Song, the Elegy, Hopak, the Intermezzo, the Dances of Death , and so on---works throbbing with realism and emotional vitality. The power of musical evocation, the full force of suggestion by rhythm and melody seem to reach their highest point in these songs. Yet Moussorgsky has gone even further as an interpreter of the national conscience. His two lyrical dramas, Boris Godounov and Khovantchina, with their wondrous beauty, are first-hand authorities for a true understanding of the Russian soul. A few days ago I was present at a performance of Khovantchina. The action takes place at the
end of the seventeenth century and summarizes the remorseless struggle which Peter the Great maintained throughout his reign against the old Muscovite spirit, the barbarous, gloomy, and fanatical Russia of the boyars and monks, Raskolniks and Streltsy. All the passions of that dark era appear successively on the canvas with the most lifelike relief. As in Boris Godounov, the real hero, the protagonist in the drama, is the people. The national life is passing through one of its great crises, and from that point of view the last act has a grandeur which is nothing less than sublime. Pursued by the Tsar's soldiery the Raskolniks, or "Old Believers," have taken refuge in an isba buried in the heart of the woods. Their leader, the aged Dositheus, exhorts them to die rather than abjure their faith: he extols the virtue of death by fire, the "Red Death." After a number of enthusiastic or heartrending episodes all the Raskolniks---men, women, girls, and children--agree to commit suicide: all of them long for martyrdom. They make a funereal pyre in a barn. The aged Dositheus recites the gospel: hymns of triumph reply. Suddenly the pile of faggots blazes up: the doors of the isba are closed. Clouds of smoke seem to waft the dying anthems to the skies. The soldiers of the Tsar rush in just as the roof collapses on a heap of corpses. For more than a century suicide by burning, the "Red Death," was the fashion in the sect of the Raskol, and cost thousands and thousands of victims. The first apostle of the terrible doctrine was a simple moujik, Basil Volosaty, who was born about 1630 at Sokolsk, near Vladimir. He went about saying: "The Antichrist reigns on the earth and the priests of the Church shamefully submit to his sway. To receive any sacrament from them, whether baptism, communion, marriage, or extreme unction, is to receive the mark of Antichrist. The sins of him who bears that mark will never be forgiven. Then how shall he win salvation? By suicide. There is no other way. And if we think about it, how can we hesitate? By throwing ourselves into the flames we immediately escape the power of the Antichrist. We get rid of all that is gross in us: we die with an unsullied faith and a purified soul. In exchange for a few moments of suffering we gain eternal bliss: we are immediately received in the company of saints. . . ." The Volosatovchtchina spread with tremendous rapidity all over Russia; it made its greatest headway among the peasants and monks. Its principal centres were Vladimir, Kostroma, Suzdal, YaroslavI, Novgorod, Onega, Viatka, Perm, and Western Siberia. Every year there were thousands of victims. At Potchekonie, in 1685, a single auto-da-f accounted for seven hundred people. It needed all the ferocious energy of Peter the Great to check this madness. But the same extraordinary phenomena have reappeared occasionally since. In the province of Olonetz, in 1860, there was a sudden epidemic of suicide by burning. The imperial police had to act with ruthless severity to suppress it. Even in our own times the annals of the Russian sects have had to record several cases of voluntary and wholesale auto-da-f. In 1897 the Raskolnik village of Tarnov on the Dniester was terrorized by the preaching of a demented old woman, Vitalia, who announced the coming of the Antichrist; she saw him approaching in the curious form of the general census which the administrative authorities were then carrying out. When the census officials appeared in Tarnov they found all the streets deserted and all the doors barricaded. Through a half-opened window a hand was thrust in which was the following protest: We are true Christians. The work on which you have come here would sever us from Christ who
is our heavenly Fatherland, our only Fatherland. So we will not obey your orders; we will not give you our names. We would rather die for Christ. The officials withdrew, saying they would shortly return with the police. All the moujiks of the village immediately assembled in Vitalia's house and took counsel. The census---which was nothing but eternal damnation---must be avoided at any cost. After a brief discussion the whole company, men and women, decided to bury themselves alive with their children. With a glowing and gloomy ardour they feverishly dug four subterranean tunnels. Then, arrayed in shrouds and holding candles, they read their own burial service. For the last time Vitalia addressed them without in any way hiding the ghastly sufferings which awaited them---and would open the gates of heaven to them. Then with songs of triumph they all jumped into the pits, which. they walled up from the inside. When the authorities were informed and proceeded to exhume the bodies, it was found that the death agonies of the "martyrs" had lasted more than a day. These tragic episodes are rare, but the religious sects which swarm in the shadow of orthodoxy are continually producing examples of collective "exaltation." Sometimes an epidemic of demoniacal possession breaks out in a village and spreads far and wide. Sometimes a hermitage or monastery becomes the centre of a prophetic movement. Sometimes, again, a wave of idealist or sensual mysticism sweeps a whole district off its feet. One of the most extraordinary manifestations which have been observed of recent years was the outbreak in the neighbourhood of Kiev among the sect of the Maliovanists which took the form of aberrations of the sense of smell. In their emotional fits the faithful,---simple peasants--thought they suddenly perceived smells of indescribable sweetness. With radiant faces they ran about smelling and blessing each other, convinced that what they noticed was the "odour of the Holy Spirit." Facts of this kind, which are innumerable in the domestic history of Russia, emphasize one of the most characteristic features of the national temperament. No race is so susceptible to religious oratory and new ideas. In no other country, except, perhaps, the Mohammedan East, are the masses so excitable, so incapable of resisting mental contagion. Nowhere do psychic waves spread so rapidly and go so far. Every stage of the evolution of the Russian people is thus marked by a religious, moral, or political epidemic. In that respect the anarchist troubles of 1905 provide a most eloquent and formidable piece of evidence. The sanguinary mutinies in the fleet and army, the exploits of the "Black Band," the destruction in the Baltic Provinces, the pogroms of Armenians and Jews were really nothing but epidemics of massacre, pillage, and arson. In each of these tragic occurrences the mental contamination of the actors was practically immediate. By his susceptibility to every form of propaganda and the feebleness of his personal reactions the moujik showed once more how backward he is, how near to nature, and how much the slave of his own instincts.
Saturday, March 27, 1915. In the whole realm of the Russian novel there are no feminine figures more appealing and seductive, or animated by a deeper and truer vitality, than the heroines of Smoke and Anna Karenina. Yet Turgueniev and Tolstoy both went to life itself for their models. The Irene of Smoke lets out part of her secret herself. When that splendid creature, at once feminine and open-hearted, egoistical and passionate, tries to win back the man she was once to have married but sacrificed to a calculation of personal advantage, the excuse she makes is that her ruined parents speculated infamously in her beauty: she was taken to court and there attracted a very high personage who married her to a fat, tame general in order to make her his mistress. At the memory of this humiliation she lowers her eyes and murmurs: "It's a strange and melancholy story!" That young girl was the Princess Alexandra Sergueievna Dolgoruky, and the high personage who fell in love with her was none other than the Emperor Alexander II. About 1860 her influence with her imperial lover, the favours he heaped upon her, her quick intellect, charm of mind, and dignified manners won her the nickname of "La Grande Mademoiselle." Before long the Tsar married her to General Albedinsky, to whom a totally unexpected career was thus opened; he was Governor of Poland when he died. Up to the last Alexandra Sergueievna remained the friend and confidante of Alexander II. Her brother, Prince Alexander Dolgoruky, became Grand Marshal of the Imperial Court in the reign of Alexander III. One of her sisters married the present Grand Marshal, Count Paul Benckendorff. Anna Karenina's adventure was also the result of observation from life. The character of Alexis Karenina, the main characteristics of Anna herself and the moral struggle of the husband and wife were suggested to Tolstoy by the secret drama which has just occurred in the family circle of the very worthy and pious Constantine Pobiedonostsev, the famous Procurator of the Holy Synod.
Sunday, March 28, 1915. Yesterday the Emperor showed Sazonov a letter he had just received from Prince Gottfried von Hohenlohe, who is now Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Berlin after twelve years' service as military attach at the Royal and Imperial Embassy in Russia. Recalling the friendly spirit the Emperor has always shown him, Prince Hohenlohe says he is prepared to answer for the pacific views of the court of Vienna; he has therefore suggested to the Tsar that a confidential envoy should be sent to Switzerland to confer with an emissary from the Emperor Francis Joseph; he has no doubt that the basis of an honourable peace could easily be found. "This letter," said Sazonov, " shows that the moral of Austria is very low; but no reply will be sent. Old Francis Joseph is not yet tired enough of the war to accept the terms we should impose."
I said nothing, as Delcass has instructed me never to utter a word which might induce Russia to think that we do not abandon Austria to her in toto. But how, and by what mental aberration, is it that our people will not realize the enormous importance to us of detaching the Hapsburgs from the Teutonic coalition? Is our military situation so favourable as all that? Can the doubtful help we are expecting from Italy ever be worth as much as the immediate and irreparable loss to Germany which the defection of Austria would involve?
Tuesday, March 30, 1915. Ever since the war began the Jews of Poland and Lithuania have been passing through the most terrible trials. In August they were compelled to leave the frontier zone en masse and given no time to remove any of their belongings. After a short respite the expulsions have begun again in the most summary, hasty, and brutal manner. All the Israelite inhabitants of Grodno, Lomza, Plotsk, Kutno, Lodz, Pietrokov, Kielce, Radom, and Lublin have successively been driven into the interior in the direction of Podolia and Volhynia. Everywhere the process of departure has been marked by scenes of violence and pillage under the complacent eye of the authorities. Hundreds of thousands of these poor people have been seen wandering over the snows, driven like cattle by platoons of Cossacks, abandoned in the greatest distress at the stations, camping in the open round the towns, and dying of hunger, weariness, and cold. And to fortify their courage these pitiful multitudes have everywhere encountered the same feelings of hatred and scorn, the same suspicion of espionage and treason. In its long and grievous history Israel has never known more tragic migrations. And yet there are 240,000 Jewish soldiers fighting, and fighting well, in the ranks of the Russian army!
Wednesday, March 31, 1915. Another lively discussion with Sazonov on the subject of the territorial claims which the Italian Government is making in Dalmatia. "Italy's claims," he said, "are a challenge to the Slav conscience! Remember that Saint Isaac of Dalmatia is one of the greatest saints in the orthodox calendar!"(2) I replied somewhat sharply: "We have taken up arms to save Serbia because the ruin of Serbia would have signified the final hegemony of the Teutonic powers; but we are not fighting to realize the chimeric dreams of Slavism. The sacrifice of Constantinople is quite enough!"
Chapter Footnotes 1. Russian G.H.Q. (Tr.). 2. Saint Isaac the Dalmatian is the patron saint of the cathedral of Petrograd.
Chapter Ten Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER X APRIL 1-JUNE 2, 1915 Easter services. The Priory of Malta; the Tsar Paul I's illusion. Russian churches and church music.---The Grand Duke Sergius and the munitions crisis.---A Pushkin joke; the proportion of German and Russian blood in the family of the Romanovs.---The question of the Ukraine.---The Russian armies begin their general offensive in the direction of Silesia. The Okhta powder works blown up.---Rasputin causes a scandal in Moscow.---The counter-offensive of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in Galicia. The Battle of the Dunajec. General retreat of the Russians. Negotiations with Rumania. Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.---Rasputin's intrigues against the Grand Duke Nicholas. A secret rival of the staretz : the youridivi Mitia Koliaba.--Petrograd and Venice: the estuary of the Neva.---An alarming prophecy. Thursday, April 1, 1915. It is Holy Thursday to-day. In accordance with the traditions of the imperial court the ambassadors and ministers of the Catholic powers have been invited in full uniform to the Church of the Priory of Malta to be present at mass and take part in the Procession of the Sepulchre. The church, built on the plan of Latin basilicas and decorated with Corinthian columns, is next to the superb building of the Corps of Pages. On the faade is the following inscription in Roman characters: DIVO IOANNI BAPTISTAE PAULUS IMP. HOSP. MAGISTER. All the walls inside are covered with the Maltese Cross. On the left of the choir under a purple
canopy is the gilded throne on which the Emperor Paul sat when presiding at the councils of the Order. Among all the fantastic and paradoxical improvisations which marked the extraordinary reign of Paul I surely the most incomprehensible is the manifesto of September 22, 1798, in which the Tsar Autocrat, guardian of the Orthodox Church, announced that he took "under his supreme direction" the independent Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, deposed the Grand-Master of the Hospitallers, Ferdinand of Hompesch, and transferred the capital of the brotherhood to Saint Petersburg. What was in his mind? Did he want to take Malta from the French with a view to securing a naval base in the Mediterranean for the Russian fleet? But England would never have allowed that at any price. Had he something even more ambitious in view---the reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches? But Pope Pius VI protested with all his might against the deposition of Hompesch. Was he simply indulging in a vague dream of the renaissance of mysticism and chivalry? All his wild schemes are puzzles. We shall never be able to see daylight in the incoherent imaginings of the grotesque and crazy autocrat.
Friday, April 2, 1915. I returned to the Priory of Malta this morning to be present at the great ceremony of the Mass of the Presanctified. In the mood bred by the ever-present fact of the war the service for to-day is most poignantly expressive. The priests in black, the bare altar, the absence of lights, the cross covered with a dark cloth---in memory of the great sacrifice accomplished on Calvary---the sublime story of the Passion as told by Saint John, and last, but not least, the solemn prayer in which no form of human suffering is forgotten,---what an unforgettable accompaniment all this is to the tragic visions of the present hour! My heart was full as I thought of the thousands of Frenchmen who have died to save France and of all the thousands more who will have to give their lives to bring her victory. This year Easter Day is the same in both the Catholic and Russian calendars, and so since yesterday all the churches of Petrograd have been decking themselves in the full glory of their Asiatic and Byzantine splendour. When one enters at nightfall the contrast with the wan and misty street is so striking that one seems to be entering a fiery furnace or a conflagration of jewels, purple and gold. After taking tea with Madame P----- I accompanied her to Saint Isaac, then to Our Lady of Kazan, and finally to the Cathedral of the Transfiguration. In these three churches the singing is of extraordinary beauty. I know no country except Russia where church music attains such heights of mystery and majesty by vocal polyphony alone. The choir, about a hundred in number, is placed near the ikonostasis. At the back are the basses, then
the baritones. In front are two rows of boys, contraltos and sopranos, whose childish and composed faces always bring to mind Luca della Robbia's charming work. The perfect execution reveals not only a remarkable technical training but still more a natural musical gift of a high order. However cunningly interwoven the parts, however delicate the modulations and complex the harmonies, the choristers keep faultless time and tune without the help of any sort of accompaniment. I could stay for hours listening to these anthems, responses, chants, psalms, and free passages. Many of the pieces I have heard to-day go back to the primitive origins of the eastern liturgy, but several others---and not the least fine of them---are quite modern, being the work of Bortniansky (who died in 1825 and is known as the "Russian Palestrina"), Glinka, Sokolov, Bakhmetiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tschaikovsky, Archangelsky, and Gretchaninov. What is so particularly splendid in these works is the deep religious feeling; their appeal is to the mysterious recesses of the soul, and they touch the most secret places of the heart. They express and develop with rare feeling all the lyrical elements enshrined in Christian doctrine. They are successively transports of prayer, sighs of despair, appeals for mercy, cries of distress, screams of fear, the anguished voice of repentance, the fervour of regret, the grief of self-abasement, flickers of hope, outpourings of love, transport of holy ecstasy, the splendours of glory and bliss. At times the tragic effects attained a most extraordinary and overwhelming intensity by the sudden intervention of two or three basses whose exceptional registers descended nearly an octave below the normal. At the other end the boys have crystal clear voices which rise so high and with such sweetness and purity that they seem to become sheer spirit, superhuman and seraphic. The heavenly songs which Fra Angelico heard within when he painted his angelic choirs could not have been more ethereal. In all three churches there were huge crowds. Every class was represented, but the majority consisted of people in humble circumstances and poor peasants. The latter were much the most interesting to watch. In the first place, however miserable their lot, not one of them failed as he entered the church to take a few kopecks from his pocket to buy a candle to place before an ikon. Then they began their supplications in the Russian fashion; that is, they crossed themselves repeatedly, heaved deep sighs, knelt continually and prostrated themselves to the ground. Most of them were lean, haggard, and reduced to a skeleton by the Lenten fast. Their faces usually reflected a simple, docile, and contemplative faith. In many cases there was a curiously unchanging expression of vague and melancholy reverie. Every now and then one of them would wipe a tear from a bony cheek with the back of his hand. But the most striking feature of the whole crowd was the intent way in which they followed the service. Their heads swayed and their bodies oscillated in time with the cadence of the rhythms and the melodic patterns of the music. It was as if that music was a magnetic fluid coursing through their veins.
Saturday, April 3, 1915. An official communiqu announces in very guarded terms the conviction and hanging of Lieutenant-Colonel Miassoyedov, "found guilty of relations with the agents of an enemy Power." The note adds that the judicial authorities are engaged in "clearing up all questions of
complicity in the affair." This last expression is rousing public curiosity which has long been highly excitable, distrustful of the authorities and prone to see treason everywhere.
Sunday, April 4, 1915. This evening I have had a long talk with the Grand Duke Sergius Michailovitch whom I questioned very closely about the activities of the munition factories. The Grand Duke Sergius is Inspector-General of Artillery, and brings to his duties rare qualities of efficiency, method, and a genius for command. He thoroughly understands all technical problems, works fourteen hours a day, and is quite ruthless towards neglect and incompetence. But all his efforts fail before the spirit of routine, indifference and dishonesty of the public services. Down-hearted and sick to death of the whole business he remarked yesterday to one of my officers for whom he has a particularly high regard: "French industry has reached an output of 100,000 rounds a day. We produce barely 20,000 here. What a scandal! When I think that this exhibition of impotence is all that our autocratic system has to show it makes me want to be a Republican!" The lack of ammunition means that the role of the artillery in battle is necessarily insignificant. The whole burden of the fighting falls on the infantry, and the result is a ghastly expenditure of human life. A day or two ago one of the Grand Duke Sergius's collaborators, Colonel Engelhardt, said to Major Wehrlin, my second military attach: "We're paying for the crimes of our administration with the blood of our men." The day before yesterday a band of Bulgarian comitadji about 2,000 in number, crossed into Serbian territory at Valandovo and tried to destroy the station at Strumitza, near the Vardar. The attack was carried out in accordance with tactical rules and machine guns were used; it is alleged that Bulgarian officers were present. As a portent the incident is serious. If the Tsar Ferdinand wanted to rouse the bellicose instincts of his people he would certainly begin by waving the Macedonian cag in their faces.
Monday, April 5, 1915. For years to come historians will go on arguing as to whether the Emperor Paul I was really the son of Peter III or whether he owed his birth to the brilliant officer who headed the interminable list of his mother's lovers, Sergius Soltykov.
If the latter is true the successors of Catherine the Great cannot be the true heirs of the Romanovs. But whatever may be the solution of this conjugal puzzle, a problem remains. Does the Tsar Nicholas II trace his descent from the same family as his people? Is he of the same race? In a word, what proportion of Russian blood has he in his veins? A very minute proportion. This is his descent: 1. The Tsar Alexis Michailovitch (1629-1676) marries Nathalie Narischkin (1655-1694); 2. Their son Peter the Great (1672-1725) marries the Livonian, Catherine Skavronsky (1682-1727); 3. Their daughter Anna Petrovna (1708-1728) marries Charles Frederick, Duke of HolsteinGottorp (1700-1739); 4. Their son Peter III (1728-1762) marries Catherine Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (1729-1796); 5. Their son Paul I (1754-1801) marries Marie Feodorovna, Princess of Wrtemberg (1759-1828); 6. Their son Nicholas I (1796-1855) succeeding his brother, Alexander I (1777- 1825), marries Alexandra Feodorovna, Princess of Prussia (1798-1860); 7. Their son Alexander II (1818-1881) marries Marie Alexandrovna, Princess of Hesse Darmstadt (1824-1880); 8. Their son Alexander III (1848-1894) marries Marie Feodorovna, Princess of Denmark (1847-....); 9. Their son Nicholas II (1868- ..) marries Alexandra Feodorovna, Princess of Hesse Darmstadt (1872- ...); 10. Their son Alexis (1904-....) is the present Tsarevitch. When Peter III was born the heirs of the Romanovs thus had only one-fourth Russian blood in their veins to three-fourths German. At each successive stage the national element loses one-half of its coefficient, so that the proportion of Russian blood is reduced to 1/16 in Nicholas I, 1/32 in Alexander II, 1/64 in Alexander III, 1/128 in Nicholas II, and only 1/256 in the Tsarevitch Alexis. The poet Pushkin was fond of poking fun at the Teutonism of the modern Romanovs. To illustrate his sarcasms he one evening sent for several glasses, a bottle of red wine, and a decanter of water. He set out the glasses in a row and filled the first with wine up to the brim: "That glass," he said, " is our glorious Peter the Great: it is pure Russian blood in all its vigour. just look at the crimson glow! In the second glass he mixed wine and water in equal quantities. In the third he put one part wine and three parts water, and continued thus mixing each fresh glass in accordance with the
same inverse progression. At the sixth glass, which represented the Tsarevitch, the future Alexander III, the proportion of wine had already become so small (1/32) that the liquid. was hardly tinged with it. 1 have continued Pushkin's experiment down to the present Tsarevitch. The disproportion between the two liquids is so enormous (1/256) that the very presence of the wine is no longer perceptible.
Tuesday, April 6, 1915. For the last few days the Russian army has been carrying out a series of attacks in the western Carpathians. In spite of the difficult terrain it already holds the principal crests on a front of 100 kilometres. But the enemy is still resisting at the Uszok Pass which is the key to the whole region. These attacks are the prelude to the general offensive of which the Emperor spoke to me three weeks ago. Simultaneously an enormous concentration of troops is taking place throughout Galicia, particularly in the region of Tarnov and the Dunajec.
Thursday, April 8, 1915. Sazonov is in possession of a number of secret documents, deciphered telegrams, and intercepted letters from which it plainly appears that the recent incursion of Bulgarian comitadji into Serbian Macedonia was arranged between Vienna and Serbia. He fears that before long there will be fresh attacks which will involve irreparable consequences---as Austria calculates. He is therefore inviting the French and English Governments to join with him in sending a strongly-worded remonstrance to the Bulgarian Government: "I don't expect," he said to me, "to effect any great change in Minister Radoslavoff's feelings towards us; but the Bulgarian people should know where he is leading them."
Friday, April 9, 1915. The result of the enquiry on which my Military Attach has been engaged shows that the situation as regards ammunition supply of the Russian army is as follows: At the moment the daily output of gun ammunition varies from 15,000 to 18,000 rounds. If the orders placed abroad are carried out to contract time the Russian artillery will have: 28,000 rounds per day by the end of May; 42,000 rounds per day by the end of July; 58,000 rounds per day by the end of September. That being so, how can the Emperor think of launching a general offensive in the direction of Silesia next month?
Saturday, April 10, 1915. The venerable Goremykin, President of the Council, gave me an unexpected call this afternoon "for an informal chat." We spoke of the general situation which he described as "excellent," but I know that his official optimism covers mental reservations and sceptical reflections. In discussing Constantinople I thought it as well to remind him that the destruction of Teutonic power must still be the principal and essential object of our joint efforts: "I know the Emperor's views on this point," I said, "so I am sure of yours. But do the Russian people sufficiently realize it?" He replied with greater vigour than I expected from this disillusioned Nestor: "The Russian people hate the Germans: they hate them in their very bones. You need have no fear that Constantinople will turn their thoughts from Berlin!" Then I asked him about a matter which has been on my mind for some time, the question of the Ukraine. He broke in: "There is no Ukrainian question!" "But there's no doubt that Austria is making great efforts to create a national movement among the Ukrainians. Surely you know that there's a society for the Liberation of the Ukraine in Vienna? It publishes pamphlets and maps in Switzerland. I get them and they certainly reveal very intense propagandist activity." "We know all about this society. It's a low haunt of police spies. It first appealed to our peasants
in the Ukraine who didn't even understand what was being said to them. Feeling that there was nothing doing in that quarter it tried the workpeople in our sugar refineries in the region of Kiev and Berditchev. It occasionally sends them socialist tracts which we seize regularly from Jew hawkers. You can see there's nothing in it." "But even if there's no Ukrainian question, or perhaps I should say no separatist movement in the Ukraine, you won't deny that there's a very strong particularist spirit in Little Russia." "Oh, yes! The Little Russians have a very original individual character. Their ideas, literature, and songs have a very pronounced flavour of the soil. But that only shows itself in the intellectual sphere. From the national point of view the Ukrainians are as Russian as the purest Muscovites. And from the economic point of view the Ukraine is necessarily tied to Russia."
Sunday, April 11, 1915. Through his secret agencies Sazonov has received another series of documents showing that the Tsar Ferdinand and the Court of Vienna have come to terms during the last few days. He was greatly excited and shaking with indignation as he said to me: "Teutonic influences are decidedly getting the upper hand at Sophia. I've got proof of it now. I must expect anything of the infamous Ferdinand. Austria has him in her pocket. I must therefore insist on the ministers of the three Powers presenting the Bulgarian Government with the protest I suggested to you three days ago. If your Government and the British Government do not agree to this step Russia will be compelled to act alone. If the protest is not enough I shall ask the Emperor to recall Savinsky and perhaps order the occupation of Bourgas." I immediately telegraphed all this to Delcass, but knowing that he cherishes all sorts of illusions about the attitude of Bulgaria towards us I thought I had better add: "My memories of my long dealings with the Tsar Ferdinand and all that I know of his perfidy and cowardice, not to mention the convincing documents in the possession of the Russian Government, make me share Monsieur Sazonov's opinion in its entirety."
Monday, April 12, 1915. This evening I had my second military attach, Major Wehrlin, and two French officers attached to the expert munition mission to dinner with me. As we were going in there was a terrific explosion which shook all the windows of the room and made the chandeliers quiver. At the same time a huge cloud of purple smoke rose across the Neva, east of Petrograd.
"The Okhta powder factory's been blown up!" my officers cried with one voice. A few less violent explosions followed. The flames of the conflagration illuminated the horizon. There could be no doubt; the great Okhta works---the most important of the factories for the manufacture of explosives, cartridges, propellants, fuses, and grenades from which the Russian army is supplied---has been destroyed. My officers stared at each other in consternation: "An absolute disaster!" We spent the whole of dinner in calculating the consequences of the catastrophe and considering means of repairing them. After coffee I took my three officers in my car towards Okhta. We reached the suburb where, the disaster had taken place via Alexander Bridge and the Viborg quarter. People were running about wildly. There were dead and wounded and burning houses everywhere. I saw the Prefect of Police in a square; he enabled us to approach the fantastic brazier in which the buildings of the factory, occupying an immense area, were crumbling to ruin in a whirlwind of flame. While my officers went round picking up information I contemplated the dreadful beauty of the spectacle before my eyes, a spectacle which was the fulfilment of one of the most tragic visions of Dante's Hell; I seemed to see the City of Dis, the infernal Babylon, with its fiery dome's white-hot ramparts. When my officers returned their reports all agreed: the works have been entirely destroyed. The cause of the catastrophe is not yet known. But the first theory that comes to mind is certainly the activities of German agents.
Tuesday, April 13, 1915. The Okhta explosion has spread consternation in every quarter. As a matter of fact no one worries much about the practical consequences but everyone regards yesterday's disaster as an evil portent, "a bad sign from God." Nor does anyone doubt that it is the work of a German agent. "Miassoyedov had so many accomplices!" The German General Staff know only too much about the Russian munitions crisis. On the other hand, they must be in possession of many indications pointing to the impending general offensive against Silesia. To deprive their adversary of the material means of continuing, if not of starting that offensive is too obvious an idea not to have occurred to them. With all the agents at their disposal in Petrograd it was a simple matter for them to get an infernal machine concealed in one of the Okhta powder factories.
Wednesday, April 14, 1915. The French and British Governments have decided to land an expeditionary force on the Gallipoli Peninsula, with a view to overcoming the defences of the Dardanelles by land. The command of this force has been entrusted to, General d'Amade. It was concentrated at Bizerta from which it has just been transferred to the Egyptian delta.
Thursday, April 15, 1915. A few days ago the papers announced that Rasputin had gone to Moscow. In fulfilment of a vow he took last summer when the doctors were fighting for his life the holy man has gone to pray at the tomb of the Patriarch Hermogenes in the Kremlin. It is true he has been seen absorbed in fervent prayer at the tomb of the revered patriarch and before each of the miraculous ikons and sacred relics which make the Uspensky Sobor (Cathedral of the Assumption) one of the most precious sanctuaries of the orthodox faith. But in the evening he indulged in exercises of another kind, and although the orgy took place within closed doors enough details have leaked out to cause a great scandal and a dumb growl of anger and disgust in every class of Muscovite society. This is the story as told to me by a relative of General Adrianov, the Emperor's aide-de-camp, who has just arrived here from Moscow. The scene took place in a room in the Yar Restaurant in Petrovsky Park. Rasputin was accompanied by two journalists and three young women, one at least of whom moved in high social circles in Moscow. Supper began about midnight. There was heavy drinking. A balalaika band played national airs. Rasputin became very excited and with cynical effrontery began to give his audience a description of his amorous feats in Petrograd, naming the women who had accepted his overtures, relating every detail of the scene and pointing out the particular charm and the most spicy or grotesque feature of each occasion. When supper was over the balalaika band was succeeded by gipsy girls who sang. Rasputin, dead drunk, began to talk about the Empress whom he called the "old girl." The atmosphere of the assembly at once became chilly. He went on unheeding. Showing an embroidered waistcoat he was wearing under his caftan he said: "The old girl made me this waistcoat. . . . I can do anything I like with her . . . ." The well-bred woman who had strayed into this adventure by mistake, protested and wanted to
leave. Staggering with fury Rasputin expressed his feelings in obscene gestures. Then he attacked the gipsy girls but met with a rebuff. He swore at them and the name of the Tsaritsa mingled with his oaths. The guests were now alarmed at the prospect of being mixed up in such a scandal which was already the talk of the whole restaurant and might have serious legal consequences owing to the insult to the Empress. The bill was hastily demanded. The moment the tchelloviek brought it the society lady threw a bundle of rouble notes---far more than the whole bill---on the table and promptly disappeared. The gipsy singers followed her. The rest of the company soon did likewise. Rasputin came out last, staggering, gasping, and swearing volubly.
Sunday, April 18, 1915. The general offensive of which the Emperor spoke to me at Baranovici has begun. In the western Carpathians the Russians are putting forth great efforts. The focus of their attacks at the moment is the Uszok Pass, which is not only at the source of the great rivers of Galicia but commands the entrance into Transylvania. In the last few days the Austro-Hungarians have left 50,000 prisoners in the hands of their enemy.
Saturday, April 24, 1915. The Moscow Prefect of Police, General Adrianov, a man of courage and conscience, desired to report personally to the Emperor on the scandal of Rasputin's recent conduct in the Yar Restaurant, a scandal about which the people of Moscow are still furious. He therefore appeared in full dress at Tsarskoe-Selo the other morning and asked an audience. But the Governor of the Imperial Palaces, General Voyeikov, did not let him reach the sovereign. General Adrianov then applied to General Djunkovsky. Commander of the Gendarmerie, who represents the police services at the Ministry of the Interior. He, too, is a man of courage and has tried at least twenty times already to convince his master of the infamy of the staretz. In this roundabout way Nicholas II knows every detail of the disgusting orgy in the Yar Restaurant, but as he doubts the truth of what he has been told he has ordered a supplementary
enquiry and entrusted it to his favourite aide-de-camp, Captain Sablin, the Empress's close friend. In spite of his intimacy with Rasputin, Sablin has been compelled to admit that the statements made by General Adrianov are perfectly true. Faced with these incontestable facts the Emperor, the Empress, and Madame Vyrubova have agreed to conclude that the powers of evil set a fearsome trap for their holy friend and that without assistance from above he would never have been able to get out of it so cheaply.
Monday, April 26, 1915. At dawn yesterday a corps of Anglo-French troops landed near Sedul Bahr on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Operating under the cover of the guns of the Allied fleet they have established themselves at the end of the peninsula. The resistance of the Turks has been very hard to break.
Tuesday, April 27, 1915. The Grand Duke Nicholas and his staff accompanied the Emperor during his recent visit to the Galician front. Everyone has been struck by the indifference, or rather coldness, with which the Emperor was received by his army. The legend which has grown up around the Empress and Rasputin has been a serious blow to the prestige of the Emperor both with the men and their officers. No one doubts that treachery has its lair in Tsarskoe-Selo palace and the Miassoyedov affair provides an argument for all suspicion. Near Lvov one of my officers overheard the following conversation between two lieutenants: "Which Nicholas are you talking about?" "The Grand Duke, of course! The other one's nothing but a German! "
Friday, April 30, 1915. The information coming in from every quarter about the concentration of Austro-German troops
in Galicia is becoming alarming. The enemy is certainly preparing a sledgehammer blow in that region. By way of diversion the Germans are boldly thrusting into Courland, in the direction of Mitau and Libau.
Saturday, May 1, 1915. A quiet dinner at the Embassy with Princess Orlov, Sir George and Lady Georgina Buchanan, General and Countess Stackelberg, &c. During the evening I have had a long talk with Stackelberg, who inherits a serious, logical, and practical mind from his German ancestors: "It's a bit of luck for me to have got you here to-night you're never to be found in these days." "It's no pleasure for me to go out now. In nationalist circles I'm supposed to be a Boche and that makes me angry. In reactionary circles the victory of Germany is desired and that disgusts me. Notwithstanding my Teutonic origins I'm passionately devoted to Russia and the Emperor has no more loyal subject than I or one more ready to sacrifice himself.(1) You know that I've lived in France and England a good deal. I'm a tremendous admirer of the French spirit and have a great weakness for things English. As for France, I can't tell you how much I admire her since the war began: in a few months she has done finer things than ever before in her history. You can see for yourself I'm no Boche! But as a Russian I'm more alarmed every day at the abyss into which the Anglo-French alliance is leading us. Russia is going straight to defeat and revolution, for we shall never beat the Germans; we cannot hold our own with them; I'm utterly downhearted." I tried to fortify his courage a little, pointing out that the patent inferiority of the Russian army to the German army is only temporary: "Your men are fighting splendidly. Your reserves of man-power are inexhaustible. What you lack is heavy artillery, aeroplanes, and munitions of war. In a few months from now you'll be abundantly supplied, and then you'll make the Germans feel the weight of your numbers." "No! History shows that Russia is never so strong as at the beginning of a war. We haven't that wonderful faculty for adaptation and improvisation which enables you French and English to make good all your omissions in peace in the very middle of a war. With us war only aggravates the evils of our political system because it sets our bureaucrats a task they are utterly incapable of performing. Would that I were mistaken! But I expect that things will go from bad to worse. Look what a tragic position we're in! We cannot make peace without dishonouring ourselves, and yet if we continue the war we are inevitably heading straight for a catastrophe!"
Tuesday, May 4, 1915. For the last two days the Germans and Austro-Hungarians have been attacking the sector of the Russian front between the Vistula and the Carpathians in full force. They are advancing irresistibly in an easterly direction; their left wing has already crossed the lower Dunajec which pours into the Vistula 65 kilometres above Cracow.
Thursday, May 6, 1915. Between the Carpathians and the Vistula the Russian situation is becoming critical. After very severe fighting at Tarnov, Gorlice, and Jaslo they are hastily retiring behind the Dunajec and the Wisloka. The losses are enormous: the number of prisoners is said to be 40,000.
Friday, May 7, 1915. The victory of the Austro-Germans at Tarnov, Gorlice, and Jaslo is now reacting on the whole line in the Carpathians to well beyond the Uszok Pass. In a few days the Russians have lost the series of passes and crests they had gained after such tremendous efforts in the winter. The road into Transylvania is now closed to them. This situation is also reacting on the attitude of the Rumanian Government. Bratiano is sticking to his territorial claims with the most frigid obstinacy. He is obviously calculating that he will force Russia to a flat refusal which he will then utilize to secure the triumph of the policy of neutrality on which he is secretly set.
Saturday, May 8, 1915. On the Courland front in the north the Germans have started a series of vigorous attacks with a view to preventing the enemy from transferring all his reserves to Galicia. Yesterday they seized Libau, which will give them an excellent naval base for their further operations in the Gulf of Riga.
Sunday, May 9, 1915. From the Uszok Pass to the Vistula, i.e., on a front of 200 kilometres, the battle is still raging furiously. The Russians are in retreat all along the line. The speed of their retirement threatens before long to render untenable their positions on the line of the Nida north of the Vistula.
Wednesday, May 12, 1915. In the Dardanelles the Anglo-French are making methodical progress, digging in each night on the ground won during the day. The Turks are putting up an extremely fierce resistance. Public opinion in Russia is closely following every detail of the fighting: it does not doubt the ultimate result and thinks it is near at hand. In imagination it already sees the allied squadrons passing through the Hellespont and anchoring off the Golden Horn. It is almost forgetting the defeats in Galicia. As usual, it seeks in dreams an opiate against reality.
Thursday, May 13, 1915. The Russians are continuing their retreat in a northeasterly direction, but it is a retreat in perfect order and each position is defended. The total number of prisoners left in the enemy's hands in the last ten days is said to amount to 140,000.
Friday, May 14, 1915. Ministerial crisis in Italy. The Salandra-Sonnino Cabinet has very cleverly submitted its resignation to the King without waiting for the meeting of the Chamber so that the question of the war can be put straight to public opinion and Giolitti's parliamentary intrigues thus foiled.
The advocates of intervention are gaining ground every day.
Sunday, May 16, 1915. The Germans have captured Jaroslav, which will give them a bridge-head on the San. The Russians are accelerating their retreat east of Kielce and south of the Pilica. On the other hand at the other end eastern of Galicia the Austrians have suffered a heavy reverse between Kolomea and Czernovitz, and left 20,000 prisoners behind them. The whole area between the Dniester and the Pruth is thus in the hands of the Russians.
Monday, May 17, 19IS There is intense excitement in Italy. In Rome, Milan, Venice, and Genoa there is a continuous succession of stormy demonstrations which are almost revolutionary in character. Under the pressure of popular feeling King Victor Emmanuel yesterday refused the resignation of the Salandra-Sonnino Cabinet. Giolitti's plot has thus failed. The only course now open to the "neutralist" Parliament is to bow to the demands of the national instinct.
Tuesday, May 18, 1915. This morning I resumed with Sazonov our interminable discussion of Rumania's territorial claims and I urged him vigorously to go a little further in the way of concession. But I found him very angry at a telegram he received yesterday from Bucharest he waved it in my face with trembling fingers. "Bratiano thinks he can get his own way: he's talking of Russia in the most arrogant way and I won't stand it. I know for a fact that he's gone so far as to tell several foreign diplomats that 'it's hardly the moment for Russia to talk so loud!' He's making a great mistake. Russia is a great Power and a temporary check to her armies will not make her forget her duty to herself, her past, her future, and her historic mission." "If Bratiano has been talking like that he is wrong. But it is just because Russia is a great Power that she cannot raise her point of view too high. The only question at the moment is whether the
help of Rumania is useful to us and whether it costs us too much to abandon a little more enemy territory to Rumanian appetite. Let's be frank with each other, my dear Minister! Consider our military situation! Aren't you horrified at this unforeseen and rapid retreat? Don't you realize that you are about to lose Przemysl and that by to-morrow the Austro-Germans will perhaps have crossed the San in force? Are you quite sure that two or three weeks hence you will not bitterly regret having haggled too much over Rumania's help?" Sazonov's obstinacy seemed to be shaken: "I'm going to try and find a new formula for further concessions in the Bukovina and on the Danubian bank of the Banat. But I shall make the immediate intervention of the Rumanian army a strict condition of the agreement. I'll give you my answer to-morrow."
Wednesday, May 19, 1915. Sazonov has given way on the two points still in dispute in the negotiations with Bucharest. He has agreed that the future frontier between Russia and Rumania in the Bukovina shall be the Sereth. He has also admitted Rumania's claim to annex the district of Torontal on the Danubian bank of the Banat; but he has declared once more that the immediate co-operation of the Rumanian army is an absolute condition of this double concession.
Thursday, May 20, 1915. The Russian General Staff estimate that the Austro-German forces employed against Russia amount to not less than 55 corps and 20 cavalry divisions. Of these 55 corps three have just arrived from France.
Sunday, May 23, 1915. Italy has declared war on Austria-Hungary. I went to congratulate my good friend and colleague, Carlotti. I found him radiant. He is in a large measure responsible for the serious step his country has just taken. Ever since the war began he has never ceased to impress on his Government that neither politically nor morally could Italy stand out of the European conflict, that she would dishonour herself and lower her
prestige by a shopkeeping neutrality and that her national traditions and vital interests impelled her to declare herself at the earliest possible moment on the side her Latin affinities dictated.
Monday, May 24, 1915. General Joffre has instructed General de Laguiche to convey to the Grand Duke Nicholas his admiration of the magnificent effort of the Russian armies in the course of the last few weeks: Thanks to their courage and tenacity they have succeeded, without being broken or losing their fighting power, in neutralizing hostile forces very superior in number, inflicting enormous losses upon them and thus rendering the greatest service to the common cause. It is one more fine page in the glorious history of Russia.
Tuesday, May 25, 1915. The succession of reverses which the Russian army has suffered has given Rasputin his chance of giving vent to the implacable hatred he has long felt for the Grand Duke Nicholas. He is always railing against the Generalissimo, whom he accuses of blank ignorance of the military art and of having no other ambition than to gain an illegitimate popularity with the troops with the ulterior object of supplanting the Emperor. The character and the whole past of the Grand Duke are alone enough to demonstrate the fatuity of this last charge, but I know that it has had some effect on the sovereigns. I have also found out that of late Rasputin has returned to his old theme: This war is an offence to God! The other evening, when he was holding forth in the house of old Madame G-----, who is one of his most exalted devotees, he declared in the accent of a biblical prophet: "Russia entered this war against the will of God. Evil be to those who still refuse to believe it! To hear the voice of God all that is necessary is to listen humbly. But when men are strong they are puffed up with pride: they think themselves clever and despise the simple until one day the judgment of God falls upon them like a thunderclap. Christ is angry at all the groans that mount to him from the soil of Russia. But what do they care, the generals, about having moujiks killed; it doesn't prevent them eating or drinking or getting rich. . . . Alas! the blood of the victims will not bespatter them alone: it will bespatter the Tsar himself for he is the father of the moujiks. . . . I tell you, the vengeance of God will be terrible!" I am told that this dies ir made everyone present simply shiver with fright. Madame G----- kept on repeating: "Gospodi pomiloui! Lord, have mercy upon us! "
Friday, May 28, 1915 The Austro-German offensive is proceeding uninterruptedly on both banks of the San as well as in the Przemysl sector and the region of Stryj. For several days a great wave of pessimism has been sweeping over Russia. Public opinion begins to realize all that the Austro-German advance across Galicia means and promises. All the more anxiously is the public gaze turned towards the Dardanelles. Yet the Gallipoli expedition seems to me to have lost something of its power as a mirage and a diversion.
Saturday, May 29, 1915. The Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch, Sir George Buchanan, and the Marquis Carlotti have lunched with me to-day, and we celebrated Italy's entry into the Triple Alliance. The Grand Duke was in the highest spirits: he held his head high, his cheeks were agreeably flushed, and his voice had a prouder and more resonant ring than ever. Several times he exclaimed: "We've got Germany now. The wretch won't escape us now!" And each time, as if to restore the energy he expended on his declaration, he tossed down the glass of Pommard which the butler filled up as fast as he emptied it. Although he has German blood in his veins through his mother, a Princess of Baden, he hates Germany, German ideas, and the German spirit. His whole intellectual and moral make-up and all his sympathies and tastes incline him towards France. His intense interest in Napoleon I which he puts to such noble purpose in his historical work is only one form of his admiration of the French genius. When he had settled down for a smoke he continued to talk freely, expressing the same opinions but in another tone. It is a phenomenon I have often observed in my dealings with him. His open-hearted talk and the outbursts of confidence and enthusiasm by which he satisfies the selfless needs of his impetuous nature have almost at once a reaction which expresses itself in cynicism, disparagement, and jealous egotism. It is then that deep down within him one catches a glimpse of a great open sore---his pride---and suspects the uneasy presence of ambitious dreams and hopes unfulfilled. He knows his personal worth, which is above the ordinary, and thinks there is no role he is not competent to fill. At the same time he feels himself slighted and looked down upon, useless and impotent, an object of suspicion to his sovereign and his caste, a guarantor of a political system which he despises but from which he derives enormous advantages. In many ways he deserves the nickname of "Nicholas Egalit," which he often jokes about. Among other resemblances to the Duc d'Orlans he has the same weakness of character.
He is too fond of criticism and scandal to be a man of action, initiative or authority: he's a reformer, but only in words. If the course of political events ever brings him into contact with reality, if he ever has to act in a revolutionary crisis, I am afraid he will have to apply to himself the melancholy confession with which Philippe-Egalit replied to the reproaches of his mistress, the lovely and courageous Mrs. Elliott: " Alas! I'm not the leader of my party: I'm its slave!"
Sunday, May 30, 1915. Thinking of Rasputin's ever-growing power and his evil influence on Russian politics I have sometimes wondered whether the Allies ought not to try and turn the mystical and other gifts of the magician to their own advantage by greasing his palm: we should thus direct his "inspirations" instead of always being inconvenienced, thwarted, and paralysed by them. I confess that I was tempted to try it myself---just as an experiment: but I had to admit that it would be futile, compromising, and also dangerous. Quite recently I mentioned the matter casually and indirectly to a highly-placed individual, E-----, who had been once more giving free rein to his rabid nationalism in my presence. As he was furiously denouncing the latest impertinences and insanities of Grishka I said to him: "May I ask you something? Why don't your political friends try to win Rasputin over to their cause? Why don't they buy him?" He nodded, then reflected a moment and said "You can't buy Rasputin." "Is he as virtuous as all that?" "Oh dear no! The brute hasn't the slightest moral sense and is quite capable of any infamy. But in the first place he doesn't want money; he gets much more than he needs. You know how he lives. What expenses has he besides his little flat on the Gorokhovaia? He dresses like a moujik, and his wife and daughters go about like beggars. His food costs him nothing, as he gets all his meals outside. His pleasures, far from costing him money, bring it in: the beastly women, young and old, by whom he is surrounded are always sending him presents. Besides, the Emperor and Empress are continually giving him presents. And you can imagine what he makes out of the place-hunters who pester him every day to plead their cause. You can see the holy man is not exactly without resources!" "What does he do with all this money?" "Well, to begin with, he's very generous: he gives a lot to the poor. He buys land in his village, Pokrovskoe, and is having a church built there. He also has something in banks---saving up for a rainy day, as he's very nervous about his future." "What you say confirms me in my notion. You have a hold over Rasputin because he likes
adding to his land, building churches, and increasing his investments. Your friends must really try and buy him." "No, Ambassador, the difficulty is not in offering Rasputin money; he'll take it from anyone. The hard thing is to make him play his part, because he's incapable of learning it. Don't forget he's an uneducated peasant." "But he's no fool!" "He has a sort of low cunning. His intelligence is very limited. He understands nothing about politics. You can't make him grasp ideas or reasoning to which he is not accustomed. All sustained conversation or serious and logical discussion with him is impossible. He can only repeat the lesson you've dinned into him." "Yet he embroiders it in his own way!" "Yes, he decorates it with obscene gestures and mystical jokes. But the crowd whose tool he is keep watch on him. He knows that he's watched, that his correspondence is opened, and his actions and haunts kept under observation. On the pretext of protecting him the palace police, General Voyeikov'sOkhrana, is always on his tracks. And he knows, too, that even in his own gang he has enemies, rivals, and the merely envious who are secretly working to injure him with Their Majesties and bring about his dismissal. He's always terrified that some successor may turn up. You must have heard of the Montenegrin beauty, Father Mordary, and the idiot, Mitia Koliaba, who are the present candidates. And there must be others up somebody's sleeve. Rasputin knows the dangers of his position only too well and is much too cunning not to remain faithful to his party. You may be certain that if any suspicious proposal were made to him he would at once inform Voyeikov." Our conversation ended there, but I took the subject up again, and almost in the same terms, with S-----, one of my informers who moves in nationalist and orthodox circles in Moscow. "I'm afraid we may get lower than Rasputin one of these days, worse luck!" "Is that possible?" "Don't doubt it! In the realm of the absurd there's no limit. If Rasputin disappeared it's quite possible we should be regretting it before long." "Who is there to make us regret him?" "Mitia Koliaba, for example." As ground for his fears he then gave me certain information about this individual of whom all that I knew was his former relations with the monk Heliodorus of Tsarytsin and Father John of Kronstadt. Mitia Koliaba is a simpleton, a harmless idiot. a yourodivi like the one who utters the fateful words in Boris Godounov. Born somewhere about 1865 in the neighbourhood of Kaluga, he is deaf, dumb, half-blind, bandy-legged, and deformed, and has only two stumps for arms. His brain, as atrophied as his limbs, conceives but a very small number of ideas which he expresses by guttural cries, stammerings, grunts, roars, squeaks, and a wild waving of his stumps. For
several years he was received, from motives of charity, in Optina-Pustyn Monastery, near Kozielsk. One day he was seen to be in a most extraordinary sort of fit with intervals of stupor which resembled a trance. The whole community at once realized that a divine influence was manifesting itself through this rudimentary mind; but no one could get beyond that. While they were all exhausting themselves in conjectures the secret was supernaturally betrayed to a monk. As he was on the point of kneeling to pray in a dark chapel Saint Nicholas appeared to him and revealed the meaning to be attached to the cries and contortions of the yourodivi: the monk wrote down the exact interpretation under the dictation of Saint Nicholas himself. The community was then amazed at all the knowledge and prophetic instinct revealed in the inarticulate sounds made by the idiot: he knew everything---the past, the present, the future. In 1901 he was taken to Petersburg where the Emperor and Empress highly esteemed his power of foretelling the future although they were then completely under the thumb of the magician Philippe. In the evil days of the Japanese War it seemed as if Mitia Koliaba was marked out for a great part, but some stupid friends thrust him into the epic quarrel between Rasputin and Bishop Hermogenes. He was obliged to disappear for a time to escape the vengeance of his terrible adversary. At the present time he lives among a small and secret, but fervent, sect and is biding his time.
Monday, May 31, 1915. This afternoon I called on the President of the Duma, Rodzianko, whose fervent patriotism and great energy have often strengthened my faith. But to-day my first impression of him affected me painfully. His face was drawn and there was a greenish hue in his cheeks. As a rule he holds himself well, but now his great height seemed to be under the weight of an excessive load, and when he sat down opposite me he collapsed in a heap. After shaking his head sadly and sighing deeply he said: "I'm in a dark mood, Ambassador. Oh, nothing's lost, of course! No doubt this trial was needed to shake us out of our slumbers and compel us to pull ourselves together and set our house in order. We shall do so; we shall do so! You have my word for that!" He then told me that the recent defeats of the Russian army, the terrible losses it has suffered, and the highly dangerous situation in which it is still fighting so heroically have stirred the public conscience to its depths. In the last few weeks he has received from the provinces more than three hundred letters pointing out how alarmed and indignant the country is. In every quarter there is the same complaint: the bureaucracy is incapable of organizing the industrial activities of the nation and creating the war machinery without which the army will go from disaster to disaster. "So I asked the Emperor for an audience," he continued, "which he was good enough to grant me at once. I told him the whole truth, showed him the whole peril. I had little difficulty in proving that our administration is powerless to solve the technical problems of the war unaided and that recourse must be had to the assistance of private sources to rope in all the live forces in
the nation, augment the output of raw material, and co-ordinate the work of the factories. The Emperor was good enough to admit all this and there and then I obtained his consent to an important reform. A Munitions Council has just been established under the presidency of the Minister of War; it consists of four generals, four members of the Duma, including myself, and four representatives of the metallurgical industries. We got to work without losing a moment."
Tuesday, June 1, 1915. At this time of the year when the northern night is not even two hours long and the atmosphere is as it were saturated with light, Petrograd constantly makes me think of Venice. With its river, islands, canals, curving bridges, and houses with pink faades, the salty spice of the evening breeze from the Gulf of Finland, the odour of tar, mud, and damp to be perceived on some of the quays, the glorious brightness of the sky and the depth of the aerial perspectives, the transparence and fluidity of the shadows, the magic of the sunsets and the dawns---with all this the spectacle before my eyes makes me think every minute that I am on the Riva degli Schiavoni or the Giudecca. When I want the illusion to be even more complete I go for an evening walk in the woods at the end of Krestrovsky Island where the estuary of the Neva suddenly widens. This spot is most moving in its solitude. Under a sky dappled with pink and violent clouds the lagoon is a sheet of iridescent waters stretching away to the Gulf of Finland. Not far away the little Volny Island emerges from a grey-green mist in which ruins and a few miserable trees can be distinguished. As the sun drops to the horizon an odour of fever and death rises from the sluggish waters. Not a single human sound. At times the landscape is deathly in its desolation. I might be at Torcello.
Wednesday, June 2, 1915. I dined quite privately this evening with the most important metallurgist and financier in Russia, the multimillionaire Putilov. I always derive great pleasure and profit from my meetings with this business man whose psychology is most original. He possesses in a high degree the dominating characteristics of an American business man, the creative instinct and spirit of initiative, the craving for vast undertakings, a strict sense of reality and the feasible, values and forces. But he is none the less a Slav in certain intimate sides of his nature and the most pessimistic outlook I have yet met with in Russia. He is one of the four industrials who are members of the Munitions Council, established at the War Ministry. His first impressions were simply deplorable. It is not merely a technical problem, a question of labour and output which has to be solved. The whole administrative system of
Russia must be reformed from top to bottom. We had not exhausted the subject when dinner was over. The moment the cigars were lit champagne was brought and we discussed the future; he almost revelled in describing the fatal consequences of the imminent catastrophes and the silent work of decadence and dislocation which is undermining the Russian edifice: "The days of Tsarisin are numbered; it is lost, lost beyond hope. But Tsarism is the very framework of Russia and the sole bond of unity for the nation. Revolution is now inevitable; it is only waiting for a favourable opportunity. Such an opportunity will come with some military defeat, a famine in the provinces, a strike in Petrograd, a riot in Moscow, some scandal or tragedy at the palace. It doesn't matter how! In any case, the revolution isn't the worst peril threatening Russia. What is a revolution, strictly speaking? It is the substitution of one political system for another by violence. A revolution may be a great benefit to a nation if it can reconstruct after having destroyed. From that point of view the English and French Revolutions strike me as having been rather salutary. But with us revolution can only be destructive because the educated class is only a tiny minority, without organization, political experience, or contact with the masses. To my mind that is the greatest crime of Tsarism: it will not tolerate any centre of political life and activity outside its own bureaucracy. Its success in that way has been so great that the day the tchinovniks disappear the whole Russian State will dissolve. No doubt it will be the bourgeois, intellectuals, "Cadets" who give the signal for the revolution, thinking that they're saving Russia. But from the bourgeois revolution we shall at once descend to the working class revolution and soon after to the peasant revolution. And then will begin the most frightful anarchy, interminable anarchy, . . . ten years of anarchy! . . . We shall see the days of Pugatchev again, and perhaps worse! "
Chapter Footnote 1. Count Stackelberg was murdered on March 16, 1917, by a band of mutinous soldiers.
Volume II, Chapter One Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue volume II
CHAPTER I JUNE 3-AUGUST 24, 1915 National feeling roused.---Unrest in Moscow.---The Minister of the Interior replaced.--Obsequies of the Grand Duke Constantine.---The cathedral of the fortress; memories of Kropotkin.---Launching of the cruiser Ismal.---The War Minister replaced: General Sukhomlinov's responsibility for the defeat of the Russian armies.---Negotiations with the Balkan States.---The Emperor's appeal to his people.---Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria; private reasons for his hatred of Russia.---Antagonism between Moscow and Petrograd.---The Duc de Morny; as Ambassador to Alexander II; his marriage.---The Council of War at Chantilly: decision to help the Russian army.---Fresh Austro-German successes.---The Procurator of the Holy Synod replaced.---Rasputin is banished from Petrograd; his farewell to the Empress.--Launching of the cruiser Borodino.---Reopening of the Duma.---Public feeling aroused.---The Germans enter Warsaw.---The Jewish question before the Duma.----Cloistered life of the sovereigns in their palace; contrast with the Court in previous reigns.---"Liberal nationalism"; the dream of a national coup d'tat.---Stormy session of the Duma.---Progress of the German offensive in Lithuania. ---Rasputin's return to Petrograd. Thursday, June 3, 1915. The Austro-Germans are continuing their advance on the right bank of the Save and the Russians have been unable to maintain their position in Przemysl; the fortress has, therefore, been evacuated this afternoon. Since the first fighting in May on the Dunajec the number of prisoners left in the enemy's hands by the Russian army has risen to nearly three hundred thousand men.
Sunday, June 6, 1915. Public opinion in Russia has been particularly stirred by the Galician defeats because few illusions are cherished about the chances of a speedy success in the Dardanelles. But among all classes in the country, and particularly in the provinces, a new current can be traced. Instead of giving way to despondency, as after previous defeats, public opinion is protesting, quivering with indignation, demanding penalties and remedies, and affirming its determination to win. In the highest of spirits, Sazonov said to me this morning: "You're seeing the Russian people in their true colours now! We're going to witness a magnificent resurrection of national feeling!" All the political parties---except the extreme Right, of course---are insisting that the Duma shall be summoned at once, to put an end to the blundering of the military administration and organize the civil mobilization of Russia.
Friday, June 11, 1915. There has been unrest in Moscow for several days. Rumours of treason were circulating among the crowd and accusations have been made openly against the Emperor, the Empress, Rasputin and all the influential persons at Court. Yesterday grave disorder broke out and it is continuing to-day. A large number of shops belonging to Germans, or with signs with German terminations, have been looted.
Saturday, June 12, 1915. Order has been restored in Moscow. Yesterday evening the soldiers had to use their arms. At first the police let the rioters do as they liked, by way of giving vent to the feelings of anger and humiliation which the Galician defeats have aroused among the citizens of Moscow. But the agitation assumed such a scale, that it has become necessary to suppress it by force.
Sunday, June 13, 1915. The disorders in Moscow have been particularly serious owing to one element to which the press descriptions have not alluded. On the Krasnaa Plotchad, the famous "Red Square," which has witnessed so many historical scenes, the mob insulted the Royal Family, demanded that the Empress should be incarcerated in a convent, the Emperor deposed and the crown transferred to the Grand Duke Nicholas, Rasputin hung, etc. There were also stormy demonstrations at the gates of the Convent of Martha-and-Mary, the abbess of which is the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the Empress's sister and widow of the Grand Duke Sergei. This charming woman, who spends her whole life in devotion and good works, has been smothered with insults, for the people of Moscow have long been convinced that she is a German spy; they even go so far as to allege that she is hiding her brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, in her convent. All this news has caused the greatest consternation at Tsarskoe-Selo. The Empress is violently
attacking Prince Yussupov, the Governor-General of Moscow, for allowing the imperial family to be exposed to such outrages by his lack of judgment and moral weakness. Yesterday the Emperor received the President of the Duma, Rodzianko, who urged him very strongly to convoke the National Assembly at once. The Emperor gave him a sympathetic hearing, but has not given the slightest inkling of his intentions.
Monday, June 14, 19 15. Since the evacuation of Przemysl the Russian army of Central Galicia has been offering the most stubborn resistance between the Save and the Visnia, for the purpose of covering Lemberg. Its front has just been pierced east of Jaroslav. The Germans have made 15,000 prisoners.
Tuesday, June 15, 1915. Goremykin, the President of the Council, has broken down under the strain of age and the course of events, and asked the Emperor to accept his resignation. As the reply he received was merely evasive, he remarked yesterday to one of his friends: "The Emperor can't see that the candles have already been lit round my coffin and that the only thing required to complete the ceremony is myself!"
Wednesday, June 16, 1915. Judging by a confidential remark made by Madame Vyrubova to Countess N-----, the Minister of the Interior, Nicholas Maklakov, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Sabler, and the Minister of Justice, Stcheglovitov, are doing their utmost to dissuade the Emperor from summoning the Duma, and also to convince him that Russia can continue the war no longer. On the question of the Duma the Tsar's mind remains impenetrable, even though the Tsaritsa is backing the views of the ministers with all her might. But on the question of the prosecution of the war Nicholas II has used language which no one could have suspected of him: "To make peace now would mean disgrace and revolution simultaneously!" The Emperor was not less emphatic in declaring that if Russia abandoned her allies at this moment, she would cover herself with everlasting shame. But she has adjured the Emperor to make no concession to parliamentarism, and keeps on repeating: "You must remember, now more than ever before, that
you are an autocrat by divine consecration! God would never forgive you for failing in the duties he has entrusted to you on earth!"
Friday, June 18, 1915. When Buchanan and I met at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs this morning the same idea was in our minds "To-day is the centenary of Waterloo!" But this is not the time for the ironic pleasures of historical comparisons: we have just received an important piece of news. The Minister of the Interior, Maklakov, has been relieved of his functions and replaced by Prince Nicholas Borissovitch Stcherbatov, the Administrator-General of the imperial stud. Sazonov is triumphant. Maklakov's resignation clearly shows that the Emperor adheres faithfully to the policy of the Alliance and is determined to continue the war. The new Minister of the Interior has lived very much in retirement hitherto, but Sazonov describes him as of moderate and judicious mind, and says that his patriotism is beyond question.
Saturday, June 19, 1915. The Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch (born in 1858), grandson of the Emperor Nicholas, younger brother of the Queen Dowager of Greece and husband of Princess Elizabeth of Saxe-Altenburg, died yesterday at Pavlovsk, where he was living a very retired life.(#1) At six o'clock to-day the body was transferred with great pomp to the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, in the fortress, which is both the Bastille and Saint-Denis of the Romanovs. The Emperor and all the Grand Dukes followed the funeral car on foot. They carried the huge coffin from the doorway of the church to the catafalque set up opposite the iconostasis. The ceremony is only the prelude to the solemn obsequies and, for the orthodox liturgy, was comparatively short, though it took not less than an hour. The Emperor, the Dowager Empress, the Empress, the Grand Dukes, Grand Duchesses and all the princes and princesses of the imperial family were there on the right of the catafalque; the diplomatic corps was grouped beside them.
I thus found myself within a few paces of the Emperor and had an excellent opportunity of observing him. He has changed materially during the three months since I saw him last. His hair is thinner and has turned grey in places; his face, too, is thinner, and there was a grave and distant look in his eyes. On his left the Dowager Empress stood motionless, raising her head in a majestic and statuesque attitude which she never abandoned for a moment, for all her eight-and-sixty years. At her side the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna stood rigid, nervously working her hands. Her face was veined like marble and every now and then she turned deathly pale, and her uneven and jerky breathing made her bosom heave. Immediately next in the same row was the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, who held herself with the same statuesque dignity as her sister-in-law, the Dowager Empress. Then came the Emperor's four daughters. Olga, the eldest, continually cast an anxious glance towards her mother. By a departure from the usages of the orthodox Church, three chairs had been placed behind the two Empresses and the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna. To the Empress Alexandra standing is torture, and four times was she compelled to sit down. On each occasion she covered her eyes with her hand, as if in apology for her weakness. Instead of giving way, the two ladies next to her held themselves better than ever---this mute protest contrasting the grand manner of the previous reign with the degeneration of the present Court. During a long and monotonous litany the new Minister of the Interior, Prince Stcherbatov, introduced himself to me. He has an intelligent and frank face; there is warmth in his face and his whole being is congenial. Without invitation, he said to me: "My programme is simple. The instructions I am about to issue to the governors of the empire may be summed up thus: Everything for the war until full and final victory. I shall not tolerate disorder, weakness or pessimism." I congratulated him on this point of view and insisted on the urgency of henceforth concentrating all the productive resources of the country on supplies for the army. At this point the clergy were beginning the final prayers. Through the clouds of incense that melancholy and unceasing invocation, which seems to summarize all the religious fervour of the Russian soul, ascended upwards: "Gospodi pomilou!" "Lord have mercy upon us!" In the tower above, the bells of the cathedral carried on the refrain. Then I suddenly remembered one of the most moving recollections to be found in Kropotkin's Memoirs. Confined in the state prison a few yards away, the great revolutionary listened day and night to the chimes of these same bells: Every quarter of an hour they chime a 'Gospodi pomilou . . . .. . Lord have mercy upon us.' Then the great bell slowly strikes the hour with long intervals between each stroke. At the melancholy hour of midnight the invocations were followed by a 'Boje tsaria kranie. . . .' 'God save the Tsar.' (#2) The chime lasted for a quarter of an hour. It was barely over when a fresh ' Gospodi pomilou' told the sleepless prisoner that a quarter of an hour of his useless life had just sped, and that many quarters of an hour, many hours, many days, many months. of this vegetable
existence had still to pass before his gaolers, or death perhaps, came to deliver him. . . ." Sunday, June 20, 1915 The reawakening of the national energies was confirmed yesterday in Moscow by an impressive demonstration. The Union of the Zemstvos and the Union of the Towns met there in congress. Prince Lvov, who presided, fully revealed the impotence of the administration to mobilize the resources of the country in the service of the army. "The problem with which Russia is faced," he declared, "is far beyond the powers of our bureaucracy. The solution demands an effort from the whole country. . . . After ten months of war we are not yet mobilized. The whole of Russia must become one vast military organization, a huge arsenal for the armies. . . ." A practical programme was drawn up at once. So Russia is on the right road at last!
Monday, June 21, 1915. At half-past ten I returned to the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul to be present at the solemn obsequies of the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch. Exhausted by Saturday's ceremony, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna has been unable to be present. The Dowager Empress and the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, alone in the front row at the Emperor's side, have triumphed. The funeral service proceeded for two hours on end, with its amazing wealth of elaborate incident and its grandiose and pathetic pomp. The Emperor was interesting to watch. Not a moment of inattention or indifference, but a natural and complete composure. Every now and then he half closed his eyes, and when he opened them his gaze seemed to reflect some light within. At length the interminable liturgy came to a close candles---symbols of the eternal brightness to be revealed to the soul of the deceased---were distributed among the officiating clergy. The whole church then glowed with a dazzling splendour which made the gold and precious stones of the iconostasis sparkle gloriously. The Emperor stood motionless, his face and eyes set, and gazed into space at some invisible object beyond earthly horizons, beyond the confines of our illusory world.
Tuesday, June 22, 1915. This morning the Emperor presided at the launching of a great battle cruiser, the Ismal, 32,000
tons, built in the Vassili-Ostrov yards, just where the Neva leaves Petrograd. The diplomatic corps and the Government were present. It has been a bright, sunny day and the ceremony was no less imposing than picturesque. But no one seemed to take any interest in the sight. The company whispered in groups with downcast faces, for we had just heard that the Russian army is withdrawing from Lemberg. The Emperor was quite impressive as he performed the rites decreed for the ceremony. He uncovered while the ship was being blest. The hard, merciless sunshine revealed two deep, dark wrinkles round the corners of his eyes; they were not there yesterday. The colossal hull slid with a slow and irresistible movement into the Neva, producing a vast whirlpool; the mooring ropes stretched and strained and the Ismal stopped majestically. Before leaving, the Emperor visited the workshops to which the men had hastily returned. He stayed there nearly an hour, often stopping for a chat, with that calm, confident and dignified ease which is his superlative merit in approaching those of low estate. Enthusiastic cheers, cheers which seemed to come from every throat, accompanied him during the whole of his visit. And yet this is the very soul and centre of Russian anarchism! When we took our leave of the Emperor I congratulated him on the fine reception he had just met with in the workshops. His eyes lit up with a melancholy smile; he replied: "I like nothing better than to feel myself in touch with my people. I needed it to-day."
Wednesday, June 23, 1915. The editor of the Novoe-Fremya, Suvorin, has called on me to give vent to his pessimism: "I've lost all hope," he said; "we're doomed to disaster from now on." To refute him I referred to the outburst of energy which has possessed the entire Russian nation at the present moment, an outburst which has just been translated in Moscow into effective decisions. He resumed: "I know my country. This spasm won't last long. In a short time we shall lapse into our old apathy. To-day we are calling the tchinovniks names; we hold them responsible for all the evils that have descended upon us, and we're right; but we can't get on without them. To-morrow, from indolence or weakness of will, we shall give ourselves back into their clutches."
Thursday, June 24, 1915 Walking on the Islands this afternoon with Madame V----- I told her of all the discouraging remarks Suvorin made to me yesterday. "You may be perfectly certain," she said, that there are thousands of Russians who think the same. Turgueniev knew all about us, and in one of his novels he has written that the Russian displays an amazing mastria in bringing all his schemes to naught. We start out to climb the sky. But no sooner are we off than we discover that the sky is a very long way up. Then our only thought is to tumble down as soon as possible, incidentally hurting ourselves as much as possible."
Friday, June 25, 1915. This morning the Emperor left for General Headquarters at Baranovici; the ministers have gone with him, as there is to be an important conference with the Grand Duke Nicholas. I know that Sazonov, the Finance Minister (Bark), the Minister for Agriculture (Krivoshein) and the Minister of the Interior (Prince Stcherbatov) will do their utmost to secure the immediate convocation of the Duma. Against them they will have the President of the Council (Goremykin), the Minister of Justice (Stcheglovitov), the Minister of Communications (Ruhklov) and the Procurator of the Holy Synod (Sabler). Before leaving Tsarskoe-Selo the Emperor of his own volition took a decision which was long overdue. He has relieved General Sukhomlinov, the War Minister, of his functions and appointed as his successor General Alexis Andreevitch Polivanov, a member of the Council of Empire. A heavy burden of responsibility rests on General Sukhomlinov's shoulders. In the munitions crisis he played a part which was both baneful and mysterious. On September 28 of last year, in answer to a question I had put to him officially from General Joffre, he assured me in a note that all measures were being taken to secure for the Russian armies all the munitions it might need for a long war. I was talking to Sazonov about this note a week ago and he asked me to lend it to him to show it to the Emperor; the latter was simply astounded at it. Not only had no steps been taken to provide for the growing needs of the Russian artillery, but since then General Sukhomlinov has insidiously devoted himself to frustrating all the innovations suggested to him with a view to developing the manufacture of shell. His attitude has been strange and enigmatical; perhaps we must seek an explanation in the Minister of War's fierce hatred of the Grand Duke Nicholas. He has never forgiven the latter for being appointed generalissimo at the very moment he thought himself certain of the post. General Polivanov is clever, energetic and hard-working he has a sense of organization and discipline. He is also credited with liberal opinions which will make him popular with the Duma.
Monday, June 28, 1915. Sazonov, who has just returned from General Headquarters, brings back good impressions, at any rate as regards the spirit animating the High Command. "The Russian army," he told me, "will continue its retreat as slowly as possible, snatching every available opportunity of counter-attacking and worrying the enemy. If the Grand Duke Nicholas ascertains that the Germans are withdrawing some of their troops to transfer them to the western front, he will immediately resume the offensive. The plan of campaign he has adopted enables him to hope that our troops will be able to hold Warsaw for another two months. I certainly found an excellent spirit prevailing in the staff." On the political side he told me that the Emperor is about to appeal to all the forces and resources of the country in a formal rescript which will simultaneously announce the meeting of the Duma in the near future. The Polish question was also examined. The Emperor has decreed the formation of a committee, with six Russian and six Polish members under the chairmanship of Goremykin, which is to establish the basis of the autonomous regime promised to the kingdom by the manifesto of August 16, 1914. The Minister of Justice, Stcheglovitov, and the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Sabler, implored the Emperor to give up this idea, representing that the autonomy of any part of the Empire is incompatible with the sacrosanct principles of autocratic absolutism. Their persistence annoyed the Emperor instead of convincing him. It is even thought that they are going to be dismissed
Tuesday, June 29, 1915. The cacophony of the Balkan negotiations is continuing. It is quite impossible to reconcile the competing and conflicting claims of Serbia, Rumania, Greece and Bulgaria! To make the problem even more insoluble, the general retreat of the Russian armies has robbed us of all respect and prestige in Nish as in Bucharest, in Athens as in Sofia---especially Sofia. I can picture the vindictive glee and the hilarious and sardonic laughter with which Tsar Ferdinand must be marking off the retirement of the Russians on the map every morning. How often has he given vent to his hatred of Russia before me in the old days! Since the second Balkan War that hatred has become, a morbid obsession, as it is mainly to the policy of Russia that he attributes his final disaster of 1913. And I remember how in November of that year, meeting King Alphonso III in Vienna, he remarked to him. "I shall have my revenge against Russia, and it. will be a terrible revenge!"
Wednesday, June 30, 1915. This morning the Press publishes an imperial rescript, dated June 27. addressed to the President of the Council: From all parts of our native land I am receiving appeals testifying that all Russians desire to devote their strength and resources to supplying the army. From this unanimous expression of the national will I draw the unshakable assurance of a radiant future. This long war perpetually imposes fresh efforts, but we temper our will and steel our hearts to continue the struggle, with God's help, until the full and final triumph of the Russian armies. The enemy must be beaten, otherwise peace is impossible. With an inviolate confidence in the inexhaustible resources of Russia I expect the administrative and public institutions, Russian industry and all faithful sons of the Fatherland, without distinction of class or opinion, to work together with one heart and mind to supply the needs of the army. This is the sole, the national problem to which the thoughts of all Russia---invincible in her unity---must now be drawn. The rescript ends with an announcement of the meeting of the Council of the Empire and the Duma in the immediate future.
Thursday, July 1, 1915. During recent weeks all the Jews inhabiting Eastern Lithuania and Courland have been expelled en masse, by order of the High Command. They are being driven off in the direction of Jitomir, Kiev and Pultava. As usual the Russian authorities have proceeded with this operation without the slightest preparation, have shown no consideration whatever and acted with ruthless brutality. The Jewish population of Kovno, for example, a population of 40,000 souls, was warned in the evening of May 3 that it had forty-eight hours in which to leave the town. At all points the evacuation has been marked by tragic incidents, infamous acts of violence and scenes of looting and arson. Simultaneously there has been a fresh wave of anti-Semitism all over the empire. If the Russian armies are beaten, of course it is the fault of the Jews. The reactionary journal, the Volga, wrote a few days ago: People of Russia, look round and see who is your real enemy. The Jew! No pardon for the Jew! From generation to generation this race, the accursed of God, has been hated and despised by all. The blood of the sons of Holy Russia, which they betray every day, cries aloud for vengeance! The number of Jews expelled from Poland, Lithuania and Courland since the beginning of the war, and exposed to the same unhappy lot, exceeds 600,000
Friday, July 2, 1915. I went for a walk on the Islands about eleven o'clock this evening. How fairy-like is the loveliness of these "white nights" of the summer solstice. Is it twilight still? Or already dawn? One cannot tell. A milky, diffuse, iridescent light fills all space to the depths of the zenith. A haze of pearl and opal hovers over the waters. There is not a breath of air. Trees, banks, paths, the distant horizon, the whole landscape are bathed in a religious calm, a sort of infinite sweetness. It might be called the region of the lost, the resort of spirits, the elysian meadows; you look for the shade of Dido, the Phoenician, wandering under the myrtle: Inter quas Phoenissa, recens a vulnere Dido Errabat silva in magna....
Saturday, July 3, 1915. The imperial rescript which was published three days ago is causing great excitement. Everyone demands the immediate summoning of the Duma and some go so far as to claim that henceforward ministers shall be responsible to Parliament---a change which would mean nothing less than the end of autocracy. There is considerable unrest among the workmen. One of my informers, B -----, has notified me of a recrudescence of socialist propaganda in the barracks, particularly in the Guards' barracks. The Pavlovsky and Volhynian regiments are said to be more or less contaminated.
Monday, July 5, 1915. Between the Bug and the Vistula the Austro-Germans are continuing their march on Lublin. The Russian army is retiring, by swift and successive stages, on positions it has to abandon practically at once, owing to lack of arms and ammunition.
Saturday, July 10, 1915. Grube, the President of the Bank of Siberia, whose perspicacity I have often had occasion to admire, arrived here yesterday from Sofia, where he had gone on business. He came to see me this morning and gave me his impressions: "Neither Radoslavov's Government nor any other," he said, "will be able to announce its adhesion to the allied powers unless at the same moment it announces their consent to Bulgaria's annexing Western Macedonia immediately. On that point there is no doubt. As for the Tsar Ferdinand, he has been definitely won over by the Teuton empires." I broke in: "Definitely! Are you sure?" "Radoslavov, Tontchev, Ghenadiev, Danev and everyone else have told me so." "We shall fail in everything if we have Tsar Ferdinand against us. But, fortunately, it's always possible to do something with him as he has an eminently diplomatic, crafty and elastic mind. On him we must concentrate all our persuasive powers." As soon as he had gone I went to the Foreign Office and discussed this conversation with Sazonov. We were at one in thinking that it is essential to concentrate all our efforts on Tsar Ferdinand; then we looked into the various arguments which may still give us some chance of winning him over to our cause. "The vital thing," said Sazonov, "is to convince him that in the long run it is we who will win." "That's not enough. We must go further and let him think that our victory depends to a large extent on him, and that in some ways the fate of Europe and the world lies in his hands. This man's self-conceit exceeds anything you can imagine. Our first business is to intrigue and capture his self-conceit." Then we discussed a more delicate subject. When I was at Sofia four years ago the financial position of Tsar Ferdinand was very precarious; he was heavily in debt. His lack of system, luxurious and exotic tastes, and inability to deny himself the indulgence of his dilettantism and love of display had plunged him into cruel embarrassments, which must have been made even worse by the two Balkan Wars. Wouldn't it be possible to come to the rescue? "The offer," I said, "would be a delicate matter. But with certain precautions as to form, and a guarantee of absolute secrecy. . . . Above all, if the offer came from high up, the Emperor, for instance ......" Sazonov smiled: "Of course, the Emperor is indicated. . ."
Then he confided to me that about the end of 1912 the Tsar of the Bulgarians, suffering from "a terrible attack of impecuniosity," as Panurge expressed it, begged the Emperor Nicholas to lend him three million francs: "I strongly advised the Emperor to decline; Ferdinand is not the sort of friend you get through gratitude. But you know how kind the Emperor is; he let himself be moved by the piteous jeremiads of the Coburg. I persisted all the same, with the excuse that such a loan could not be a charge on the secret service fund. The Emperor then decided to find the money from his privy purse. Next day General Volkov gave me three million francs, which I at once sent on to Sofia. Ferdinand gave the receipt to our minister, Nekludov. I have it there, in my safe." "You took a receipt from Ferdinand! What a mistake! You ruined the whole business with that receipt. . . . That the three millions were lost anyhow was a certainty beforehand: you might just as well have thrown them into the Black Sea. But from the moment the sacrifice was made there was only one chance of extracting a nebulous moral advantage out of it---to affect a blind trust in Ferdinand's mere word, his religion of honour, the beauty of his soul and the well-known honesty of his views. He's the vainest of men. The idea that you have his signed receipt for three millions in your archives must be a crushing humiliation and an intolerable insult to him. He'll never forgive Russia for that! "
Monday, July 12, 1915. From all I hear, the citizens of Moscow are utterly furious with high social and Court circles in Petrograd, whom they accuse of having completely lost touch with national feeling, hoping for defeat and preparing the way for a betrayal. The duel, which has been in progress for nearly two hundred years, between the metropolis of orthodox Slavism and Peter the Great's artificial capital, has never perhaps been so embittered, even in the heroic epoch of the struggle between Zapadnichestvo and Slavianophilstvo, Westernism and Slavophilism. At the time to which I refer, about 1860, that ardent idealist, Constantine Aksakov, addressed these fiery lines to the memory of Peter the Great: You misunderstood Russia and her whole past. The brand of the accursed is therefore set upon your senseless' heart. Ruthlessly did you repudiate Moscow, and away from your people you built a solitary city; for it was no longer possible for you to live together. About the same date his brother, Ivan Aksakov, wrote to Dostoevski: "The first essential to the resurrection of national feeling among us is that we loathe St. Petersburg with all our might, from the bottom of our hearts. Let us spit upon it."
Tuesday, July 13, 1915. This evening my guests at dinner have been Sir George and Lady Georgina Buchanan, the Duc de Morny and a few close personal friends in the embassy. It is some time since the Duc de Morny came to Petrograd, where he is trying to obtain army supply contracts on behalf of an American syndicate. Although he is not altogether presentable and the business in which he is engaged does not seem to me any too patriotic, I invited him out of consideration for his father and to prevent anyone from thinking that the French Embassy is closed to him. It was on the eve of the Congress of Paris, in August, 1856, that the Comte de Morny(#3) came to St. Petersburg to renew relations between France and Russia. The brilliance of his term of office has often been extolled, but there is something better to say of it. Morny was, in the highest degree, a realist. He had calculated with the greatest shrewdness the benefits the Napoleonic dynasty could reap from the outstanding position in which the Crimean War had placed it. All his correspondence is a model of wisdom and perspicacity. He hated verbiage. Highly sceptical by temperament, he was never the dupe of anything or anyone, not even himself. In his relations with Alexander II and Gortchakov he displayed marvellous dexterity and an elastic, subtle and caressing method. He wanted to make a definite alliance out of the understanding Count Orlov had so successfully worked to bring about between the two Courts during the Paris negotiations. His conception of this alliance had those characteristics of accurate judgment and downright realism which were the law of his intellect. But he was the servant of a very different being, an emperor who lived on dreams, and dreams alone, and took no pleasure in aught save vast and nebulous plans, and chimerical and complicated schemes. It was not Morny's views which won the day, but the theory of nationalities. After 1857 French policy started on that long series of errors which, by inevitable logic, was to culminate in Sedan. Unfortunately there was always a secret blemish about Morny; the reverse of the medal lacked refinement and pride. The brilliance of his embassy was counter-balanced by ignoble commercial dealings---the sale of pictures, wine and horses. His term of office ended in a scandal. On January 7, 1857, he had married a perfectly charming girl, Princess Sophie Sergueevna Troubetzko, an orphan and maid-of-honour to the Dowager Empress. Now he had left behind him in Paris a notorious and long-standing liaison with the celebrated Countess Lehon, ne Mosselmann, wife of the Belgian minister under the July Monarchy. It had not been merely a linking of hearts and passions, for material interests also had taken a prominent place. About 1840, when Morny left the army and was merely a needy manabout-town, the Countess, a woman of immense wealth, supplied him with the means to make his fortune. The speculations on which they jointly embarked, the one bringing her money and the other his well-directed energy, had succeeded. A sort of financial and commercial partnership had thus gradually taken the place of the two lovers' first ecstasies. After the coup d'tat of December Morny had unashamedly thrown himself into speculation on the Stock Exchange; the Countess had found it highly profitable. Unfortunately Morny was feeling this chain a burden. His rank in the empire and the immense prospects opening to his ambition made him extremely anxious to found a family. His marriage with young Princess Troubetzko had been arranged in the most complete secrecy. When Countess Lehon heard of the event she breathed fire and slaughter:
Notumque furens quid femina possit. The deserted Ariana went openly to the courts and demanded the liquidation of the partnership which still subsisted between herself and the faithless lover, and she employed Rouher as her advocate. To avert the shameful exposure of an action, and revelations in which the rgime would have been involved, Napoleon III intervened; he himself decided the apportionment of the assets in dispute. But simultaneously he recalled his ambassador, though by way of throwing dust in the public eye he restored him to the post of President of the Corps Lgislatif. After dinner, in a conversation with Madame S-----, who has a taste for history, I reconstructed for her the extraordinary genealogy of my guest: "In his veins he has the blood of the Beauharnais through Queen Hortense, the blood of Talleyrand through his grandfather, Charles de Flahaut, and the blood of Louis XV through the same Charles de Flahaut's mother, ne Filleul." "I know all about the Queen Hortense side. But I don't understand how Talleyrand, and particularly Louis XV, come in. Please explain." "It's like this. When Charles de Flahaut, who was Queen Hortense's lover, was born in 1785, his mother, the Countess Adelaide, had been for five years the admitted mistress of Talleyrand, who was then known as the Abb de Prigord. There has never been any doubt about the paternity of the latter. On the other side the Countess de Flahaut was the daughter of a Madame Filleul, whose husband held some minor post at the palace of Versailles. This lady was very pretty: she helped Louis XV to pass several pleasant evenings in the little private rooms of the Parc-auxCerfs. A daughter, Adelaide, was born of this royal caprice." "You are very learned," replied Madame S------, "but you don't know all. Your genealogical tree is not complete." "What else can there be?" "There's the fact that your guest of to-night, that man standing over there, probably has the blood of the Romanovs also in him." "Really! How? " "Sophie Troubetzko, who married Morny, was the only child of a Princess Sergei Troubetzko, whose amorous adventures were the subject of much talk about 1835. It has always been said that she was the mistress of Nicholas I and that her daughter was also his. Proof may be lacking, but there are several weighty indications. After the death of Princess Sergei, for example, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, widow of the Emperor Nicholas, took young Sophie into her household, and two years later, when Morny asked her hand in marriage, the Emperor Alexander II gave her a dowry.
Wednesday, July 14, 1915. The critical situation of the Russian army has resulted in a conference of the allied High Commands, which met on July 7 at Chantilly, with the French generalissimo presiding. General Joffre laid it down that when one of the allied armies has to meet the enemy's main effort it is the duty of its partners on the other fronts to come to the rescue: "In August and September, 1914," he continued, "the Russians took the offensive in East Prussia and Galicia with a view to easing the situation for the Anglo-French armies which had been obliged to retire before the onslaught of almost the entire German forces. To-day the situation of the Russians demands similar action on the Anglo-French side. It is a matter of honour as well as interest.... On the western front, the offensive begun by the French army on May 9 last in the plain of Arras tied down a considerable number of German troops which would otherwise have been sent east; but this offensive did not lead to the rupture of the enemy's lines nor put a stop to the advance of the Germans on the Russian front. . . ." After giving certain details he came to the following conclusions: (1) On the western front the French armies cannot undertake an operation on the grand scale for a few weeks, in view of the necessity of completing its ammunition supply and carrying out certain troop movements. This lapse of time will enable England to send more troops to France, in particular six divisions which are due to arrive at the beginning of August. This operation may bring about the liberation of French territory, and will in any case materially relieve the situation of the Russian army. (2) On the Italo-Serbian front the common interest requires that the offensive already begun shall be continued by the Italian army with all its might. If the Italians apprehend an attack from Germany on their front they can provisionally limit their effort to reaching the region of Laibach-Klagenfurt. That will put them in an advantageous position to continue their offensive in the direction of Vienna and Pesth. It is essential for the Serbian army also to resume the offensive at once. The present moment is particularly favourable for a movement along the Save, with the object of joining up with the Italians and enveloping Bosnia-Herzegovina. In a word, for reasons of honour as well as urgent necessity it is absolutely essential that the Anglo-French and Italo-Serbian armies should start a vigorous offensive as soon as possible." The Council adopted these propositions.
Sunday, July 18, 1915. During the last three days the dangerous position of the Russian armies has taken a serious turn for the worse: they have not only to struggle against the irresistible Austro-German thrust between the Bug and the Vistula but have also to meet a double offensive which the enemy has
just opened in the north-on the Narev front and in Courland. In the Narev region the Germans have carried the Mlava lines and made 17,000 prisoners. In Courland they have crossed the Windawa, captured Windau and are threatening Mitau, which is only fifty kilometres from Riga. This situation seems to be fortifying the Emperor in the frame of mind he so opportunely demonstrated by his manifesto of June 27. He has, for instance, just dismissed the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Sabler, the tool of the pacifist and Germanophile coterie, and Rasputin's man. His successor is Alexander Dimitrievitch Samarin, Marshal of the Nobility of the Government of Moscow. He has great social position and a noble patriotism, and is a man of broad and strong views. It is an excellent choice.
Monday, July 19, 1915. The same misfortune which yesterday overtook the Procurator of the Holy Synod has to-day come upon the Minister of Justice, Stcheglovitov, whose absolutist and reactionary views are in no way less violent than those of Sabler. His successor is Alexander Alexeevitch Khvostov, member of the Council of Empire, and an honest and neutral tchinovnik. The successive dismissals of Maklakov, Sukhomlinov, Sabler and Stcheglovitov leave not a single minister in the Government who is not a partisan of the Alliance and bent on carrying through the war. It may be noted, too, that Sabler and Stcheglovitov were the principal supporters of Rasputin. Countess N----- said to me: "The Emperor has taken advantage of his visit to the Stavka to take these serious decisions. He has consulted no one, not even the Empress. When the news reached Tsarskoe-Selo, Alexandra Feodorovna was absolutely thunderstruck; she actually refused to credit it. Rasputin says that all this means great disasters in the future."
Tuesday, July 20, 1915. I have had a talk with the Chief of Staff of the army. General Bielaev showed me the position of the Russian armies on the map. In Southern Poland, between the Bug and the Vistula, their line runs through Grubieszov, Krasnostav and Josephov, thirty kilometres south of Lublin. In the vicinity of Warsaw they have abandoned the course of the Bzura and Ravka and retired on the arc of a circle passing through
Novo-Georgievsk, Golovin, Blonie and Grodisk, where a strongly entrenched position has been prepared. In the Narev region they are holding approximately on the line of the river, between Novo-Georgievsk and Ostrolenka. West of the Niemen they are defending the approaches to Kovno in the region of Mariampol. In the Courland sector, after evacuating Windau and Tuckum, they are based on Mitau and Shavli. After a few far from reassuring comments on this situation, General Bielaev continued: "You know all about the dearth of munitions. We are not producing more than 24,000 shells a day. It's a pittance for so vast a front! But our shortage of rifles alarms me far more. Just think! In several infantry regiments which have taken part in the recent battles at least one third of the men had no rifles. These poor devils had to wait patiently, under a shower of shrapnel, until their comrades fell before their eyes and they could pick up their arms. It's a perfect marvel under the circumstances that there was no panic. It is quite true that our moujiks have an amazing capacity for endurance and resignation, but that doesn't make it any less ghastly. . One of our army commanders wrote to me the other day: 'At the beginning of the war, when we had gun ammunition and rifles, we were the victors. When the supply of munitions and arms began to give out we still fought brilliantly. To-day, with its artillery and infantry dumb, our army is drowning in its own blood.' For how long will our men survive such a fiery trial? After all, these massacres are perfectly ghastly! We must have rifles, at any cost. Couldn't France part with some. Plead our cause in Paris, please, Ambassador!" I shall plead it most warmly; in fact I mean to telegraph to Paris this very day.
Thursday, July 22, 1915. Rasputin has just left for his native village, Pokrovskoe, near Tiumen, in the government of Tobolsk. His friends, the Rasputristsy (female adorers of Rasputin), as they have been called, claim that he has gone away for a little rest, "on the advice of his doctor," and will soon return. The real truth is that the Emperor has ordered him to make himself scarce. It is the new Procurator of the Holy Synod who has managed to secure this decree of banishment. He had hardly entered upon his new office before Samarin represented to the Emperor that it would be impossible for him to retain it if Rasputin continued secretly to manipulate the ecclesiastical administration. He then invoked his ancient Moscow origins and his title of Marshal of the Nobility, and described the mingled feelings of exasperation and grief which the scandals caused by "Grishka" have aroused in Moscow, feelings in which even the prestige of sovereign majesty is now involved. He ended in decided tones: "The Duma will be meeting in a few days. I know that several deputies are proposing to interrogate me on the subject of Grigory Efimovitch and his underhand plottings. My conscience will compel me to say exactly what I think."
The Emperor simply replied: "All right. I'll consider the matter."
Saturday, July 24, 1915. The Empress's farewell to Rasputin was heartrending. She has promised him to recall him immediately after the session of the Duma, adding through her tears That won't be long!" He replied with his usual threat: "Remember that I need neither the Emperor nor yourself. If you abandon me to my enemies it will not worry me. I'm quite able to cope with them. The demons themselves are helpless against me. . . . But neither the Emperor nor you can do without me. If I am not there to protect you, your son will come to harm!"
Wednesday, July 28, 1915. The Germans have crossed the Vistula, north of Ivangorod, and the Russian position at Lublin is no longer tenable. Sazonov, terribly dejected and agitated, said to me: "For Heaven's sake get your Government to give us rifles! How can you expect our men to fight without rifles? " "I've telegraphed already, at General Bielaev's request. I'll repeat my plea." According to information obtained from the General Staff, a million and a half rifles are needed to wipe out the present deficit. Russian factories are producing only 60,000 a month, though it is hoped that output will reach 90,000 in September and 150,000 in October.
Thursday, July 29, 1915. Crossing the square adjoining the Fontanka, and close to that sinister palace in which Paul I was so expeditiously dispatched on March 23, 1801, I met Alexander Sergueievitch Taneev. Secretary of State, Grand Master of the Court, member of the Council of Empire and Director of
the Emperor's personal Chancellery, Taneev is the father of Anna Vyrubova and one of Rasputin's principal supporters. We walked together in the square for a short distance. He asked me about the war. I professed an unshakable optimism. At first he seemed to agree with everything I said, but before long he was giving rein to his anxieties and gloomy apprehensions in more or less veiled phrases. One point, to which he was always returning, struck me very much; for it was not the first time it had been brought to my notice. "Russian peasants," he said, "have a deep-rooted sense of justice; not legal justice---which they more or less confuse with the police---but moral justice, divine justice. . . . It's a very curious thing: their conscience, which doesn't worry them overmuch as a rule, is none the less so impregnated with the spirit of Christianity that it is always facing them with the problem of rewards and penalties. When a moujik thinks he has been the victim of some piece of injustice he generally submits without a word, because he is a fatalist and naturally meek; but he is always turning the injury over in his mind and telling himself that it will have to be paid for some day, either here below or before the judgment seat of God.... You may be quite certain, Ambassador, that they are saying just the same about the war. They will accept any sacrifice whatever, so long as they feel it is legitimate and necessary, in other words required by the higher interests of Russia, the wishes of the Emperor and the will of God. But if sacrifices are imposed upon them the reason for which they cannot grasp, sooner or later they will demand an account. And when the moujik ceases to be meek he becomes ferocious. That's what frightens me!" As the whole psychology of the Russian people is to be found in Tolstoi, I have only to run through a few volumes to find what Taneev has just told me, presented in the most dramatic form. Seeking for arguments in favour of vegetarianism the apostle of Yasnaa Poliana ends one of his articles with a revolting description of a slaughterhouse: "They were killing a pig. One of the assistants sliced its throat with a knife. The animal began to give forth piercing and lamentable squeals; at one moment it escaped from the hands of its executioner and ran away, blood pouring from its neck. As I am short-sighted I could not see the details of the scene from a distance; all I saw was the body of the pig, which was pink like a human being's. I could hear its despairing squeals. But the coachman with me was gazing fascinated at all that was happening. The pig was caught, and they knocked it down and finished their cutting up. When the squeals had ceased the coachman heaved a deep sigh: 'Is it possible,' he said at length, is it possible that they won't have to answer for all that ?' " During the last three months, in which Russian blood has been flowing in torrents on the plains of Poland and Galicia, how many moujiks must have been thinking: "Is it possible that they won't have to answer for all that."
Friday, July 30, 1915. The new session of the Duma will not begin before three days, but many deputies have already
returned to Petrograd, and there is quite a bustle at the Tauride Palace. From all the provinces the same cry goes up: "Russia is in peril! The Government and the system are responsible for the military disaster. The safety of the country requires the direct help of the National Representative Assembly and permanent supervision by its members. The Russian people are more than ever determined to continue the war to victory . . ." In nearly all circles, too, we hear violent and exasperated attacks on the favouritism, corruption and German influences at Court, General Sukhomlinov, Rasputin and the Empress. On the other hand the deputies of the Extreme Right, the members of the "Black Block," are bewailing the concessions the Emperor has just made to liberalism and raging in favour of uncompromising reaction.
Saturday, July 31, 1915. This morning the Emperor officiated at the launching of the armoured cruiser Borodino, built in the Galerny-Ostrov yards at the mouth of the Neva. The Diplomatic Corps, Court and ministers were present at the ceremony, which has been favoured by brilliant sunshine. On June 22 we were present at the launching of the Ismal on the other side of the river; we had just heard of the evacuation of Lvov. On arriving at Galerny-Ostrov to-day, we heard that the Austro-Germans entered Lublin yesterday and that the Russians are leaving Mitau! The hard, bright sunlight threw up the leaden hue of our faces and the anxious melancholy of our expressions. The Emperor, in an attitude of fixed impassivity, looked wan and absentminded. Several times his lips contracted, as if he were suppressing a yawn. His face barely lit up for a moment as the hull of the Borodino slipped down the ways and entered the waters of the Neva. When the ceremony was over we proceeded to visit the yards. The Emperor was cheered everywhere. Every now and then he stopped for a chat with the workmen and gave them a smiling handshake. When he passed on the cheering redoubled. And yet it was only yesterday that I was notified of alarming symptoms of revolutionary ferment in these same workshops!
Sunday, August 1, 1915. The Duma resumed its sittings to-day, in an atmosphere which is heated, heavy and full of the promise of storm. Men's faces seem charged with electricity; the prevailing expression is anger
or intense apprehension. Speaking in the Emperor's name old Goremykin, the President of the Council, raises his dying voice as much as he can in a declaration that "all our thoughts and endeavours must be concentrated on the prosecution of the war. The Government has only one programme to put before you, the programme of victory." Then General Polivanov, the War Minister, presented the following programme of victory with his practical and enthusiastic vigour: "Our army can conquer only if it feels that it has the whole country behind it, organized to become an immense reservoir from which it can draw inexhaustible supplies of everything it needs." He was cheered as he came down from the tribune, for the sympathy he gets from the Assembly is as marked as was the hatred and contempt meted out to his predecessor, Sukhomlinov. The aftermath of the sitting and lobby talk leave no doubt about the resolution, or rather decisions, of the Duma---to put an end to the abuses and ineptitude of the administration; to seek out those responsible, however highly placed they may be; to make some striking examples; to organize the co-operation of the national representatives with the Government in such a way as to make all the productive resources of the country available for the army; lastly to foster and galvanize in the public mind the unshakable determination to prosecute the war until complete and final victory.
Wednesday, August 4, 1915. I have informed Sazonov that the French Government intensely regrets that it is unable to supply the Russian army with rifles. Consternation of Sazonov. "This refusal," he said, "is a frightful blow!" "It's not a refusal, but the expression of a material impossibility, an utter impossibility." Crestfallen and nodding, he continued: "What on earth shall we do? We need 1,500,000 rifles merely to arm the regiments at the front. We're producing only 50,000 a month. And how can we instruct our depots and recruits?"
Thursday, August 5, 1915.
The debates in the Tauride Palace are becoming more and more lively. Whether in public or secret session there is a constant and implacable diatribe against the conduct of the war. All the faults of the bureaucracy are being denounced and all the vices of Tsarism forced into the limelight. The same conclusion recurs like a refrain: "Enough of lies! Enough of crimes! Reforms! Retribution! We must transform the system from top to bottom!" By three hundred and forty-five votes out of three hundred and seventy-five cast, the Duma has just invited the Government to take proceedings against General Sukhomlinov and all officials guilty of negligence or double-dealing.
Friday, August 6, 1915. The Germans entered Warsaw yesterday. From the strategic point of view the effect of this event is considerable. The Russians are losing the whole of Poland with its immense resources; they will be compelled to retire upon the Bug, the Upper Niemen and the Dvina. But the moral effects make me even more anxious. May it not be that the spasm of national energy, which Russia has been revealing for some time past, risks being choked by this new disaster which leads us to anticipate others---such as the loss of Osowiec, Kovno and Vilna---at short intervals?
Sunday, August 8, 1915. With each new retreat of the Russian armies the police carry the expulsion of the Jews a stage further. As usual, the operation is everywhere carried out in great haste and with equal clumsiness and brutality. Those affected are only notified at the last moment; they have no opportunity or means of taking anything with them. They are hastily crowded into trains, driven like sheep along the roads and not even told their destination, which anyhow changes twenty times during the exodus. Almost everywhere, too, the orthodox population rushes out to loot the Ghetto the moment the order of expulsion is known in a town. Driven away into Podolia, Volhynia, Bessarabia and the Ukraine, these Jews are reduced to a terrible condition of misery. The total number of Jews expelled has reached 800,000. This barbarous practice, inflicted on a whole race under the pretext that its religious atavism lays it collectively open to suspicion of espionage and treason, has at last stirred the wrath of the liberal groups in the Duma. A Jewish deputy from Kovno, Friedmann, gave utterance to an
eloquent protest: "The Russian Jews," he said, "are taking a large part in the war.... The Press has recorded the enrolment of a considerable number of Jewish volunteers. Their education entitled these volunteers to commissioned rank; they knew they would never get it, but enrolled all the same. . . . Several hundred thousand Jews are giving their blood on the battlefields. "But for all that we are witnessing a recrudescence of outrages and iniquities against the Jews. . . . In a long war alternations of success and failure are inevitable, so it is highly convenient to have so-called culprits always available; responsibility for reverses can be imputed to them. A scapegoat in reserve is a perpetual necessity. Alas! at all times it has been the fate of Israel to be that scapegoat! "The enemy had hardly crossed our frontier before an abominable legend became current: The Jews are sending their gold to the Germans; this tainted gold has been found in aeroplanes, coffins, barrels of vodka and breasts of duck and mutton! Spread and authenticated by the authorities, this legend has been accepted everywhere. "Next we saw a series of abominable measures applied to the Jews, measures unknown to any race in the whole course of history. . . It is the height of iniquity to accuse a whole race of treason. So infamous a calumny could only have seen the light in a despotic country, a country in which Jews are deprived of the most elementary rights. I tell Russia to her face, and the civilized world to its face, that the accusation against the Jews is naught but an ignoble lie, invented by men who are trying to cover up their own crimes."
Monday, August 9, 1915. Sazonov and I have been discussing the curious kind of isolation which the Emperor and Empress have imposed upon themselves. He bewails the fact: "It's perfectly deplorable! They've gradually created a void about themselves; no one goes near them now. The Empress's health has given them an excuse to give up even family parties. Why, it's quite a business for a Grand Duke or Grand Duchess to get an audience of Their Majesties. Apart from the Emperor's official relations with his ministers, no voice from outside ever reaches this house. As I was coming out the other day, I saw the Vyrubova going in. I sadly reflected: there goes their usual company, their only company. That's what the Court of Russia--once so brilliant and gay---has come to!" "I was under the impression that even in the preceding reign the Court had lost all its gaiety and splendour." "Yes, but nothing compared to what it's like now! It's quite true that Alexander III and Marie Feodorovna, who were very simple in their tastes, were only too glad to extend their visits at Gatchina. But from autumn to Easter there were splendid balls and concerts at the Winter Palace, not to mention private receptions in the Anitchkov Palace. Grand Dukes and Grand
Duchesses, the diplomatic corps, generals, ministers and high officials were continually being invited to the imperial table. Quite frequently the sovereigns accepted invitations to supper with ambassadors and members of the Russian aristocracy such as the Bariatinskys, Balachovs, Cheremetievs, Orlovs, Kotchubeys and Yussupovs . . . . . Of course, at Gatchina court life was much more quiet and simple. A minimum of ceremonial! "The sovereigns considered the sumptuous apartments built for the Emperor Paul much too imposing for their liking; they lived on the ground floor in a suite of small, low rooms, narrow, badly decorated and furnished, and extremely uncomfortable. Alexander III, who was a giant, could touch the ceiling with his hand. "I remember going there once on a call of which I have amusing recollections. I was then a very young attach of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I had been sent to make a list of presents Their Majesties were giving the Danish Court on the occasion of some marriage; they had had them brought to Gatchina. I went to the palace and was handed over to the Empress's first chambermaid, who took me straight into Marie Feodorovna's own room. All the presents were set out on a table. I had soon made my list. Then I had a look round and innocently expressed my surprise at finding my sovereigns so poorly lodged: said I to the chambermaid: 'Why have Their Majesties chosen this room? ' She put her fingers to her lips and replied---'Because they can't find anything more ugly and uncomfortable.'"
Tuesday, August 10, 1915. Bulgaria and the Teutonic powers are becoming more and more intimate. A syndicate of German and Austro-Hungarian banks has just opened a credit of 120,000,000 francs for the Bulgarian Treasury. Simultaneously Radoslavov has announced through his official Press that the recent victories of the German army in Poland have "broken Russia's back," and the whole political edifice of the Entente is about to collapse.
Friday, August 13, 1915. The leader---and a very energetic leader---of "National Liberalism," Brantchaninov, ex-officer of the guard and Prince Gortchakov's son-in-law, asked me yesterday to receive him for a long and confidential talk. I had him here this afternoon, and accustomed though I am to his lugubrious outlook, I was very much struck with the grave, set and melancholy expression of his face. "I've never been so anxious," he said. "Russia is in peril of death. Never before in her history has she been in such great danger. She has had the German virus in her veins for two centuries, and
now it's killing her. The only thing that can save her now is a national revolution." "A revolution in time of war! You're not thinking of that!" "Yes, indeed, I am. The revolution, as I see and desire it, would be a violent release of all the dynamic forces of the nation, a sublime resurrection of all Slav energies. After a few days of unavoidable troubles, perhaps even a month of disorder and paralysis, Russia would rise again with a grandeur you cannot imagine. Then you'd see what the moral resources of the Russian nation are! It has inexhaustible reserves of courage, enthusiasm and magnanimity. It's the greatest centre of idealism in the world!" "I don't doubt it, but the Russian nation also has the terrible seed of social disintegration and national dislocation. You tell me that a revolution would mean not more than a month at most of disorder and paralysis. How can you tell? One of your compatriots, as intelligent and sagacious as anyone I know, confided to me the other day how horribly alarmed he was at the menace of a revolution. 'With us,' he said, 'revolution can only mean destruction and devastation. If God does not avert it, it will be equally terrible and interminable. Ten years of anarchy!' He supported his prognostication by practical and psychological arguments which seemed to me convincing. You can imagine that in the light of that prophecy I have my doubts about your so-called national revolution." But this did not prevent him from continuing to extol the magical regenerative effects he expects from a popular rising. "It's at the top, the head, we must strike first." he said. "The Emperor could be maintained on his throne, for though he's weak-willed, he's patriotic enough at heart. But the Empress and her sister, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Abbess of Moscow, must be shut up in some convent in the Urals; that's what one of our great Tsars of old would have done with them. Then the whole Potsdam Court, the coterie of Baltic barons and the Vyrubova-cum-Rasputin camarilla must be banished to the depths of Siberia. Lastly, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch must immediately give up his post as generalissimo. . . . " "The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch! Do you suspect his patriotism? Don't you consider him Russian and anti-German enough? What next? Why, I like to regard him as the champion of Holy Russia, orthodox, autocratic and nationalist Russia!" "I'll grant you that he is a patriot and a man of iron will, but he's in no way equal to his task. He's not a leader, but an ikon. What we need is a leader." He concluded with a picture---a picture only too accurate---of the army: "It is still splendid as regards heroism and self-denial. But it has lost its faith in victory; it feels itself sacrificed beforehand, like animals led to the slaughter. One day, quite soon, perhaps, there will be utter discouragement, mere passive submission. It will go on retiring indefinitely; there'll be no fight or resistance left in it. When that day comes our German gang will triumph. We shall be compelled to make peace---and what a peace!" I argued that the military situation, bad though it may be, is anything but desperate, that the national movement, of which the Duma has taken charge, is well calculated to inspire
confidence, and that with perseverance, method and energy all the mistakes of the past can yet be redeemed. "No!" he exclaimed, with a fierce, dark look. "No, no! The Duma is not equal to a struggle with the official or occult forces at the disposal of the German party. I'll bet you that within two months it will be reduced to impotence or dissolved. It's the whole political system that has to be changed. Our last chance of salvation is in a national coup d'tat. The situation is far graver than you think, Ambassador. Do you know what was said to me only an hour ago by the Octobrist leader, the President of the Central Committee of Industrials, Alexander Ivanovitch Gutchkov, a man to whom you would certainly not deny foresight or courage? With tears in his eyes he said to me: 'Russia is lost. All hope has gone!' "
Saturday, August 14, 1915. To-day's sitting of the Duma has been occupied by a grave and pathetic debate. The subject under discussion was the creation of a munitions Committee to be placed over the Ministry of War. The debate gradually widened out and developed into an attack on the regime. It was Adjemov, the deputy for Novocherkassk and one of the most impassioned speakers of the "Cadet" party, who applied the match to the powder: "From the beginning of the war public opinion has fully realized the character and scale of the struggle; it has understood that unless the whole country was organized victory was impossible. But the Government, on the other hand, has never understood it, and when public opinion has made the situation clear it has refused to understand it and contemptuously turned away all who came with offers of help. The fact is that the War Ministry had its official contractors; orders were kept in the family; there was a whole system of favours, preferences and privileges. The result is that the country, far from being organized, has been thrown into the ghastly disorder Now, at last, the Government realizes that without the help of all our social institutions our armies cannot be victorious; it admits that wholesale reform is necessary and that it must be carried through by us. That, gentlemen, is a victory for public opinion; it is also the lesson of this terrible epoch. Mr. Lloyd George said recently in the House of Commons that the Germans, in showering shell upon our soldiers, were breaking the chains of the Russian people. It is the literal truth. The Russian people is now free and about to organize itself for victory!" This peroration was greeted by a storm of cheering on the benches of the Left and the Centre. Excited by this thundery atmosphere, the socialist deputy Tchenkeli, bounded on to the tribune and fulminate against "the tyranny of Tsarism which has brought Russia to the abyss." But he was soon indulging in such insults that the President refused to allow him to continue. In any case his personal attacks have produced considerable ill-feeling among the Centre and Left parties, whose liberalism is still monarchical. The debate resumed its full scale with the great Moscow lawyer, Basil Maklakov. In a powerful
argument he demonstrated the necessity of creating a Munitions Committee, outside the War Ministry, and entrusting the higher direction of the technical services to a Director-General, who should be responsible to this Committee. In so doing he was attacking that omnipotence of the bureaucracy which is the very heart and soul of autocracy. After showing that "Russia is the perfect type of a state in which men are not in their right place," he continued: "Most of the administrative appointments are scandalous and a challenge to public opinion. Yet when a mistake is admitted, as is occasionally the case, it is impossible to put it right: the prestige of sovereign power does not permit that. The new Government, whose task it is to conquer Germany, will soon realize that it is far more difficult to conquer officialdom. . . . "In the serious times through which we are passing it is essential to put an end to all this. The country is exhausting itself in sacrifice. We, its representatives, are also making many sacrifices; we are postponing many of our demands and keeping a tight rein on our anger. Forgetting our grievances and legitimate hatreds, we are helping everything we used to fight against, and it gives us the right to demand that the Government shall act in the same way towards us, rise above all considerations of party or personal feeling and adopt one motto and one motto only: The right men in the right place! " The Right, thoroughly uncomfortable but still patriotic, and forced to recognize that the vices of bureaucracy are ruining Russia, voted with the majority for the creation of a Munitions Committee. Henceforth issue is joined between the bureaucratic caste and the representatives of the nation. Will they take a lofty view of the common interest and make up their quarrel? The whole future of Russia depends upon the answer. By an unexpected development this exciting sitting included by way of epilogue, a moving tribute to Poland. And it was Purishkevitch, the fiery deputy of the Extreme Right, a fanatical russificator, whose remorse-stricken conscience drove him to the language the occasion required: It would be an unpardonable sin against the Russian state and Russian honour not to recognize in this House what the Poles have done and are doing for us. Who could say all that they have suffered and endured to help us to victory! Yet they might have taken up another attitude. The Baltic peoples, for example, races for which Russia has done so much, have shown us the blackest ingratitude. The Poles, on the other hand, though they can charge us with many wrongs towards them, have proved themselves among the most loyal and stalwart defenders of the country. And now, alas! the Russian armies have had to abandon Warsaw, the sanctuary of the Polish soul. Adam Mickiewicz's words come to mind involuntarily: Shall we find among us the magic word that can chase away despair, shake off the heavy burden from our hearts, dry the stream of tears upon our cheeks and gloriously give us back all that is dead? . . . But the Poles are not giving way to despair. There are no tears on their cheeks, but in their hearts there is an even deeper hatred of the common foe, an even greater faith in ultimate victory. Then let us now bless that glorious day to come when unified Slavism will triumph. May it bring us, with the reestablishment of our prestige, the realization of that desire which is so dear to the heart of Poland---the autonomy of the Polish people under the sceptre of the Tsar."
Sunday, August 18, 1915. Yesterday the Germans carried the outer lines covering Kovno, between the Niemen and the Esia. Simultaneously they have crossed the Bug at Dragiczin, thus piercing the Russian lines between the Nurzec and the Narev. . This evening I dined at Tsarskoe-Selo with the Grand Duke Paul. After interrogating me anxiously about the progress of the German offensive in Lithuania, Countess Hohenfelsen said to me: "I wanted to give you a family party, with the Grand Duke and my children alone, but when the Empress heard you were dining with us she suggested to Madame Vyrubova to get herself invited too, so that she could ask you what you think of the situation." Madame Vyrubova has not yet recovered from her terrible accident on January 15, and she arrived on crutches. She is very much fatter owing to having been confined to bed so long. She was dressed in the plainest and most provincial style. Round her neck was a string of pearls not worth a thousand roubles. No royal favourite ever looked more unpretentious. I affected optimism during the meal, when the conversation was heavy and disjointed. On rising from table, Madame Vyrubova asked me to sit down and talk to her. After producing a deep sigh from the recesses of her capacious bosom, she wailed with her full, soft lips: "Oh, what dreadful times we're living in, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur! Every day we get bad news, and every day it gets worse! . . . Their Majesties are very sad and anxious! When they heard that I was dining in your company this evening they commissioned me to ask you your real and honest opinion about the misfortunes that have overtaken us. It is a service they expect of you as a friend. What message can I take them from you? Are you really as confident as you seemed to be just now, during dinner? I've promised the Empress to give her your answer this very night." "I will admit that what I said went far beyond what I really think; but I have no right to say anything different, even to close personal friends. . . . In my heart of hearts I am very uneasy, and I can see more bad times coming. But I retain my confidence in the future because it seems to me that the Emperor has recently had a series of excellent inspirations. The declarations his ministers have just read to the Duma in his name correspond so entirely with my own ideas that I see nothing to add to, or subtract from them. All I desire is that His Majesty should firmly keep to this course, the great national course, the great historic course in which Russia has always found salvation in the hour of danger." Madame Vyrubova followed all this very closely. At times she echoed my words in a stammering, subdued voice, as if to engrave them more deeply on her memory. She made no
personal comment and I felt as if I were talking into a phonograph. I then enlarged on the munitions question and the splendid programme which the Zemstvos, municipalities and private industries aim at realizing in order to create technical equipment adequate for the needs of the army. By way of conclusion I vigorously asserted the necessity of allowing the country to co-operate with the Government: "The strength of Russia has always lain in the intimate association of the sovereign and the people. The great Tsars of old were not only collectors of Russian soil: at critical moments they were collectors of Russian souls also. In following the tradition of his ancestors, the Emperor Nicholas has taken a noble view of his duty. Tell him that I beg him henceforth to set this duty above all others. In my eyes it is the one critical essential of victory." "Yes, yes," she murmured with her thick tongue, "I'll tell Their Majesties exactly what you say." At half-past nine a servant announced Madame Vyrubova's carriage. Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, may I ask you one last question, the Empress told me on no account to forget? Do you think the Germans will come to Petrograd? It would be horrible!" "The Germans at Petrograd!" I cried. "Why, they are more than five hundred versts away! Besides, there are the Pskov lines and in any case we shall soon have the autumn mud and winter snows. And by the spring I confidently anticipate that the Russian army will be resuming a victorious offensive." After thanking me very warmly, she went out on her crutches. As she was leaving, I observed her thick, gleaming hair, narrow skull, fat, red neck, clammy back, huge thighs---a mound of warm and ample flesh. I am horrified to think that anyone so thoroughly mediocre, so lacking in physical and mental refinement, can have any influence in times like these on the destinies of Russia! When the Grand Duke, Countess Hohenfelsen and I were alone once more, I told them what I had just said to Madame Vyrubova. In accents of terror the Grand Duke asked me: "Aren't you very alarmed at the situation at home?. . . These debates in the Duma are perfectly shocking! We're heading straight for revolution! The first steps have been taken! . . . Don't you feel that the Emperor and Empress are marked down already?" "No, I don't think either the Emperor or Empress is actually menaced, though the public is exasperated with the Empress. In fact I know some people who are talking of nothing less than shutting her up in a convent in the Urals or Siberia." "What! Shut the Empress up in a convent! . . . Do they think the Emperor will let anyone touch his wife? They can't! So the next thing is to kill the Emperor and overthrow the dynasty. . . . And what will they put in its place? The Russian nation is incapable of governing itself: it has no political education. Nine-tenths of the population cannot read or write. The working classes are corrupted through and through with anarchism; all that the peasants think about is dividing up the estates. You can overthrow a political system in that way but you can't set up a Government
in its place!" Then, as if his feelings were too much for him, he strode up and down the room several times without uttering a word. At length he stopped in front of me, crossed his arms and said, with his eyes flashing horror: "If revolution breaks out, its barbarity will exceed anything ever known. . . . It will be hellish. . . . Russia won't survive it!" About half-past ten I motored back to Petrograd. A chilly mist, autumn's herald, enveloped the huge plain in which the capital is set. Gloomy thoughts possessed my mind. How often have I brought back gloomy thoughts from Tsarskoe-Selo?
Wednesday, August 18, 1915. This evening the Germans entered Kovno, after carrying the fortress by storm. At the confluence of the Vistula and the Bug they have carried the outer forts of NovoGeorgievsk. Further south they are approaching Brest-Litovsk. The capture of Kovno has resulted in terrible agitation in the lobbies of the Duma; the disaster is put down to the incapacity of the Grand Duke Nicholas; treachery on the part of the German party is alleged.
Thursday, August 19, 1915. This morning Sazonov has the fevered look and pallid hue of bad times: "Come and listen to what I've just heard from Sofia," he said. "Not that I'm the least bit surprised." He read me a telegram from Savinsky telling him that, judging by a confidential report which could be relied on, the Bulgarian Government is henceforth determined to support the Teutonic powers and attack Serbia.
Friday, August 20, 1915. The fortress of Novo-Georgievsk, the last Russian rampart in Poland, is in the hands of the Germans. The whole garrison, approximately 85,000 men, has been captured. My Japanese colleague, Motono, who has just spent a few days in Moscow, has satisfied himself that the public there is very sound on the war: there is determination to go through with the struggle to the bitter end, anticipatory acceptance of the greatest sacrifices, absolute confidence in victory---in a word all the sentiments of 1812.
Sunday, August 22, 1915. Rasputin has not stayed long in his Siberian village. He has been back three days and has already had several long talks with the Empress. The Emperor is at the front.
Monday, August 23, 1915. Yesterday the Russians evacuated the fortress of Osowiec, on the Bobr. The Austro-Germans are advancing swiftly along the right bank of the Bug. Most of the works defending Brest-Litovsk are now in their hands.
Tuesday, August 24, 1915. One of my agents, L-----, whom I strongly suspect of being a member of the Okhrana (though, if so, he will be all the better informed), tells me that the leader of the "Labour" group in the Duma, the eloquent and impetuous lawyer Alexander Feodorovitch Kerensky, recently called a conference at his house of representatives of the other Socialist groups, with a view to examining the chances of active intervention which might be open to the leaders of the proletariat if further military disasters compelled the Imperial Government to make peace. Not that the conference came to any practical decision. But it settled on two important points of
the programme which the Socialist party will inscribe on its banners when peace comes: (1) the immediate institution of universal suffrage in Russia; (2) the unfettered right of nations to decide their own lot.
Chapter Footnotes 1. His father, the Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaievitch (born 1827, died 1892), played an important part in the reign of Alexander II. Being open-minded and liberal, he did much to bring about the abolition of serfdom in 1861. He also did what he could to draw his brother into the path of constitutional reform. And for a moment it was thought that Tsarism, as practised by men like Milutin, Abaza, Prince Tcherkazky and Samarin. was at last about to evolve towards the conception of a modern state. But the Polish rising in 1863, and the appearance of Nihilism a few years later, ruined the reputation of the Grand Duke Constantine. Henceforth he devoted himself exclusively to his duties as Admiral of the Fleet. 2. Kropotkin is mistaken on this point. The bells of the fortress, hung in the eighteenth century, cannot play the national anthem, " Boje tsaria kranie," which was composed by Prince Lvov in the reign of Nicholas I; at midday and midnight they chime an old hymn, Kol slaven nach Gospod v Sion. . . ." "How glorious is Our Lord in Sion. . ." 3. He was not made a Duke until 1862.
Volume II, Chapter Two Table of Contents
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER II AUGUST 25-SEPTEMBER 20, 1915 The Emperor decides to relieve the Grand Duke Nicholas of his functions as generalissimo and take command of his armies in person.---Influence of the Empress and Rasputin.---Public anger with the staretz.---The Emperor consults me about the decision he has just taken: "Perhaps a
scapegoat is needed to save Russia. . . ."---Mysticism and policy.---A prophecy of revolution.--Prince Vladimir Orlov dismissed.---The Emperor takes command of his armies.---The Grand Duke Nicholas leaves for the Caucasus.---Dismissal of General Djunkovsky, Commander of the Gendarmerie; growing influence of Rasputin.---Critical position of the Russian armies in Lithuania.---The "Cadets" and their political ideals: His Majesty's "Opposition."--- The Duma is prorogued.---Strikes in Petrograd.---Entry of the Germans into Vilna. Wednesday, August 25, 1915. When I went in to see Sazonov this morning, he said at once in the official, non-committal tone: "Ambassador, I have to inform you of an important decision His Majesty has just come to, but I must ask you to keep it a secret until further notice. His Majesty has decided to relieve the Grand Duke Nicholas of his functions as generalissimo, and appoint him Lieutenant-Governor of the Caucasus, in succession to Count Vorontzov-Dashkov, whose health has compelled him to retire. His Majesty will take command of his armies in person." "It's not merely an intention, but a definite decision I asked. "Yes, an irrevocable decision. Yesterday, the Emperor notified the Council of Ministers accordingly, adding that the matter was not open to discussion." "Will the Emperor actually take command?" "Yes, in the. sense that in future he will reside at General Headquarters, and the higher direction of operations will emanate from him. But, as regards the details of operations, he will refer to the new Chief of Staff, who will be General Alexeev. G.H.Q. is also to be brought nearer Petrograd; it will probably be established at Mohilev." We were silent for some time, gazing intently at each other. Then Sazonov resumed: "Now that I've told you officially all I had to tell, I can certainly admit, cher ami, that I greatly regret the step the Emperor has just taken. You will remember that at the beginning of the war he was anxious to put himself at the head of his troops, and that all his ministers---and I myself more than any of them---begged him not to do so. The arguments we then used have even greater force to-day. In all probability our trials are by no means at an end. It will take months and months to reorganize our army, and supply it with the means to fight. What may happen before that time comes? How far shall we be compelled to retreat? Isn't it terrifying to think that henceforth it is the Emperor who will be personally responsible for all the misfortunes with which we are threatened? If the inefficiency of one of our generals involves us in a disaster, it will be not merely a military disaster but a political and social one at the same time." "But what are the Emperor's reasons," I said, " for deciding upon so grave a step, without even desiring to hear his ministers on the subject?" "He has several reasons. In the first place, the Grand Duke Nicholas has not succeeded in his task. He is energetic, and enjoys the confidence of the troops; but he has neither the necessary knowledge nor vision to direct operations on such a scale. As a strategist, General Alexeev is far above him. From that point of view, I should have quite understood if Alexeev had been
appointed generalissimo." 1 persisted: "What other reasons are there for the Emperor's decision to take command personally?" For a moment Sazonov gazed at me with a gloomy and melancholy look. Then he hesitatingly replied: "No doubt the Emperor wanted to notify us that the hour had come for him to exercise his highest prerogative power: the command of his armies. Henceforward no one will be able to doubt his determination to continue the war, cost what it may. If he has any other reasons, I prefer not to know them." On these sibylline words I left him. This evening I have learned-from the most trustworthy source that the dismissal of the Grand Duke Nicholas is the result of long-continued machinations by his archenemy, General Sukhomlinov, ex-Minister for War, who has secretly saved his credit with his sovereigns, notwithstanding his scandalous failures. The course of the military operations, particularly in recent months, has given him only too many pretexts for attributing all the disasters to the army to the incapability of the generalissimo. He it is again who has been helped by Rasputin and General Voyekov to make the Emperor and Empress believe that the Grand Duke Nicholas is trying to acquire a mischievous popularity in the army, and even the country, with the ulterior design of being put on the throne by a revolt. The enthusiastic cheers with which the name of the Grand Duke was more than once greeted during the recent disorders in Moscow have given his enemies a very potent argument. But the Emperor hesitated to take a step so serious as a change in the post of Commander-inChief during the most critical phase of a general retreat. The authors of the intrigue then represented to him that there was no time to lose. General Voyekov, one of whose responsibilities is the personal safety of his sovereigns, went so far as to claim that his police are on the track of a plot against them, and that the arch-conspirator is said to be one of the officers attached to their personal service. As the Emperor still offered resistance, an appeal was made to his religious emotions. The Empress and Rasputin kept dinning into him that "when the throne and country are in peril, the post of a Tsar autocrat is at the head of his armies. To yield that post to another is to disobey the will of God!" In any case, the staretz, who is a natural chatterbox, is making no mystery of what he has been saying at Tsarskoe-Selo; he was talking about it only yesterday at a meeting of his cronies, which he harangued for two hours on end with that sprightly, impassioned and open-hearted verve which sometimes makes him very eloquent. As far as I can judge by the fragments of his discourse which have reached me, the arguments he has used to the Emperor have gone a long way beyond immediate considerations of policy and strategy. What he has done is to put forward a religious dogma. From his picturesque aphorisms, many of which have probably been suggested to him by his friends in the Holy Synod, there emerges a doctrinal theory: "The Tsar is not only the temporal guide and head of his subjects. The holy unction of coronation confers upon him a far higher mission, for it makes him their representative, intercessor and surety before the Sovereign judge. It therefore compels him to take upon himself all the iniquities, as well as all the trials and sufferings of his people---to answer to God for the former and bring the latter to His notice." I can now understand a remark
of Bakunin's, which struck me forcibly some time ago: "In the vague conscience of the moujiks the Tsar is a kind of Russian Christ."
Thursday, August 26, 1915. The Germans have captured Brest-Litovsk; the Russian army is retreating in the direction of Minsk.
Friday, August 27, 1915. In spite of the strict secrecy enjoined by the Emperor, his decision to take command of the army has already leaked out among the public. The news has produced a deplorable impression. It is objected that the Emperor has no strategic experience; he will be directly responsible for defeats, the danger of which is only too obvious, and, lastly, he has the "evil eye." In a somewhat more indefinite form, the news has spread even among the masses. The impression there is even more lamentable; it is being said that the Emperor and Empress do not think themselves safe now at Tsarskoe-Selo, and are anxious to seek refuge in the bosom of the army. In view of all this, the President of the Council has begged the Emperor at least to defer the carrying out of his resolution. The Emperor has consented "for a very short time."
Sunday, August 29, 1915. For the first time Rasputin has been attacked by the press. Hitherto the censorship and the police had protected him against newspaper criticism. It is the Bourse Gazette which has opened the campaign. The man's whole past, his ignoble beginnings, thefts, drunken bouts, debaucheries and intrigues, the scandal of his relations with high society, officials and clergy, are ruthlessly exposed. But, cleverly enough, no allusion is made to his intimacy with the Emperor and the Empress.
"How is it possible?" writes the author of these articles. How has an abject adventurer like this been able to make a mockery of Russia for so long? Is it not astounding to think that the official Church, the Holy Synod, the aristocracy, ministers, the Senate, and the numerous members of the Council of Empire and the Duma have demeaned themselves before this low hound? . . . Is it not the most terrible charge we can level against the regime? Only yesterday the political and social scandals which the name of Rasputin conjures up seemed perfectly natural. To-day Russia means to put an end to all this. . . ." Although the facts and incidents related by the Bourse Gazette enjoy the widest notoriety, it is certain that their publication has had a great effect. The public is praising the new Minister of the Interior, Prince Stcherbatov, for allowing this diatribe to appear in print, but everyone is agreed in predicting that he will not hold office for long.
Monday, August 30, 1915. I have had a talk with General Bielaev, the chief of the General Staff of the Army. I give a summary of his replies to my questions: (1) The losses of the Russian army have been colossal. From 350,000 men a month in May, June and July, the figure has risen to 450,000 in August. Since the first defeat on the Dunajec the Russian army has thus lost approximately 1,500,000 men. (2) The daily supply of artillery ammunition is now 35,000 rounds; it will soon be 42,000. (3) Russian factories are now producing 67,000 rifles a month; foreign factories are sending 16,000, giving a total of 83,000. Production will remain at that figure until November 15. From that date onwards imports from abroad will be 76,000 a month. The Russian infantry will thus be able to count on a monthly supply of 143,000 rifles. (4) The German armies operating in the region of Brest-Litovsk do not appear to constitute a threat to Moscow, partly because of the distance (1,100 kilometres) and partly owing to the natural obstacles and the state of the roads in autumn. (5) For the defence of Petrograd four armies, comprising sixteen corps under the command of General Russky, are disposed along the line Pskov-Vilna. When the Dvinsk-Vilna sector is no longer tenable, the four armies will retire, pivoting on Pskov. In view of these dispositions, and also the imminence of autumn, it is not probable that the Germans will capture Petrograd.
Tuesday, August 31, 1915. General Polivanov, the War Minister, was sent to give the Grand Duke Nicholas the letter in which the Emperor relieves him of his command. After reading the imperial missive, the Grand Duke made the sign of the cross and simply said: "God be praised! The Emperor releases me from a task which was wearing me out." Then he talked about something else, as if the matter did not concern him. So signal a humiliation could not have been accepted with greater dignity.
Wednesday, September 1, 1915. The General Assembly of the "Industrial and Commercial Society of Moscow" finished its work to-day by passing a motion in which it declares that (1) the vital interests of Russia require that the war shall be carried on to victory; (2) that it is necessary at once to place in power men enjoying public confidence, and give them a completely free hand. The Assembly ended up by expressing its conviction that "the loyal voice of the people of Moscow will be heard by the Tsar." This appeal to the Emperor to establish a responsible ministry at once is particularly significant because it emanates from Moscow, the sacred city, and the very heart of Russian nationalism. What was even more significant was the comments accompanying the vote on the motion, comments the publication of which has just been forbidden by the censorship. The present ministers were treated to violent criticism, and allusions were made to the Emperor himself. I hear of agitation in working-class centres. . Can the Germano-Bulgarian compact have been sealed already? I am strongly inclined to think so. It is announced from Sofia itself that Duke Johann Albrecht von Mecklenburg-Schwerin has just arrived there, accompanied by a high official of the Wilhelmstrasse. Duke Johann Albrecht is one of the most distinguished of the German princes. He successfully held two important regencies, the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg and the Duchy of Brunswick. He is the uncle of Queen Alexandrina of Denmark and Princess Cecilie, wife of the Crown Prince. Knowing the character of Tsar Ferdinand, and his overweening notion of his royal prerogatives, I presume that in order to obtain his consent to the decisive step the Teutonic Emperors have thought that they could not do less than send him an ambassador of an ancient royal line. Radoslavov's language and the tone of the official press also show that Bulgaria is preparing to attack Serbia.
Thursday, September 2, 1915. Countess Hohenfelsen, the morganatic wife of the Grand Duke Paul, who has just been created Princess Paley, telephoned me yesterday evening to ask me to dine with her to-day; she impressed on me that I must accept, as someone wanted to talk to me. In her drawing-room I found Madame Vyrubova, Michael Stakhovitch and Dimitry Beckendorff. The Grand Duke Dimitry Pavlovitch, who arrived here from General Headquarters this morning, was also of the company. An atmosphere of gloomy apprehension brooded over dinner. Twice during the meal the palace Swiss, in his heavy scarlet. gold-braided cloak, glided up to the Grand Duke Dimitry, hat in hand, and whispered something in his ear. Each time the Grand Duke Paul gave his son a questioning look, and the latter simply replied "Nothing.... Nothing yet!" Princess Paley said to me under her breath "The Grand Duke will be telling you why Dimitry has come from the Stavka; he asked an audience of the Emperor the moment he arrived. It's been impossible to get an answer. The Swiss has just telephoned again twice to the palace office to find out if His Majesty has given any orders. Still nothing! It's a bad omen!" While coffee was being served in the drawing-room, Madame Vyrubova invited me to sit down by her and said, without any kind of preliminary: "Of course, you know about the serious decision His Majesty has just taken, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur. Tell me, what do you think of it? His Majesty himself has commissioned me to ask you." "Is the decision irrevocable?" "Oh, yes! Absolutely!" "In that case, any objections of mine would be too late." "Their Majesties will be very hurt if that's the only answer I may take them. They are so anxious to know your views!" "But how can I express an opinion about an act when I do not know the real reasons for it? The Emperor must have had reasons of vital importance for adding the terrible responsibility of military leadership to the burden of his usual work. What are those reasons?" She was taken aback at my question. Fixing two frightened eyes upon me, she stammered out something almost inaudible. Then, in a hesitating voice, she confided in me: "The Emperor thought that in such a serious crisis it was the Tsar's duty to place himself at the head of his troops, and take all responsibility for the war on his own shoulders. Before reaching that conclusion, he has given much thought and prayer to the matter. At last, after hearing mass a day or two ago, he said to us: Perhaps a scapegoat is needed to save Russia. I mean to be the victim. May the will of God be done. He was very pale as he said this, but on his face was an
expression of utter resignation." These words of the Emperor made me shiver all down my spine. The idea of predestination to sacrifice and complete resignation to the divine will is only too consistent with his passive nature., If our military fortunes continue to prove adverse for a few more months, may it not be that in submission to divine decrees he will find a pretext or excuse for slackening in his efforts, abandoning hope and tacitly resigning himself to any and every catastrophe? I was silent for a moment, for it was my turn not to know what to say. At length I said to Madame Vyrubova: "What you have just told me makes it even more difficult to express an opinion on the Emperor's decision, seeing that it is a matter between his conscience and God. In any case, ad the decision is irrevocable, it would serve no purpose for me to criticize it; the important thing now is to make the best of it. In his new post as Commander-in-Chief, the Emperor will perpetually be having opportunities of making not only his troops, but his people---and all his people---realize the necessity of victory. To me, as ambassador of your ally, France, the military programme of Russia is summed up in the oath which His Majesty took on the gospel and the ikon of Our Lady of Kazan on August 2, 1914. No doubt you remember the splendid ceremony in the Winter Palace. When he then renewed the oath of 1812, and swore that he would never sign peace so long as there was one enemy soldier on Russian territory, the Emperor pledged himself to God not to allow his faith to be shaken by any trial, and to continue the war, no matter what sacrifice it cost. Now that his sovereign will is to make itself felt directly in the conduct of operations, that sacred obligation will be easier to keep. In my opinion, it is thus that he will become the saviour of Russia; it is in this sense that I take the liberty of interpreting the message he has received from on high; be so good as to tell him so from me." She blinked two or three times, in a patent effort to take it all in. Then she took leave of me, as if she were in a hurry to unburden her memory: "I'm going now to tell Their Majesties what you have just said. Thank you very much." While she was saying good-night to Princess Paley, the Grand Duke Paul took me into his study with his son. The Grand Duke Dimitry then told me that he came by special train this morning from the Stavka to inform the Emperor of the deplorable effect which the dismissal of the Grand Duke Nicholas would have on the troops. With his back to the fireplace, and nervously twisting his fingers, he continued to jerk out: "I shall tell the Emperor everything; I'm determined to tell him everything. I shall even tell him that if he doesn't give up this idea---there's still time---the consequences may be incalculable, as disastrous to the dynasty as to Russia. If all else fails, I shall propose a compromise which, at a pinch, would suit everyone. The idea is my own. I've been lucky enough to get it accepted by the Grand Duke Nicholas, who has once more shown himself a model of disinterested patriotism. Under my compromise the Emperor would assume supreme command, but keep the Grand Duke with him as Quartermaster-General. The Grand Duke has commissioned me to put this proposal before the Emperor. . . . But you can see that His Majesty is in no hurry to receive me. I asked an audience of him the moment I got out of the train this morning. It is ten p.m. now. Not a word in
reply! What do you think of my idea?" "It seems to me excellent in itself. But I doubt whether the Emperor will agree; I have grave reason for thinking that he is absolutely set on sending the Grand Duke Nicholas away from the army." "Oh, dear!" sighed the grand Duke Paul. "I share your view, Ambassador, that the Emperor will never agree to let Nicholas Nicolaevitch work with him." The Grand Duke Dimitry angrily threw away his cigarette, strode up and down the room, then crossed his arms, and cried: "Then we're lost! Henceforth it will be the Empress and her camarilla who command at the Stavka! It's maddening." After a pause, he turned to me: "May I ask you a question, Ambassador? Is it true that the Allied Governments have intervened, or are on the point of intervening, to prevent the Emperor from taking command?" "No. The selection of a commander-in-chief is a purely domestic matter." "I'm glad of that. I was told at the Stavka that France and England were going to demand the retention of the Grand Duke Nicholas. It would have been a huge mistake. You'd have ruined the popularity of Nicholas Nicolaevitch, and had all Russians---me as much as any of them against you." The Grand Duke Paul added: "In any case, it would have been futile. In the Emperor's present state of mind he would stop at nothing, and go to any extreme to carry out his decision. If the Allies objected, he would abandon the alliance rather than allow anyone to dispute his sovereign prerogative, which in his eyes has also the character of a religious duty." We went back to the drawing-room. Princess Paley asked me: "Well! What's your conclusion from all you've heard to-night?" "I haven't any.... When mysticism takes the place of policy it's impossible to prophesy. I'm ready for anything now!
Friday, September 3, 1915. Twice during the afternoon---once on Trotsky Bridge, and the second time on the quay of the Yekaterinsky Canal---I passed a Court car, and caught a glimpse of the Emperor and Empress seated far back, with very serious faces. Their presence in Petrograd is such an exceptional
occurrence that it made everyone they passed start with surprise. The imperial couple first went to the Cathedral of the Fortress, where they knelt in prayer at the tombs of Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II and Alexander III. From there they went to the chapel of Peter the Great's house, where they kissed the figure of the Saviour which Peter Alexeevitch always carried about with him. Then they were taken to Our Lady of Kazan, where they stayed a long time kneeling before the miraculous ikon of the Virgin. All these devotions prove that the Emperor is on the verge of taking the critical step he considers essential to the salvation and redemption of Russia. I have also heard that before leaving Tsarskoe-Selo this morning the Emperor received the Grand Duke Dimitry, and categorically rejected the idea of retaining the Grand Duke Nicholas at the Stavka in the capacity of Quartermaster-General. When I recapitulate all the disquieting symptoms I have recorded in the past few weeks, it seems plain to me that a revolutionary crisis is developing in the heart of the Russian people. When, in what form, and under what circumstances will the crisis come upon us? Will the direct and immediate cause be a military disaster, a famine, a sanguinary strike, a mutiny in some barracks or a palace drama? I cannot say. But the event seems to me foreshadowed now with the inevitable character of an historical fatality. In any case the probabilities are already so impressive that I think it my duty to warn the French Government. I am therefore sending Delcass a telegram which recites the dangers of the military situation, and concludes in these terms: As regards the domestic situation, it is anything but comforting. Until quite recently it was possible to think that there would be no revolutionary disorder before the end of the war. I cannot say the same to-day. The question now is whether, in some more or less distant future, Russia will be still capable of effectively playing her part as our ally. However uncertain this eventuality may be, it must henceforth be a factor in the anticipations of the Government of the Republic and the calculations of General Joffre.
Sunday, September 5, 1915. Yesterday, the Emperor left for General Headquarters. He takes over the command to-day. Before leaving, he signed a decree which has amazed and horrified everyone: without a word of. explanation he has dismissed the director of his military household, Prince Vladimir Orlov. A personal friend of Nicholas II of twenty years' standing, his duties brought him into immediate contact with the daily private life of his sovereign; but, in his dealings with his master, he never ceased to preserve a certain independence of mind, always said exactly what he thought, and consistently opposed Rasputin. Henceforth there will be no one in Their Majesties' entourage who will or can resist the staretz.
Monday, September 6, 1915. After taking command of all the military and naval forces, the Emperor has issued the following Order of the Day: To-day I have assumed command of all the military and naval forces operating in the theatre of war. With firm trust in divine mercy and unshakable confidence in ultimate victory, we shall fulfil our sacred duty of defending our country to the death, and we will never allow Russian soil to be dishonoured. Given at General Headquarters, September 5, 1915. NICHOLAS. He also sent the following rescript to the Grand Duke Nicholas: At the beginning of the war there were reasons of a political nature which prevented me from following my personal inclinations and immediately putting myself at the head of the army. Hence the fact that I conferred upon you the supreme command of all the military and naval forces. Before the eyes of all Russia, Your Imperial Highness has during the war displayed an invincible courage, which has given me and all Russians the greatest confidence in you, and roused the ardent hopes with which your name was everywhere associated in the inevitable vicissitudes of military fortune. Now that the enemy has penetrated far into the empire, my duty to the country which God has committed to my keeping ordains that I shall assume supreme command of the fighting forces, share the burdens and toils of war with my army and help it to protect Russian soil against the onslaught of the foe. The ways of Providence are inscrutable; but my duty and my own desires strengthen me in a determination which has been inspired by concern for the common weal. The hostile invasion, which is making more progress every day on the western front, demands above all an extreme concentration of all civil and military authority, unity of command during the war, and an intensification of the activities of the whole administrative services. But all these duties distract our attention from the southern front, and in these circumstances I feel the necessity for your advice and help on that front. I therefore appoint you my lieutenant in the Caucasus and Commander-in-Chief of the brave army operating in that region. To Your Imperial Highness I wish to express my profound gratitude, and that of the country, for all your work in the war. NICHOLAS.
At the Emperor's express wish, the Grand Duke has gone straight to Tiflis, without passing through Petrograd.
Tuesday, September 7, 1915. I called to-day on Baroness M----- and found her alone at the piano. With splendid entrain and a sweeping sense of mastery she was playing the fine A flat sonata which Beethoven dedicated to Prince Lichnowsky. Her firm fingers were attacking that pathetic second variation. On a pleading signal from me from the door, she was good enough not to stop. When the last chord was triumphantly struck she closed the piano, offered me her still quivering fingers, and in words that seemed to leap straight from her heart cried: "Rather than give up music I'd give up Russia!" It is true that Baroness M----- is a Livonian by origin. Yet for more than a century her family has been serving tsarism in high posts at Court or in the army. But that does not prevent her from being a stranger to the Russian family. The cry which her musical emotions wrung from her is only too accurate a gauge of the degree of patriotism which animates some families of the Baltic nobility.
Wednesday, September 8, 1915. General Djunkovsky, one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp, Commander of the Gendarmerie, representative of the police in the Ministry of the Interior, the most Powerful official in the empire and, incidentally, a man who has contrived to win the esteem of everyone in the performance of his delicate and fearsome duties, has just been dismissed. He has succumbed to the continual attacks of the Empress, who formally accused him of inspiring the onslaught on Rasputin in the press, and secretly promoting the seditious popularity of the Grand Duke Nicholas. As a matter of fact, General Djunkovsky was long ago damned in the Emperor's eyes through having had the courage to denounce to him the infamies of the staretz, particularly the gross scene which scandalized Moscow last April.
Thursday, September 9, 1915. The Emperor has inaugurated his assumption of the supreme command with the announcement of a brilliant success which the southern army has just gained over the Germans near Tarnopol. The battle continued five days along the Sereth; the Russian captures comprise 17,000 prisoners and about forty guns. This change of fortune, coinciding with the change in the high command, has caused great rejoicing among the enemies of the Grand Duke Nicholas. I fear the triumph will be short-lived, as on all the rest of the front, particularly in Lithuania, the German progress is becoming more marked every day.
Friday, September 10, 1915. Sazonov said to me this morning: "I am irritated beyond words by the information I am getting from London and Paris about the Bulgarian business. Neither Grey nor Delcass seems to realize the seriousness of what is brewing in Sofia. We are wasting incredibly precious time in Foreign Office chatter! We ought, without a day's delay, to tell Radoslavov that the so-called "undisputed" zone in Macedonia shall be ceded to Bulgaria after the war, and we will guarantee Bulgaria this accession of territory if the Bulgarian army will attack Turkey in the near future. I am instructing Savinsky to consult his allied colleagues at once, with a view to action in that sense.... Shall we get something done, for once?"
Sunday, September 12, 1915. The situation of the Russian armies in Lithuania is rapidly growing worse. North-east of Vilna the enemy is advancing by forced marches on Dvinsk via Vilkomir. Near Sventsiany his cavalry patrols have already reached the railway, which is the sole artery connecting Vilna with Dvinsk, and Pskov with Petrograd. Further south, after fierce fighting at the confluence of the Zelvianka and the Niemen, he is threatening the great Vilna-Pinsk road in the neighbourhood of Lida. Vilna will have to be evacuated at top speed. I can give certain accurate details of the manner in which Prince Vladimir Orlov found himself deprived, a few days ago, of the confidential post he had held for so many years in the Emperor's
personal service. It was both indirectly and casually that Vladimir Nicolaevitch heard of his dismissal. The Tsar, when notifying the Grand Duke Nicholas of his nomination as Imperial Lieutenant-Governor of the Caucasus, had added the following post-scriptum to his letter: "You can have Vladimir Orlov, as you like him so much; he may be useful to you on the civil side." The Grand Duke, who was on terms of the greatest intimacy with Orlov, immediately sent an aide-de-camp to ask him the meaning of this unexpected decision. A few hours later Orlov heard that the Emperor, who was on the point of leaving for General Headquarters, had just struck his name off a list of individuals warned to join His Majesty's train. He had no difficulty in concluding that Nicholas II did not want to see him again. With perfect dignity he abstained from all complaints or recrimination, and set out for Tiflis. But before taking his departure, he felt that he must speak his mind. In a letter addressed to Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, he begged the old servant to open the eyes of his sovereign to the infamous rle of Rasputin and his accomplices, whom he roundly charged with being the tools of Germany. He even had the courage to end his letter by sounding a note of alarm: "The Emperor has not a day to lose in getting rid of the occult forces which are strangling him. If he does not do so, it will be all up with the Romanovs and Russia."
Wednesday, September 15, 1915. This evening I dined in a non-political house with Maxim Kovalevsky, Miliukov, Maklakov and Shingarev, who are the General Staff and leaders of the Liberal party. In any other country this dinner would have been the most natural thing in the world. But here the gulf between the official world and the progressive elements is so wide that I expect to be severely criticized in proper-minded circles. And yet these men, of unimpeachable honesty and high culture, are everything but revolutionaries; their political ideal is nothing more than constitutional monarchy, Miliukov, for example, the great historian of Russian Civilization, was able to say at the time of the first Duma: "We are not the Opposition against His Majesty, but His Majesty's Opposition." When I arrived, I found them all gathered round Kovalevsky, talking excitedly and looking horror-stricken; they had just heard that the Government has decided to prorogue the Duma. Thus the great hopes that were entertained six weeks ago, when the session began, have already crumbled into dust; the idea of supervision by the National Assembly has vanished, the establishment of a responsible ministry is merely a wild dream; the "black bloc" has gained the day and personal power, autocratic absolutism and the occult forces have triumphed. The whole of dinner was passed in exploring the melancholy prospects opening with this counter-offensive on the part of reaction. As we rose from table, a journalist came in to say that the ukase proroguing the Duma was signed this afternoon, and will be published to-morrow. I took Kovalevsky and Miliukov with me into a corner. They confessed to me that in view of the outrage on the national representative
assembly, they intended to withdraw from the mixed commissions recently organized in the War Ministry with a view to raising output in the factories. "The help of the Duma is declined. All right! But henceforth we'll leave the Government the sole and whole responsibility for the war." I argued hotly that such a course would be ill-timed, and even criminal: "It's not my place to discuss your motives and political calculations, but, as the ambassador of your ally, France, which entered the war for the defence of Russia, I've the right to remind you that you are in face of the enemy, and ought to refrain from any act or demonstration which might diminish your military effort." They promised me to think the matter over. As the evening was ending, Kovalevsky said to me: "The dismissal of the Duma is a crime. If they wanted to precipitate a revolution, this is the right way to go about it." "Do you think that the present crisis may lead to revolutionary troubles?" I asked. He exchanged glances with Miliukov and then, levelling his bright, clear eyes at Me. replied: "So far as it depends on us, there will be no revolution during the war. . . . But before long, perhaps, it will no longer depend on us." Left alone with Maxim Kovalevsky, I questioned him about his historical and sociological works. An ex-professor of Moscow University, he has frequently been persecuted for his independent opinions, and about 1887 was compelled to leave his country. He has travelled much in France, England and the United States. He is now one of the most distinguished figures among the Intelligentzia. His studies on the political and social institutions of Russia reveal wide culture, a frank and honest mind and a habit of thought which is speculative, synthetic and accustomed to the discipline of English practicality. His party predict a great future for him when the autocratic regime changes to constitutional monarchy. I imagine that the part he will play will be confined to influence and theory. Like all the leaders of Russian liberalism, Maxim Kovalevsky is too much the dreamer and theorist, and too bookish, to be a man of action. The comprehension of general ideas and a knowledge of political systems are not sufficient qualification for the direction of human affairs; to these must be added a sense of reality, an intuitive realization of what is possible and necessary, the capacity for rapid decisions, resolute intentions, a knowledge of public passions, circumspect audacity---all of them qualities in which the "Cadets" seem to be entirely lacking, for all their patriotism and good will. As I took my leave, I begged Kovalevsky to neglect no opportunity of advising patience and caution. I asked him, too, to reflect on the melancholy admission which was sighed out in June, 1848, by Duvergier de Hauranne, one of the leaders of the old "Monarchical Opposition," and one of the organizers of the famous "banquet" campaign: "If we had known how thin the sides of the volcano were, we should never have provoked an eruption!"
Thursday, September 16, 1915. The prorogation of the Duma is published. The Putilov works and Baltic yards have immediately gone on strike.
Friday, September 17, 1915. The strikes have extended to-day to almost all the factories in Petrograd. But no disorder is reported. The leaders say that they simply wish to protest against the prorogation of the Duma, and that work will be resumed in two days. One of my informers, who knows working-class circles well, said to me to-day: "There's nothing to fear this time, either. It's only a general rehearsal." He added that the ideas of Lenin and his "defeatist" propaganda are making great headway among the educated elements of the working class.
Sunday, September 19, 1915. The Russians are continuing their slow retreat along the whole of the immense front from the Baltic to the Dniester. Yesterday, as a result of a bold enveloping offensive, Vilna fell into the hands of the Germans. The whole of Lithuania is lost.
Monday, September 20, 1915. The strikes in Petrograd are over. In Moscow, the Union of Zemstovs and the Union of Towns have passed a resolution demanding the immediate summoning of the Duma, and the formation of a ministry enjoying the confidence
of the country." The news I am getting from the provinces is satisfactory, in the sense that it negatives the probability of a revolutionary movement and, as regards the country generally, reveals an unshaken resolution to continue the war.
Volume II, Chapter Three Table of ContentsAN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER III SEPTEMBER 21-NOVEMBER 8, 1915. Bulgaria mobilizes against Serbia.---An Anglo-French contingent is sent to the Balkans.--Dissensions in the Russian Government. Joint letter from the ministers to the Emperor.--Nicholas II's categorical reply.---Feeling roused among the Russian people by Bulgaria's "fratricidal" action.---The French Government demands the military co-operation of Russia against Bulgaria; telegrams passing between the President of the Republic and the Emperor.--Progress made by reactionary influences at Court.---Dismissal of the Minister of the Interior and the Procurator of the Holy Synod.---My audience of the Emperor; a promise of military cooperation against Bulgaria.---The Empress exhorts the Emperor to absolutism.---Rasputin's prayers; his sincerity in asserting his supernatural powers.---Devastating Bulgarian offensive against the Serbians.---The Emperor's manifesto on the subject of the Bulgarian felony.---The Russian fleet bombards Varna.---Negotiations with the Rumanian Government with a view to obtaining permission for a Russian army to pass through Moldavia on its way to help the Serbs. The Rumanian Government refuses. Tuesday, September 21, 1915. Tsar Ferdinand has shown his hand. Bulgaria is mobilizing and concentrating for attack on Serbia. When Sazonov gave me this news, I exclaimed: "Serbia mustn't wait to be attacked; she must attack at once herself." "No," Sazonov replied we must still try to prevent hostilities." I argued that hostilities cannot be prevented now that Bulgaria's game has long been too obvious; the only effect of diplomatic action would be to give the Bulgarian army time to mobilize and concentrate, and that the Serbians are lost unless they take advantage of the fact that the road to Sofia will still be open to them for some days yet. I ended up by declaring that to
support the operations of the Serbians the Russian fleet must bombard Burgas and Varna. "No! " exclaimed Sazonov . . . . "Bulgaria is of our faith; we created her with our own blood; she owes her national and political existence to us; we cannot treat her as an enemy." "But it is Bulgaria who has made herself your enemy . . . and now, of all times." "It doesn't matter! We must continue to negotiate. At the same time we must appeal to the mass of the Bulgarian nation, and denounce the crime their Government want them to commit. A manifesto addressed to them by the Emperor Nicholas in the name of Slav unity would no doubt have a great effect. We have no right not to make one last effort." "I adhere to what I said just now. It is essential for the Serbs to make for Sofia by forced marches. If they don't. the Bulgarians will be in Belgrade within a month."
Friday, September 24, 1915. A telegram dispatched from Paris yesterday evening tells me that the French and British Governments have decided to send an army corps to the Balkans. Sazonov was delighted when I reported this to him. Sending allied troops to the rescue of Serbia seems to him to change the whole aspect of the Balkan problem. He wants Sofia to know of this intention very soon, so that the Bulgarian Government may have time to stop its military preparations; he is also endeavouring to prevent the Serbians from attacking the Bulgarian army before the latter has obviously begun an offensive. On this latter point I argued with him very hotly, and as I have reason to believe that my view is shared in Paris I am telegraphing to Delcass: I have some difficulty in following M. Sazonov's point of view. A swift invasion of Bulgarian territory by the Serbian army would create a huge sensation in Germany and Austria---and in Turkey, Greece and Rumania. The salvation of Bulgaria no longer concerns us. If we can obtain a swift and easy success at her expense, it is our duty to do so. It is no longer a question of the Balkan balance of power and historical memories. Victory before anything else!
Saturday, September 25, 1915. The Russian public is beside itself with indignation at the, action of Bulgaria. Even those papers which have hitherto been kindest towards the Bulgarians join in the chorus of resentment, though they endeavour to draw a distinction between the personal policy of the Tsar Ferdinand
and the sentiments of his people.
Sunday, September 26, 1915. The great offensive which the French General Staff has been preparing for many months began yesterday in Champagne; it is being supported by an English attack in Artois. The opening move has been successful; we have pierced the German lines on a front of twentyfive kilometres, to a depth of three or four; we have also made 15,000 prisoners.
Monday, September 27, 1915. The Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, which have been in session in Moscow the last few days, have passed the following joint motion: In the tragic trials through which Russia is passing, we deem it our first duty to send a warm greeting to our stoical, glorious and dearly-loved army. The Russian people are more determined than ever to continue the war to victory, in loyal association with their faithful allies. But on the path of victory there lies a fatal obstacle, an obstacle created by all the old vices of our political system, we mean irresponsible power, the absence of any link between the Government and the country, etc. A drastic change is required. . . . In place of our present governors we must have men who enjoy the confidence of the nation. The work of the Duma should be resumed without delay. The two Unions have appointed three delegates each, and commissioned them to put the wishes of the country before the Emperor in a personal audience. The President of the Council, Goremykin, has advised His Majesty not to receive these delegates, who have no claim or right, so he said, "to speak in the name of the Russian people." The Emperor has therefore refused the audience.
Tuesday, September 28, 1915. There is much dissension in the bosom of the Russian Government. Several of the ministers, alarmed at the reactionary tendencies prevailing at Court, have sent a joint letter to the Emperor,
begging him not to continue in this disastrous course, and explaining that their conscience does not permit them to work under Goremykin any longer. Besides Sazonov, the signatories to this letter are Prince Stcherbatov, Minister of the Interior, Krivoshein, Minister for Agriculture, Prince Shahovsko, Minister for Commerce, Bark, Finance Minister, and Samarin, Procurator of the Holy Synod. Out of consideration for military discipline, General Polivanov, the War Minister, and Admiral Grigorovitch, the Naval Minister, abstained from signing. On receiving this letter, the Emperor summoned all his ministers to the Stavka. They have just left for Mohilev, where they will arrive to-morrow. Developments are proceeding in the strictest secrecy. A week ago, Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, solicited an audience of the Emperor. He has been informed this morning that his request has not been granted.
Wednesday, September 29, 1915. The day before yesterday the Russian Government proposed to the Allied Governments that the following note should be sent to Sofia: The Allied Powers, having very grave reason to suspect the motives for the general mobilization of the Bulgarian army, and attaching, as they do, the greatest importance to the maintenance of their friendly relations with Bulgaria, consider it their duty, in the very name of that friendship, to ask the Royal Government to revoke the mobilization decree, or declare its readiness to cooperate with the said powers against Turkey. If the Royal Government has not adopted one or other of these courses within twenty-four hours, the Allied Powers will immediately break off all relations with Bulgaria. I had pointed out to Sazonov that the inoffensive form of this lecture made it futile from the start, but he had insisted on his proposal. To-day, Buchanan tells me that Sir Edward Grey would like to water down the Russian note still more, and remove anything having the smallest resemblance to an ultimatum. I am telegraphing to Delcass: This policy of Sir Edward Grey's seems to me an illusion. Are we going to make the same mistake with Bulgaria that we made with Turkey, a mistake we have not finished paying for? Cannot Sir Edward see that the Germans are getting a firmer grip on Bulgaria every day, and that they will soon be the masters there? Is he credulous enough to believe in the pacifist professions of King Ferdinand? Does he propose to refrain from action at Sofia until the Bulgarian army has completed its concentration, and the German officers have taken over their commands? It has pleased Germany to make war on us on Bulgarian territory. It is now in our power to inflict an immediate reverse upon her on that very territory. And here we are, still talking!
Thursday, September 30, 1915. This evening I have heard that yesterday, at Mohilev, the Emperor used very harsh language to the ministers who signed the letter. In a peremptory tone he said to them: "I won't have my ministers going on strike against my President of the Council. I insist upon everyone respecting my wishes." . Our Champagne offensive is continuing brilliantly, and without a pause. The effect on public opinion in Russia is excellent. The sense of disappointment produced by our inactivity on the western front was becoming dangerous, as it was spreading to the army. The Novoe Vremia accurately reproduces the general impression in the following terms: "While the bulk of the German forces, and almost the entire Austro-Hungarian army, were hurling themselves upon us, our allies in the west did nothing. This inaction on General Joffre's part during our fiery trial was incomprehensible. The Anglo-French offensive has put an end to all our doubts. It is clear now that the apparent idleness of our allies was really a period of preparation."
Friday, October 1, 1915. The President of the Republic has commissioned me to give the Emperor the following telegram: The grave situation created by the definitely hostile attitude of King Ferdinand and the Bulgarian mobilization is causing the French Government the greatest anxiety. We have very solid reasons for fearing that the Bulgarians will attempt to cut the Salonica-Nish railway, and shortly make it impossible for us to communicate not only with Serbia but with Russia herself, and to send our allies the munitions we are making for them. At the present time our daily output of shell for Russia is three to four thousand. This figure will increase progressively, and in January reach the ten thousand asked for by Your Majesty's Government. To Russia and France unhampered communication is of vital importance. We are making arrangements with England to send troops to Serbia as soon as possible. But the presence of Russian troops would certainly have a very great effect on the Bulgarian people. if Your Majesty has not a division available at the moment, or does not think it possible to send one to Serbia, it would at any rate seem essential that units of Russian soldiers should be detailed to join ours in guarding the Salonica railway. The feelings of gratitude towards Your Majesty entertained by the Bulgarian nation would then perhaps bring them up short in their road to a fratricidal encounter, and in any case the unity of the allied countries would be clearly revealed to all the Balkan
peoples. I beg Your Majesty to pardon my persistence, and accept my assurances of loyal friendship. POINCAR.
Sunday, October 3, 1915. The "fratricidal" act of Bulgaria towards Serbia has aroused the greatest resentment in every class of Russian society. It is as if a wave of indignation were sweeping over the whole of Russia.
Tuesday, October 5, 1915. Bad news reaches us from Athens. King Constantine has compelled Venizelos to resign. A few days ago the President of the Council declared in the Greek Chamber that if the realization of the national programme brought Greece into contact with the Teuton empires the Government would do its duty. These strong words have been considered inadmissible by Berlin. Count Mirbach, German minister in Athens, called on the King, lectured him in the name of his imperial brother-in-law, and no doubt also reminded him of their secret compact. Constantine immediately demanded and obtained the resignation of Venizelos. A first detachment of Anglo-French troops has just disembarked at Salonica.
Wednesday, October 6, 1915. The only reply given to the President of the Republic by the Emperor (who is on a tour of inspection at the front) is the following telegram: As I entirely agree with you as to the extreme importance of the Salonica railway to the maintenance of communications between France and her allies, I regard it as essential that the line should be held by Anglo-French troops, and I am glad to hear that their disembarkation is in progress. I should have been particularly glad to see a detachment of my army joining up with them, and establishing on this new front an even closer collaboration with our allies. To my great regret, it is impossible at the moment for me to divert any troops for that purpose, and
more particularly to get them to their destination by the routes at our disposal. I intend to reconsider this plan, the soundness of which I recognize, the moment circumstances permit. I take this opportunity of expressing to you, Monsieur le Prsident, the satisfaction with which I have received the report you give me of the output of shell for my army. The help which French industry is giving Russia in this vital matter is highly appreciated by my country. Accept, Monsieur le Prsident, the assurance of my lasting friendship. NICHOLAS. When Sazonov told me of this telegram, which was dispatched to Paris yesterday, I said to him: "We cannot accept the Emperor's decision. Please ask him to grant me an audience. I shall try and convince him that Russia cannot leave her allies with the whole burden of the new war which is opening in the Balkans." "But the Emperor's at the front, and in a different place every day!" "I'll go in and see him wherever he likes. I insist on your communicating to him my request for an audience." "All right! I'll telegraph to him."
Saturday, October 9, 1915. The reactionary influences around the Emperor are getting stronger every day. Prince Stcherbatov, the Minister of the Interior, and Samarin, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who had been in office barely three months, and whose liberal tendencies made them acceptable to public opinion, have been dismissed without a word of explanation. The new Minister of the Interior, Alexis Nicolaevitch Khvostov, formerly Governor of Nijny Novgorod, and one of the leaders of the Right in the Duma, is known as a man of energy. Samarin's successor has not yet been appointed.
Sunday, October 10, 1915. The Emperor received me at Tsarskoe-Selo, this afternoon. He looked well, with a calm, confident air, which I have not seen him assume for a long time. We went straight to the object of my visit. I enumerated the multifarious considerations which compel Russia to take her share in the military operations which France and England are about
to undertake in the Balkans, and concluded with these words: "Sire, France asks you for the assistance of your army and fleet against Bulgaria. If the Danube route is impracticable for the transport of troops, there remains the Archangel route. In less than a month a brigade of infantry can be moved by that route from the centre of Russia to Salonica. I beg Your Majesty to order that brigade to be sent. As far as naval operations are concerned, I know that the east winds which prevail in the Black Sea at this season make a landing at Burgas and Varna practically impossible. But it would be easy for two or three battleships to bombard the forts at Varna and the batteries on Cape Emine which command Burgas Bay. I ask Your Majesty to order this bombardment." The Emperor listened to me without interrupting, and remained silent for some considerable time. Two or three times he stroked his beard and looked at the point of his shoes. At length he raised his head, fixed his blue eyes upon me, and said: "From the moral and political view I cannot hesitate over the reply you expect of me. I agree to what you ask. But you will realize that from the practical standpoint I shall have to consult my staffs." "Does Your Majesty authorize me to inform the Government of the Republic that within a very short time a Russian contingent will be sent via Archangel to the help of Serbia?" "Yes." "May I also say that in the very near future the Russian Black Sea Squadron will receive an order to bombard the forts of Varna and Burgas?" "Yes.... But to justify this last operation in the eyes of the Russian nation I shall wait until the Bulgarian army has committed some hostile act against the Serbs." "I am very grateful to Your Majesty for all this." Our conversation then took a more personal turn. I asked the Emperor about the impressions he had brought away from the front. "My impressions are splendid," he said. "I am more confident and enthusiastic than ever. The life I lead at the head of my army is so healthy and comforting! What a splendid soldier the Russian is! I don't know what he couldn't do! And his determination to conquer and confidence of victory are so amazing!" "I am glad to hear you say so, as the task before us is still colossal, and we shall win through only by dint of sheer tenacity." Clenching his fists, and raising them above his head, the Emperor replied: "I'm up to my neck in tenacity. I shall never get out of it until our complete victory." He then asked me about our offensive in Champagne and praised the splendid qualities of the French troops. Next he talked about myself and my life in Petrograd: "I pity you having to live amidst so much faint-heartedness and pessimism!" he said. "I know
how bravely you struggle against the poisoned air of Petrograd. But if you ever feel yourself intoxicated by it, come and see me at the front; I promise you'll soon be cured." He turned grave all of a sudden, and said in a bitter tone: "We feel these Petrograd miasmas even here, twenty-two versts away! And it isn't from the poor quarters, but the drawing-rooms, that the worst smells come! What a shame! What a disgrace! How can men be so devoid of conscience, patriotism and faith!" With these words he rose and resumed his kindly tone "Good-bye, my dear Ambassador. I'm afraid I must leave you, as I'm returning to the Stavka this evening and have lots to do. . . . Let's hope we shall have only good news to talk about next time we meet!"
Monday, October 11, 1915. I have been dining very quietly with Madame P-----. "How did you find the Emperor yesterday? " she asked me "In very good spirits."(1) "So he does not suspect all that is in store for him?" And with characteristically feminine excitement, she told me of several talks she has had with various people in the last few days, the burden of which is this: "It cannot go on like this. In the course of her history, Russia has often had to put up with the reign of favourites, but she has never known anything like the infamy of the reign of Rasputin. We must unquestionably have recourse to the great remedies of other days, the only possible and effective remedies under an autocratic regime. We must depose the Emperor and put the Tsarevitch Alexis in his place, with the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevitch as regent. . . . Time presses, for Russia is on the very brink of the abyss ...." The same language was used in the St. Petersburg drawing-rooms in March, 1801. The sole aim of the conspirators of those days, Pahlen and Bennigsen, was to secure the abdication of Paul I in favour of his son.
Tuesday, October 12, 1915. Judging by certain remarks made by Madame Vyrubova yesterday evening to a pious household
where communion with Rasputin is held, the high spirits, confidence and enthusiasm of the Emperor which I have noticed are claimed to be largely due to the extravagant praise the Empress is heaping upon him since he began to behave "as a true autocrat." She keeps telling him: "You're worthy of your greatest ancestors now; I'm certain they are proud of you, and blessing you from heaven above. Now that you have taken the course ordained by Divine Providence, I have no more doubts about our victory, not only over our external enemies, but those at home as well; you are saving your country as well as your throne. ... How wise we were to heed what our dear Grigory said! What a lot we owe to his intercession with God for us!" I have often heard the question discussed whether Rasputin is sincere in alleging his supernatural powers, or at bottom nothing but a charlatan and impostor. Opinions were almost always divided, for the staretz is a bundle of contradictions, incoherences and freaks. Speaking personally, I do not doubt his utter sincerity. He would not have such a fascination for people if he was not convinced himself of his extraordinary gifts. His confidence in his mystical power is the main element in his personal ascendancy. He is the first to be duped by his tongue and his practices: if he adds a certain flavour of braggadocio that is all. Paracelsus, the great master of magic, and clever author of the Philosophia Sagax, observed very rightly that the condition precedent to the persuasiveness of the magician is his belief in his own dynamic powers: " Non potest facere quod non credit posse facere "---" A man cannot do what he does not think he can do." In any case, how could Rasputin fail to believe that some extraordinary power emanates from him? Every day the credulity of those about him furnishes him with proof of the fact. When he claims to be inspired of God in order to make the Empress do what he wants. the unhesitating obedience he receives from her seems to him patent proof of the truth of his claim. They thus hypnotize each other. Has Rasputin the same power over the Emperor as over the Empress? No; there is a material difference. As regards the relations between Alexandra Feodorovna and the staretz, she lives in a kind of hypnosis. Whatever opinion or desire he expresses, she acquiesces and obeys at once. The ideas he suggests to her are implanted in her brain without provoking the slightest opposition. In the case of the Tsar, the fascination is much less passive and complete. He certainly thinks that Grigory is a Bojy tchelloviek, a "Man of God," but to a large extent he retains his liberty of judgment in dealing with him, and he never allows him the initiative. This comparative independence of mind is particularly marked when the staretz intervenes in a political matter. It is then that Nicholas II wraps himself in a mantle of silence and reserve; he evades awkward questions, defers definite answers, and in any case yields only after a long internal struggle, in which his natural good sense very frequently wins the day. But on the ethical and religious side, the Emperor is profoundly influenced by Rasputin. He draws much quiet strength from him, as witness what he once said to Colonel Drenteln, one of his aides-de-camp, who was out walking with him: "I can't understand why Prince Orlov hated Rasputin so much; he never tired of calling him names, and saying that his friendship is disastrous to me. It's quite otherwise. Why, when I'm worried, or doubtful, or vexed, I have only to talk to Grigory for five minutes to feel myself immediately soothed and strengthened. He always manages to say what I need to hear, and the effect of his wise words lasts several weeks."
Wednesday, October 13, 1915. Delcass resigned yesterday. His views have not squared with those of his colleagues in the Ministry for some time, and he has also been suffering from nervous trouble.
Friday, October 15, 1915. The Bulgarians are beginning to reap the consequences of the colossal mistake we have made in giving them time to carry out their concentration. They have taken the offensive with great skill and vigour in the region of Egri-Palanka and the Pirot sector, and along the course of the Timok. They have driven the Serbians back at all points, while an Austro-German army has captured Belgrade and Semendria.
Saturday, October 16, 1915. After Shakespeare and Balzac, Dostoevski is the greatest raiser of spirits, and the mightiest creator of imaginary beings, the writer who intuitively divined the secrets of moral pathology and the inward man, the mechanism of passions, the unfathomable rle of elementary forces and instincts; in a word, all that is fateful, occult and unknowable in human nature. In all this, how far he is above Tolstoi, with whom the artist, logician, apostle and prophet so often wronged the psychologist! And yet the author of Crime and Punishment denied that he was a psychologist, feeling that his genius was essentially a matter of clairvoyance, divination and an almost diseased acuteness of vision. He has said of himself: "I am called a psychologist. It is wrong. I am simply a realist in the higher sense of the word; that is, I depict all the dim recesses of the human soul." In his works we find a kind of catalogue of all the characters, peculiarities and aberrations which make the Russian soul the most amazing and paradoxical flower of the human plant. From his Diary of a Writer, I took these suggestive lines to-day: "The Russian always feels impelled to overstep the bounds, to go to the very edge of the precipice and lean over to scan its depths; often enough to hurl himself over it like a madman. It is that hungering after negation which besets the man of greatest faith---the negation of everything, the most sacred feelings, the noblest ideals, the holiest impulses, the fatherland
itself. At critical moments of his life, or his national life, the Russian is alarmingly precipitate in enrolling himself on the side of good or evil. Under the influence of rage, drink, love, erotic mania, pride or envy, he suddenly shows himself ready to destroy or repudiate everything--family, traditions and faith. The best of men is thus changed into a criminal, his only idea being to disown himself and seek destruction in some swift cataclysm. Of course he is just as impetuous in saving his soul when he has reached the uttermost limits, and does not know where to turn. . . ." In another place, Dostoevski writes: "Nihilism has appeared among us because we are all nihilists."
Sunday, October 17, 1915. Along the whole Danube-Save-Dvina front the Serbians are withdrawing under the formidable pressure of two Austro-German armies commanded by Field-Marshal von Mackensen. The Serbian Government and the Diplomatic: Corps are making preparations to leave Nish for Monastir.
Tuesday, October 19, 1915. Yesterday the Emperor issued a manifesto on the Bulgarian felony: We, Nicholas II, by the grace of God Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., etc. We make known to all our faithful subjects that the Bulgarian people has accomplished the act of treachery to the Slav cause, an act perfidiously contemplated since the very beginning of the war, though it seemed to us impossible. The Bulgarian troops have attacked our faithful ally, Serbia, bleeding from her struggle with an enemy superior in numbers. Russia and the Great Powers, our allies, have striven to dissuade Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg's Government from this fatal step. . . . But the secret machinations inspired by Germany have triumphed. Bulgaria, a land of our faith, liberated from Turkish thraldom by the brotherly love and blood of the Russian people, has openly joined the ranks of the enemies of the Christian faith, Slavism and Russia. The Russian nation looks with grief on the treachery of Bulgaria, a country so dear to her, even to the last, and it is with a bleeding heart that it draws its sword against her, leaving the fate of these traitors to the Slav cause to the just chastisement of God. Given at General Headquarters, the 18th October, in the year of grace 1915.
NICHOLAS.
Monday, October 25, 1915. The Serbian disaster is developing apace. A swift Bulgarian raid on Vrania, on the upper Morava, and Uskub, on the Vardar, has cut the Nish-Salonica railway. Henceforth the Royal Government and the diplomatic corps cannot flee to Monastir. They intend to try and reach Scutari and the shores of the Adriatic via Mitrovitza, Pritzrend and Diakovo, i.e., crossing the mountain tangle of Albania, where all the passes are already blocked by snow! Every day Pastchich is sending a desperate--and vain---appeal to the Allies.
Thursday, October 28, 1915. Yesterday, the Russian Black Sea fleet appeared off Varna, which was bombarded for two hours. Hostilities have thus been opened between Russia the liberator and Bulgaria the felon.
Sunday, October 31, 1915. Delcass's resignation has involved certain changes in the composition of the French Cabinet. Viviani hands over the Presidency of the Council to Briand, who also takes the portfolio for Foreign Affairs.
Monday, November 1, 1915. On the initiative of the French Government, the three Allied Powers are negotiating with the Rumanian Government with a view to obtaining permission to send an army of 200,000 Russians by way of Moldavia and the Danube to the relief of the Serbians.
Wednesday, November 3, 1915. Replying to my urgent entreaties, the Emperor commissioned Sazonov to assure me "that he attaches as much importance as the French Government to sending an army of five corps against the Bulgarians at the earliest possible moment." The concentration of these corps has already begun: it will be pressed on with all possible speed. The reports I am getting from General de Laguiche confirm the fact that troops are arriving systematically in the region of Kishinev and Odessa. But the transport difficulty gives us no hope that the concentration can be complete before the beginning of November.
Thursday, November 4, 1915. Bratiano has categorically told the English minister at Bucharest that he will not allow a Russian army to cross Rumanian territory to help the Serbians. He again enumerated the general military terms which Rumania makes a condition precedent to joining our alliance eventually. Here they are: (1) An Anglo-French army of 500,000 men to be concentrated in the Balkans. (2) A Russian army of 200,000 men to be concentrated in Bessarabia. (3) The Anglo-French Balkan army and the Russian Bessarabian army must attack the Bulgarians with the greatest vigour. (4) The Russian armies will open a strong offensive against the Austro-Germans from the Baltic Sea to the Bukovina. (5) The Rumanian army will receive from France and England---via Archangel---all the arms and munitions it needs. Until all five conditions have become realities, the Rumanian Government will retain a free hand.
Monday, November 8, 1915.
This morning Sazonov read me a letter he has received from General Alexev, the substance of which is as follows: "Judging by all the reports that have reached the imperial headquarters, the Russian army must not count on the help of the Rumanians for the time being. "It is impossible to send a Russian army by the Danube. "A landing at Varna or Burgas would be practicable only if the Russian fleet had Constanza as its base. The total tonnage of available shipping in Odessa and Sebastopol would only allow the transport of 20,000 men at once. Thus the troops who arrived first would be exposed to grave danger until the whole expeditionary force had disembarked. "It is thus materially impossible for Russia to assist the Serbian nation directly; but she can give them potent indirect help by resuming the offensive in Galicia."
Chapter Footnote 1. In English in the original.---F.A.H.
Volume II, Chapter Four Table of Contents
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER IV NOVEMBER 9---DECEMBER 31, 1915. Reactionary tendencies on the increase.---A trait of Russian character: nomadism. Wandering pilgrims.---Winter melancholy: general depression.---Comparison between the present war and that of 1812.---Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria: "When I leave this world's stage. . . ."---Russia and America: two types of humanity.---The Russian disposition to resignation.---The Governor of Ufa. Dreamy idealism uppermost in the Russian habit of mind; the invisible city of Lake Svetloyar.---The clergy losing credit with the masses; wretched condition of the priests.--Spiritualism; Russian interest in the supernatural.---The Salonica expedition. Unforeseen
difficulties: the British Government suggests immediate evacuation; the French and Russian Governments insist upon the enterprise being continued.---A theme of German propaganda: "France is letting Russia carry the whole burden of the war. . . ."---A piece of history: the personal intervention of the Emperor Alexander III in the preliminaries and conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance.---The sect of the Skoptzy. The martyr Selivanov; a fantastic legend. A terrible liturgy: "The Keys of Hell."---A souvenir of Dostoevski: the funeral parade of December 22, 1849.--The French Government asks that Russian troops shall be sent to France: Senator Doumer's mission.---The Tsarevitch seriously ill; Rasputin's intercession.---Insidious approaches of Germany to Russia with a view to the negotiation of a separate peace: Count Eulenburg's letter; Mlle. Vassiltchikov's mission. Nicholas II's steadfast loyalty to the Alliance. Tuesday, November 9, 1915. The gust of reaction which a month ago swept away the Minister of the Interior, Prince Stcherbatov, and the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Samarin, has just claimed a new victim: the Minister of Agriculture, Krivoshein, has been relieved of his functions on a casual suggestion of ill-health. To his high administrative talents Krivoshein adds something which is uncommon in Russia--the temperament of a statesman. He is unquestionably the most eminent representative of monarchical liberalism. He has fallen at the will of Rasputin, who accuses him of complicity with the revolutionaries. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether Krivoshein's constitutional ideal goes much beyond the French Charter of 1814, and I would answer for his religious fervour equally with his dynastic loyalty. The Government of which Goremykin is head now counts but two ministers with liberal leanings: Sazonov and General Polivanov.
Wednesday, November 10, 1915. Of all the inconveniences and restrictions which are the result of the war, Russian society feels none more keenly than the impossibility of going abroad. There is hardly a day on which I do not hear homesick sighs for Trouville, Cannes, Biarritz, Spa, Bellagio, Venice, and the most bewitching of all---Paris! Of course, I have no doubt that, in petto, the evil-sounding names of Carlsbad, Gastein, Homburg and Wiesbaden are added to the list. This hankering after travel is the outcome of a strong instinct of the Russian nation: nomadism. Among the lower classes the instinct takes the form of vagrancy. The whole of Russia is dotted with moujiks who wander at will, unable to settle down anywhere. Maxim Gorky has picturesquely described the strange poetry of their character, in which cynical habits of idleness, dissoluteness and theft are associated with a passion for individualism, an insatiable thirst for novelty, an exquisite feeling for nature and music, and an exalted sense .of imagination and melancholy. Sometimes there is the element of mysticism. Such are those eternal pilgrims, the
haggard and ragged stranniki, who wander ceaselessly from monastery to monastery, one sanctuary to another, begging a piece of bread "in the name of Christ." In the case of Russians in high society, the passion for travel is only an expression of their moral unrest, and the impulse to avoid ennui, and escape from themselves. With many of them this passion becomes a mania, a kind of itch. Their departures are always sudden, unexpected and motiveless; it is to be supposed that they yield to an irresistible impulse. As they cannot now go west, they go to Moscow, Kiev, Finland, the Crimea or the Caucasus ---and come back almost at once. I could give the names of two women who last summer suddenly departed for the monastery of Solovietsky, situated on an island in the White Sea, one hundred and sixty sea miles from Archangel---and came back a fortnight later.
Friday, November 12, 1915. Under the double pressure of the Austro-Germans on the north and the Bulgarians on the east, the unfortunate Serbians have been crushed, despite a heroic resistance. On November 7, the town of Nish, Serbia's ancient metropolis and the birthplace of Constantine the Great, fell into the hands of the Bulgarians. Between Kralievo and Krujevatz, the AustroGermans have crossed the Western Morava, capturing masses of booty at every step. Yesterday the Anglo-French advance guard established contact with the Bulgarians in the Vardar valley, near Karasu. But the intervention of the Allies in Macedonia has come too late. Before long there will be no more Serbia!
Saturday, November 13, 1915. At the club old Prince Viazemski, an ultra-reactionary and inveterate grumbler, started talking to me about domestic politics. Of course he thoroughly approves of Krivoshein's dismissal. He thinks Russia can be saved only by a ruthless application of the creed of autocracy. I adopted an attitude of reserve. "Of course you must think me hopelessly behind the times," he said, "and I suspect all your sympathy is with M. Krivoshein. But to me Liberals who affect to be monarchists, and are always proclaiming their loyalty, are the most dangerous of all. In the case of genuine revolutionaries, at any rate you know where you are; you see where you're going ... or will go. But these others---whether they call themselves Progressives, Cadets or Octobrists is all the same to me---are traitors to our political system, and leading us hypocritically into the revolution, which will certainly swallow them up on the first day. It will go a long way further than they think, and its horrors will be worse than anything ever known. The socialists won't get
all the fun to themselves; the peasants will be in it, too. And when the moujik---who looks so gentle and kind--breaks loose, he becomes a savage. We shall see Pugatchev's time again. It will be ghastly! Our last chance of salvation is in reaction. . . . I mean it! No doubt I'm shocking you by talking like this, and you're too courteous to answer; but let me just tell you all I think!" "You're right not to construe my silence as acquiescence. But you're not shocking me at all; I'm listening to you with great interest. Please go on." "All right, I'll continue. In the West no one knows anything about us. Tsarism is judged by the writings of our revolutionaries and novelists. People don't know that Tsarism is Russia itself. It was the Tsars who made Russia, and the roughest and most ruthless of them were the best. Without Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Nicholas I, there would have been no Russia. . . . The Russian nation is the most docile of all when it is strictly ruled, but it is incapable of governing itself. The moment it is given its head it lapses into anarchy. Our whole history is the proof. It needs a master, an absolute master; it walks straight only when it feels a mailed fist above its head. It finds the slightest taste of liberty intoxicating. You'll never change its nature--there are some people who get drunk on a single glass of wine. Perhaps it's one result of the long Tartar domination. But there it is! We shall never be governed by English methods. . . . No, Parliamentarism will never take root among us." "What's the alternative? ... The knout and Siberia?" He hesitated for a moment. Then he laughed, a loud and bitter laugh: "The knout? We got it from the Tartars, and, it's one of the best things they left us.... As for Siberia, you can take my word for it that God didn't place it at the very gates of Russia for nothing." "You remind me of an Annamite proverb I was told in Saigon many years ago: God makes the bamboo grow wherever there. are Annamites. The little yellow coolies have perfectly appreciated the relationship between the bamboo stalk and their own backs. As I don't want to end our conversation with a joke, may I say that in my heart of hearts I very much hope to see Russia gradually adapting herself to a system of representative government, on a scale commensurate with the high degree to which that form of government seems to me compatible with the temperament of the Russian nation. But as ambassador of an Allied Power I am not less anxious that all experiments in reform should be postponed until peace is signed, as I agree with you that at the present time Tsarism is the highest national expression of Russia, and her greatest force."
Sunday, November 14, 1915. From all I hear from Moscow and the provinces, the disaster to the Serbians is causing the greatest anguish to the soul of Russia, a soul which is highly responsive to the sentiments of pity and fraternity.
Apropos of this subject, Sazonov has been telling me that he had a talk yesterday with the Emperor's confessor, Father Alexander Vassiliev: "He's a saint," he said, "with a heart of gold and a really high and pure faith. He lives in retirement, away from the world, and spends his time in prayer. I've known him since my childhood. . . . Yesterday I met him at the door of the Church of the Saviour and we took a turn together. He plied me with questions innumerable about Serbia. Had we left anything undone to save her? Was there still any hope of checking the invasion? Is there no means of sending fresh troops to Salonica? And so on. As I displayed considerable surprise at his persistence, he said: 'I've no hesitation in telling you privately that our beloved Tsar is overwhelmed with grief---and almost remorse---at the misfortunes of Serbia.'"
Tuesday, November 16, 1915. During the last fortnight the Russian Courland army has been conducting a stubborn offensive with some success in the region of Schlock, xkull and Dvinsk, The operation is of secondary importance only, but it compels the German General Staff to employ a large number of troops in the fighting in extremely cold weather. Madame S-----, who has just come from xkull, where she is in charge of a hospital has been telling me of the patience, gentleness and resignation of the Russian wounded. "In this," she said, "there is almost always an element of religious emotion which sometimes takes strange and utterly mystical forms. Many a time, in the case of quite untutored moujiks, I have been struck by their idea that their sufferings are not only an expiation of their own sins, but represent their share of responsibility for the world's sin, so that it is their duty to bear their pain as Christ bore his cross---for the redemption of humanity. If you lived with our peasants for a short time you'd be surprised to see how thoroughly evangelical in spirit they are. . . ." With a smile, she added: "Though that doesn't prevent them from being brutal, idle, lazy, thieving, lustful, incestuous and Heaven knows what else. . . . What a bundle of complications the Slay must seem to you!" "Yes. As Turgueniev said: 'The Slav soul is a dark forest.'"
Sunday, November 21, 1915. Fog, snow and an atmosphere of grey melancholy. As winter wraps Russia in her funeral shroud, men's minds become gloomy and their wills feeble. All the faces I see around me are downcast: all the talk I overhear is pessimistic. Every conversation on the subject of the war may be
summarized in the same reflection, express or implied: "What's the good of fighting on? Aren't we beaten already? How can anyone imagine we shall ever recover?" The disease is rampant, and not only in the salons and educated circles, to which the turn of events at the front gives only too many opportunities of indulging their love of fault-finding. judging by many symptoms, pessimism is no less rife among the working-classes and the peasants. In the case of the working men the revolutionary virus would be enough to account for a dislike of the war and an obliteration of patriotic feeling which is equivalent to a desire for defeat: but in the case of the ignorant peasants, may it not be that pessimism has an indirect and unconscious cause which is wholly physiological---the ban on spirits? The traditional nutrition of a race cannot with impunity be changed by a sudden decree. The abuse of spirits was certainly a danger to the physical and moral health of the moujiks, but the fact remains that vodka constituted an important element in their diet, the nervous tonic par excellence, and a food which was particularly necessary, as the tissue-repairing qualities of their other food are almost always inadequate. Ill-fed and deprived of their natural stimulant, the Russian people are increasingly sensitive to depressing influences. If the war continues much longer they will become neurasthenic. The effect is that the great reform of August 1914---the result of a noble impulse, and the first effects of which were so salutary---seems to be developing into an evil for Russia.
Thursday, November 25, 1915. The last act of the Serbian tragedy is approaching its epilogue. The tide of invasion has swept over and beyond the whole of her territory. The Bulgarians are already at the gates of Prizrend. Exhausted by its heroic efforts, Marshal Putnik's little army is retreating to the Adriatic through the Albanian mountains, over bottomless roads, surrounded by hostile tribes and in blinding snowstorms. Thus in less than six weeks the German General Staff has carried out its plan of opening up a direct route between Germany and Turkey through Serbia and Bulgaria. By way of relieving his conscience, pro remedio anim su, the Emperor Nicholas has ordered a sustained attack on the Austrians in Volhynia, near Tsartorysk; but it has had no result.
Friday, November 26, 1915. Financial. circles in Petrograd are in continuous communication with Germany through Sweden, and all their views on the war are inspired by Berlin. The thesis they have been expounding during the last few weeks bears a thoroughly German
stamp. We must see things as they are, they say. The two groups of belligerents must realize that neither will ever succeed in vanquishing and really crushing the other. The war will inevitably end in arrangements and a compromise. In that case, the sooner the better. If hostilities continue, the Austro-Germans will organize an enormous fortified line round their present conquests, and make it impregnable. So in future let us give up these futile offensives; with the inviolable protection of their trenches, they will patiently wait until their disheartened adversaries moderate their demands. Thus peace will inevitably be negotiated on the basis of territorial pledges. When I hear arguments of this kind I never fail to reply that it is our enemies' vital interest to obtain a swift decision, because, when all is said and done, their material resources are limited while ours are practically inexhaustible. In any case the German General Staff is condemned by its theories to persevere with an offensive strategy and strive, at any cost and without rest or respite, for sensational and decisive results. Its concern for its own prestige urges it in that direction no less than its military principles. And even if it were not so, would not elementary reason refuse to allow that a struggle which has set in motion such mighty forces, and is increasing in scale every day, can end with a diplomatic compromise? This war is not simply a matter of two groups of States in, conflict; it is even more than antagonism between races. It is a struggle between two political dogmas, two tendencies of the human spirit, two conceptions of human life. It is a duel to the death. I was discussing these questions with Putilov, the great metallurgist and financier. He said to me: "But in that case the war may go on for years yet." "I'm very much afraid so." "Do you believe in our victory?" "Absolutely." After a long pause for reflection, during which a strange light shone in his steel-grey eyes, he resumed in a gloomy tone: "What your argument comes to is this, Ambassador; that time is on our side. . . . I wouldn't be too certain, at any rate so far as Russia is concerned. I know my countrymen: they tire very quickly; they're getting exasperated with this war; they won't stand it much longer." "You don't hope to see a repetition of the miracle of 1812? " "Why, the 1812 campaign was very short. Six months at the outside! . . . If I remember rightly, the French crossed the Niemen on June 25. On November 25 they recrossed the Berezina, and a few weeks later they were all out of Russia. For the rest of the war we had only to harvest the fruits of our victory. It's easy enough to persevere when you're winning. If our troops were now fighting on the Elbe, or even on the Oder, instead of holding their own---and even that with difficulty---on the Dvina and the Styr, it would not alarm me to admit that the war may go on for years yet!"
Sunday, November 28, 1915. When Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, Savinsky, the Russian Minister in Sofia, was confined to bed by a severe attack of appendicitis; he only left the Bulgarian capital quite recently. He arrived in Petrograd yesterday, and came to see me this afternoon. I have known him for a long time. He has a subtle, adaptable and attractive personality, possesses all the qualities requisite to make the Tsar Ferdinand like him, and has succeeded in that respect, at any rate so far as personal feeling goes. He has been telling me of the crisis of last September and his impotent rage at being nailed to his bed by pain and fever at such a vital moment. When the rupture between Bulgaria and Serbia had become final, Tsar Ferdinand suddenly appeared in the Russian Legation. without even announcing his visit, so that Savinsky had no chance of avoiding it. The Tsar, grave and pompous, with his tightly-drawn lips and piercing eyes under half-closed lids, made a great show of controlling his emotion---an emotion which was not all comedy---and began by bewailing the melancholy duties of his position, to the accompaniment of deep sighs. As usual, he turned the infamy of his behaviour to his own glorification. Once again he had sacrificed himself to the welfare of his people! No one would ever know how much it had cost him to bow to reasons of State! . . . Then---as if perhaps already preparing to betray his new allies---he spoke of his distrust of Austria and Germany. For thirty years the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs had made him the object of their hatred: he would never forgive them. But what of it! His conscience, as the supreme head of the State, had compelled him to side with the Teutonic empires. . . . Later on, men would do him justice! ... After a long pause, he wound up with his most sibylline air: "When I leave this world's stage, or that of the Balkans, the gulf which has just opened between my people and the Russian people will fill up as if by magic." Thereupon he raised himself to his full height, shook Savinsky's hand, and withdrew with a slow and solemn step which was the very soul of pride.
Monday, November 29, 1915. I could never have believed that two great countries could know and think so little of each other as Russia and the United States. As types of humanity, the Russian and the American are the very antithesis of each other. In everything---politics, religion, ethics, intellectual culture, imaginative and emotional manifestations, temperamental characteristics, general views on life---they are poles apart, and a striking contrast. The Russian's will is always passive and unstable: moral discipline is unknown to him, and he is never happy save in dreamland. The American has a positive and practical mind, a sense of duty and a passion for work. To Russian society the United States appears a selfish, prosaic and barbarous nation, without traditions or
dignity, the natural home of democracy and the natural refuge of Jews and nihilists. In the eyes of the American Russia is simply the iniquities of Tsarism, the atrocities of antiSemitism and the ignorance and drunkenness of the moujiks. In contrast to the experience of England, France and Germany, it is very uncommon for Russians to marry American women: I can only think of three in the circles in which I move---Prince Sergei Bielosselsky, Prince Cantacuzene Speransky and Count Nostitz. The result is that America hardly ever enters into the calculations of the Imperial Government, or crosses the mind of Russian statesmen. That the United States may one day be called upon to play an outstanding, and perhaps decisive, part when the time for peace comes, and exhausted Europe can no longer continue the struggle, is an idea which has never entered anyone's head here, and even Sazonov is reluctant to contemplate the prospect. In any case, if I am to believe what Princess Cantacuzene Speransky, a daughter of General Grant, tells me (she had letters from New York only yesterday), the democracy of America still seems very far from appreciating that the future of civilization is involved in the struggle by which the Old World is torn. On the Atlantic coast eyes are beginning to open and consciences to awaken. But beyond the Alleghany Mountains public opinion unanimously demands the maintenance of neutrality. The whole of the Middle West and Far West remains faithful to the narrow materialism of Jefferson and Munroe.
Tuesday, November 30, 1915. One of the moral characteristics I am always noticing in the Russians is the readiness with which they accept defeat, and the resigned way in which they bow before the blows of fortune. Often enough they do not even wait for the decrees of fate to be pronounced, but submit and adapt themselves accordingly, by anticipation so to speak. This inborn tendency gave the novelist Andreiev his inspiration for a novel I have just been reading, a novel which is instinct with very remarkable realism: The Governor. One day this high official had to suppress a rising. He performed this task in a manner he considered imposed by his professional duty, in other words, with ruthless severity. Blood flowed in torrents. Forty-seven persons were killed, including nine women and three children; two hundred wounded were taken to hospital. Immediately after this tragedy the Governor was warmly congratulated for his energy, and official channels brought him the most flattering compliments. But all this evidence of approval left him cold, as he was obsessed by memories of the tragic day. Not that he felt any remorse; his conscience did not trouble him in the least; what he had done he would do again. His obsession was simply physical: he was always seeing a vision of the dead and wounded lying in the square. Then his daily post began to bring him anonymous letters containing curses or threats; he was called Murderer of women and children. In one letter it was written: I dreamed to-night of your
funeral. You have not long to live. From another he learned that a revolutionary tribunal had condemned him to death. Thus the idea of his approaching end gradually seized firm hold of his mind. "I'll be killed by a revolver bullet," he told himself. "No one in our little town knows how to make bombs; they are kept for the really big men in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. . . ." He had no doubt now that he would fall under the bullet of an anarchist, and in feverish impatience awaited the inevitable end. He did not even try to protect himself. What was the use? When he was out driving he sent away his Cossack escort, and on his walks he would not allow his detectives to follow him. Every night he would say: "To-morrow's the day." He imagined the inevitable scene in store for him as the essence of simplicity: "Someone will fire at me; I shall fall. Then there'll be my funeral, with much pomp. My decorations will be carried behind my coffin. And that's all!" Obsessed by these sinister anticipations, he automatically regulated his life as if he were helping Fate in its task. Every day he took his walk in the deserted quarters or mean streets. He would wander about, easily recognizable by his height and his general's cap, gold epaulettes and heavy, crimson-lined cloak. He never turned his head to look behind or aside. He walked straight on, without regard for ruts and puddles, with a bold, firm stride, "like a corpse seeking its tomb." There came a rainy October morning when he was passing through a narrow lane with building land and a number of hovels on either side. Suddenly, two men emerged from behind a fence, and called out: "Your Excellency!" "Well, what do you want?" But even then he understood. Without cry or motion he stopped and faced his assailants. Three revolver bullets struck him down. I am told that this story is simply a literary transcription of an actual incident. On May 19, 1903, General Bogdanovitch, the Governor of Ufa, was suddenly accosted in a deserted path in the public gardens by three men who fired at him at point-blank range. Among those he governed he had gained a reputation for justice and kindness. But on the previous March 23rd he had had to suppress a workmen's riot, and there had been a hundred victims. After this tragic occurrence Bogdanovitch was haunted by evil presentiments and, stricken with grief, simply lived in resigned expectation of his own assassination.
Wednesday, December 1, 1915. I have often been struck by the strange and close affinity between the temperament of the Slavs and that of the Celtic races, the Bretons of Armorica, the Welsh and the Irish. They display most of the characteristics catalogued by Renan in his fine study on the Poetry of the Celtic Races. I note certain features: "Nowhere else does the eternal illusion deck itself out in such seductive colours. In the great concert of the human species, no family produces music which goes so straight to the heart. . . ." "The Cymric race, proud but timid, strong in imagination, weak in action.... Always behind the
times. . . ." "At no stage has it shown any aptitude for political life. It would seem that the peoples of which it is composed are incapable, unaided, of progress. . . ." "Endowed with but little initiative, they soon believe in the remorseless march of destiny, and humbly accept it. Hence their melancholy. "If we divide nations into sexes, as in the case of individuals, it could be said without hesitation that the Celtic race is essentially feminine." The Russians themselves have frequently admitted their lack of capacity for progress. About 1880 that original and powerful thinker, Tchadaiev, wrote of Peter the Great: "A great man threw us the cloak of civilization. We picked up the cloak; but we did not touch the civilization. Isolated in the world, we have given it nothing and taken nothing from it; we have not added one idea to the treasure of human ideals; we have not contributed in the slightest degree to the advancement of human reason. . . . In our blood there is a morbid element which makes us proof against progress in any form." In some ways, too, there are some remarkable coincidences between the work of Russian imagination and that of the Celts. An old legend, well known in Brittany, talks of a fabled city, the city of Is, which is said to have been engulfed by the sea in very remote times. On certain days fishermen believe they can descry beneath the waves the roofs and towers of the vanished city, which carried all the mysterious dreams of the race with it in its disappearance. The Russians, too, have their Atlantide, the invisible city of Kitej; it lies beneath the waters of Lake Svetloyar. He who sails upon those waters---provided he is pure of heart---can make out the golden cupolas of the churches, and even hear the sound of bells. There dwell the saints, peacefully awaiting Christ's second coming and the proclamation of the eternal gospel.
Thursday, December 2, 1915. I have been discussing domestic politics with S-----, a great landed proprietor and member of his provincial Zemstvo. He is a man of broad views, far-sighted, and has always taken an interest in the life of the moujiks. We began to talk about religious questions, and I told him frankly how surprised I was to discover, from symptoms innumerable, how greatly the Russian clergy had fallen in the estimation of the masses. After a moment's hesitation, S----- replied: "It's the fault of Peter the Great, and an unpardonable fault." "How's that?" "You know that Peter the Great abolished the patriarchal throne of Moscow, and replaced it with a bastard institution, the Holy Synod. His object, which he did not conceal, was to make the
orthodox Church his tool. His success was only too great. Thanks to this system of despotism, the Church has not only lost its reputation and credit, but is now half strangled in the grip of the bureaucracy. Its life is flickering out day by day. The humble classes are coming to regard its priests as officials, tchinovniks, policemen, from whom they scornfully keep apart. The clergy, for their part, are becoming a closed caste, without prestige or education, and out of touch with the great currents of the century. Meanwhile, the upper classes are becoming indifferent to religion, and those with leanings towards asceticism or mysticism seek satisfaction in the aberrations of the sects. Before long, the official Church will have nothing but its formalism, its rites, sumptuous ceremonies and matchless anthems: it will be a body without a soul." "In a word," I said to S-----, " Peter the Great's idea of the functions of his metropolitans was the same as Napoleon's of his archbishops when he told the Council of State to its face Why, an archbishop is a prefect of police as well!" " Quite so!" . By way of throwing further light on the conversation I have just recorded, I will give a few details of the moral and material circumstances of the Russian clergy in country districts. The village cur, the sviatchenik or, more popularly, batiushka, is almost always the son of a priest and therefore a member of the priestly caste by birth. He is obliged to marry before ordination---celibacy is confined to the monks---and usually weds the daughter of a priest. The marriage is the final step which incorporates him in his caste, but it is another barrier between him and the peasantry. The performance of his parochial duties makes very little demand on his time. Only on Sundays and holidays is mass celebrated. The reading of the breviary is not compulsory. He takes confession barely once a year, as the Russians receive the sacrament at Easter only, after a very sketchy confession, a rambling outpouring of repentance which the sinners mutter as they pass in single file before the priest in a corner of the church. Nor does the sviatchenik know the labour of preparing children for their first communion, as they receive the eucharist as soon as they are baptized. Lastly, it is contrary to custom for him to interfere in the private life of his parishioners by advising them in matters of morals or conscience. His sole task is to take the services, teach the catechism and administer the sacraments. With these exceptions, he has no spiritual duties. In the intellectual sphere he has even less to occupy him, as he is without books, newspapers and reviews, or the means. of procuring them. His chief occupation is the cultivation of the small plot of ground allotted to him by the commune. He has to work hard on it, as generally speaking he receives no stipend and his fees are insignificant. In increasing these perquisites, or even securing the normal tolls, he is in perpetual conflict with themoujiks. Every marriage, baptism, communion, extreme unction or burial, and every time he blesses a field or an isba, means disputes and haggling in which his priestly dignity suffers greatly. It is quite usual for the priest to hear himself called criminal, thief, drunkard and debauchee, and even blows are not spared him. In many villages his
ignorance, idleness, evil-living and degradation have lost him every vestige of respect. Yet, for all that, the necessity for the priestly ministry is recognized by all the peasants. Is not a specialist required to baptize the children, to say mass---so complicated a service---to bury the dead and plead with God for rain or drought? The sviatcbenik is this indispensable intermediary and intercessor. The novelist Glieb Uspensky, who died in 1902 and has left us so remarkable an analysis of the peasants and so vivid a picture of their ways, puts the following words into the mouth of one of his characters: "The moujik commits sins from which neither the publican nor the Chief of Police, nor the Governor himself can absolve him. A priest is necessary. A priest is also required when the Lord sends a fine harvest and the peasant desires to thank him by lighting a candle. Where is he to show his candle? At the post office or the mayor's office? Not at all, but in the church.... Of course, there's not much to be said for our priest: he is always drunk. But what does that matter? The postmaster is a drunkard too, but it's he who sends the letters."
Friday, December 3, 1915. I called on Madame S----- for tea rather late this evening. Her company numbered about a dozen. Conversation was general and very lively. The subjects of discussion were spiritualism, ghosts, palmistry, divination, telepathy, the transmigration of souls and sorcery. Nearly every man and woman present told some personal anecdote or incident received from direct tradition. These agitating problems had been warmly debated for two hours already, so after smoking a cigarette I retired, as once a conversation of this kind is in full swing it may last until morning. Like all primitive races, the Russians are fascinated by the marvellous and have an intense craze for the unknown. The Russian mind takes pleasure in imaginary space only, and has no real interest m anything save the supernatural and invisible, the unreal and monstrous. If I had to illustrate the fleeting impressions I brought away with me from this room I should give a rough sketch of the only person who said nothing, a lady whose silence greatly struck me, Madame B-----. Twenty-eight years of age at most, and very quietly dressed in black satin, she half sat and half lay on a sofa, cross-legged, and did not move as she listened with a sort of hypnotic intentness. A lamp on a table at her side threw into relief her face with its delicate, irregular features, short nose, strong bony jaw, pale olive cheeks, parted lips, and blue, remote eyes which seemed fixed on some vague and distant vision. Her hands were on the sofa, hanging loose and limp as if they were simply the ends of her arms. Every now and then she shivered slightly. Then she fell back into her state of trance.
Saturday, December 4, 1915. A serious dispute has arisen between the cabinets of Paris and London on the subject of our military enterprises in the East. The British Government thinks we have lost the game in the Dardanelles and Macedonia; its conclusion is that we must withdraw our troops as soon as possible, to protect Egypt against an attack in the near future by occupying Northern Syria and the Suez Canal in force. Lord Kitchener is giving these views the full weight of his support. Briand recognizes that we can serve no useful purpose now by clinging to the Dardanelles; but he will not hear of an expedition to Syria or the evacuation of Salonica. He rightly thinks that, in a war in which attrition is one of the main elements of the ultimate result, we should be making an enormous mistake to lose thousands of men in fighting Arabs and Turks while Germany husbands her own resources with a view to undertaking a decisive operation on the western front at a favourable moment. We will not hear of our abandoning the Salonica expedition. He has commissioned me to win the Russian Government over to his views. I have just had a long discussion on the matter with Sazonov: "If we evacuate Salonica," I said, "Greece and Rumania will be without support against German pressure and will immediately take sides against us. The Serbians, seeing themselves abandoned, will lose heart and make their submission to the Teutonic empires. Bulgaria, too, will have no further obstacle to the satisfaction of her territorial appetite: she won't be satisfied with the annexation of Macedonia, but will go further and dismember Serbia. For all these reasons we must hold Salonica even at the cost of the heaviest sacrifices." Impressed by these arguments, Sazonov told me that he is in agreement with Briand's view and will try and secure its adoption by London. . Senator Doumer, ex-Minister and ex-Governor-General of Indo-China, arrived in Petrograd tonight via Finland, on an official mission. He has been describing our military situation to me in sombre colours, emphasizing our enormous losses. His conclusion was this: "To bring our armies up to strength, Russia must let us draw on her immense reserves; she can easily give us 400,000 men; I've come to ask her for them. Their transport must begin on January 10 next." I immediately pointed out the difficulty of navigation in the White Sea, which is blocked with ice. I also drew his attention to the fact that the estuary of the Dvina is frozen for a hundred kilometres below Archangel. Thus the troops to be embarked will have to march four or five days over the ice in forty degrees of frost and total darkness. It will be necessary to provide a proper line of communications. with barracks, rations, fuel, etc. Lastly there are no ships adapted for use as troop transports. Everything---sleeping arrangements, lighting, heating---will have to be improvised.
"With a little good will all these obstacles will be surmounted," he said. Other objections occurred to me: "The man-power question is as critical in Russia as in France: the only difference is that it takes another form. Admittedly the human reservoir is colossal compared with that of France, but Russia does not get the advantage of it. What counts in war is not the capacity of the reservoir, but its effective outflow; it's not the mere number of men, but the total of trained men. In this respect, the Western Powers are much more favourably placed than Russia, where military training is extremely slow because there are few non-commissioned officers and nine-tenths of the recruits cannot read or write. Thus the Russian army has great difficulty in making good its losses, which incidentally are considerably greater than ours. Besides, the moujik is hopeless when he is transplanted, and cannot feel that he has Russian soil under is feet and his isba behind him. He hasn't enough intelligence or education to take in the idea of community of interest which unites the Allies, or to realize that even when he goes to fight in a distant country it is still his own native land that he is defending. With his childish and dreamy mind he will be utterly lost among our energetic, quick-witted and critical races. Lastly, there's a tactical objection which prevents me from contemplating the employment of a Russian contingent in France without misgiving. On the battlefield the Russians attach but small importance to ground. The moment a force finds itself somewhat pressed by the enemy it retires, not through any lack of moral courage, but simply to secure a less exposed situation in rear. Thus, during an action, regiments and batteries can be seen retiring three or four kilometres voluntarily, although their capacity for resistance is still far from exhausted. The higher staffs employ the same manoeuvre on the same scale. Immediately after an unsuccessful operation it is not uncommon to see an army, or even an army group, retreat more than a hundred kilometres. In view of the colossal area of Russia, retreats on this scale are in no way remarkable, and it is the tactics of 1812. But what would they mean in France where every inch of ground is furiously disputed and the Boches are only sixty kilometres from Calais, forty from Amiens, twenty-five from Chlons and eighty from Paris?" My arguments do not seem to have shaken Doumer. Tenacem proposite virum.... So all I can do is to support him vigorously in his task. This afternoon I introduced him to Goremykin, Sazonov and General Polivanov.
Sunday, December 5, 1915. No society is so prone to ennui as Russian society: none pays so heavy a tribute to this moral scourge. I notice it every day. Indolence, lassitude, torpor, bewilderment; weary gestures and yawns; sudden starts and impulses an extraordinary facility for easily tiring of everything an insatiable appetite for change; a perpetual craving for amusement and sensation; gross extravagance; a taste for the freakish, and showy and crazy excesses; a horror of solitude; the perpetual exchange of purposeless visits and pointless telephone calls; fantastic immoderation in religious fervour and
good works; facile indulgence in morbid imaginings and gloomy presentiments---all these characteristics of temperament and behaviour are only the manifold manifestations of mental listlessness. But, in contrast to what occurs in our western societies, Russian ennui strikes me as usually irrational and subconscious. Its victims do not analyse or discuss it. They do not linger, like the disciples of Chateaubriand and Byron, or Senancour and Amiel, to meditate on the incomprehensible mystery of life and the futility of human effort. From their melancholy they do not derive the joy of pride or poetry. Their infirmity is much less intellectual than organic: it is a state of vague unrest and latent, empty gloom.
Monday, December 6, 1915. To-day I gave a luncheon in Doumer's honour; I invited Sazonov, General Polivanov, Bark, Admiral Grigorovitch, Trepov, Sir George Buchanan and others. Doumer said on his arrival: "My negotiations are making wonderful progress. I've had a splendid reception from all the ministers. Here and there I have met with certain objections, but none of them is final and I think my demands are admitted in principle. However, it's for the Tsar alone to decide. He's to receive me to-morrow. I am hoping to settle the matter at once." While congratulating him, I put him on his guard against the facility with which the Russians seem to acquiesce straight off in everything proposed to them. It is not duplicity on their part. Far from it! But their first impressions are usually inspired by their feelings of sympathy, a desire to please, the fact that they hardly ever have a strong sense of reality, and the receptivity of their minds which makes them extremely impressionable. The mental reaction and the process of resistance and refutation only come a long time afterwards. My other guests then arrived. Luncheon was a lively affair. Of course we only talked about the war, in a spirit of perfect confidence and cordiality. Doumer's whole personality breathes courage and energy and it made the best possible impression.
Tuesday, December 7, 1915. Doumer was presented to the Emperor this morning and had a very kind reception. Nicholas II readily admitted that it is important for the closest collaboration to be established between the
French and Russian armies. As regards the actual practical steps to be taken, he has reserved his decision until after a conference he is to have with General Alexeev in the near future. One of the most disquieting symptoms at the present moment is the open opposition of the bureaucracy to all the innovations dictated by the war. It is mainly against the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns that the hostility of the tchinovniks is directed. In vain have these great public bodies made efforts innumerable to cooperate in supplying the armies and civil population, co-ordinating the activities of the industrial committees and co-operative societies, remedying the food shortage, developing the Red Cross services, assisting refugees, etc. The administrative authorities obstruct and oppose everything, of set purpose and design. The Unions are the bte-noire of the bureaucrats because they see in them---not without reason---the germ of provincial and municipal self-government. The Russian bureaucracy seems to have taken as its motto: Let Russia perish, but not my principles! As if it would not be the first to be involved in her fall!
Saturday, December 11, 1915. I will give certain statistics of the Russian forces (1) Infantry: The present strength at the front is 1,360,000 men, of whom 160,000 are without rifles. (2) Artillery: The combatant armies have 3,750 field guns and 250 mountain guns, each piece supplied with 550 rounds. The heavy artillery consists of 650 guns, with a supply of 260 rounds apiece. (3) Rifles: If the consignments in progress materialize without accident, we may hope that between now and January 15 the Russian armies will receive 400,000 rifles, and 200,000 more in the following month. It will thus have 1,800,000 rifles by the 15th February. (4) Artillery ammunition: Production is making constant progress. The daily output, which did not exceed 14,000 last May, is now 59,000 it will reach 84,000 by January 15, and 122,000 by March
Sunday, December 12, 1915. When with Princess G----- for tea to-day, I met B-----, who was in a pessimistic and sarcastic mood:
"This war will end like Boris Godunov," he cried. "You know it, of course? Moussorgsky's opera." At the mention of Boris Godunov the impressive figure of Shaliapin rose before my eyes: but I tried in vain to grasp the allusion to the present war. B----- continued: "Don't you remember the two last scenes? Boris, devoured by remorse, has become mad and the victim of hallucinations, and is telling his boyards that he is about to die. He gives orders that a monk's robe is to be brought. in which to bury him, as was then the custom with dying tsars. The bells immediately toll.. candles are lit: priests chant the funeral service. Boris dies. The moment the breath is out of his body the people revolt. The usurper, the false Dimitry, appears on horseback. A yelling crowd follows him to the Kremlin. The only person left on the stage is an aged beggar. an idiot, ayurodivi, who sings: Weep, oh my holy, orthodox Russia; weep, for you are about to be plunged into darkness!" "That's a cheering prophecy!" With a bitter, cynical laugh, he replied: "Oh! We're in for much worse things than that!" "Worse than in Boris Godunov's time?" "Yes! ... We shan't even have the usurper; we shall only have the people in revolt and the yurodivi: there'll be lots of yurodivis. We are not behind our ancestors ... in the mysticism line." The novelist Tchekhov, the discerning author of the Moujiks, described very accurately the Russian trick of adopting an ironical and cynical tone in the face of adversity. He. makes one of his characters---who has been banished to the depths of Siberia---say: "When Fate is unkind to you, despise her, laugh at her Otherwise she will only laugh at you."
Monday, December 13, 1915. In the last few days our Near East army has suffered a serious reverse on the banks of the Tcherna, an important river of Macedonia which flows through the Monastir district and joins the Vardar. We have now lost our last foothold in Macedonia, and the communiqu of the Bulgarian General Staff unfortunately has the right to run like this: To the Bulgarian army and nation, December 12, 1915, will always be a memorable date. On that day our army occupied the last three Macedonian towns still in the enemy's hands---Doiran, Guevgheli and Sturga. The last combats with the French, English and Serbians took place on the shores of Lake Doiran and near Ochrida. The enemy has been driven back at all points: Macedonia is free; there is not a single enemy soldier on her soil.
Thursday, December 16, 1915. "France is letting Russia carry the whole burden of the war." This is a charge I hear repeated from time to time, with a persistence and spontaneity which in themselves would be quite enough to betray a theme of German propaganda. But, for some time now, I have been observing an ingenious variation on this theme: "France ought to remember how kind the Tsar Alexander III was to her twenty years ago, when she came to beg an alliance with Russia. At that time France had lost all respect in the world; she was isolated, weak and discredited; no one was willing to be associated or linked with her. It was Russia which then raised her up out of the mire by accepting an a alliance with her. . . ." Whenever I have an opportunity I immediately refute this calumny, which is an historical error. I have just been thrashing it out, as between friends of course, with certain people whose faith called for enlightenment. The Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch was listening to us, and he gave me an approving smile. France never begged or even asked for an alliance with Russia. In every phase of the negotiations all the approaches came from Russia alone. It was the Tsar Alexander III who initiated the first conversations. In March, 1891, the ill-timed visit of the Empress Frederick to Paris had produced dangerously strained relations between France and Germany. On March 9 Baron von Mohrenheim, the ambassador in Paris, came to Ribot, who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to read him a letter from Giers, which had been written by the Emperor's orders, and told him that "the closest agreement between Russia and France was necessary to the maintenance of a proper balance of power in Europe." Such was the prelude. The diplomats set to work at once. On August 27 Ribot and Mohrenheim enunciated the principle of the alliance by signing an agreement, by the terms of which France and Russia undertook to confer together on all questions likely to compromise the peace of the world, and the measures which the danger of war might compel the two Governments to adopt in concert. In this spirit the French and Russian General Staffs drew up a military convention which was signed on August 17, 1892, by General de Boisdeffre and General Obrutchev. But there was then a long hiatus in the negotiations. Before becoming effective the military convention was to be ratified by the two Governments. But when on the point of taking the final step, Alexander III seemed to hesitate. The Panama affair had just opened an era of notorious scandals in France. The whole of monarchical Europe rejoiced to see us thus exhibiting our social sores. To make things worse, at the Palais Bourbon the ministers were tearing each other to pieces; our political structure seemed in the throes of disintegration. To an autocratic tsar it was a serious step to contract a marriage with so turbulent and discredited a republic. Alexander III decided to play for time. Nothing more was said about an alliance. Months passed. However, this situation could not continue indefinitely. On December 5, 1893, Casimir-Perier, who had just become President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, came to the
conclusion that the interests and dignity of France could not allow him to wait for Russia's decision any longer. I was then his chef de cabinet, and I remember how the fibre of national pride stirred in him when I communicated the contents of the file to him. With his straightforward and downright temperament, he would not hear of negotiations of such importance remaining in abeyance for sixteen months, and he kept on saying: "I'm not going to let anyone treat me like that. If the Tsar doesn't want our alliance now, let him say so! We'll look out for allies elsewhere ......" He immediately sent for our ambassador, the Comte de Montebello, who was then in Paris on a leave which was about to expire. I was present during their conversation. Casimir-Perier was very peremptory: "The moment you get back to Petrograd you will ask an audience of the Emperor and induce him to declare himself. I'll allow you all the discretion you think necessary as to the terms you use; but I must have a clear and definite answer." Montebello, the incarnation of experience and cool wisdom, explained that he was absolutely sure of the friendly feelings of Alexander III towards us, and that it would be a grievous error to appear to doubt them. He added that he should regard it as highly advantageous for the future if Russia took the initiative in bringing the negotiations to a conclusion, just as she had brought about the first conversations in March, 1891: "In that way no one could ever say that we have asked for anything." Casimir-Perier yielded to the force of this argument. The moment he returned, Montebello asked an audience of the Emperor. As usual, the sovereign gave him the kindest of receptions; but Alexander III made no allusion whatever to the scheme for an alliance. Montebello adhered firmly to his waiting policy. In Paris, Casimir-Perier's nerves were on edge. His pleasure was all the greater when, on January 1, 1894, a telegram told him that the Emperor on his own initiative had ordered his Foreign Minister, Giers, to ratify the military convention. When sending us the formal ratifications on January 8, Montebello could repeat, and with justice, his previous phrase: "So no one can ever say we have asked for anything."
Tuesday, December 21, 1915. I commented recently on the important part which mystical communities play in the religious life of the Russian nation. I will give certain details about one of them, the sect of the Skoptzy, or "self-mutilators," which is one of the most curious and ineradicable. It professes the same spiritualistic doctrines as the Khlisty; but whereas the "flagellants" try to subdue the flesh by exhausting it, the Skoptzy get rid of sexual sin once and for all by physical mutilation. The founder of the sect was a humble moujik, Andrew Ivanovitch, who was born about 1730 near Orel. On his simple and harassed soul certain words of Christ had produced an extraordinary impression: There are eunuchs who are born such in their mother's womb: others there are who have become such by the act of man; but there are also those who have made
themselves eunuchs with their own hand so that they may enter the Kingdom of Heaven (1) . Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire (2) . . Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck (3) . Andrew Ivanovitch was so intensely impressed by these words, and regarded them as so plain an assurance of salvation, that he deprived himself with his own hand of the means of satisfying the accursed needs of the flesh in future. As there is no aberration which is not contagious to the Slav mind, the new eunuch immediately found twelve disciples whom he castrated in the name of Christ and the Holy Spirit. One of them, Kondrati Selivanov, who had a remarkable gift of persuasive eloquence, made himself the apostle of this creed. He saw confirmation of the precepts of the gospel in the divine promises transmitted to us by the prophet Isaiah: For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.(4) He went from town to town, Tambov, Tula, Riazan, Moscow, preaching the necessity of escaping the devilish snares of the flesh by a physical sacrifice. Everywhere he made converts. His propaganda soon assumed such proportions that the Government had the heretics arrested, and in 1774 sent them to the penal settlement at Irkutsk. Andrew Ivanovitch died shortly afterwards, leaving nothing but a dim tradition behind him. For Selivanov, on the other hand, a period of prodigious and legendary activity began. A rumour spread that he was the Saviour himself, the actual reincarnation of Jesus Christ. There was also another legend: it was alleged that the Tsar Peter III had secretly escaped the blows of his assassins and was going about disguised under the armiak of the convict mystic. In dark corners of churches and monasteries an even more extraordinary story was whispered. The unhappy Peter Feodorovitch was not the son of Anna Petrovna: through the intervention of the Holy Spirit he had been miraculously conceived in the womb of his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth, who had always been a virgin notwithstanding all the notorious facts which seemed to indicate the contrary. A devotee of chastity, it was only with the most intense reluctance that he had consented to enter into the sacrament of marriage. The test had been too much for his strength. The moment his son Paul was born, he had castrated himself to escape the amorous fury of his wife, Catherine, who, in her disappointed rage, had had him assassinated. This fantastic story came to the ears of Paul I: his mind was already unhinged and it received a terrible shock. He was anxious to know Selivanov, and gave orders that he was to be brought back from Siberia at once. The murder on the night of March 23, 1801, prevented the meeting between the two madmen. But Alexander I returned to his father's scheme; he had a long talk with the Skopetz, showed him the greatest kindness and found him a place of refuge. Subsequently, Madame de Krudener occasionally consulted the holy eunuch. The sect then passed through great days: among its neophytes could be found boyards, high officials, officers of the Court and society women. Yet for all his sympathy with the Christ-Skopetz, the Emperor Alexander soon found himself compelled to take repressive measures. In 1820 Selivanov was confined in the ecclesiastical
prison of the monastery of Saint Euphemius at Suzdal. The detailed and repeated instructions of the Minister of the Interior, Count Kotchubey, prescribed that the prisoner was to be subjected to a regime of the greatest secrecy; all correspondence was forbidden; no one was allowed to see him except three guards selected expressly for their fidelity; he was not permitted to borrow books or have paper, ink or a pen; his name must never be uttered. On the registers and in official reports he was described simply as "the old man." But notwithstanding all these precautions his disciples succeeded in discovering his retreat and attempted several times, but in vain, to get a message of hope through to him. Selivanov suffered this harsh treatment up to the last moment of his life; he died in 1837. In the reign of Nicholas II the police took measures of the greatest severity against the Skoptzy. They were persecuted in every possible way---publicly whipped, confined in the penitentiary monasteries of Saint Prilutsk at Vologda, Trotzky, Selengisky near Lake Bakal, and Solovietzky in the middle of the White Sea, enrolled in the disciplinary companies in the Caucasus, deported to the depths of Eastern Siberia, condemned to work in the mines in the Urals. It was all in vain. The halo of martyrdom made an apostle of every victim. To their terrible heresy they converted the prisoners, convicts, deportees, and even the monks among whom they were compelled to live. In the years which followed the abolition of serfdom the imperial police gradually relaxed their severity towards the Skoptzy. They only intervened in particularly scandalous cases, such as when the self-mutilators used .force towards young persons or the operation had fatal results, Since that time nothing much has been heard of the sect. The number of its adherents is reckoned at a few thousand. They are to be found mainly in the region of Moscow, Orel, Tula and the Southern Ukraine. The centre of their faith and propaganda, their mystical Jerusalem, is Sosnova, between Tambov and Morchansk. The physical act by which adherence to the sect is signified dominates and summarizes the whole religious life of the Skoptzy. Their spiritual and liturgical hierarchy is regulated solely by the importance of physical mutilations. The "brothers" and "sisters" who have consented to the complete removal of the organs, and thus destroyed "all the receptacles of the Devil," physically speaking, are styled "white lambs" and "white doves"; their flesh, purified once and for all, is glorified in bearing the "great imperial seal." The half-hearted among them, those who have only consented to a partial operation, continue to remain exposed to certain attacks of the demon and bear only the "minor seal" on the scars of their imperfect lesions. It is a principle with the Skoptzy to assemble at night, "in imitation of Our Lord Jesus Christ who always waited until nightfall when he wished to pray." Men and women, "brothers and sisters," are dressed in white. The ceremony begins with circular and very rapid dances, which are continued until the dancers' strength gives out, so that there may be no insidious resurrection of the beast, however weak and humbled he may be already. Then hymns and psalms are sung and the praises and sufferings of Selivanov the Martyr are celebrated in litanies interminable. The proceedings end with the participants giving each other the holy eucharist with pieces of white bread marked with a cross. In the realm of ordinary life the fanatical spiritualism of the Skoptzy degenerates very curiously. When their veil of religious exaltation is dropped these ascetics reveal themselves as the most practical and self-interested of men. They have a passion for money and a remarkable flair for
business and banking. In commercial houses they are welcomed as accountants and cashiers. Almost all the rest devote themselves to stock-broking, credit operations and money-lending. Their greed makes them suspicious and cunning. Away from their mystical assemblies they seem to have no foretaste of the eternal blessedness for which they have paid so dearly. Their faces are always gloomy and hard. In seizing "the keys of Hell" and "the keys of the abyss," they have dried up the milk of human kindness. One suspects, too, that there is a vein of cruelty in these "white lambs." The way in which they convert young men and women into "little lambs" sometimes culminates in monstrous refinements of moral and physical torture.
Saturday, December 18, 1915. Doumer left Petrograd this morning by the Finland station. As might have been expected, his negotiations have met with all sorts of obstacles in the practical line. General Alexeev strongly opposes the idea of sending 400,000 men to France, even in successive relays of 40,000 spread over ten months. In addition to almost insurmountable transport difficulties, he has pointed out that the number of trained reserves at the disposal of the Russian armies is utterly inadequate, having regard to the enormous fronts. This argument convinced the Emperor. But by way of giving proof of good will, the imperial government has decided to experiment by dispatching one infantry brigade, which will be sent via Archangel as soon as the Admiralty is able to clear a way for it through the White Sea.
Tuesday, December 21, 1915. As I had to leave a card on the Governor of the Nicholas Cavalry School, which is far away in the Narva quarter, near the Obvodny Canal, I indulged my curiosity on the way back by crossing Semenovsky Square, one end of which abuts on this canal behind the Tsarskoe-Selo station. Under the low and leaden sky, from which a livid light descended, the square, with its ring of yellow barracks and its sheet of muddy snow and frozen pools, looked lamentably dirty, melancholy and sinister. It was the very scene to recall the pathetic spectacle of which this square was the theatre, on a day such as this, on December 22, 1849. At that time proceedings had been taken "for reasons of State" against a group of young socialists and their leader, Petrachevsky; they had been confined in the fortress, and after an interminable enquiry condemned to death without any proof. Dostoevsky was among the twenty thus found guilty. One of them had gone mad in prison.
On the morning of December 22, they were brought out of the prison and put into carriages. The trial had only ended on the previous day and they did not yet know their sentences. After a halfhour's journey they got out in Semenovsky Square. Before their horrified eyes stood a scaffold and twenty posts. A large cart, containing coffins, arrived simultaneously. They ascended the scaffold. The clerk of the court then read them the sentence, word by word. Dostoevsky, turning to one of his neighbours, murmured: "I can't believe we are going to die!" Then the priest recited the final prayers and offered the crucifix to the condemned men. Four soldiers lined up opposite each post. They levelled their rifles. But suddenly trumpets sounded and in a loud voice the clerk proclaimed: "His Majesty the Emperor has deigned to commute your sentences!" Next morning Dostoevsky and his companions, loaded with chains, left for Siberia. All through his life the author of The House of the Dead retained the most terrible memories of this mournful scene. Twenty years later, he made Prince Myschkin say in The Idiot: "There are things worse than torture, for physical pain distracts our attention from mental pain.... The most terrible torture is not wounds of the flesh, but the absolute certainty that within one hour, within ten minutes, within one second, your spirit will have left your body and you will be nothing but a corpse.... Who is there bold enough to claim that human nature is capable of enduring a thing like that without going mad? There may be men who have heard their death sentence read out, men who have been left in the agony of expectation and then been told: 'Go away! You are pardoned!' Such men should tell us their feelings. Christ Himself has spoken of these horrors and that terrible apprehension."
Saturday, December 25, 1915. During last week the Tsarevitch, who was accompanying his father on a tour of inspection in Galicia, was seized with violent nasal hmorrhage, which was soon complicated by prolonged fainting fits. The imperial train immediately returned in the direction of Mohilev, where treatment would have been easier. But as the invalid's strength was rapidly giving out, the Emperor ordered the train to proceed to Tsarskoe-Selo. Since the terrible crisis through which Alexis Nicolaevitch passed in 1912, he has never had so severe an attack of his hmophylia. Twice he was given up for lost. When the Empress received the dreadful news, her first concern was to send for Rasputin. She poured out her whole soul to him on her child's behalf. The staretz immediately bowed his head in prayer. After a short supplication he said, with a proud ring in his voice: "Thanks be to God! He has given me your son's life once more...." The following day, December 18, the train reached Tsarskoe-Selo, during the morning. Early that morning the Tsarevitch's condition had suddenly improved, the fever abated, his heart beat more strongly and the hmorrhage became less rapid. By the evening of that day the nasal
wound had healed over. How could the Empress fail to believe in Rasputin?
Monday, December 27, 1915. In the course of a very personal talk with Sazonov I referred to the many symptoms of warweariness I have observed among the public in all quarters. "Only yesterday," I said, "not two feet away from me, I heard one of the highest functionaries at Court, a man who is often in the closest touch with the Emperor, say out loud in the club that to continue the war is madness, and we must lose no time in making peace." Sazonov shrugged his shoulders indignantly. Then he smiled pleasantly and said: "I'll tell you a story which will make you forget yesterday's unpleasant impressions at once; it will show you that the Emperor is as determined against Germany as ever.... Here's my tale. For more than thirty years our old Minister of the Court, Fredericks, has been on terms of the closest intimacy with Count Eulenburg, who is Grand Marshal of the Court in Berlin. Their careers have been identical; they held the same posts and received the same honours almost simultaneously. The similarity of their functions has put them in possession of all the private and secret relations and affairs between the German and Russian Courts. Political missions. personal correspondence between the sovereigns, matrimonial negotiations, family matters, the exchange of presents and decorations, royal scandals. morganatic alliances---they have known and been concerned in all of them. "Three weeks ago, Fredericks received from Eulenburg a letter brought from Berlin by an unknown emissary who posted it in Petrograd, as the stamp on the envelope shows. The letter ran as follows: Our duty to God and our respective sovereigns and countries should compel you and me to do everything in our power to bring about a reconciliation between our two Emperors, a reconciliation which would enable their Governments to find the basis for an honourable peace. If we succeeded in restoring their old friendship I have no doubt that we should at once see the end of this terrible war, etc. "Fredericks immediately gave the letter to His Majesty, who sent for me and asked my advice. I replied that Eulenburg could not have taken such a step without express orders from his sovereign, so that now we had incontrovertible proof of the importance Germany attaches to separating Russia from her allies. The Emperor was convinced and replied: 'Eulenburg does not seem to suspect that he is recommending me nothing less than moral and political suicide, the humiliation of Russia and the sacrifice of my honour. At the same time the matter is intriguing enough to be worth a little more thought. Please consider some form of answer and bring it me to-morrow.'
"Before giving me the letter he read it again, this time aloud. Then he underlined in blue pencil the words their old friendship, and wrote in the margin: That friendship is dead. I never want to hear it mentioned again! The next day I submitted to His Majesty a draft reply, the substance of which was as follows: If your desire to work for the return of peace is sincere, get the Emperor William's authority to make the same suggestion to the four allies. Negotiations are impossible otherwise. Without even glancing at my draft, the Emperor remarked: 'I've been considering the matter since yesterday. Any reply, however discouraging, would risk being interpreted as a consent to enter into correspondence. So Eulenburg's letter will not be answered.'" 1 told Sazonov how delighted I was: "It was the only course to take. I'm glad that the Emperor realized it intuitively; I expected nothing less from his loyal character. In refusing to reply at all he showed himself the perfect ally. When you see him, oblige me by offering him my congratulations and thanks."
Tuesday, December 28, 1915. Before my present period of residence in Russia, the only Russians I had ever met were diplomats and cosmopolitans, in other words minds which were more or less saturated with Westernism and more or less trained to Western. logic and methods. How different the Russian mind looks when it is seen in its natural surroundings and its own climate! During the two years I have been living in Petrograd, the feature which has struck me most in my conversations with politicians, soldiers, men in high society, civil servants, journalists, financiers, industrialists and teachers is the vague, fluid and inconsistent character of their notions and schemes. There is always a lack of co-ordination or continuity somewhere. The relationship between facts and ideas is hazy; calculations are merely approximate and perspectives blurred and uncertain. How many mishaps and miscalculations in this war are explained by the fact that the Russians see reality only through a mist of dreams, and never have precise notions of time or space! Their imagination is eminently dispersive; it rejoices in naught but hazy and shifting visions, vague and inorganic conceptions. Hence the great emotional effect which music has on them.
Wednesday, December 29, 1915. Following up his idea of helping the Serbians indirectly by a diversion in Galicia, the Tsar has just embarked on an offensive on the Bessarabian front and east of the Strypa, in the direction of Lemberg. Stubborn fighting, in which the Russians seem to have recovered all their dash, is in progress at Toporovec, near Czernovitz, Buczacz on the Strypa and Trembovlia near Tarnopol.
Simultaneously, the army of Volhynia is attacking the Austro-Germans on the Styr, south of the Pinsk marshes, and in the region of Rovno and Csartorysk.
Thursday, December 30, 1915. The salons of Petrograd are in a state of great excitement. Their habitus are talking under their breath of a political scandal in which members of the imperial family and a maid-of-honour, Marie Vassiltchikov, are said to be involved; it is alleged that there have been secret communications with German sovereigns. Certain circumstantial details which I have been able to check have shown me that the matter is to be taken seriously, so I have questioned Sazonov, who gave me the following reply:-Mlle. Marie Alexandrovna Vassiltchikov, a lady of fifty or so, cousin of Prince Sergei llarianovitch Vassiltchikov, related to the Urussovs, Volkonskys, Orlov-Davidovs, Mestcherskys, etc., maid-of-honour to the Empresses, was staying in a villa at Semmering, near Vienna, when the war broke out. It was there that she usually resided, in close and constant touch with all the Austrian aristocracy. The cottage in Semmering which she made her home belongs to Prince Francis of Lichstenstein, who was Austrian Ambassador to St. Petersburg about the year 1899. At the opening of hostilities she was confined to her villa, where she certainly received the visits of a large number of people. A few weeks ago the Grand Duke of Hesse asked her to come to Darmstadt and sent her a safeconduct. She went at once, as she is on terms of the closest friendship with the Grand Duke Ernest Louis and his sisters(5) and likes nothing better than meddling and intrigue. At Darmstadt the Grand Duke asked her to go to Petrograd to advise the Tsar to make peace without delay; he said that the Emperor William is ready to concede Russia very favourable terms, and even insinuated that England has already made overtures for a separate understanding to the Berlin chancellery. He wound up by remarking that a reconciliation between Russia and Germany is necessary to the maintenance of the dynastic principle in Europe. He could certainly have made no choice better than Marie Alexandrovna, whose imagination was on fire at once. She already saw herself reconstituting the holy alliances of old, thus saving tsarism and simultaneously bringing back peace to the world. To be even more explicit the Grand Duke dictated in English all he had just told her, and there and then she translated this document into French; it was intended for Sazonov's hands. The Grand Duke then gave Marie Alexandrovna two autograph letters, one for the Emperor and the other for the Empress. The first merely recapitulated in friendly and insistent terms the note destined for Sazonov. The second letter, in an even more affectionate tone, appealed to the Empress's deepest feelings and recalled all the memories of her family and youth; the last sentence ran as follows: "I know what a thorough Russian you have become, but I cannot think that every trace of Germany has been effaced from your heart." Neither letter was sealed up, so
that Sazonov might read them when he read the note. Next morning Mlle. Vassiltchikov, furnished with a German passport, left for Petrograd via Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm. The moment she arrived she called on Sazonov who was highly surprised and received her at once. When she gave him the note and the two letters he expressed his indignant astonishment that she had undertaken to carry such messages. This reception, which reversed all her anticipations and destroyed the whole fabric of her dreams, reduced her to a condition of dumb consternation. The same evening Sazonov was at Tsarskoe-Selo and made his report to his sovereign. The moment the first words were uttered the Emperor's features contracted with impatient irritation. He snatched the two letters and contemptuously threw them on his table without reading them. Then, in an angry voice, he said: "Show me the note!" At each sentence he burst out angrily: "What an insult to make such proposals to me! How could this silly intrigante dare to bring them! . . . All this stuff is just a tissue of lies and treachery ... England preparing to betray Russia! How absurd!" When he had read it through and relieved his feelings he asked: "What are we going to do with the Vassiltchikov woman? Do you know what her plans are?" "She told me she expected to return to Semmering at once." "Oh, indeed! So she thinks I'm going to let her return to Austria! No, she'll never leave Russia again. I'll have her interned on her estates or shut up in a convent: I'll look into the matter with the Minister of the Interior to-morrow."
Friday, December 31, 1915. To everyone with whom he has been in contact these last few days the Emperor has spoken in terms of the greatest severity and annoyance on the subject of Marie Alexandrovna Vassiltchikov: "To accept such a commission from an enemy sovereign! This woman is either wicked or a fool. How could she fail to realize that in carrying these letters she ran the risk of seriously compromising the Empress and myself?" . . . On his orders, Marie Alexandrovna Vassiltchikov was arrested yesterday and taken to Tchernigov to be interned in a convent.
Chapter Footnotes 1. St. Matt., ix, 1 2. St. Matt., xviii, 8. 3. St. Luke, xxiii, 29. 4. Isaiah, lvi, 4, 5. 5. The sisters are (1) Princess Victoria, born in 1863 and married to Prince Louis of Battenberg; (2) Princess Elizabeth, born in 1864 and widow of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch; (3) Princess Irene, born in 1866 and married to Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the Emperor William; (4) the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
Volume II, Chapter Five Table of Contents
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER V JANUARY 1-26, 1916. Heroic retreat of the Serbians through Albania.---Revolutionary conference in Petrograd: programme of a socialist peace.---Rasputin and the Russian clergy. A canonization imposed by the Emperor; opposition of the Holy Synod; the Procurator dismissed.---Activity of the Russian armies in Galicia. The Anglo-French troops evacuate the Gallipoli Peninsula. The Austrians enter Cettinje. --- Characteristics of Russian women.---Threatening attitude of the Central Empires towards Rumania. Saturday, January 1, 1916. The Serbian Minister, Spalakovitch, has just been to see me; his face was haggard and his eyes were bright with fever and tears. Utterly overcome, he sank into the chair I offered him:
"Do you know how our retreat ended?" he said. "Have you heard the details? ... It's been an unspeakable martyrdom!" This morning he received news of the tragic passage of the Serbian army across the ice-covered Alps of Albania, in blinding snowstorms, without shelter or food, worn out by fatigue and suffering and leaving the road behind it strewn with corpses. And when at length it reached San Giovanni di Medua, on the Adriatic, it found a crowning horror awaiting it, famine and typhus. Bending over a map I had spread out between us, he showed me the track of this melancholy flight: "Just look," he continued, "how our retreat has passed through all the historic spots in our national life . . ." The retreat began at Belgrade, where Peter Karageorgevitch compelled the Turks to recognize him as Prince of Serbia in 1806. Then came Kragujevatz, the residence of Prince Miloch Obrenovitch in the early years of Serbian autonomy; then Nish, the Christian city of the great King Stephan Nemania, who liberated Serbia from Byzantine domination in the twelfth century; then Krujevatz, the capital of the martyr Tsar, Lazarus Brankovitch, beheaded in 1389 on the battlefield of Kossovo, under the eyes of the dying Sultan Murad; then Kralievo, where the autocephalous Church of Serbia was founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Sava; then Rashka, the first cradle of the Serbian race and ancient fief of the Nemania; then Uskub, where the illustrious Dushan had himself crowned in 1346 as "Tsar and autocrat of the Serbs, Greeks, Albanians and Bulgarians"; then Ipek, whose patriarchate was the refuge of the national conscience during the long night of Turkish domination. In a word, all the sanctuaries of Serbian patriotism. Spakalovitch added: "Just think what this retreat must have been; not to mention the thousands of fugitives who followed our army. Just imagine it! . . ." In a voice carried away by his feelings, he told me of old King Peter, a dying man, absolutely refusing to abandon his men, and travelling on an artillery limber drawn by oxen; of the old vovode Putnik, as ill as his master and borne on a stretcher, and of a long train of monks, carrying the relics from the churches on their shoulders, tramping through the snow day and night, singing hymns and carrying candles. "Why, your story's an epic, a chanson de geste!. . ."
Monday, January 3, 1916. The Serbians now being out of the arena, the Anglo-French army of the East has been obliged to abandon Serbia and retire on Salonica, where General Sarrail is engaged in organizing a huge
entrenched camp. This retreat has not been carried through without difficulties, owing to the severe pressure of the Bulgarians, who advanced by forced marches to envelop our troops. The withdrawal has been completed in perfect order, and we have been able to save all our material.
Tuesday, January 4, 1916. The commemoration day of the Knights of St. George has given the Emperor one more opportunity of affirming his determination to continue the war; he has issued a proclamation to his army which reads thus: You may rest assured that, as I said at the beginning of the war, I will not make peace before we have driven the last enemy soldier from our territory. That peace I will make only in complete agreement with our allies, to whom we are bound, not by treaties on paper, but by the ties of true friendship and blood.... May God keep you! It is the best possible reply to the advances just made by Germany through the agency of the Grand Duke of Hesse and Count Eulenburg.
Thursday, January 6, 1916. My informer B-----, who has friends in the Okhrana, tells me that the leaders of the various socialist groups held a secret session a fortnight ago in Petrograd, as they did last July. Once again the chairman of the conference was the "labour" deputy, Kerensky. The main purpose of the meeting was to consider a programme of revolutionary action which the "maximalist," Lenin, at the present time a refugee in Switzerland, recently expounded to the Zimmerwald International Socialist Congress. The discussion opened by Kerensky is said to have culminated in unanimous agreement on the following points: (1) The uninterrupted defeats of the Russian army, the disorder and inefficiency in public administration, the terrible rumours about of the Empress and the Rasputin scandals have ended by discrediting tsarism in the eyes of the masses. (2) The nation is utterly sick of the war, of which it understands neither the cause nor the object. The result is that reservists in the depots are increasingly reluctant to go to the front, so that the
military value of the combatant troops is declining rapidly. At the same time, economic difficulties are still accumulating and steadily growing worse. (3) It is therefore probable that in a more or less near future Russia will be obliged to repudiate her alliances and make a separate peace. So much the worse for the Allies! (4) But, if this peace is negotiated by the Imperial Government, it will obviously be a reactionary and monarchical peace. Yet it is absolutely essential that the peace should be a democratic and socialist peace. Kerensky is said to have closed the debate with this practical conclusion: "The moment we see the supreme crisis of the war at hand, we must overthrow tsarism, seize power ourselves and set up a socialist dictatorship."
Friday, January 7, 1916. There has been very stubborn and murderous fighting in the region of Czartorysk, which adjoins the Pinsk marshes. All the Russian attacks have been broken. Further south, opposite Czernovitz, in eastern Galicia, the Austrians are giving ground a little. Colonel Narishkin, the Emperor's aide-de-camp, who sees him every day, made the following remark to me: "His Majesty is terribly upset about the disaster to the Serbs; he is always asking me for details of the death struggle of that unfortunate army."
Saturday, January 8, 1916. Under the influence of Rasputin and his gang, the moral authority of the Russian clergy is waning every day. One of the recent happenings which has been the greatest shock to the conscience of the faithful is the dispute last autumn between Bishop Varnava and the Holy Synod over the canonization of Archbishop John of Tobolsk. Two and a half years ago Varnava was merely an ignorant and licentious monk when Rasputin, a friend of his youth and the companion of his frolics in Pokrovskoe, took it into his head to raise him to a bishopric. This promotion, which was courageously opposed by the Holy Synod, opened the era of the great religious scandals. Monsignor Varnava had hardly been installed in his high office before he conceived the idea of establishing in his diocese a place of pilgrimage which would serve both the sacred interests of
the Church and his personal interests as well. Pilgrims would certainly flock to the place, and contributions flow in also; for there would be no lack of miracles. Rasputin had immediately realized the excellent results to be expected from this pious enterprise, but he thought that to make the miracles more certain, plentiful and marvellous, it was necessary to procure new relics, the relics of a new saint, or, better still, the relics of a saint canonized ad hoc. As a matter of fact, he had often observed that new saints are fond of manifesting their magical powers, while old saints seem to take no pleasure in it. As regards these new relics, they had the very thing on the spot i. e. the remains of the Archbishop John Maximovitch, who died in the odour of sanctity at Tobolsk in 1715. Monsignor Varnava immediately undertook the process of canonization, but the Holy Synod, which had seen through the whole business, ordered the proceedings to be stopped. The bishop ignored this, and on his own authority---and in defiance of all the rules--decreed the canonization of Archbishop John, "servant of God"; then he made a direct request for imperial sanction, an indispensable and final formality in every application for canonization. Once again the Emperor allowed his hand to be forced by the Empress and Rasputin ---he personally signed the telegram informing Mgr. Varnava of the supreme confirmation. Rasputin's clique in the Holy Synod was triumphant, but the majority of the Assembly decided that so impudent a violation of the laws of the Church could not be tolerated. The Procurator, Samarin, an upright and courageous man whom the nobility of Moscow had just induced the Tsar to select in the place of the contemptible Sabler, supported the protest with the whole weight of his authority. Without even referring to the Emperor, he sent for Mgr. Varnava from Tobolsk, and ordered him to annul his decree. The bishop refused in peremptory and insolent language: "I don't care what the Holy Synod may say or think. The confirming telegram I have received from His Majesty is enough for me. . . " On Samarin's initiative, the Holy Synod ordered that this prelate, who had defied the ecclesiastical laws, should be dismissed from his episcopal office and banished to a monastery. But here again imperial sanction was required. Samarin bravely undertook to convert the Emperor; to that end he spared nothing in the way of eloquence, vigour, honesty and religious fervour. Nicholas II heard him out impatiently, fidgeting the whole time. He ended by remarking: "Perhaps my telegram to the bishop was not very regular. But what has been done is done, and I must have my wishes respected." A week later Samarin was replaced by one of Rasputin's cronies, an obscure and servile official named Alexander Voljin, and shortly afterwards the President of the Holy Synod, Monsignor Vladimir, Metropolitan of Petrograd, whose attitude in this dispute had been altogether admirable, was transferred to the See of Kiev, and his post, the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the empire, was given to another of Rasputin's creatures, Mgr. Pitirim, the exarch of Georgia.
Sunday, January 9, 1916. A curious sign of the favourite preoccupations of the Russian mind is the pleasure taken by Russian authors in describing life in prison, penal settlements and exile. It is a familiar theme with all their novelists; each of them seems to think himself under an obligation to make the
sinister milieu of a gaol or Siberian penitentiary the scene of some moving incident. Dostoevsky began it when he incorporated his personal recollections in the book which I consider his masterpiece, the Memories of the House of the Dead. Tolstoy, in Resurrection, introduces us with his ruthless realism to the minutest details, material, administrative and moral, of solitary confinement and transportation. Korolenko, Gorky, Tchekov, Veressaev, Andreiev, Dymov, etc., have also made their contribution to this gallery of horrors, where the background of every picture is the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, the citadel of Schlsselburg, the sepulchural solitudes of Turuchansk and Yakutsk, or the frozen shores of Saghalien. It is probable that the majority of their readers say to themselves: "Perhaps I shall go there myself some day."
Tuesday, January 11, 1916. Notwithstanding the extreme cold and the very great difficulty of the communications, the enterprise and dash of the Russian armies in Galicia are remarkable. Prince Stanislas Radziwill, who has come from this zone, has been telling me that last week a German officer, who had just been captured and heard him talking Polish, came up to him and whispered in the same tongue: "The Germans are done. Stick to it!. . . Poland for ever!"
Wednesday, January 12, 1916. The English and French troops have carried out the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula without mishap. The failure is complete, but disaster has been avoided. Henceforth the Turkish effort will be directed towards Mesopotamia, Armenia and Macedonia.
Thursday, January 13, 1916. By its very principles and constitution, tsarism is obliged to be infallible, perfect and above
reproach. There is no form of government which calls for more intelligence, honesty, cautious prudence, orderly reasoning, far-sightedness and talent; for outside it, I mean outside the ranks of its administrative oligarchy, there is nothing---no machinery of supervision, no autonomous mechanism, no established parties, no social groups, no legal or traditional organization of the public will. So when a mistake is made, it is always discovered too late. And there is no one to repair it.
Friday, January 04, 1916. On the occasion of the orthodox January 1st, the Emperor has addressed his army in these terms: On the threshold of the year 1916 I send you my greetings, O my valiant warriors. In heart and mind I am with you in battle and the trenches. . . . Never forget this, that our beloved Russia cannot be sure of her independence or her rights until she has won a final victory over the enemy.... Grasp firm Hold of the idea that there cannot be, and never will be, any peace without victory.. Whatever efforts and sacrifices victory may cost us, we must secure it for our country.
Saturday, January 15, 1916. Yesterday the Austrians entered Cettinje, which the Montenegrins seem to have abandoned to them without much resistance. General B------, when telling me this news, added: "It's a retreat which smacks of treachery!"
Sunday, January 16, 1916. The evacuation of Gallipoli by the Anglo-French troops is having a disastrous effect on Russian opinion. Everywhere I hear the same remark: "The question is settled now: we shall never get Constantinople.... Then what's the good of going on with the war?"
Wednesday, January 19, 1916. As the result of strong pressure by General Alexeev, the provision of rifles for the Russian army has materially improved. Present supplies are as follows (1) Rifles in use at the front: 1,200,000. (2) Rifles landed at Archangel: 155,700. (3) Rifles landed at Alexandrovsk: 530,000. (4) Rifles ready for dispatch from England: 113,000. Transport through the White Sea is being effected with the help of ice-breakers, though the difficulties are incredible. In the Alexandrovsk region a vast system of sledges, drawn by reindeer, has been organized. The distance from Murmansk to Petrosavodsk is not less than a thousand kilometres! Between now and the end of April the authorities are anticipating the arrival of a further 850,000 rifles. Unfortunately, the losses the Russian army has just suffered in Galicia are terrible---60,000 men! At one point alone, Czartorysk, 11,500 men were blinded by a snowstorm and cut down to a man in a few minutes by the German artillery.
Friday, January 21, 1916. North-east of Czernovitz, on the Bessarabian front, the Russians have started a new and stubborn offensive which has enabled them to carry an entire sector of the Austrian lines. This result has cost them very dear: 70,000 men killed or wounded and 5,000 prisoners. Unhappily, public opinion now takes more notice of losses than successes.
Saturday, January 22, 1916. After dinner this evening I called on Princess D-----. I found her alone in her boudoir, where the light from shaded lamps here and there picks out eighteenth-century pictures, statuettes, china,
brocades, lacquer, screens, inlaid work, chandeliers and side tables, a roomful of furniture in that clever and charming style which prevailed in the reign of Alexander I as a last blooming of French art. On the wall behind her hung a fine portrait of the Empress Marie Feodorovna, the romantic wife of that crowned madman the Emperor Paul. We had a talk. She is half separated from her husband, and rather more than forty years of age. She has had her share of sentimental experiences; she also has her share of intellect---a natural, thoughtful and lively intellect. In an indirect form and haphazard fashion, as if she were casually drawing on her memory, she has been telling me of the adventures she has experienced, or other women of her set have experienced. When I left her about midnight, this is more or less what I remember of what she said. But it must be borne in mind that the formality of a written record gives a precise and almost pompous tone to remarks which were the essence of unaffected simplicity, highly expressive, and full of nuances and thoughts suggested rather than spoken: "The Russian woman's heart is even more exacting and insatiable than her senses. Sometimes we are caught by passion; very rarely by love. "We are passionate, tender, sensual; we are not romantic; I mean we are content to feel what we feel without talking about it. We have no taste whatever for the psychological verbiage and emotional theories of which your French novels are full. Our love letters are simplicity itself. In any case, we are too idle to write. Besides, we don't know how to talk well about love. Don't you remember the splendid scene in which Anna Karenina confesses her love to Vronsky? Instead of speaking, she fixed upon him a gaze which was charged with love, and remained silent. . . . "We are only too ready to worship. It is easy to deceive us. A mere trifle can dazzle and fascinate us. . . . "The frequency of divorce among us is an argument in our favour. When we fall in love with a man, we always think it is for ever. . . . "Inquisitive? . . . Of course, we are inquisitive! We want to see everything, to know and try everything. We are always looking for new faces, new emotions, new desires.... "We are never entirely awake; we never know very well what we are doing, or what time it is . . . . We flit through life like shadows in moonlight . . . . The poet Tiutchev's remark is perfectly accurate: we have nocturnal souls. . . . "Boredom poisons our life. At one and the same moment we reach weariness, satiety, disgust, nausea. . . . "We are only religious by fits and starts, when expecting some great joy or threatened with some great sorrow. At such times those of less faith among us rush to church ---and then a clairvoyant's! "We always feel that we are superior to the man we love. Our great quarrel with him is that he does not bend us to his will. So, for want of a better reason, we don't hate him for bullying us.... "We have more courage and strength of mind than our lovers.... "Generally speaking, we accept our fall quite frankly we don't make excuses for it, or look for
someone to blame.... "We forget quickly and thoroughly. To most of us what has happened in the past is dead, or rather has never been.... "We are very warm and constant in our friendships. . . . "Music frequently contributes to our undoing---I mean Russian and gipsy music. It moves us to the very depths, hypnotizes us, plunges us into a kind of reverie and delicious enervation bordering on mental intoxication. You can believe me or not, but I can tell you that I had a friend who used to have gipsies in the room next to that in which she received her lover. . . . "When you take an izvostchik, have you noticed that the driver always starts off at a gallop, without even enquiring where you want to go? It's the same with us; when we start on some adventure, we rush into it without even considering where we are going. In any case, it doesn't matter; our adventures never have any object and never lead anywhere. . . . "All our novels conclude with a catastrophe. We always end by jesting at our dreams. . . . "No man could give us what we want; we don't know what we want, and very probably it doesn't exist. . . ."
Monday, January 24, 1916. The perpetual procrastination of Bratiano is placing Rumania in a dangerous position. The Central Powers are certainly beginning to adopt a threatening tone towards her. Poklevski, the Russian Minister at Bucharest, has been pressing Bratiano to say what his intentions are. The President of the Council replied: "I'm hesitating between two views. The tone of the German and Austro-Hungarian agents may be simply an expression of the irritation of their Governments over the question of Rumanian corn. In that case it will be easy for me to make some concessions to Germany and AustriaHungary. On the other hand, their tone may be the prelude to an ultimatum, requiring the immediate demobilization of our army, for example. In that case I hope I shall continue to control public opinion, and I shall reject the ultimatum." "In this second eventuality," said Poklevski, "your General Staff ought to confer with ours at once. There's not a moment to lose." Bratiano agreed, and added: "The speedy arrival of a Russian army at the mouth of the Danube would be essential to secure us against attack by the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja." Sazonov, to whom I owe all these details, has asked General Alexeev to consider this question
at once. Bratiano's private motive is only too plain: he wants to leave Russia the task of holding off the Bulgarians, so that the whole effort of the Rumanian army may be directed against Transylvania, the object of the national ambitions. Will the Russian General Staff be in a position to concentrate another army in Bessarabia? I have my doubts, judging from a telephone conversation Sazonov has just had, in my presence, with the War Minister. General Polivanov does not think it possible to get an army of 150,000 or 200,000 men from the front to be sent to Moldavia; the armies in the Bukovina and Galicia are engaged in a very difficult operation; it is impossible to think of withdrawing them six hundred kilometres from their present base.
Tuesday, January 25, 1916. I asked the Rumanian Minister, Diamandy, to lunch with me to-day, and once more laid before him the dangers of the equivocal attitude in which his friend Bratiano is taking refuge. "How can Monsieur Bratiano fail to see," I said, "that by this attitude he is exposing himself to the worst disasters? In dealing with Russians you simply can't be too practical, far-sighted and straightforward. When I think that at the present moment, faced as you are with a German ultimatum, you haven't even sketched out a military convention with the Russian General Staff, your whole policy seems to me madness." "You know how much M. Bratiano distrusts the Russians. He will only bind himself to them at the last moment, and he means to select that moment himself---no one else." " But in a mighty crisis like this, no one is master of the moment! . . . Do you suppose that a plan of campaign, a supply base or a transport system can be improvised at the last minute? It seems to me that M. Bratiano's distrust of the Russians is justified in one respect alone, I mean their lack of organizing ability. That's another reason for settling on a practical scheme of cooperation at the first possible moment, and making secret preparations to carry it out. Wherever the Russian troops are to be sent, whether Moldavia or the Dobrudja, the problem of supply alone is a terrible puzzle, the solution of which may perhaps take several months. Don't forget that the Russian and Rumanian railways are of different gauge, and their junction is confined to the Ungeny line, as the Kishinev-Reni line ends in the Danube delta. Until this problem has been solved, and the conditions precedent to Russo-Rumanian co-operation have been fulfilled, Rumania will be left to her own resources, and I'm very much afraid will find herself everywhere exposed to invasion." Diamandy was very much perturbed, and replied: "Yes, our situation would be critical; with our 500,000 men we can't protect five hundred kilometres of Danube and seven hundred kilometres of Carpathians at once. That's why it is absolutely essential that the Russians shall cover us in the Dobrudja against a Bulgarian
offensive." I don't know what the Russian High Command will decide; but I have already heard from General Polivanov that in the present state of the railways it appears impossible to keep a Russian army south of the Danube supplied. . During the last few days the Germans have been attacking in force in the Dvinsk region. The Russians are resisting well and have even obtained some advantage.
Wednesday, January 26, 1916. When reflecting on so much that is archaic and backward, primitive and out-of-date in the social and political institutions of Russia, I often think: "Yet that's exactly where Europe would be if we had had no Renaissance, no Reformation and no French Revolution! . . ."
Volume II, Chapter Six Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER VI JANUARY 27-FEBRUARY 24, 1916. The Russian General Staff draws up a scheme for a military convention with Rumania.---State meeting between the Emperor William and the Tsar Ferdinand at Nish; a reference to Versailles; infamy of the Bulgarian sovereign.---The Russians greatly affected by oratory; their imagination riots in vague perspectives.---Retirement of the President of the Council Goremyldn; his place is taken by Sturmer; dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Khvostov; Rasputin's influence in these decisions.---Antecedents and character of Sturmer; his close colleague, Manuilov.--Rasputin and the monk, Heliodorus; an Okhrana melodrama.---The romance of the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor's brother; the Countess Brassov.---The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna dines at the embassy; her opinion of the Emperor and Empress.---The great problems of domestic politics: the agrarian and labour problems.---Miserable condition of the Russian peasants.---Definition of imperial autocracy.---Instability of the Russian character: the sudden
volte face.---Reopening of the Duma. A theatrical stroke: the Emperor goes to the Tauride Palace. Great effect of this demonstration. Thursday, January 27, 1916. After examining the various ways in which Russia can help Rumania, if occasion arises, General Alexeev has come to the following conclusions: (1) A Russian. army of ten divisions could be told off to support Rumania. (2) The distance, transport difficulties and the state of the Rumanian railways are objections to the plan of sending that army to the Danube, especially the region which is most threatened by the Bulgarians, i.e., south of Bucharest. (3) This army should be concentrated in Northern Moldavia, in a position to menace the right flank of the Austro-German armies; the concentration could be carried out very speedily. (4) A vigorous offensive in a north-westerly direction would be opened at once, in conjunction with the operations in progress on the general front. (5) The Rumanian army could thus employ all its forces in repelling the attack of the Bulgarians on the south, and covering the frontier on the Transylvanian side. (6) An officer of the Rumanian General Staff should be sent with all haste to the headquarters of the Russian armies to settle the terms of a military convention.
Friday, January 28, 1916. Ferdinand of Coburg, Tsar of Bulgaria, has just surpassed even his own record in baseness. Qualis artifex! Ten days ago the Emperor William went to Nish, where Tsar Ferdinand gave him a State luncheon. The meeting was certainly very impressive, and the choice of Nish, "the birthplace of Constantine the Great," added greatly to its historical significance. So I am not surprised that Ferdinand, who is very much impressed by the traditions of the past and the pageant side of history, indulged his diseased pride to the full. But I have many a time heard this monarch boast of being the grandson of Louise-Philippe and the direct descendant of St. Louis, Henry IV and Louis XIV; could he not have done his political and national duty to the full without insulting the country of his fathers? This is how his toast began Sire, To-day is a day of high historical significance. Two hundred and fifteen years ago the mighty hand of Frederick I, your great ancestor, placed the royal crown of Prussia on his head. On
January 18, 1871, under Your Majesty's grandfather, the new German Empire was born. William the Great renewed the glory of Imperial Germany at Versailles. To-day, January 18, 1916, his glorious nephew, whose strong will has vanquished all obstacles, is passing through the northwestern portion of the Balkan Peninsula, formerly inhabited by the Serbs, and has victoriously entered the "castrum Romanorum " of Nissa. What would his mother, Princess Clementina, his noble uncles, Nemours, Joinville, d'Aumale, Montpensier, think if they could have heard him, in the presence of a Teutonic emperor, recall the most painful memory in the history of France---the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles---and take delight in such a reminiscence while French territory is invaded and German armies are twenty leagues from Paris? Nothing he can do in the way of treachery and apostacy will ever astonish me, so this gratuitous insult to France does not surprise me. But I am a little taken aback at his mentioning Versailles. Failing dignity and delicacy, I have always credited him with taste. Now no one has ever been more under the spell of Versailles than he. Every time he stayed in France he paid it long visits. Any number of times he talked to me about it with an admiration which was equally intelligent and enthusiastic, and a most apt feeling for art and poetry! Probably with his eye on the annalists and epigraphists of the future, the Bulgarian dynast concluded his toast with the following phrase, in a highly lapidary Latin: Ave. Imperator, Csar et Rex, victor et gloriose. Ex Nassa antiqua, omnes Orientis populi te salutant, redemptorem, ferentem oppressis prosperitatem atque salutem. Vivas ! As Ferdinand is now so anxious to collect the materials for his statue and fame, I feel it incumbent on me not to leave his biographers in ignorance of certain documents which throw a startling light on the beauty of his soul. We have just seen how chivalrous he is in the hour of triumph; we shall now see to what heights of courage, dignity and self-sacrifice he can rise in the hour of disaster. It was the month of July, 1913. The second Balkan War, kindled by the insane ambition of the Coburg, was ending in a terrible disaster. The Bulgarian army had finally lost all the fruits of its earlier victories, and was performing prodigies of valour to save at least the national independence. Faced with a catastrophe as overwhelming as unanticipated, the energies of the nation were taxed to the very limit. In this solemn hour, what was the moral attitude of the King? No doubt his heart beat with his people's heart---a fierce, intense, regular beat. . . . Does anyone think so who knows him ? The documents to which I refer (they bear his signature) reveal him, on the contrary, as smitten with terror, crushed by his responsibility, trembling for his life, casting the burden of his mistakes on to the shoulders of his statesmen, generals, diplomats and all who had failed to realize the genius of his grandiose ideas; then suddenly trying to fly, "secretly getting his luggage ready for an escape to his dear Carpathians," and ultimately vomiting forth all the abuse of which his pompous and decrepit nature is capable. These incredible documents also reveal the hand of an artist. The jerky and abrupt style, and the aggressive and flaunting vigour of their similes, remind me of Shakespeare and Saint-Simon, but for all that they are extremely repulsive. . . .
Yet who can say that history's last word on Ferdinand of Coburg will not be an expression of pity? This man has his hour of triumph to-day. But what will be his end? With the melancholy hero of As You Like It, I can say: Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history
Sunday, January 30, 1916. The army of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevitch is doing wonders in Northern Armenia. Across a chaos of rugged and icebound mountains it is driving the Turks before it, and swiftly approaching Erzerum.
Monday, January 31, 1916. At no time, and in no country, has freedom of speech been suppressed as it has been, and is, in Russia. No doubt in the last twenty years the police has been slightly less strict with the Press, but it has maintained all its traditions of ruthless severity in dealing with street oratory, public meetings and speeches. From its own point of view, it is right: the Russians are affected infinitely more by the spoken than the written word. To begin with, they are an imaginative race, and consequently always desire to hear and see those who speak to them. In the second place, nine-tenths of the population cannot read. Lastly, the long winter nights and the debates of the mir have trained the moujik for centuries to verbal improvisation. Every winter, for five to seven months, according to the region, work in the fields is entirely suspended. The peasants are cooped up in their isbas and their sleep is broken only by interminable arguments. The deliberations of the mir---the rural community in which the allocation and exploitation of the communal property, ploughland, pasturage, rivers, ponds, etc., is settled---give the moujik plenty of opportunities of letting himself go. This accounts for the preponderating part played in all agrarian troubles by the orators of the peasant assemblies. This phenomenon was observed in Pugatchev's time; it reappeared in the long series of local risings which preceded the abolition of serfdom; it was last seen at work, in the most tragic form, during the troubles of 1905. It will be observed again, particularly as the rural masses are rapidly tending to coalesce with the socialist and revolutionary proletariat.
Tuesday, February 1, 1916. The Russians are often blamed for their lack of forethought. No doubt they are constantly being surprised by the consequences of their actions, and are in the habit of plunging into impasses, and knocking their heads against the hard logic of events. At the same time it cannot be said that they are indifferent to the future: they think about it a good deal, but without foreseeing it, because they do not see it. Their imagination is so fashioned that it never fills in, or fixes the outlines; it likes nothing but distant and fleeting horizons, diffuse, nebulous and vague perspectives. Whether present or future, reality appears to them only through the visions of dreams. Here again I trace the influence of climate and geography. When you are sleigh-driving over the steppe, and the snow makes a thick veil all round you, how can you help constantly losing your way? You cannot distinguish anything in front of you.
Wednesday, February 2, 1916. Goremykin, the President of the Council, has been relieved of his functions for reasons of health, and his place has been taken by Boris Vladimirovitch Sturmer, member of the Council of Empire, ex-Master of the Ceremonies and Governor of Yaroslavl, etc. Goremykin is undoubtedly enfeebled by age (he is eighty-seven), and if his powers of observation, criticism and judgment are intact, he is woefully lacking in authority and energy. He would certainly have been incapable of facing the debates in the Duma, which meets shortly and is determined to take him to task personally for his reactionary policy. I shall miss the sceptical and cynical old man. In his heart of hearts he must have but little sympathy with the system of alliances and this close and prolonged association between Russia and the democratic powers of the West. judging by the subtle questions he would sometimes put to me without seeming to touch on the subject, I gather that he had no exaggerated idea of the resources of his country, the exhaustion of our enemies or the probable fruits of victory; but he did not draw any practical conclusion, and I have never heard of his offering even the slightest opposition to the loyal work of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Hence the fact that Sazonov, who seriously disagreed with Goremykin on the question of domestic policy, seemed to be very annoyed over his retirement this morning. After paying Sturmer some commonplace and purely official compliments, he laid stress on the principle which in Russia makes the direction of foreign policy the exclusive business of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In a somewhat dry tone he concluded: "The Minister for Foreign Affairs is responsible to the Emperor alone; diplomatic questions are never discussed by the Council of Ministers, and the President of the Council knows nothing whatever about them."
I asked him, with a smile: "Then why have you a seat in the Council of Ministers?" "To give my views on matters which must legally be decided by the Council, in other words matters common to several ministries, and matters referred to it by the Emperor for special decision---never on matters connected with war and diplomacy." I endeavoured to get out of him rather more detailed information about Sturmer, but he evaded my question by showing me a telegram he received from Bucharest this morning. "Bratiano," he said, "seems satisfied with the communication Poklevski made to him in the name of General Alexeev, which he regards as providing a satisfactory basis for negotiation. But he has declined to send a Rumanian officer to the Russian General Headquarters, for fear that Germany may get wind of it. He wants the conversations to begin at Bucharest, with our military attach. In his heart of hearts he is anxious to conduct the negotiations in person. But I'm afraid that to him it means a method of dragging the business out as long as possible."
Thursday, February 3, 1916. Whilst the President of the Council, Goremykin, has retired, the Minister of the Interior, Alexis Nicolaevitch Khvostov, has been dismissed. Sturmer succeeds to the places of both. Khvostov's downfall is a straight right from Rasputin. For some time there has been a duel to the death between these two. The wildest and most absurd stories are going round on the subject; notably a story that Khvostov wanted to have Grishka murdered by an agent who is absolutely devoted to him, Boris Rievsky, in complicity with Rasputin's former friend---and now worst enemy---the monk, Heliodorus, who is living in Christiania for the time being; but the Director of the Police Department, Bieletsky, a creature of Rasputin's, is said to have discovered proofs of the plot, and immediately handed them over to the Empress. Hence the sudden dismissal of the minister.
Saturday, February 5, 1916. For the last three days I have been gathering information from all quarters about the new President of the Council, and I have no reason to congratulate myself on what I have ascertained. He is sixty-seven, and worse than a mediocrity---third-rate intellect, mean spirit, low character, doubtful honesty, no experience, and no idea of State business. The most that can be said is that
he has a rather pretty talent for cunning and flattery. His family origins are German, as would appear from his name; he is the grand-nephew of Baron Sturmer, who was Austrian government commissioner on Napoleon's guard at St. Helena. Neither his personal qualifications nor his administrative record and social position marked him out as fitted for the high office which has just been entrusted to him, to the astonishment of everyone. But his appointment becomes intelligible on the supposition that he has been selected solely as a tool; in other words, actually on account of his insignificance and servility. This choice has been inspired by the Empress's camarilla, and warmly recommended to the Emperor by Rasputin, with whom Sturmer is on the most intimate terms. All this means pleasant times ahead!
Sunday, February 6, 1916. Colonel Tatarinov, Military Attach at Bucharest, is leaving Petrograd to-morrow to return to his post. The discussions he has recently had with the Chief of the General Staff and the Minister for Foreign Affairs will enable him to tell the Rumanian General Staff exactly what steps Russia would be in a position to take in the way of assistance to Rumania, if occasion arose. As regards the conclusion of a military convention, which is essentially a governmental act, it is vital that Bratiano should expressly declare his readiness to negotiate it, as Sazonov suggested. But, hitherto, the Rumanian Minister in Petrograd, who is the necessary official interpreter of his Government to the Russian Government, has received no instructions. Questioned by Sazonov as to Bratiano's intentions, he had to reply: "I haven't the slightest idea. . ."
Monday, February 7, 1916. As Director of his Secretariat Sturmer has selected Manassievitch Manuilov. This choice, which is regarded as scandalous, is significant. I know Manuilov slightly, an acquaintance which sorely grieves honest Sazonov. But have I the right to ignore the head of the news service of the Novoye Vremia, the most important paper in Russia? In any case, our acquaintance dates from before my ambassadorship. I met him in Paris in the old days, somewhere about 1900. when he was working as an agent of the Okhrana, under
the orders of Ratchkovsky, the famous head of the Russian police in France. He is an extremely curious person. A Jew by origin, with a quick and crooked mind and a strong taste for high life, pleasure and objets d'art, but without scruples of any sort,, he is agentprovocateur, spy, sharper, swindler, cheat, forger and rake in one, a singular mixture of Panurge, Gil Blas, Casanova, Robert Macaire and Vidocq: "And yet the best son on earth." During recent years he has contributed to several fine exploits of the Okhrana, as this moral outlaw dearly loves adventure and is not destitute of courage. In January, 1905, he and Father Gapon were the chief instigators of the demonstration of workmen which provided the authorities with the pretext for bloody reprisals in Winter Palace Square. A few months later his hand can be traced in the preparations for the pogroms which devastated the Jewish quarters of Kiev, Alexandrovsk and Odessa. He it was, too, who in April, 1906, is said to have undertaken the murder of Gapon, whose indiscreet chatter was beginning to compromise the Okhrana. Of late, he has succeeded in getting into the good graces of the Empress---a reward for his many services to Rasputin. Plenty of claims to the confidence of Sturmer!
Tuesday, February 8, 1916. Manuilov, in a beautiful tight-fitting frock-coat, with well-oiled hair and proud bearing, has called upon me. A haughty smile wreathed his knavish countenance. I received him with all the deference due to his new dignity. He talked about his duties as Sturmer's right-hand man and condescendingly enumerated his functions to make me realize their importance---which is real enough. Puffing himself out, he produced the following aphorism: "In an autocratic empire of one hundred and eighty million inhabitants, the Director of the Secretariat of the President of the Council, Minister of the Interior, is necessarily an important man." "Necessarily!" Then he began an emphatic eulogy of his master. "M. Sturmer," he said, "is a great mind: he has the makings of a great statesman; I put him yards above your Goremykins and Sazonovs; he's going to return to the tradition of Nesselrode and Gortchakov at last. . . . You may be quite sure, Ambassador, that he'll leave a name in history!" To let him know that I was not entirely taken in by his panegyric, I broke in: "There are many ways of leaving a name in history!"
"Of course! But M. Sturmer's will be the right way.... You'll have no doubt when you know the President of the Council a little better. That will be soon, as he is very anxious to establish relations with Your Excellency; he very much hopes that those relations will become quite close and cordial. Need I say how much I hope so myself?" After these effusions he rose. As I was taking him to the door I suddenly rediscovered the Manuilov of old. He stopped, and whispered: "If you want anything, Excellency, no matter what, just let me know. M. Sturmer has absolute confidence in me, and will never refuse me anything.... So, at your service!" It will be long before I forget the look on his face at that moment; a look that was cunning, hard, cynical and sly. The whole scandal of the Okhrana was before me....
Wednesday, February 9, 1916. I will give an accurate record of the mysterious happenings which recently led to the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Alexis Khvostov: they throw a melancholy light on the inner workings of the regime. When Alexis Khvostov received the portfolio of the Interior last October, his appointment was not only suggested to the Emperor but actually forced on him by Rasputin and Madame Vyrubova. The high-life crook who calls himself Prince Andronnikov, and is the bosom friend of the staretz, his usual broker and chief go-between, played a very active part in the affair. The selection of Khvostov was thus a success for the Empress's camarilla. But before long there was a personal feud between the new minister and his assistant, the crafty Director of the Police Department, Bieletzky. In this atmosphere of low intrigue, jealous competition and secret rivalry, distrust was mutual and there were continual disputes. Khvostov thus gradually found himself at loggerheads with the whole gang which had raised him to power. Feeling himself lost, he secretly changed his tactics, and as the chief ingredients of his ambition are cynicism, audacity and pride, he at once discovered what a splendid, patriotic figure he could cut by delivering Russia from Rasputin. He had just heard that the monk Heliodorus, once notorious for his intimate association with the staretz, subsequently his mortal enemy and now obliged to live in exile at Christiania, had written a book full of scandalous revelations about his relations with the Court and Grishka. Khvostov immediately tried to get hold of the manuscript, which he hoped to find a mighty weapon wherewith to compel the Emperor to get rid of Rasputin, and perhaps repudiate the Empress. But as he distrusted, and very properly, his official police, he was anxious to keep the Okhrana in ignorance of the affair, and therefore sent to Christiania one of his personal agents, Boris Rievsky, a doubtful journalist who had already served several sentences. While the latter was endeavouring to reach Norway through Finland, his wife, left behind in Petrograd and awaiting her revenge for his ill-treatment, denounced the whole plot to Rasputin, who
immediately called in the help of his friend. Bieletzky. This high official has every qualification for his office, being resourceful and astute, entirely unscrupulous, recognizing no principle but political expediency. and capable of anything to preserve the favour of his sovereign. With his usual swift resolution he decided at once to set a trap for his minister. It was a delicate operation, and he entrusted it to one of his best servants, a colonel of gendarmerie named Tufaev, who was on duty at Bielo-Ostrov on the Finnish frontier. When the train arrived in this station, Boris Rievsky rushed to the refreshment room. Colonel Tufaev stood in his way, pretended to be pushed aside, and, as if losing his balance, stamped on his foot. Rievsky roared with pain, and the officer pretended to take his shout for an insult. Two gendarmes, posted handy, seized him and took him to the police office. He was asked for his papers, then searched. At first he said that he was travelling under orders from the Minister of the Interior, and with an object for which he was responsible to His Excellency alone. The officials affected not to believe him, and pressed him with insidious questions---theOkhrana knows how to press those who fall into its clutches. He was exhaustively "pumped." Thoroughly frightened, but soon guessing what was wanted, he ultimately confessed that he had been commissioned by Khvostov to arrange the murder of Rasputin with Heliodorus. An official report of his confession was drawn up, and sent to the Chief of Police, who took it at once to Tsarskoe-Selo. Next morning Khvostov was no longer a minister.
Thursday, February 10, 1916. Walking in the Liteiny about four o'clock, I called on Soloviev, the dealer in rare books and old prints. As I was examining several fine eighteenth-century French editions in the back of his empty shop, I saw a slender young woman of about thirty come in and take a seat at a table on which an album of prints was laid out. She was a delight to watch. Her whole style revealed a quiet, personal and refined taste. Her chinchilla coat, open at the neck, gave a glimpse of a dress of silver grey taffeta, with trimmings of lace. A light fur cap blended with her glistening fair hair. Her pure and aristocratic face is charmingly modelled, and she has light, velvety eyes. Round her neck a string of superb pearls sparkled in the light, which had just been turned up. She gave each print the most careful scrutiny, which occasionally made her blink and bend her neck. Every now and then she turned to a stool on her right, on which another album had been placed. There was a dignified, sinuous and soft gracefulness about her every movement. When I came out of the shop, I noticed a very smart car at the kerb behind mine. My groom, who knows everything, asks me: "Didn't Your Excellency recognize that lady? "No. Who is she?" "The Countess Brassov, wife of His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael
Alexandrovitch." I had had no chance of meeting her before, as she lived abroad before the war, and has since lived at Gatchina practically continuously. Her story, which caused such a scandal, is commonplace enough. Daughter of a Moscow lawyer and a Polish lady, young Nathalie Sergueievna Cheremetevsky married a merchant of that city, Mamantov, in 1902. She divorced him three years later, and then married an officer in the Guard, Captain Wulfert. The Regiment of Cuirassiers (Blue), in which her second husband was serving, was commanded by the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor's brother. She at once became his mistress, in the fullest sense of the word, as henceforth he only existed through her. He had always been the feeblest of men; a weak character and weak-minded, but kindly, unassuming and affectionate. A few years previously he had fallen in love with a maid-ofhonour to his sister, the Grand Duchess Olga, Mlle. Kossikovsky, whose head he had easily turned by a promise of marriage. But when he had to broach the subject to his formidable mother, the Empress Marie, she had raged furiously, and overwhelmed him with scorn and reproach. The idyll got no further. Madame von Wulfert, who was clever as well as astute and tenacious, conducted her affairs with superb skill. First she divorced von Wulfert. Next she had a child. Then---notwithstanding the express command of the Emperor---the Grand Duke publicly announced his intention of marrying her. In July, 1913, the two lovers took up their residence in Berchtesgaden, on the border of Upper Bavaria and the Tyrol. One morning they unexpectedly left for Vienna, whither a confidante had preceded them. At that time the Serbian Government maintained an orthodox church in the Austrian capital for the benefit of their nationals. For a thousand crowns the priest consented to the celebration of a hasty and clandestine marriage. When he returned to Berchtesgaden, the Grand Duke informed the Emperor. Nicholas II's anger was terrible. In an official manifesto he deprived his brother of the right of regency he had conferred upon him at the time of the Tsarevitch's birth. By an ukase, registered in the Senate, he put him under tutelage, as if he were a minor or a lunatic. He was also forbidden to reside in the empire. But of course he could not help having to accept certain consequences of the fait accompli; for instance, a name had to be found for her who in the sight of God was now the wife of the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch. As the marriage was simply morganatic. and left her only on the doorstep of the imperial family, she could not claim the august name of Romanov, so she took the title of "Countess Brassov." from one of the Grand Duke's properties. The Emperor even consented to sanction the title of Count Brassov for his brother's son. In their gilded exile the young couple enjoyed a very pleasant existence, dividing their time between Paris, London, the Engadine and Cannes. Thus everything turned out exactly as Nathalie Sergueevna desired. When the war broke out, the pair obtained permission to return to Russia, and the Grand Duke
received the command of a Cossack brigade. He fought very bravely, but his health, which had always been poor, quickly suffered, so that he had to exchange his command in the field for some nebulous inspectorship which allowed him to live either at Gatchina or Petrograd. It is said that Countess Brassov is working to secure him his revenge in another field. Ambitious, clever and utterly unscrupulous, she has been parading very strong liberal opinions for some time. Her circle, quite small though it is, is frequently open to deputies of the Left. In Court quarters she has already been accused of betraying tsarism---a fact which pleases her immensely, as it makes her views notorious, and lays the foundations of her popularity. She becomes more independent every day, and says the most audacious things---things which in the mouth of any other would mean twenty years of Siberia! . . .
Sunday. February 13, 1916. Sturmer's growing and open favour with the Empress, and the confidence reposed in him by the Emperor, are producing a lively agitation in the bosom of the Holy Synod. The whole Rasputin gang rejoices exceedingly. The metropolitan, Pitirim, and Bishops Varnava and Isidore are already feeling themselves masters of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; they are announcing for the near future a radical purification of the higher clergy---in other words, the elimination of all the prelates, abbots and archimandrites who still refuse to bow the knee to the erotomaniac-mystic of Pokrovskoe because they regard him as the Antichrist. Lists of ecclesiastics who have been degraded or dismissed have been out several days, and even lists of those exiled to monasteries in the depths of Siberia, from which there is no return. There are loud hosannahs, too, among "the Mothers of the Church," Countess Ignatiev and Madame Golovin! The ex-minister Krivoshein, stricken and sick at heart, said to me yesterday: "It's horrible to think what is happening and in store for us. The Holy Synod has never sunk so low before! If they wanted to destroy all respect for religion and religious feelings, this is just the way to do it. What'll be left of the orthodox Church before long? When tsarism is in danger and seeks its support, it'll find nothing left.... I begin to think Rasputin is Antichrist myself!"
Tuesday, February 15, 1916. A few days ago the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna let me know that she would like to come and dine "privately" at the embassy; I asked her for this evening. Around her I gathered M. and Madame Sazonov, Sir George and Lady Georgina Buchanan, General Nicolaev, Prince Constantine Radziwill, Lady Sybil Grey, Dimitry Benckendorff, the Comte de Saint-Sauveur
and my staff. As the rites of the Imperial Court decreed, I met the Grand Duchess at the foot of the staircase. As we were going up, she said to me: "I'm glad to be in the French Embassy, on real French territory. It's a long time since I was first taught to love France, and since then I've always believed in her. . . . And now it's not merely a feeling of friendship I have for your country, but still more of admiration and reverence." After a few words with the other guests, we went into the dining-room. The Grand Duchess whispered in a kindly tone, as she pressed my arm: "I'm most grateful for your finding me such good company. I feel I can really say what I think to Sazonov, Buchanan and you. And I do so want to say what I think! . . . I'm sure I'm going to have a delightful evening." At table we skimmed over various current topics, with the exception of politics. Then the Grand Duchess told me of her war work, which has no end: hospitals, ambulance trains, establishments for refugees, professional schools for the blind and disabled, etc.; to all this she brings as much enthusiasm as intelligence and sympathy. She then told me of a scheme she had in mind as President of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts: "Immediately after the war I should like to organize an exhibition of Russian art in Paris. In our churches we have unsuspected treasures of painting and goldsmiths' work; I could show you ikons from the Middle Ages which are as beautiful and touching as Giotto's frescoes. We would also show the decorative work of our peasants, those Kustarni vechtchi, which reveal such original and varied tastes in our people. For the moment I'm keeping my idea to myself; in any case it's not the right time. But it will not be long before I let the public know. "Evil tongues will not fail to say that it is premature., but at any rate it will prove that I have no doubt about our victory." After dinner she had a long aside with Buchanan; and then she beckoned to Sazonov, who came and sat down beside her. Sazonov likes the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, and has a high regard for her; he thinks her capable of courage, nobility of mind and judgment; he says she has never had a chance to show what she can do; he ascribes her failing---levity---to the minor parts she has always been given. One day he actually said to me: "She's the woman we ought to have had as empress! Possibly she'd have made a poor start, but she'd soon have taken to her task, thoroughly realized its obligations and gradually become perfect at it." From a distance I watched them talking. She was listening with the closest attention, relieved occasionally by a forced smile. But Sazonov, who is highly strung and very frank and sincere in speech, knows nothing of the art of controlling one's expression and gestures, so that, merely from the brightness of his eyes, the contractions of his features, and the tapping of his fingers on his knees, I could guess that he was pouring out all the bitterness of his heart to the Grand Duchess. Whilst he was giving place to Lady Georgina Buchanan, a singer from the Thtre Lyrique, Mlle. Bryan, was brought in. She has a very pure soprano of the most delicious timbre, and sang us songs by Balakirev, Massenet, Faur and Debussy. Between the items there was lively
conversation round the Grand Duchess. As tea was being served I went up to Her Imperial Highness, who made the excuse that she wanted to admire the embassy Gobelins, and asked me to take her through the rooms. In front of the Triumph of Mardocheus, one of De Troy's most bewitching works, she stopped: "Shall we sit down she said sadly. "What Sazonov has just been telling me is deplorable; the Empress is mad, and the Emperor blind; they don't see where they are going, and they don't want to." "Is there no means of opening their eyes?" "None." "What about the Dowager Empress?" "I spent two hours with Marie Feodorovna the other day. All we could do was grieve together." "Why doesn't she speak to the Emperor?" It's not want of courage or inclination that keeps her back. But it's better that she shouldn't. She's too outspoken and impetuous. The moment she begins to lecture her son, her feelings run away with her she sometimes says the exact opposite of what she should; she annoys and humiliates him. Then he stands on his dignity and reminds his mother that he is the Emperor. They leave each other in a rage." "So Rasputin is still triumphant?" "More than ever." "Do you think the Alliance is in danger, Madame?" "Oh, no! The Emperor will always be faithful to the Alliance, I'll promise you that; but I'm afraid we have great internal difficulties ahead of us, and our military activities will necessarily feel the effect." "Which means that Russia, without actually repudiating her signature, will not do her whole duty as an ally. In that case what can she hope for from this war? The terms of peace must inevitably depend upon the military results. If the Russian armies do not continue their effort with the greatest vigour to the very end, the enormous sacrifices accepted by the Russian nation during the last twenty months will have been absolutely thrown away. Not only will Russia not get Constantinople, but she will lose Poland and possibly other territories as well." "That's what Sazonov was telling me just now." "How did you find him personally?" Gloomy, preoccupied and very worried over the opposition he is getting from some of his colleagues. But, thank God, he showed no signs of discouragement. On the contrary, he is as enthusiastic and resolute as ever."
"His is a warm heart and a noble character." "In return I can assure you that he is very fond of Buchanan and yourself. He gets on so well with you two! . . . But it's getting late, mon cher Ambassadeur, I must take my leave of you and your guests." After the good-nights, I gave her my arm to take her to the porch. As we descended the stairs, she lingered to say: "We're obviously approaching a stage which will be unpleasant, and even dangerous; I've seen it coming for a long time. I haven't much influence, and for several reasons I have to be extremely discreet. But I see many people who know and some others who occasionally are in a position to find out. Within those limits I'll give you all the help in my power. Make use of me." "I'm extremely grateful to Your Imperial Highness."
Wednesday, February 16, 1916. Among all the problems of domestic politics facing Russian statesmen there may be some more pressing, but there are none more complex or grave, than the agrarian and labour problem. Quite lately I have had a chance of discussing them with individuals of very varied opinions and station---Krivoshein, the ex-Minister for Agriculture, Kokovtsov, the ex-President of the Council and Minister of Finance, Count Alexis Bobrinsky, the great landed proprietor, Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, Putilov, the great metallurgist and financier, Shingarev, the "Cadet " deputy, etc. I will summarize the main ideas I have extracted from my conversations. The agrarian reform promulgated by the famous ukase of November 22, 1906, ushered in very aptly the liquidation of the old rural system, the defects and vices of which were becoming more glaring every day. The author of the reform, Stolypin, regarded the mir, or communal ownership, as the root cause of the poverty, ignorance, and physical and moral misery of the moujik. It is certainly impossible to conceive a system of tenure and exploitation which is more opposed to agronomic laws, and less favourable to the development of individual energy and initiative. To put an end to the communal ownership of property and organize the partition of the land among the members---thus gradually forming a kind of peasant Third Estate---was Stolypin's programme. Hitherto the champions of autocracy had always regarded the mir as an inviolable dogma, a rampart against revolution, and one of the historic pillars of social order. The agrarian disorders of 1915 discredited that idea. But the principle of indivisibility, which is the very basis of the mir, has for centuries given the peasant a rooted conviction that the land belongs to no one, or rather that God means it for those who cultivate it. Besides, the equal shares and periodical partitions among the members of the mir are always making the moujik feel how small are the nadiels allotted to him; hence his conclusion that it is the duty of the State to increase his holding by the compulsory purchase of seignorial properties, and even by resorting to the
ecclesiastical and crown lands. It is not difficult to imagine to what good use the leaders of agrarian socialism, such as Tchernov, Lenin, Roikov and Kerensky, put ideas like these. If the course of events and the result of the war allow the application of the 1906 reform for another twelve years, if Russia's financial situation permits of a wide extension of the operations of the peasant bank which acts as intermediary between the barin vendor and the peasant vendee, and if certain fiscal measures can be taken to encourage the great landowners voluntarily to sell part of their estates, large and medium scale landholding will be saved. If not, the socialist utopias will get an ever stronger hold on the simple imagination of the peasant. Even now, many are the systems offered him as ensuring his welfare. The scheme which the Labour group in the Duma are advocating at the moment may be summarized thus: all the land to be nationalized and divided among all the cultivators who do manual work. A few figures may suffice to show the practical value of this scheme. Taking Russia in Europe alone, it is estimated that the nationalized land would have an area of about 200,000,000 hectares; there would be approximately 25,000,000 "heads of families" to share in the distribution; a permanent army of 300,000 surveyors would be required to carry out the survey and settle the boundaries; the geodetical work would take not less than fifteen years, because snow and thaws make all survey work impossible for five or six months in the year; during this period of fifteen years the normal increase of population would raise the number of "heads of families" to 30,000,000, so that the original basis of the distribution would have to be entirely changed. Thus the wholesale division of the land would simply lead to hopeless confusion, and a frightful outbreak of looting, destruction and anarchy. The labour problem seems to be just as troublesome. Russian industry has expanded with extraordinary rapidity. It has been calculated that before 1861 there were 4,300 works and factories in the empire; in 1900 the number was put at 15,000; there are more than 25,000 today. Yet, for all that, the material and moral condition of the workmen is very backward. In the first place, most of them cannot read or write, which greatly reduces their productive capacity. Then the number of peasants who leave country districts to look for work in the towns is increasing every day. The effect of the influx of workers which accompanies this rural exodus is to keep wages down to a very low level, which usually does not enable the workman to provide the necessary minimum of food, lodging and clothing. On the other hand, the extended use of machinery, by diminishing the value of mere physical strength, frequently means that the master decides to employ female and child labour instead of male. Hence the social repercussion that the workman's family life is destroyed because no one is left at home. This state of affairs, bad enough in itself, is made worse by all the aberrations, mistakes and iniquities of which the imperial bureaucracy is always making the proletariat the victim. In matters of labour policy, the principal and ideal of Russian legislation is the paternal state. In reality it is the police state. The tsarist officials regard themselves as the natural and final arbitrators in all disputes between capital and labour. The way in which they perform their functions as arbitrators provokes the dumb fury of the workmen, and arouses incessant thoughts of resistance, revolt and destruction. In no country are strikes so frequent and violent. But an element which is quite peculiar to Russia---perhaps the ugliest feature of the regime---is the fact that the police play the part of agent provocateur in strikes. The system is a very old
one, though it is only in the last ten years, since the ministry of the notorious Plehve (assassinated in 1904), that it attained its full growth. The sinister Okhrana employs a large number of confidential agents in working-class circles, not to keep an eye on the revolutionary party, but to keep it alive and make it act when required. When the "Constitutional Democrats" of the bourgeoisie or the Duma get too noisy, or the Emperor betrays some flickering spark of liberalism, a riotous strike immediately breaks out. For a moment the spectre of revolution stands out against the sky, in a trail of blood-red flame, as if to herald "the great night." But the Cossacks are already on the scene. Order is at once restored. Once more the Okhrana has saved autocracy and society---if it has not discredited them for ever
Thursday, February 17, 1916. There is no civilized country in which the social lot of woman is so wretched and backward as in the country districts of Russia. On this point the evidence is all one way. All the novelists who have described rural life agree in habitually representing the peasant woman as overwhelmed with the roughest and hardest work, treated as a slave in her house, exhausted by pregnancies and ailments, the victim of every form of lust, bullied from morning to night and beaten on the slightest excuse. The general accuracy of these descriptions is borne out by the startling examples of crimes of violence and passion which find their way into the legal records. In the villages sexual morality falls to a very low level. The domokhoziane (head of the family) exercises sovereign rights over all the women under his roof. The long winter nights, lack of light, shortage of room and promiscuity of the inhabitants are all favourable to the most shameful licence. Nothing is more common than incest between the domokhoziane and his snokha (daughter-in-law) when the young husband is away with his regiment or working in the town. This concubinage is so widespread that there is actually a special word for it--snokhatchestvo. The biblical wickedness of Lot and his daughters, Ruben and Bala, Ammon and Thamar, is consciously perpetuated in the shadow of the isbas. In this respect, at any rate, the habits of the moujiks have remained patriarchal. The statistics of prostitution in the towns are a striking proof of the demoralization of the rural districts. I was discussing this matter some time ago with the worthy Madame Narishkin, Grand Mistress of the Court, who has devoted herself to moral propaganda in the prisons for women, and is president of several societies which help ex-prisoners, unmarried mothers, reformed girls and so on. In a tone of great distress she said to me: "Would you believe that it is more particularly from our country districts that the refuse heaps of the cities are supplied? In Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Nijny-Novgorod and Odessa more than half and sometimes three-quarters of the prostitutes are peasant girls---and almost always young girls, mere children, who are taken by their parents themselves to the proprietors of the maisons
publiques ?. . ." I asked the Prefect of Police for some figures. He replied: "I couldn't tell you the exact number of women who live by prostitution in Petrograd, as most of them evade the formalities of registration, and carry on their profession in a clandestine or casual fashion. But there must be approximately 40,000, of whom at least fifty per cent. are peasants. As a rule they start very young, when they've barely reached puberty. The great majority of the registered or casual girls are not more than twenty-four years of age. Usually, they don't carry on their profession for long, as it's a hard one. When they are getting on for twenty-five they go back to their villages to marry, or perhaps get employment as workgirls in a factory. These latter get off lightly, but many of them are lost for ever by drink, syphilis or tuberculosis."
Friday, February 18, 1916. Sazonov, with sad eyes and pain-racked features, has been telling me how much he deplores the reactionary and vexatious spirit which has entirely governed home politics since Sturmer's accession to power. As I wanted him to be more specific, I asked him: "As you're a genuine devotee of tsarism, tell me how you can expect the Emperor to reconcile his autocracy with the principles of constitutional monarchy which you want to introduce." He answered me impetuously: "Why, it was the Emperor himself who defined and limited his autocratic powers when he promulgated our fundamental laws in 1906! In the first place, you should know the real meaning of the title Autocrat. It was Ivan the Great who took the title of Tsar-Autocrat, at the end of the fifteenth century; he meant that title to show that the principality of Muscovy was henceforth a sovereign independent state, which would not pay the annual tribute to the Khan of the Tartars any longer. That's what he meant and no more. Subsequently the term autocrat came to imply the idea of absolute and unlimited omnipotence, arbitrary and unfettered despotism. That was Peter the Great's and Nicholas I's idea of their authority; unfortunately it is the same which Pobiedonostzev and Katkov put into the head of Alexander III, a very noble person---an idea which Nicholas II has more than inherited.(1) "The same theory may be discovered in Article 4 of the Fundamental Laws, which proclaims that 'the Emperor possesses supreme autocratic power, and God himself orders his subjects to obey him.' But anything that is extravagant in this principle is toned down by Article 7, which provides that 'the Emperor exercises legislative power, in concert with the Council and Duma of Empire.' You see the result: the Russian people have thus become one of the directing organs of the empire, and tsarism, though based on divine right, is brought into line with the juridical theory of modern states." "If I understand you right, the Fundamental Laws have retained the Emperor's title of autocrat
only to safeguard the prestige of the supreme authority and gloss over a break with the past?" "Yes; approximately.... I say approximately, because I am far from regarding the title of autocrat as nothing but an historical survival, or simply a legal formula. I think that with us---given our traditions, standard of culture and national temperament---supreme authority should be extremely strong, and I am ready to grant it every prerogative and the fullest powers of command and coercion. But I should want it to be subject to control, and, more important still, enlightened. As things are now, it is uncontrolled, and you know well enough what kind of folk claim a monopoly of enlightening it." After a moment's silence I resumed: "While we are on this delicate topic, may I ask you a question-as a friend?" "I'm afraid I can guess what you are going to say.... Doesn't matter! Go ahead !" "Wouldn't it be possible for me to take discreet action in the sense of your views?" "For Heaven's sake, don't! You of all people, the representative of a republic! I'm already looked upon with suspicion because I personify the alliance with the Western democracies. What would happen to you if anyone had the slightest excuse for charging you with interfering in our domestic affairs?"
Saturday, February 19, 1916. Whether from the point of view of national temperament or personal character, the Russians are the very essence of instability. The war, which has subjected their nerves to a continual strain, has aggravated this characteristic, so that I am always being struck by this phenomenon. Their whole personality is compressed into their thoughts and feelings at the moment. What they thought and felt yesterday has already ceased to influence them, has in fact ceased to exist for them. Their present state of mind sometimes destroys even the memory of previous states of mind. There is no question that evolution is as much the universal law of moral as of organic life, and when we cease to change we die. But in races of a healthy mentality the changes are always progressive; contradictory tendencies more or less balance; there is no violent internal conflict; the swiftest and most complete metamorphoses inevitably imply transitions, reactions and stages. But here the scales of the balance do not even oscillate; they drop or rise in a moment. Visions, desires, passions, ideas, beliefs---the whole internal edifice suddenly collapses. To the majority of Russians the dream of happiness is a perpetual change of scene. I was thinking of this at the Thtre Marie the other evening when Tchaikovsky's poetic ballet, Sleeping Beauty, was being given. From top to bottom of the theatre the faces of the spectators were a picture of delight when the mist-laden lake, on which floated the enchanted barque, was
suddenly changed into a dazzling palace. I reflected that it is on just such a mist-laden lake that the Russian barque is sailing now. But when the scene is changed I fear we shall find that something very different from a dazzling palace will emerge!
Sunday, February 20, 1916. Ensconced in the cushions of a settee, her hands crossed behind her neck, and her whole body as supple as a flowing sash, Madame R----- was listening to us; her lips never moved and her eyes were far away. She was "in a minor key" to-night, or, to put it more bluntly, bored. The amusing and lively chatter in her presence hardly seemed to touch her. But a sentimental paradox, delivered by S-----, brought her up with a start. In her warm, quick voice. rather a cooing voice, she said: "How delightful love would be if we could love continuously without interrupting our dreams or delirium, and without those lucid intervals in which we see things as they really are, and judge the other and ourselves. . . . Have you noticed the platform at a concert during the interval, when the players have gone off for a smoke? The instruments lie about among the stands and scores. The violins, bass, double basses and big drum look so melancholy, forlorn and grotesque, just like old broken furniture; it all suggests a bric--brac shop. It's the wrong side of music; one forgets it the moment the concert begins again. But the wrong side of love is much worse. And one thinks of it willy-nilly when one plunges into a duo."
Monday, February 21, 1916. Yesterday the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevitch made his entry into Erzerum, where he was received by General Yudenitch. The loss of Erzerum has cost the Turks 40,000 men killed or wounded, 13,000 prisoners, 323 guns and nine standards. The Russians are now masters of Armenia. In Persia, Southern Kurdistan, the occupation of Kermanshah, which is imminent, will clear the way to Baghdad.
Tuesday, February 22, 1916. The Imperial Duma resumed its work to-day. This resumption had been so often postponed by Goremykin that public discontent was assuming dangerous proportions. The Emperor has realized this, and the instinct of prudence, which takes the place of political flair with him, has prompted him to a very happy thought. He went to the Tauride Palace in person to open the session. His decision was taken yesterday evening, and kept secret up to the last minute. It was only at one o'clock that the ambassadors of the Allied Powers were asked by telephone to be at the Tauride Palace punctually at two o'clock; no reason was given us. Since the establishment of representative government in Russia, it is the first time that the Emperor has visited the Duma. Previously it was the practice for the deputies to go to the Winter Palace to greet their Tsar. I arrived at the same moment as the Court carriages. In the great hypostyle hall in which Potemkin once dazzled Catherine by his splendid parties, an altar was set up for the opening prayers. The deputies were grouped around it in serried rows. The public had left the galleries of the chamber itself, and were crowded in the circular gallery above. As soon as the Emperor reached the altar the religious service began with those wonderful anthems, now broad and soaring, now pure and ethereal, which are the eternal interpretation of the infinite aspirations of orthodox mysticism and Slav emotion. Everyone present was moved to the very depths. Among the reactionaries, the champions of absolute autocracy, glances of fury or consternation were exchanged, as if the Emperor, the Elect of God and the Lord's Anointed, was about to commit sacrilege. But on the faces of the parties of the Left was an expression of radiant and quivering ecstasy. I could see tears glistening in many eyes. Sazonov, who was next to me, was praying earnestly, as he was largely responsible for what was happening. General Polivanov, the War Minister, whose liberal leanings I was aware of, whispered in my ear: "Do you realize the full significance and beauty of this scene? ... It's a solemn hour for Russia; a new era in her history is beginning." The Emperor was a little way in front of me. Behind him stood his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch; then Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, Colonel Svetchin, aidede-camp on duty, and General Voyeikov, Commander of the Imperial Palaces. The Emperor listened to the service and singing with his usual composure. He was very pale, almost livid. His mouth continually tightened, as if he were trying to swallow something. More than ten times he indulged in the family trick and tugged at his collar with his right hand; his left hand, in which he held his gloves and cap, was perpetually opening and closing; his discomfort
was obvious enough. On May 10, 1906, when he opened the session of the first Duma in the Winter Palace, everyone thought he was going to faint, so tortured and cadaverous were his features. But prayers were soon over; the clergy withdrew. The Emperor then said a few words on patriotism and unity: I rejoice to be with you, among my people, whose representatives here you are, and I call down the blessing of God on your labours. I firmly believe that you will bring to your work, for which you are responsible to the Fatherland and myself, the whole of your experience, your knowledge of local conditions and love of country, and that your doings will be actuated solely by that love, which will serve you as a guiding star. With all my heart I wish the Imperial Duma fertile labours and complete success. During this speech Nicholas II was quite painful to watch. His voice could hardly struggle through his throat. He stopped or stumbled over every word. His left hand shook violently; his right nervously clutched his belt. The unhappy man was quite out of breath when he reached the conclusion of what he had to say. A stentorian "hurrah" was his answer. In his loud, deep bass the President of the Duma, Rodzianko, then replied to the imperial address in these terms Your Majesty, With the deepest emotion we have heard your pregnant words. We are filled with joy to see our Tsar among us. In this hour of trial you have once more emphasized that close union with your people which points the way to victory. Hurrah for our Tsar! Hurrah! The public cheered this to the echo. Only the members of the Extreme Right were silent. For some minutes Potemkin's palace resounded with cheering. The Emperor suddenly recovered himself, and all his charm returned; he shook hands all round, and was lavish with his smiles. Then he withdrew, passing through the chamber itself.
Wednesday, February 23, 1916. Sazonov, on whom I have just paid my customary midday call, declares himself delighted with yesterday's ceremony, which has made the deepest impression in Russia: "That's what I call sane policy! Good liberalism! The closer the contact between the Emperor and his people, the better will he be able to resist extremist currents."
"Was it your idea to bring him to the Tauride Palace?" I asked. "No, it wasn't, unfortunately. It was---I'm sure you'd never guess---Fredericks', the Minister of the Court." "Old Count Fredericks, conservative reactionary old-fashioned Fredericks!" "Yes! But he's so devoted to the Emperor that he realized what the occasion required of His Majesty; it was he who made the suggestion to the Emperor and the President of the Council. The Emperor agreed at once; Sturmer didn't dare to object, and the matter was settled at once. I don't mind telling you that the Emperor feared the Empress would make a scene; he expected an avalanche of recrimination. She certainly disapproved, but calmly, with that frigid and reticent displeasure which with her is so often the strongest form of censure."
Thursday, February 24, 1916. I had Princess Paley to dinner this evening. I had also invited my Italian colleague, the Marquis Carlotti, and a score of other guests. including Princess Daria Gortchakov, Prince and Princess Radziwill, M. and Mme. Polovtsov, Countess Kreuz and General Nicholas Wrangel, the Grand Duke Michael's aide-de-camp. The reopening of the Duma was the principal subject of conversation. Princess Paley strongly approved the presence of the Emperor at the ceremony: "I shall not surprise you," she added, "by telling you that this liberal action is not at all to the taste of the Empress; she hasn't recovered yet." "What about Rasputin?" "He's lavish with lamentation and evil forebodings." General Wrangel, who is subtle and sceptical, attributes but slight importance to the Tsar's demonstration. "You can take it from me," he said, "that to His Majesty the Emperor autocracy will always be an inviolable dogma."
Chapter Footnote 1. When Alexander III ascended the throne in 1881 the manifesto he addressed to his people was
drafted by the famous Pan-slav Katkov. The Tsar used the following language: The voice of God orders Us boldly to assume absolute authority. Trusting in divine Providence and His supreme wisdom, full of hope in the justice and might of the autocracy We have been summoned to uphold, We shall endeavour, with the Grace of God, to lead Our country back into its traditional paths, and We shall take into Our keeping the destinies of Our Empire, which wilt henceforth be quietly discussed between God and Ourselves. . . .
Volume II, Chapter Seven Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER VII FEBRUARY 25-MARCH 22, 1916. Primitive mentality of the moujiks; different courses of evolution of the upper classes and the rural masses: "a terrifying abyss."---The Battle of Verdun; it makes a great impression in Russia.---Philippesco, formerly Rumanian War Minister, visits Petrograd; our conversation, as the result of which Sazonov tells him that the Russian General Staff is prepared to enter into a military convention with the Rumanian General Staff.---The Emperor invites me to a cinematograph show of the French front in his palace. He gives me an official audience next morning to discuss the Rumanian and Asia Minor questions; gives me a very warm reception and reminds me of common memories.---The House of the People. Shaliapin in the part of Don Quixote; Cervantes' hero and the Russian spirit.---Songs of the steppe and isba; eloquence and beauty of the popular melodies: one of Maxim Gorky's peasant scenes.---General Sukhomlinov, ex-Minister for War, is brought before a military court.---Enthusiasm of the Russian people for the Verdun epic; the Emperor's congratulations to the French army.---Boris Godunov at the Narodny Dom; obscure influences and the power of the masses in the history of Russia. Friday, February 25, 1916. For the last five days the armies of the Crown Prince have been attacking Verdun with increasing intensity. Their offensive extends over a front of forty kilometres; the bombardment has been of unprecedented violence. This is the most tragic moment since the Battle of the Marne, perhaps the most decisive of the war.
Saturday, February 26, 1916. The recent elevation of Monsignor Pitirim to the Metropolitan See of Petrograd has made Rasputin the absolute master of the Church. As proof of this, he has just compelled the Holy Synod to bow to his will, and solemnly ratify the canonization of the "Servant of God," John of Tobolsk. His friend, the cynical Bishop Varnava, never anticipated so swift and striking a victory. To crown everything, he has just been promoted to the dignity of archbishop.
Sunday, February 27, 1916. If health is nothing but the smooth working of all the functions, the harmonious co-operation of all the organs and the co-ordination of action of the vital forces, it must be admitted that the Russian colossus is very sick, for the body politic is revealing enormous dissonances and incongruities. One of the most alarming symptoms is the gulf, a regular abyss, which separates the upper classes and the rural masses. The break between the two groups is complete; it is as if there were a gap of several centuries. This fact is particularly observable in the relations between officialdom and the peasants. I will give a few examples: In 1897 the Government started on a general census of the population, in accordance with the highly detailed rules of modern statistics. It was the first time that so vast and methodical an operation had been undertaken. Hitherto the authorities had confined their efforts to certain local, summary and merely approximate censuses. The census officials everywhere met with profound distrust and frequently open resistance. Strange rumours spread abroad and alarmist myths gained a firm hold: the tchinovniks were bent on an increase of military obligations, a requisition of corn, additional taxation, agrarian revision for the benefit of landlords, perhaps even the restoration of serfdom. In all quarters the moujiks exchanged anxious glances and muttered: "It's an omen of great evils. . . . Nothing good can come of it. . . . It's the work of the devil!" Of course the tchinovniks did not fail to prey upon these childish fears with a view to extorting bribes. The abyss between the two castes was deeper than ever. One of Korolenko's novels, The Eclipse, gives us a vivid description of the attitude of fierce, sly suspicion which the Russian peasant adopts towards the representatives of the upper classes, and all who are above him by virtue of official authority, wealth, knowledge or education. The scene is laid in a small town on the Volga. Astronomers have come to observe an eclipse of the sun. The presence of these strangers, their mysterious preparations and curious instruments, immediately alarm the little place. A rumour spreads at once that they are sorcerers, agents of the
devil, emissaries of Antichrist. A suspicious and murmuring crowd gathers round them and they have great difficulty in protecting their telescopes. Suddenly the eclipse begins and the sun hides itself. The fury of the crowd then breaks forth. Some of them cry out against the impiety of the astronomers in daring to question Heaven: "God will give them their answer by thunder!" Others shriek out like maniacs: "It's the end of the world! We're all about to die! Lord, have mercy on us! " But the sun soon reappears. The agitation dies down. The spectators congratulate each other on having escaped so dire a peril "Let us thank God that we are still alive! . . ." Not less significant are the popular outbreaks which habitually accompany the famines and epidemics which are so frequent in Russia. Whenever there is a famine the same charge is spread abroad "It's the officials and landlords cornering the grain!." Or else: "The tchinovniks and barins have arranged the extermination of the people in order to seize their land." When there are epidemics the suspicions of the peasants are invariably turned against the doctor, who in their eyes is the agent of the authorities: "Why does he use incomprehensible words? Why these unfathomable looks and strange actions? Who can doubt that it is he who spreads cholera; he is poisoning the poor moujiks by order of the Government!" And away they go and burn ,the hospital, smash up the laboratory, and insult or beat the doctor, sometimes even kill him! In this respect the novelist Veressaiev, always a model of accuracy in his descriptions of Russian life, has not exaggerated in the least in his story of the heartbreaking experiences of Dr. Tchekianov. The doctor, a youthful enthusiast, who is obsessed by a desire to be of service to the poor, exhausts himself in prodigies of self-sacrifice during an epidemic of cholera. But that does not prevent him being regarded as a poisoner by the ignorant brutes he is sent to help; insulted, abused and ultimately half beaten to death. On his bed of pain he reflects bitterly. But instead of bearing his torturers any ill-will he feels infinite pity for them and writes in his diary: "I have been beaten! Beaten like a mad dog because I came to help them and devoted all my knowledge and strength to them. Only to-day I realize how much I loved them. I have not succeeded in winning their confidence. I had almost brought them to believe in me; a few glasses of vodka were enough to thrust them back in to their mental darkness and reawaken their primitive savage instincts. And now I feel I am going to die. But why have I struggled? In what cause am I dying? Obviously all this was inevitable. The moujiks have always regarded us simply as strangers. We despised and avoided them. We never tried to know them. A terrifying abyss separated us from them. . ."
Monday, February 28, 1916. For several months the Russian people were inclined to sneer at the military assistance of France. In spite of our great propaganda work through the Press, illustrated papers, lectures, and the
cinema, people had not realized the intensity of the struggle on the western front. More than once I have had to draw the attention of Sazonov, Goremykin and General Sukhomlinov to the unfair and discourteous criticisms of certain papers. The Battle of Verdun has changed all that. The heroism of our army, the skill and coolness of our High Command, our enormous resources in matriel and the splendid attitude of our public opinion are admired by everyone. The President of the Duma, Rodzianko, called on me to-day to bring me the congratulations of the Assembly. In the streets, and mainly in front of the newspaper posters, I have several times heard moujiks talking of Verdoun.
Wednesday, March 1, 1916. Philippesco, formerly War Minister in Rumania and head of the francophile party at Bucharest, has just arrived in Petrograd to take stock of the situation. He has had a very kind reception from the Emperor and Sazonov, but while confirming the highly favourable disposition of his country towards the allied cause he has confined himself to generalities. He has asked Diamandy to tell me that he would be glad to have a talk with me, and would have called to see me before had he not been confined to bed with a cold.
Thursday, March 2, 1916. From the President of the Republic I have received a telegram for the Emperor on the subject of Rumania, from which I conclude that Paris has not seen through Bratiano's game.(1) I immediately handed this telegram to Sazonov, who seemed more than surprised, in fact rather annoyed. "It is not the Emperor but the King of Rumania to whom the President of the Republic should be writing. It's not, as Monsieur Poincar seems to think, simply a question of divergence of views between the Russian and Rumanian staffs as to the theatre of operations, inasmuch as there have not even been conversations, notwithstanding my efforts. It is not any particular strategic conception which is at stake; it's the very principle of co-operation. When I question Diamandy and tried to draw him on to practical ground, he invariably replies that he is without instructions
and has not the slightest idea of his Government's intentions. When our military attach, Colonel Tatarinov, arrives in Bucharest, armed with full powers and all information necessary to open negotiations, Bratiano tells him that the day of Rumania's abandonment of neutrality is far away, and we have plenty of time to make our joint plans. And now, when M. Philippesco calls on me, and I try to get him to talk, he gives me nothing but evasive replies." "I can understand that you lose patience with Bratiano's methods, but the matter is too serious for you not to do your utmost to win over Rumania definitely to our cause. The President of the Republic's telegram gives the Emperor a very timely opportunity of announcing his intentions; your allies will be all the stronger for it when it comes to taking action in Bucharest."
Friday, March 3, 1916. The Russian Government persists in remaining silent about the restoration of Poland. Paris, where the Polish committees of Switzerland are carrying on a very energetic and skilful propaganda, is getting anxious about it. At this end I neglect no opportunity of pointing out that the Imperial Government is making a grievous mistake in delaying to establish the autonomy of Poland on a broad basis; it risks being forestalled by the Teutonic powers. Of course, I am obliged to be very diplomatic, as Russian nationalism has not yet forgotten the events of 1863. It is with Sazonov that I discuss this topic most frequently and frankly. As the police, the terrible Okhrana, report all my movements to him, I do not conceal from him that I freely receive my Polish friends at the embassy---Count Zamoski, Count Ladislas Wielopolski and his brother Sigismond, Count Constantine Plater Syberg, Roman Skirmunt, Count Joseph Potocki, Rembielinski, Korvin Mileuski, etc. Their visits make him a bit anxious about me. Yesterday he said to me: "Be careful! Poland is a dangerous quarter for an ambassador of France." I replied with the line of Ruy Blas, slightly amended Poland and her King are full of precipices. But the diplomacy I have to display towards the Imperial Government in the Polish question is only a difficulty of detail. The main obstacle to a speedy decision is the conflict of opinion it arouses in the Russian world. There can be no doubt that the Emperor himself has been won over to the principle of a generous autonomy. Provided that Poland remains under the sceptre of the Romanovs, he would concede most of the Polish claims. Sazonov shares his views and bravely exhorts him to adhere
to them. On the other hand, public opinion in Russia, taken in bulk, simply will not hear of Poland ceasing to be included in a united empire. The opposition does not come merely from nationalist circles and the bureaucracy; it is seen in the Duma and all the parties. The result is that the proclamation of Polish autonomy by legislative act is impossible, so I imagine that the question cannot be solved otherwise than by a motu proprio of the Emperor, a coup d'tat of his sovereign will. I am told that this is Sazonov's idea and that he has already suggested it to the Emperor; but he has against him Sturmer and the whole "Potsdam Court," who are clever enough to see that 'the Polish question is the best weapon for a reconciliation with Germany.
Saturday, March 4, 1916. Sazonov has communicated to me the Emperor's reply to the President of the Republic's telegram; it confirms all that I telegraphed to Briand several weeks ago.(2) This afternoon I had a long talk with Philippesco, who received me at the Rumanian Legation; he could not come to the embassy, as he is still an invalid. In spite of his physical exhaustion, he has a depth of conviction and warmth of tone which he betrays the moment he speaks. After postulating that he has no official mission and is travelling simply as a private individual anxious to see things for himself, he said: "You know my feelings for France; it's my second country. And you know how impatient I am to see our army take the field. Nor can you be unaware that I am not a political friend of our President of the Council, and in fact he reckons me among his opponents. But I won't conceal the fact that I think M. Bratiano is right in refusing to launch our country into the war before the time for a general allied offensive has come, and the Russian army is ready to enter the Dobrudja. The dispatch of a Russian army south of the Danube is not merely indispensable from the strategic point of view; it is necessary to make the breach between Russia and the Bulgarians definite and irreparable. As soon as these conditions precedent are fulfilled we shall enter Transylvania. But I doubt whether the Russian Government and General Staff will agree with our point of view." I replied in a decided tone: "I have no reason to assume that the Russian General Staff would not agree to send an army to the Dobrudja. As to whether a Rumanian contingent should or should not support the movements of that army, that's a detail which will be governed by the plan of campaign. In any case you needn't think that the Russian Government is trying to be gentle with the Bulgarians. Russia is a loyal ally. As long as the French and the English Salonica armies have the Bulgarian army to fight, Russia will show Bulgaria no mercy; I'll promise you that."
Philippesco seemed to me quite impressed by my firm language. More than once he glanced inquiringly at Diamandy, who was listening to our talk in silence, and replied with a nod. Then I put a definite question to Philippesco: "Why does M. Bratiano evade all negotiations?" With a gesture of irritation he replied: "Because he's taking a shabby line! He doesn't find the market good enough! So he's letting the best opportunities slip by. By delaying the decision on which all Rumania insists, he'll make us the vassals of Germany! . . ." Returning to the vital question, the conclusion of a military convention, I pointed out to Philippesco the dangers to which Bratiano is exposing his country by refusing to state here and now what practical form he expects the help of Russia to take, and failing which Rumania will have to renounce the realization of her national dream. I continued: "The decisive hour may strike much sooner than M. Bratiano imagines. You must remember that a military convention always takes a long time to negotiate---two or three weeks at least. Then there are the preparations to give effect to it. The railways have to be adapted, all the transport assembled, supplies and depots prepared, etc. In the case of the Russians, who are such bad organizers and have such defective notions of space and time, this task is slower and more difficult than elsewhere. If Germany issued an ultimatum to Rumania to-morrow, M. Bratiano would be caught utterly unprepared. For argument's sake I'll admit that he is reluctant to undertake to declare war by a fixed day. But what objection can he find to the Russian and Rumanian General Staffs entering into a convention which, necessarily, would have no executory validity until ratified by the two Governments? Is he afraid of something leaking out, perhaps? Why, hasn't Rumania long been compromised in the eyes of the Central Powers by her agreement with the Allies on the subject of Transylvania? Isn't that agreement notorious?" After a long pause, Philippesco said: "I think I shall hasten my return to Bucharest."
Sunday, March 5, 1916. Philippesco repeated our conversation of yesterday to Sazonov. The latter said to him: "I entirely endorse everything Monsieur Palologue says." As soon as Philippesco is well again, he will return to Bucharest.
Wednesday, March 8, 1916. The fighting around Verdun is raging with redoubled ferocity. The Germans are attacking with large forces on both sides of the Meuse. Our line holds firm in spite of the intensity of their fire and the violence of their assaults.
Saturday, March 11, 1916. Philippesco will leave Petrograd to-morrow on a visit to the southern front of the Russian armies. He will then return straight to Bucharest. He has been to say goodbye to me: " I'm very glad you've spoken so frankly," he said. I've already reaped the benefit of it here and am taking the best impressions away with me. The moment I get to Bucharest I shall put pressure on M. Bratiano in the sense of your views, which I entirely share."
Sunday, March 12, 1916. Taking advantage of the Emperor's visit to Tsarskoe-Selo I have asked him for an audience to discuss Rumania and the general situation; he will receive me to-morrow, with the customary ceremonial. But yesterday evening he very kindly informed me that a series of cinematograph films of scenes from the French front would be shown to his children to-day, and he asked me to be present, quite privately and informally, my official audience remaining fixed for to-morrow. I reached Tsarskoe-Selo at five o'clock. The apparatus was placed in the large rotunda drawingroom. In front of the screen were three armchairs and a dozen or so small chairs. The Emperor and Empress entered almost immediately, accompanied by the young Grand Duchesses and the Tsarevitch; they were followed by the Minister of the Court and Countess Fredericks, the Grand Marshal of the Court and Countess Benckendorff , Colonel Narishkin, Mlle. de Buxhoevden, the Tsarevitch's tutor, Gilliard, and some of the minor palace officials; groups of servants and chambermaids thronged all the doorways. The Emperor was in field uniform, the Empress and her daughters in woollen dresses, as plain as possible; the other ladies were in walking dress. It was the Imperial Court in the ungarnished simplicity of its daily life. The Emperor made me sit between the Empress and himself. The lights were put out, and the performance began.
I was greatly moved by this long series of pictures and episodes, such truthful, vivid, pathetic and eloquent expressions of the French effort! The Emperor was lavish with his praises of our army. He kept exclaiming . "Isn't it splendid! What wonderful dash your soldiers have! How could anyone face such a bombardment? What a mass of obstacles in the German trenches!" But he always confined himself to vague general terms. Not one specific comment or professional observation or criticism did he make; nothing to reveal any personal experience of the military art, or technical sense of war. Yet he is the Commander-in-Chief of all the Russian armies! The Empress said little, as usual, though she was as pleasant as possible. But how forced was her slightest compliment! What a wry twist there was in her smile! I was alone with her during the interval of twenty minutes or so when tea was served, and the Emperor went off to smoke a cigarette in the next room. An interminable tte--tte! We talked about the war, its horrors, our inevitable victory, etc.; the Empress replied in short jerky phrases, invariably agreeing with me, as if she were an automaton. The fixed and distant gaze made me wonder whether she was listening to me, or indeed heard me at all. I was horrified to think of the omnipotent influence this poor neurotic woman exercised on the conduct of affairs of State! The second part of the performance added nothing to my previous impressions. As we were leaving, the Emperor said to me, in that kindly tone which is natural to him when he feels quite at his ease: "I'm glad to have had this trip to France in your company. To-morrow we'll have a long talk together ......"
Monday, March 13, 1916. At two o'clock I returned to Tsarskoe-Selo, but this time in full uniform, with the usual ceremonial. At the gates of the palace I met a party of officers who had just presented the Emperor with the Turkish standards captured at Erzerum on February 15. This incident gave me an obvious opening for my conversation with the Emperor. I spoke in terms of the greatest admiration of the brilliant successes won by his army in Asia. He replied with a repetition of yesterday's eulogies of the heroes of Verdun, and added: "I'm told that the coolness and skill of General Joffre have enabled him to husband his reserves. So I hope that in five or six weeks' time we shall be able to take the offensive simultaneously on all the fronts. Unfortunately, snow has been falling uninterruptedly for several days, and it
prevents us from fixing any shorter period. But the moment my army is in a position to move, you may be certain that it will attack with the greatest possible vigour." I pointed out in turn that the Battle of Verdun marks a critical date in the war, and the decisive phase of the operations cannot long be delayed; the inference I drew was that the Allied Governments must hasten to agree upon the great diplomatic questions outstanding, so that they can impose their solutions when the hour for peace strikes. "That is why I direct Your Majesty's attention to the agreement the French and British Governments have just negotiated on the subject of Asia Minor; M. Sazonov is to discuss it with you to-morrow. I have no doubt that your Government will examine the legitimate claims of the Government of the Republic in the most generous spirit." I gave him a general outline of the agreement. He immediately brought up the future constitution of Armenia. "It's an exceedingly complicated question," he said: "I haven't yet discussed it with my ministers. Personally, I'm not contemplating any conquests in Armenia, with the exception of Erzerum and Trebizond, the possession of which is a strategical necessity for the Caucasus. But I won't hesitate to promise you that my Government will bring to its examination of this question the same friendly spirit which France has displayed towards Russia." I emphasized the urgency of a decision: "When peace comes, the hands of the Allies will have been enormously strengthened for dealing with Germany if they have settled in advance all the questions which might possibly divide them. The problems of Constantinople, Persia, the Adriatic and Transylvania have now been solved. We should make haste to solve the problem of Asia Minor." This consideration seemed to strike the Emperor, as he promised to let it guide him to-morrow in his talk with Sazonov. He closed this topic with these words: "I hope Asia Minor won't make your Government forget the left bank of the Rhine." Rumania did not detain us long. The Emperor repeated what he had telegraphed to the President of the Republic on March 3, and his statements were so spontaneous and categorical that I could not ask him for more. As he then rose, I concluded that the audience was over. But he took me to the window, offered me a cigarette and resumed the conversation before a marvellous vista of sun and snow, which seemed to lay a mantle of diamond dust over the garden. He spoke in an intimate, confidential and frank tone he had never adopted with me hitherto. "What great memories we can share together, my dear Ambassador!" he said. " Do you remember the first time I saw you, on this very spot? You told me that you felt the war coming and we ought to prepare. You also told me of the strange revelations of the Emperor William to King Albert; it struck me very much, and I immediately repeated it to the Empress. . ." With perfect accuracy of memory, he successively recalled the banquet on board the La France on July 23, and our evening walk on his yacht at sea after the President of the Republic had left
then the tragic week which began the very next morning the scene on August 2 in the Winter Palace, when he made me stand at his side while he took the solemn oath of 1812 on the Gospel; the unforgettable ceremonies at Moscow; then the whole series of our talks together, grave talks but always frankness itself. His tone grew warmer and warmer with this long recital, which was almost a monologue, for I did no more than occasionally add a finishing touch to some of his memories. When he had ended, I cast about for some phrase which could summarize and, so to speak, crown our conversation: "I often, very often, think of Your Majesty, your heavy task and the whole burden of cares and responsibilities on your shoulders. And once, Sire, I deeply pitied you." "When was that? I like you to talk like this. . . . When was that?" "When you took command of your armies." "Yes, that was a terrible moment for me. I thought God had deserted me, and a victim was necessary to save Russia. I know you understood my action, and I haven't forgotten it." "I'm sure that in times like those it is the memory of your glorious father from which, after God, you draw your greatest inspiration." I pointed to a large portrait of Alexander III which hung prominently over his table. "Yes, in difficult moments---how many there are!---I always consult my father and he is always my inspiration. I'm afraid we must separate now, my dear Ambassador. I'm lingering here, talking to you, but, as I return to the Stavka to-morrow, I've still a lot to do." At the door he shook me warmly by the hand. From this audience, which lasted more than an hour, I brought away an impression that the Emperor is happy and facing the future confidently. Otherwise, how could he have dwelt with such obvious pleasure on memories which the war has enabled us to share? Secondly, I observed several characteristics of his temperament---simplicity, gentleness, capacity for sympathy, good memory, excellent intentions, mysticism, lack of self-confidence, and therefore an eternal hankering after support from outside or on high.
Wednesday, March 15, 1916. Nicholas II was inspired by a happy and touching notion when he founded the Narodny Dom, or "House of the People," in 1901. Behind the Petropavlovsk Fortress, on the bank of Kronversky Canal, rises a vast building which comprises concert rooms, theatres, cinemas, promenades and restaurants. It is severely plain.
The architect's object, and sole object, was to create large roofed spaces ingeniously distributed: everything is subordinated to convenience of arrangement and suitability for its purpose. The Tsar's idea was to enable the lower classes to procure amusement for a very small sum in a secluded and well-warmed place; he regarded it also as an unostentatious means of fighting the demoralizing influence of the public-houses and the pernicious effects of drink; vodka is not allowed in the building. The undertaking has been a remarkable success; the place has even become quite the fashion. The most celebrated actors, leading virtuosi and the best orchestras regard it as an honour to appear in the Narodny Dom, so for twenty kopecks the lowly may familiarize themselves with the finest expression of the musical and dramatic arts. A few boxes and several rows of stalls are available for two or three roubles to the wealthier classes. The public go there in ordinary dress. The hall is always full. This evening the wonderful Shaliapin sang Massenet's Don Quixote. To my box I had invited Princess Sophie Dolgoruky, Madame Polovtsev, the Countess de Robien, wife of my secretary, and Sazonov. I had heard Don Quixote here several times before. No doubt the work is not one of Massenet's happiest inspirations; one is too conscious of the shortcomings of the ageing master, haste and artificial and commonplace development. But in the misadventures of the hidalgo Shaliapin finds an opportunity of carrying to their highest point his art of combination, breadth of style and dramatic power. On each occasion I have observed the intense interest which the public takes in the character of the hero and the action. I wondered why. At first sight there is nothing Russian about Cervantes' story, that masterpiece of good temper, sound sense, wisdom, mockery without bitterness and scepticism without disillusionment. But on reflection I have discovered several features which cannot fail to please Russians---generosity, warm-heartedness, pity, resignation to misfortune, and above all the attraction of the chimerical, the persuasive power of the ide fixe, the perpetual interplay of hallucination and cold reason. After the death scene, in which Shaliapin surpassed himself, Sazonov said to me: "It's perfectly beautiful, sublime! It's almost religious."
Thursday, March 16, 1916. Sazonov tells me that the Imperial Government approves of the agreement reached between the cabinets of Paris and London on the subject of Asia Minor, except as regards Kurdistan, which Russia wants to annex in addition to the regions of Trebizond, Erzerum, Bitlis and Van. In return, he is suggesting that France should take the regions of Diarbekir, Karput and Sivas. I have no doubt that Briand will acquiesce, so that this matter is now settled.
Friday, March 17, 1916. I asked a few musical enthusiasts to dinner this evening---that fine painter and critic, Alexander Nicolaevitch Benois, the young composers Karataguin and Prokofiev, the singer Madame Nazmanov, and the habitus of the embassy. In her rich, warm voice, palpitating with sustained emotion, Madame Nazmanov sang us songs by Balakirev, Borodin, Moussorgsky, Liapunov and Stravinsky. Whether elegiac, soothing or pathetic, all these songs betray their popular origin. It is through the songs, born in the long evenings in the isbasor the infinite space of the steppes, that the melancholy of the Russian soul has found expression throughout the centuries, a melancholy which is usually dreamy and irresolute, but sometimes rises to fierce despair. Maxim Gorky has given us a powerful description of the mournful intoxication into which music plunges the Russian peasants. Between Madame Nazmanov's songs one of my guests, who has lived among the peasants a good deal, confirmed the accuracy of an incident in a novel of this bitter and powerful writer with which I was much struck. One evening, two moujiks, a cripple and a consumptive, met a loose woman in a smoke-laden tavern; all three were worn out with misery. "Let's have a song!" said the cripple. "There's nothing like sadness to enliven your spirit. If you want to set it on fire, sing it a sad song." He began to sing as if he were sobbing, and the words were suffocated in his throat. His companion echoed him in a deep, moaning voice, "giving the vowels alone." Then the woman's contralto rose, dreamy, palpitating and burdened with woe. Once started, the three singers did not stop: "They sang as if hypnotized by their voices, which rang forth now gloomy and passionate, now like to a sigh of repentance, now soft and plaintive as the crying of a child, now heavy with anguish and despair like all fine Russian songs. The sounds quivered and wept; at times it seemed as if they were about to expire, but they immediately revived, took up the dying refrain, tossed it in the air, where it fluttered for a moment and then fell. The shrill voice of the cripple accentuated this horror, and the prostitute sang, the consumptive wept and the dreadful song seemed as if it would never end. . ."Suddenly the consumptive cried: "Enough! Enough! In Christ's name, stop! I can't stand anymore! My heart's burning like a live coal! . . ." To conclude the evening's entertainment Karataguin and Prokofiev played selections of their works. Very learned music. The time has gone by when Russian composers could be charged with ignorance of the technical side. The younger school, in fact, errs through excessive preoccupation with theory. Karataguin strikes me as a mediocre disciple of Scriabin; the things he played to us to-night were empty, complicated, prolix and pretentious. Prokofiev, on the other hand, is full of ideas, but they seem to be crushed out of existence, so to speak, by his eternal pursuit of novel modulations and unexpected sonorities. But I liked his suite, Les Sarcasmes, for their wealth of intellect, colour and delicate feeling.
Saturday, March 18, 1916. The imperial commission, set up by the Emperor to investigate General Sukhomlinov's responsibility for the munitions crisis and the confusion in the military administrative departments, has completed its task with a report that the former War Minister should be brought before a court-martial. Nicholas II has just approved that decision. General Sukhomlinov's name has now been removed from the Council of Empire.
Tuesday, March 21, 1916. The epic of Verdun is arousing among all classes here an enthusiastic admiration of which I get direct evidence every day. But, mingled with it is a feeling which becomes increasingly tragic and humiliating, a realization of the impotence to which the Russian armies are reduced. To satisfy the demands of the public conscience, the Emperor has just ordered a serious offensive south of the Dvina, in the direction of Vilna---notwithstanding the adverse weather conditions. Fierce fighting is taking place day and night between Lake Narotch and Lake Vizniev. Yesterday the Germans lost several villages. To-day General Alexeev is sending General Joffre the following telegram: The Emperor instructs me to ask you to convey to the brave 20th Corps an expression of his warmest admiration and regard for its brilliant bearing in the Battle of Verdun. His Majesty is firmly convinced that under the command of its valiant leaders the French army, faithful to its glorious traditions, will not fail to break the will of its barbarous enemy. I personally am happy to express to you my immense admiration for the courage shown by the French army in these violent and trying encounters. The whole Russian army is following the great deeds of the French army with the closest attention. It sends it the best wishes of a brother-in-arms for a complete victory, and is only awaiting the order to join in the battle against the common foe. ALEXEEV.
Wednesday, March 22, 1916. I was at the Narodny Dom again this evening to hear Shaliapin in Boris Godunov, which is his
great part. Pushkin's lyrical inspiration, Mussorgsky's genius for realism and Shaliapin's dramatic power combine so perfectly that the spell cast on the spectator is complete. The terrible adventure of the false Dimitry is revealed in a succession of tableaux, the relief and colour in which are astounding: it is the wholesale synthesis of an epoch. The audience thinks itself transported into the very period and milieu of the drama; it shares, as it were, the emotions of the characters , their pangs, fury, weaknesses, apprehensions, infatuation and hallucinations. In the death scene Shaliapin revealed himself the equal of the greatest artists, as he always does. When the bells of the Kremlin tell the Muscovites that the autocrat is dying, and Boris, haunted by the phantom of the martyred tsarevitch, with haggard eye, trembling steps, twitching limbs and convulsive gestures, orders his servants to bring him the monk's robe which dying tsars must wear, the highest pitch of tragic horror is touched. During the last act Madame S -----, who was in my box, pointed out very pertinently the important part which Mussorgsky assigns to the action of the masses. The picturesque crowd which moves around the protagonists is not an indifferent and passive multitude or a mere troop of supers and dummies; it takes an active part, intervenes in all the shifting phases of the scenario and is always well in the foreground. The choral portions, which are numerous, are indispensable to the unfolding of the story and a proper understanding of the drama. Thus throughout the play one feels the influence of those obscure, fateful mass forces which have always been the decisive factor in the critical moments of Russian history. Hence the spellbound attention of the public. Madame S----- added: "You may be quite certain that in this theatre there are several hundred, perhaps a thousand, people watching these scenes but thinking solely of current events; they already have the approaching revolution before their eyes. I was a very close spectator of our agrarian disorders in 1905; I was at my country house near Saratov. It is not political and social ideas which interest and excite our masses in a revolution; they don't understand them at all. It is the dramatic spectacles which send them crazy---processions with red flags, ikons and hymns, shootings, massacres, public funerals, scenes of drunken fury and destruction, lootings and fires, particularly the fires, which make such a wonderful effect at night. . . ." Highly emotional in temperament, she worked herself up over her own descriptions as if she were actually seeing the sinister visions she was conjuring up. Then she suddenly stopped and resumed in a grave and dreamy tone: "We're a theatrical race ... too imaginative, too much the artist and musician. It will do us a bad turn someday." She lapsed into silent thought, with a look of horror in the depths of her great blue eyes.
Chapter Footnotes 1. The telegram was worded as follows. Paris, March 1, 1916. I ask pardon for drawing Your Majesty's attention to the vital importance the Government of the Republic attaches to Rumania's approaching decision. It would mean a grave peril to the Allies if that Power sooner or later yielded to the pressure of Germany. It would also be a moral and military defeat for them if she persisted in her neutrality to the conclusion of hostilities. France is prepared to do everything in her power to bring Rumania into the field. The main object of the forces she maintains at Salonica, notwithstanding the formidable effort the Germans are now making on the French front, is co-operation with Russia, England, Serbia and Rumania. I have no doubt that Your Majesty realizes the very great importance of Rumanian assistance. Your Majesty gave a very striking proof of your feelings when the question of Rumania's territorial claims was examined. Now that these delicate points have been settled and it only remains to decide upon the plan and conditions of military operations, I am sure that in these fresh negotiations Your Majesty will exert your powers of mediation so that the Russian and Rumanian armies shall have assigned to them a task and sphere of action in which each can make its maximum effort for the greatest good of the common cause. It is not surprising that Rumania should wish to operate mainly in regions assigned to her by diplomatic agreements, and it seems desirable that the Rumanian army, supported by the stronger and more experienced Russian army, should be inspired by its rle of liberator in a theatre in which it will join hands with its racial brothers. Your Majesty has no doubt pondered all these considerations before myself, and I firmly hope that, thanks to your high and far-sighted authority, the difficulties which still prevent the conclusion of a military convention will be overcome. I take this opportunity of renewing my warm wishes for Your Majesty and Russia. POINCAR. 2. The text of the telegram is as follows: Tsarskoe-Selo, March 3, 1916. Since the war began, the Russian Government, attaching great importance to Rumanian help in the cause of the Allies, has never ceased in its efforts to conclude a military convention with Rumania. No doubt the Government of the Republic has already been advised of the dispatch to Bucharest of Colonel Tatarinov, G.S., to inform Rumania of the help that Russia is prepared to give her, and to devise with the Rumanian General Staff the plan and terms of joint operations. The Rumanian Government, however, does not seem disposed to define its standpoint on the question of military co-operation, and has reserved its decision without even consenting to open negotiations on this subject. I can assure you, Monsieur le Prsident, that Russia has done, and will continue to do, everything in her power to smooth over the difficulties which prevent the conclusion of the military convention with Rumania, and it is not her fault if that Government still defers taking
action. I am following with admiration the heroic resistance of France to the enemy's formidable assaults at the present moment. Hoping with all my heart that those assaults will be broken against the unshakable. barrier opposed by the valiant French army, I take this opportunity, Monsieur le Prsident, of renewing the assurance of my high regard and unfailing friendship. NICHOLAS.
Volume II, Chapter Eight Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER VIII MARCH 23-MAY 3, 1916. Fresh wave of pessimism in Russian society; the schyline view of Fate.---Demoralisation of the Russian clergy; wretched poverty of the priests: Dostoevsky's "humbled and abased."--Sturmer's reactionary policy: five socialist deputies sent to Siberia.---Comparative losses of the French and Russian armies.---General Polivanov, the War Minister, is sacrificed as being too favourable to the Duma; his place is taken by General Shuvaev.---Coldness of liberal circles towards France: the grievance of 1906; ill-feeling still exists.---Success of the Russian army in Asiatic Turkey; capture of Trebizond.---Easter services; Russian piety.---A paradox on Peter the Great: "the precursor of modern revolutionaries."---Easter communion at theFeodorovsky Sobor.---Rasputin's sinister prophecy.---The moujik's belief in the supernatural, and views on the miraculous.---Unexpected demands of Rumania as the price of her military co-operation. Thursday, March 23, 1916. A dinner at the embassy; I had asked a score or so of Russians (including Shebeko, who was ambassador to Vienna in 1914), a few Poles, notably Count and Countess Joseph Potocki, Prince Stanislas Radziwill, Count Ladislas Wielopolski, and a few English people who are passing through Petrograd. After dinner I had a talk in a corner with Potocki and Wielopolski. Both of them referred to the reports they are getting from Berlin through Sweden, and express their conclusions in the same terms: "France and England may perhaps be victorious in the long run. But Russia has now lost the
game; in any case she will never get Constantinople, and if she brings about a reconciliation with Germany it will be at the cost of Poland: Sturmer will be the instrument of that reconciliation." Then one of my Russian guests, Princess V------, who is very high-minded, quick-witted and clever, beckoned to me to go and sit by her. "For the first time you see me thoroughly downhearted," she sighed. "I've kept up my spirits till quite recently. But since this dreadful Sturmer has been in office I've lost all hope." I comforted her, but only half-heartedly, so that she might tell me everything on her mind. At the same time I emphasized that Sazonov's patriotism was a guarantee of the vigorous prosecution of the war. "Yes, but how much longer will he be in power? What's going on behind his back? Is there anything brewing that he knows nothing of? No doubt you know that the Empress hates him, because he has always refused to bow the knee to the abject scoundrel who is bringing Russia to shame. I won't tell you who the ruffian is; I couldn't pronounce his name without being sick." "I can understand that you are sad and anxious. To a certain extent I share your anxiety. But to throw away the axe because the handle comes off---no, no, no! The harder the times, the greater is one's duty to stand firm. And it's your duty as much as anyone's, as you've a reputation for courage and your courage sustains many others." She was silent for a moment, as if listening to a voice within. Then she resumed with a melancholy and resigned gravity: "What I'm going to say may sound pedantic and ridiculous. What if it does! I strongly believe in Fate; I believe in it as the poets of antiquity did, Sophocles and schylus, who were convinced that even the gods of Olympus obeyed the decrees of destiny." "Me quoque Fata regunt. You see, I'm the pedant, not you, as I'm quoting Latin." "What does your quotation mean?" "Those words were placed by the poet Ovid in the mouth of Jupiter, and mean: 'I too am the slave of destiny.'" "So things haven't changed since the reign of Jupiter. Destiny has always directed the world's course, and Providence itself obeys Fate. This isn't very orthodox and I wouldn't repeat it to the Holy Synod. But I'm obsessed by the idea that Fate is driving Russia to a catastrophe. It's like a horrible nightmare." "What do you mean by Fate?" "I could never explain. I'm not a philosopher myself. I go to sleep every time I open a book on philosophy. But I know well enough what Fate is. Help me to describe it." "Why, it's the force of things, the law of necessity, the natural order of the universe. Aren't these definitions enough for you?"
"No, not at all. If Fate was no more than that I shouldn't be afraid of it. For though Russia may be a very great empire, I can't think that her victory or defeat is a matter of great concern to the natural order of the universe." And then, picking her words to some extent, but quite spontaneously and without the least affectation, she described Fate to me as a mysterious power, blind but irresistible, which intervenes at random in the world's affairs, prosecutes its designs inflexibly, despite all human efforts, wisdom and calculations, and takes a malicious delight in making us the instruments of its own caprices. "Take the Emperor, for example," she continued. "Isn't he patently predestined to ruin Russia? Aren't you struck by his ill-luck? Could any reign have been richer in miscalculations, failures and calamities? Everything he has undertaken, his best ideas and noblest inspirations, have gone wrong or actually reacted against him. As a matter of logic, what must his end be? As to the Empress, do you know any figure more baleful and accursed even in classical tragedy? And that other, the loathsome ruffian whose name I won't utter! Isn't the brand of Fate on him clearly enough? How can you explain the fact that at such a crisis in history these three incongruous and dull-witted beings hold the destinies of the world's largest empire in their hands? Don't you recognize the action of Fate in that? Come, tell me honestly!" "You're very eloquent; but I'm not convinced at all. Fate is only the excuse a weak character gives for its surrender. As I have started being a pedant, I shall continue to be so; I'm going to quote you more Latin. In Lucretius there's an excellent definition of will: 'Fatis avulsa potestas' which can be translated as 'a power wrenched from Fate.' Even the most pessimistic of poets has admitted that it is possible to fight against destiny." After a silent pause Princess V----- resumed with a melancholy smile: "You're lucky to be able to think that. Anyone can see you're not a Russian! Anyway, I'll promise to think over what you say. But please forget what I've been telling you, mon cher Ambassadeur. For Heaven's sake don't repeat a word; I'm ashamed of letting myself go to a foreigner." "An ally!" "Yes, and a friend too. But a foreigner all the same! I know I can count on your discretion. You'll keep my confidences to yourself, won't you? Now let's go and talk to our other guests."
Sunday, March 26, 1916. The frightful struggle at Verdun is still continuing. Notwithstanding the extreme cold and heavy snowfalls the Russians are trying to help use by attacks on the Dvina front. Yesterday they gained substantial successes in the Jacobstadt sector and west of Lake Narotch.
Monday, March 27, 1916. The psychology of Russian criminals is of fascinating interest; it presents the moralist, sociologist, lawyer and doctor with an inexhaustible source of varied, fantastic, contradictory, paradoxical, disconcerting and improbable observations. Among no other nation do the dramas of conscience, the mysteries of free will and atavism, the problems of personal responsibility and penal sanctions wear so complex and perplexing an aspect. Hence the fact that Russian dramatists and novelists have made the "criminal" their favourite theme. Through the translator who reviews the Press for me every morning I keep in touch with the chronicles of the courts, and I can confirm that the fictions of literature do not in any way exaggerate the truth. Often enough it is the truth which leaves the fiction writers behind. One of the facts I most frequently observe is the swift reawakening of conscience the moment that homicidal fury or brute lust is satiated. Once more I must point out---as I have done several times before in this diary---that the conscience of a Russian is inspired solely by the Scriptures. Even in the most sin-stained soul the Christian idea of sin, repentance and expiation is never destroyed. After the cerebral paroxysm and nervous storm which have produced the criminal act you can almost always see the culprit collapse. With hanging head, dull eyes and knitted brow he sits lost in feverish grief and intense agony of mind. Before long, one feeling obsesses him with the stubborn force of an ide fixe, a feeling of shame, remorse, an irresistible desire to confess and expiate his crime. He flings himself down before the ikons, beats his breast and calls imploringly on Christ. His whole moral attitude seems determined by the thought from Pascal: "God forgives, the moment he sees penitence in the heart." An incident which Dostoevsky puts into his novel, The Youth, illustrates my point very strikingly. He is speaking of a soldier who has done his years of service and returned to his village. The way of life he has led with his regiment soon makes his monotonous existence among moujiks quite intolerable, added to which they dislike him. Then he starts drinking and drops into evil ways. One day he robs some travellers. He falls under suspicion immediately; he is arrested. But proof positive is lacking. At the trial his attorney, by great skill, is about to secure his acquittal. Suddenly, the prisoner gets up and cuts his defender short: "No, no! Wait a minute. Let me speak. I'm going to tell everything." And he tells everything---absolutely everything. Then he bursts into tears, violently beats his breast and proclaims his repentant grief. The jury are deeply moved and retire to confer. After a few minutes they bring in a verdict of "Not Guilty." The crowd in court cheers. The judges order his release. But the ex-soldier does not move. He is utterly taken aback. When he finds himself in the street, a free man, he walks about in a dismal stupor, not knowing where he is going. Next morning, after a sleepless night, he is still more depressed. He refuses to eat or drink and will not say a word to anyone. On the fifth day he hangs himself. A character in the story, the peasant Macaire Ivanovitch, in whose presence this incident is related, sums it up thus: "That's what comes of living with your sins on your soul!"
Wednesday, March 29, 1916. The ex-President of the Council, Kokovtsov, whose signal patriotism and sound sense I greatly admire, has been to see me at the embassy. He was very pessimistic as usual; in fact he gave me the idea that he was forcibly controlling himself to prevent me seeing the real depths of his despair. In his general diagnosis of the internal conditions of Russia I observe the importance he attaches to the demoralisation of the Russian clergy. In a grief-stricken tone, which occasionally made his grave voice tremble, he ended with these words: "The religious forces of this country will not be able to withstand the abominable strain upon them much longer. The Episcopate and high ecclesiastical offices are now completely under the heel of the Rasputin clique. It's like an unclean disease, a gangrene which will soon have devoured all the higher ranks of the Church. I could shed tears of shame when I think of the ignoble traffic that goes on in the offices of the Holy Synod on certain days. But to the religious future of Russia---and I'm speaking of a near future---there is another peril which seems to me not less formidable: it is the spread of revolutionary ideas among the lower clergy, particularly young priests. You must know how wretched is the condition of our priests, materially and morally. The sviatchenik of our rural parishes almost always lives in blank misery which too often makes him lose all dignity, shame, and respect for his cloth and office. The peasants despise him for his idle, drunken ways, and they are always quarrelling with him over his fees for services and sacraments; sometimes they don't stop at insulting and even beating him. You've no idea what an accumulation of grief and bitterness there is in the hearts of some of our priests! Our socialists have very skilfully exploited the pitiable condition of the lower clergy. For the last twelve years they have been carrying on a very active campaign among the country priests, especially the younger ones. Thus they are simultaneously recruiting soldiers for the army of anarchy, and apostles and teachers who naturally have influence on our ignorant and mystical masses. You may remember the evil rle of the priest Gapon in the riots of 1905: he had a kind of magnetic influence on all around him. A well-informed person told me the other day that revolutionary propaganda is now making its way even into the ecclesiastical colleges. You know that the young men in the seminaries are all sons of priests; most of them are without means; the memories which many of them bring from their villages make them "humbled and abased" from the outset, to use Dostoevsky's phrase. Thus their minds are only too ready to receive the seed of the socialist gospel. And to complete their perversion, agitators fan them into fury against the higher clergy by telling them of the Rasputin scandals !
Thursday, March 30, 1916.
The Duma has just concluded, in secret session, its investigation of the finances of the Foreign Office. Sazonov was several times called upon to address the assembly. His patriotism, courageous, straightforward candour and high standard of duty have earned him a rich reward of respect and affection. So all is well in that quarter. But in the sphere of domestic politics the relations between the government and the assembly are becoming worse and more strained every day. In two months of office Sturmer has succeeded in making the public want Goremykin back. The whole bureaucracy is engaged in a competition in reactionary zeal. If it was desired to provoke a violent crisis, no better course could be adopted. I am expecting a speedy resumption of the old game of police provocation, the exploits of the "Black Bands" and massacres of Jews. A recent incident has exasperated the groups of the Extreme Left in the Duma: the Petrograd Court has just passed sentence of confinement in Siberia for life on five Social Democrat deputies, on charges of revolutionary propaganda. They were arrested so long ago as November, 1914, at the time when Lenin, a refugee in Switzerland, was starting his defeatist campaign with the famous profession of faith: "Russian socialists must desire the victory of Germany, because the defeat of Russia will involve the downfall of tsarism. . . ." The five deputies---Petrovsky, Chagov, Badaev, Muranov and Samolov were originally accused of treason, but subsequently all the charges were dropped except that of having tried to organize a revolutionary movement in the army. The famous Petrograd lawyer, Soklov, and the Labour deputy Kerensky, put up a skilful defence, but the sentence was none the less a heavy one. In the course of his speech, Kerensky asserted that the accused have never thought of provoking a revolution during the war; they have never desired the defeat of our army; they have never held out a hand to the enemy over the heads of those who are dying in defence of the country. What they most feared, on the contrary, was that the Russian reactionaries might make common cause with the German reactionaries. . . ."This allusion to a secret understanding between Russian autocracy and Prussian absolutism is only too well founded. But in my view it is equally well established that Russian socialism is also secretly paving the way for a betrayal by appealing to the worst instincts of the workmen and soldiers.
Saturday, April 1, 1916. I have been to see Sturmer about certain administrative matters which come under his department. With his wheedling smirk and affectation of candour he smothered me with honeyed promises: "Your Excellency, I'll give orders to my departments to do everything possible to meet your wishes. And what they call impossible I'll do myself!"
I took a note of these excellent professions and then, addressing him not as Minister of the Interior but as President of the Council, I mentioned the difficulties which the bureaucracy is always putting in the way of private industries working for the war. I gave several recent examples which reveal not only indifference and confusion in the public services but downright ill-will: "I appeal to your authority," I said, "to put an end to these scandalous abuses." "Surely scandalous is somewhat exaggerated, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur! I'll admit, of course, that there have been a few cases of negligence; I'm grateful to you for bringing them to my notice." "No, Monsieur le Prsident, the incidents I speak of---I'll guarantee their truth---are not cases of mere negligence; they show there's a system of obstruction and a real feeling of enmity." With a grieved air, and his hand on his heart, he vouched for the fervent patriotism, loyal zeal and unassailable probity of the Civil Service. But I persisted with my charges, and proved by the production of figures that Russia could easily treble or quadruple her effort, while France is exhausting all her vitality. He protested: "But we've lost a million men on the battlefield!" "That means that the losses of France are four times greater than those of Russia." "What!" "It's a very simple calculation. Russia has 180,000,000 inhabitants, France 40,000,000. For the losses to be relatively equal yours should be four and a half times higher than ours. But, if I am not mistaken, the present losses of the French army exceed 800,000 men. And I'm only speaking of numerical equality!" He raised his eyes in amazement. "I've never been any good at sums. All I can tell you is that our poor moujiks are giving their lives without stint." "I know it. Your moujiks are splendid; it's your tchinovniks I complain about." With a lordly frown, and drawing himself up majestically, he continued: "Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, I'm going to investigate everything you've been good enough to bring to my notice. If there have been mistakes, their recurrence will be ruthlessly prevented. You may rely on vigorous action by me." I gave him a grateful nod. In the same tone he continued: "I'm very lenient by temperament, but I stop at no severity when it's a question of serving the Emperor and Russia. So you may trust me entirely, Your Excellency. All will be well; yes, all will be well, with God's help." With that fallacious assurance I left him, but I was sorry he had not dealt with my allusion to the
numerical proportion of the French losses to the Russian. I should like to have made him realize that in calculating the losses suffered by the two allies the factor of numbers is neither the sole nor even the principal element. From the point of view of culture, and as a product of civilization, the Frenchman and the Russian are not in the same class. The empire of the Tsars is one of the most backward countries in the world: of 180,000,000 inhabitants, 150,000,000 cannot read or write. With this ignorant and primitive mass compare our army: all the soldiers educated men; the majority highly intelligent and of fine feeling; at its head a countless legion of young men who have already given proof of leadership, learning, taste and talent---the choicest flower of human kind. From that point of view our losses enormously exceed those of the Russians. In speaking as I do, I am not ignoring that in the realm of the ideal the lowliest life acquires by sacrifice a value beyond price, and when a poor moujik is killed it would be hideous and horrible to frame his epitaph in words such as these: "You could not read or write, and your coarse hands were fit for nothing but pushing the plough; so you did not give much when you gave your life!" Nothing is further from my mind than to apply to this army of humble heroes the contemptuous remark passed by Tacitus on the Christian martyrs: "Si interissent vile damnum." But from the political point of view, and that of effective contribution to the Alliance, it is absolutely certain that the French share is by far the greater.
Sunday, April 2, 1916. General Polivanov, the War Minister, has been relieved of his functions and replaced by General Shuvaev, a man of mean intelligence. General Polivanov's dismissal is a serious loss to the Alliance. So far as was possible, he had restored system and order in the War Department, and made good---so far as could be made good---the mistakes, omissions, waste and betrayals of his predecessor, General Sukhomlinov. He was not only an excellent administrator, as methodical and ingenious as upright and vigilant, but possessed the strategic sense in a very high degree: General Alexeev does not like taking advice from anyone, but he attached great importance to his. Though his loyalty is unimpeachable, he is a man of liberal opinions, and had many friends in the Duma and the ranks of the Octobrists and Cadets, who founded great hopes upon him. He seemed to be a last line of defence of the existing regime, capable of protecting it both against the extravagances of absolutism and the excesses of revolution. The confidence he inspired in the Duma could only do him harm and discredit him with the Empress. In particular, his relations with the president of the Octobrists, Gutchkov, "the personal enemy of Their Majesties," have often been exploited to his detriment. Once again the Emperor has been weak enough to sacrifice one of his best servants. At the same time I am assured that General Polivanov's dismissal does not foreshadow any change in the domestic policy of the empire, and that the Emperor has recently instructed
Sturmer to avoid any conflict with the Duma.
Thursday, April 6, 1916. Maxim Kovalevsky has just died after a short illness. Born in 1851, a professor of the University of Moscow and one of its delegates to the Council of Empire, he was one of the most striking figures in the Cadet party. A passionate lover of justice, he practised one of the virtues which is rarest in Russia---and elsewhere---tolerance. His heart and conscience were outraged by anti-Semitism. When he was discussing one day the abominable regime to which tsarism has subjected the Jews, he quoted the phrase of Stuart Mill: "In a civilized nation there must be no pariahs." During our last conversation he let me see that he had few illusions as to the seriousness of the evils from which Russia is suffering, and the enormous difficulty of reforming the established order without bringing the whole edifice down. But if there is one thing which alarms him above everything else it is the ignorance of the masses. Here again he shared Stuart Mill's view: "The condition precedent to universal suffrage is universal education." Considered in relation to the number of its population Russia is, next to China, the country which has fewest educated and eminent citizens, and where the social directing body is smallest in number. and lowest in quality. Thus the disappearance of a Maxim Kovalevsky is a material loss from the national point of view.
Monday, April 10, 1916. I have dined at the Donon Restaurant with Count and Countess Joseph Potocki, Prince Constantine Radziwill and his niece,, Princess Stanislas Radziwill, Count Broel-Plater, Count Ladislas Wielopolski, etc. The atmosphere of the gathering was entirely Polish, so that everyone talked quite freely in front of me. From the course of the conversation, the facts brought forward and the euphemisms to which the speakers resorted, I have concluded that this war, in which the belligerents of Central and Western Europe are developing to the maximum their faculties for military organization and political cohesion, is far too much for the material and moral resources of Russia. After dinner Wielopolski took me on one side and poured out his heart: "I once took a course at Berlin University and I'll admit it has made a deep impression on me,
and even left me with very pleasant memories; not that it prevents me from cordially detesting Prussia and being a loyal subject of the Emperor Nicholas. But I can't entirely get rid of my German training when I indulge in philosophiren on things Russian. . . ." And with a perfect profusion of historical arguments he endeavoured to convince me that, appearances notwithstanding, Russia is the weakest of the warring states, the power which will be the first to go under, because its backward civilization strictly limits its productive faculties, and its national conscience is even yet too undeveloped to resist the disintegrating action of a long war.
Tuesday, April 11, 1916. The day before yesterday the Battle of Verdun seems to have attained a paroxysm of horror and fury. Along the whole line the fierce waves of the German offensive have been victoriously repulsed. Never before in her history has the soul of France risen to such heights. Sazonov, whose moral conscience is quite unusually sensitive, was deeply moved as he used these words to me this morning.
Wednesday, April 12, 1916. Count Constantine de Broel-Plater is leaving for London, Paris and Lausanne, where he is to confer with his Polish compatriots. I asked him to lunch to-day with Count Ladislas Wielopolski and Count Joseph Potocki---no other guests, so that we could talk freely. A very frank conversation I had with Sazonov yesterday enabled me to guarantee that the Emperor was still firm in his liberal intentions towards Poland. Wielopolski replied: "I'm not in the least anxious about the intentions of the Emperor and Sazonov. But Sazonov may disappear from the political stage at any moment. And then, who can guarantee us against faintheartedness on the part of the Emperor?" Plater argued that the Allies should take up the Polish question so as to make it international. I protested vigorously against this notion. The claim to internationalize the Polish question would provoke an outburst of indignation in nationalist circles in the empire, and paralyse all the
sympathies we have won in other quarters. Sazonov himself would violently object. And the whole Sturmer gang would have a fine game denouncing the democratic Western powers for taking advantage of the Alliance to interfere in the domestic affairs of Russia. I added: "You know what the French Government feels about your cause, and I can promise you its interest is not academic. But its action will be all the more efficacious if it is discreet and deprived of any official character. So far as I personally am concerned, I never lose an opportunity of inducing the Emperor's ministers to talk to me about Poland and tell me their views, doubts and difficulties about the grave and complex problems which the proclamation of Polish autonomy raises. Although given solely as private opinions, their repeated declarations (for not one of them, not even Sturmer himself, has ventured to protest against the Emperor's intentions) have at length constituted a kind of moral obligation which unquestionably would enable the French Government to speak with exceptional authority when the hour of final decision arrives." Plater has promised me to make this point clear to his compatriots; but he does not hide from me that he will have difficulty in convincing them.
Friday, April 14, 1916. In spite of the dangers, length and difficulty of the journey, there is hardly a week which does not witness the arrival of French visitors, officers, engineers, business men, journalists, etc. However short their stay and however deficient their powers of observation, they have all told me of their painful surprise at the indifference, if not positive coldness, towards France which they have observed in liberal circles. It is unfortunately true. The Retch, for example, the official organ of the Cadets, is one of the Russian papers which seem to take pleasure in making no mention of our military operations; it is extremely miserly with its compliments to our army, and one of the quickest to point out the slowness or mistakes of our strategy. With very few exceptions---among whom I should mention Miliukov, Shingarev and Maklakov---the great majority of the party has not yet abandoned its ancient and tenacious dislike of the Alliance. The grievance is ten years old. The war in Manchuria had just ended in disaster and all over Russia there was. an endless succession of riots, strikes, plots, murders of officials, mutinies in the navy and the army, agrarian risings, lootings and pogroms. To crown everything, the imperial treasury was empty. A loan of 2,250,000,000 francs was negotiated on the Paris market. To our banks and the press the offer was very enticing. But the Government of the Republic hesitated to authorize the operation as the parties of the Extreme Left demanded that the draft bill for the loan should be submitted to the Duma, which would thus have been in a position to impose conditions on tsarism. Count Witte naturally opposed this suggestion with all his might. The position of Lon Bourgeois's Radical cabinet was delicate. Were we to strengthen
monarchical absolutism in Russia with the help of French money? In the open conflict between the Russian people and autocracy were we to side with the oppressor against the oppressed? A consideration, of which French opinion knew nothing, ultimately decided our ministers to acquiesce in the demands of the Imperial Government. Relations between France and Germany were bad; the Algeiras convention was only a diplomatic armistice. We also knew of the astute intrigues with the Tsar on which the Emperor William was personally engaged, with a view to forcing him into a Russo-German alliance which France would have been called upon to join. Was this the moment to break with tsarism? In authorizing the issue of the Russian loan on the Paris market in April, 1906, the Government of the Republic remained faithful to the cardinal principle of our foreign policy---to seek the main bulwark of our national independence in the silent development of the armed power of Russia. There was an angry explosion among the Democrats in the Duma. Their resentment still continues.
Saturday, April 15, 1916. I have called on Madame Taneev, wife of the Secretary of State who is Director of the Imperial Chancellery and the mother of Madame Vyrubova. It is a long time since I saw her last, though I always enjoy a talk with her in her ancient rooms in the Michael Palace; her family traditions have made her a rich storehouse of memories. Her father, the aide-de-camp, General Ilarion Tolsto, was a close personal friend of Alexander II; her maternal grandfather, Prince Alexander Golitzin, accompanied the Grand Duke Constantine when he was Viceroy of Poland. And for over a century the directorate, of the Imperial Chancellery has been held by successive generations of Taneevs. She recently lent me a diary kept by her grandmother, Princess Golitzin, during the Polish insurrection of 1830-31. It illustrated the illusions then harboured by Russia on the subject of Poland, and how generous the Russians had been in forgiving the Poles for the crime of the three partitions. But it is not Poland which we have been discussing to-day. I interrogated her in very veiled language about her daughter, Madame Vyrubova, the absorbing part she plays at the palace and the constant attention and attendance the Empress's confidence imposes upon her. "Of course my poor Annie gets very tired sometimes," she said. "Never a moment's rest! Since the Emperor has been with the armies the Empress is overwhelmed with work; she must know all that is going on. Our good M. Sturmer consults her about everything. She doesn't mind that. Far from it! But, of course, it means that my daughter receives hosts of letters and has heaps to
do!"
Wednesday, April 19, 1916. The Russians took Trebizond yesterday. Perhaps this success will revive the dream of Constantinople, which no one talks about now. For four and a half centuries the scarlet standard of Islam has floated over "Tirabzon": Christian civilization returns with the Russian army. After the collapse of the Greek army in 1204 the Comneni transferred the remnants of their authority and fortune to the Pontic shore. Their new empire rapidly attained a high degree of power, splendour and prosperity. To the artless imagination of the oriental troubadours, the Emperors of Trebizond actually appeared as fabled potentates, on whose lofty heads sat a golden halo of glory and fantastic riches. It was the land of the "Far-away Princess." As a matter of cold fact, the Empire of Trebizond was for three centuries the advanced rampart of Byzantine Christianity and European civilization against the Turkish invaders.
Thursday, April 20, 1916. In accordance with custom, the ambassadors and ministers of Catholic powers were invited to attend Holy Thursday mass in full uniform this morning at the Priory of Malta. In this narrow church, with its medley of octagonal crosses, I stood facing the throne of the Grand Master and the Latin inscriptions, Once more, as a year ago, my mind turned to strange memories of that crowned madman the Emperor Paul. Once again, too, the pathetic liturgy carried my thoughts away to the mourning of France and the countless and ever-growing number of our dead. Will history ever record such a death-roll again? And, above all, I thought of our heroes of Verdun, whose simple faith and brave, light hearts have raised the age-old virtues of the French spirit to the highest pinnacle of the sublime and the miraculous.
Friday, April 21, 1916.
This year the date of Easter is again the same in the Russian and Gregorian calendars. Towards the end of the day, Princess D-----, who holds very independent views and likes "going among the people," took me to some of the churches in the popular quarters. After a short call at the gaudy and sumptuous Lavra of Saint Alexander Nevsky, we visited the little Church of the Raising of the Cross, hard by the Obvodny Canal, then the Ismalov Cathedral, at the end of the Fontanka, and then the churches of St. Catherine and the Resurrection, in a quarter of factories and docks not far from the Neva. In all of them we found a dazzling light and splendid choirs, distinguished for the beauty of the voices, technical excellence and depth of religious feeling. Everywhere the faces of the worshippers reflected a grave and dreamy fervour, wistful and concentrated. We lingered in the Church of the Resurrection, where the crowd was particularly silent and composed. Suddenly Princess D----- nudged my elbow: "Look!" she said; "isn't that a moving sight? With a glance she pointed out a moujik who was absorbed in prayer within a few feet of us. He was a man of about fifty, dressed in a patched lambskin, tall, With a consumptive look, a flat, broad nose, wrinkled brows, high forehead, hollow cheeks, with a sprinkling of greyish beard, his head drooping towards the right shoulder and his hands in his lap nervously clasping his cap. Several times he struck his forehead and shoulders with his clenched fist, while his thick, bluish lips stammered out: "Gospodi pomilou!"---" Lord, have mercy on me!" After each exclamation he uttered a deep sigh---a dull, grief-laden groan. Then he became motionless once more. But his face was all the more expressive. A phosphorescent, ecstatic light bathed his watery eyes, which looked as if he were really seeing some invisible object. Princess D----- clasped my arm: "Look at him! Look at him! He's seeing Christ!" While I was taking my companion home, we discussed the religious instincts of Russians. I quoted Pascal's phrase: "Religious belief is Christ felt within." I asked her whether she did not think we might say: "To the Russian, faith is Jesus Christ felt within "? "That's it!" she cried. "That's it exactly."
Saturday, April 22, 1916.
This morning Sazonov remarked in an irritated tone "Bratiano's at his old game again!" Yesterday evening he had a visit from Colonel Tatarinov, military attach at Bucharest, who has come from Rumania to make his report to the Emperor. He says that a compact between the Russian and Rumanian General Staffs will be easy to arrange, with a view to operations in the Dobrudja. As a result of his conferences with General Iliesco he even considered himself entitled to think that agreement had been reached in principle on that basis. But when he went to say good-bye to Bratiano, the latter suddenly put forward a demand that the main and immediate objective of the Russian army should be the occupation of Rustchuk, so that Bucharest should be safe against attack by the Bulgarians. General Alexev considers that such a demand, which wholly ignores the difficulties of a two hundred-and-fifty kilometres' march along the right bank of the Danube, is another proof of Bratiano's determination to evade the conclusion of a military convention. "And Paris will go on saying that it is Russia which stands in the way of Rumanian intervention!" added Sazonov.
Sunday, April 23, 1916. The ice is breaking up in the Neva, and the river is fiercely sweeping down tremendous blocks, which come from Ladoga; it is the end of the "ice age." Returning from a call at the end of the English Quay, I saw the chamberlain, Nicholas Besak, staggering through the thawing mud in a fierce and cutting north wind. I offered him a lift in my car. He accepted, and when ensconced next to me began to amuse me with the paradox-loving imagination he occasionally reveals, with the spontaneity and genius of a Rivarol. When we reached the Holy Synod Square, crowned by the monument of Peter I, Falconet's masterpiece, I once more expressed my admiration of the majestic effigy of the tsar legislator, who seems to be directing the very course of the Neva from the vantage point of a prancing horse. Besak raised his hat. "I greet the greatest revolutionary of modern times!" he said. "Peter I a revolutionary? I always thought he was a fierce, impetuous and rabid reformer, without scruples or mercy, but possessed to a very high degree of creative genius and the instinct for order and authority." "No. All Peter Alexeevitch liked was destroying things. That is why he was so essentially Russian. In his savage despotism he undermined and overturned the whole fabric. For nearly thirty years he was in revolt against his people; he attacked all our national traditions and customs; he turned everything upside down, even our holy orthodox Church. You call hint a reformer. But a true reformer allows for the past, recognizes the limits of the possible and
impossible, is cautious with his changes and paves the way for the future. He was quite different. He destroyed for the sheer delight of destroying, and took a cynical pleasure in breaking down the resistance of others, outraging their conscience, and killing their most natural and legitimate feelings. . . When our present-day anarchists dream of blowing up the social edifice on the pretext of reconstructing it en bloc, they are unconsciously drawing their inspiration from Peter the Great. Like him, they have a fanatical hatred of the past; like him, they imagine they can change the whole soul of a nation by ukases and penalties. Once more I say that Peter Alexeevitch is the true ancestor and precursor of our revolutionaries." "What if he is! I wish he'd come to life again. For twenty-one years he kept up the fight with the Swedes and ended by dictating terms of peace to them. He'd be quite equal to continuing the war against the Boches for another year or two. Heaven knows he'd have his hands full, Titan of will-power though he was!"
Monday, April 24, 1916. Briand has cabled me that Viviani, the Minister of justice, and Albert Thomas, Under-Secretary of State for Artillery and Munitions, are being sent to Petrograd, charged with the duty of establishing an even closer contact between the French and Russian Governments. I immediately informed Sazonov, who has promised me that these two envoys shall have the best of receptions. But under the official promise., which is couched in terms of the requisite courtesy and spontaneity, I think I can detect a certain vague apprehension: he did, in fact, interrogate me at length about Albert Thomas, whose fervent and infectious socialism is anything but to his taste. I told him all about Albert Thomas's work in the war, his patriotism, exceptional intelligence, inexhaustible industry, loyal efforts to maintain friendly relations between employers and workmen---in a word, all the energy and gifts he has devoted to the service of the Union Sacre.. Sazonov, who is not without heart, was touched by my panegyric: "I'll tell the Emperor all you say. But you'd better repeat it yourself to Messrs. Sturmer and Co."
Tuesday, April 25, 1916. This afternoon I took tea with Princess L-----, a very charming old lady, whose face---with its features still pure---and lively talk are a delightful expression of the open mind, warm heart and tolerant outlook of those who have lived long and loved greatly. I found her alone with her bosom friend, Countess F-----, whose husband holds one of the highest posts at Court.
My arrival rudely interrupted their conversation, which must have been on some very unpleasant subject as both of them had a horrified look. Countess F----- left almost at once. As I talked with the Princess, I thought I could detect a melancholy, obsessing thought hovering in the depths of her eyes, a thought which captured my curiosity. I then remembered that Count F----- comes into close personal contact with the sovereigns every day and has no secrets from his wife, so I insidiously asked my hostess: "How is the Emperor? I've had no news of him for a long time." "He's still at the Stavka and I believe he's never been better." "So he didn't come back to Tsarskoe-Selo for the Easter services?" "No. It's the very first time he has missed celebrating the Easter rites with the Empress and his children. But he couldn't leave Mohilev: it's said that our troops are going to take the offensive soon." "What's happening to the Empress To this simple question the Princess replied with a look and gesture of despair. I begged her to explain. At length she said: "Would you believe it! Last Thursday, when the Empress was receiving holy communion at the Feodorovsky Sobor, she desired and ordered that Rasputin should take the sacrament at the same time. The wretch received the holy relics, Christ's body and blood, at her side! . . . My old friend, Countess F-----, was telling me about it just now. Isn't it dreadful? I still feel terribly upset. "Yes, it's a great pity. But, at heart, the Empress is consistent. She believes in Rasputin; she regards him as a just man, a saint, persecuted by the calumnies of the Pharisees, like the victim of Calvary; she has made him her spiritual guide and refuge, her mediator with Christ, her witness and intercessor before God. So isn't it natural that she should want him at her side when she performs the most important act of her religious life? I confess I am extremely sorry for the poor, misguided woman." "By all means be sorry for her, Ambassador, and for us too! The question is, what will all this bring us to, some day?
Wednesday, April 26, 1916. Nitchevo! . . . Who can doubt that that is the word most frequently to be heard on Russian lips? At all times and in all places you can hear people saying Nitchevo! ("That's nothing! That doesn't matter a bit!") with a gesture of indifference or renunciation. The word is so common and popular that one is compelled to recognize it as the expression of a
national characteristic. In all ages there have been epicureans and sceptics to proclaim the vanity of human effort and take a gleeful delight in the thought of the universal illusion. Whether power or desire, wealth or pleasure were concerned, Lucretius never failed to remark: Nequicquam! ("It's so futile!") Very different is the meaning of the Russian nitchevo. This summary method of depreciating the object of a wish, or asserting by anticipation the inanity of an endeavour, is usually nothing but the excuse the speaker makes for giving up trying. . I will give a few further details, culled from a direct and secret source, of Rasputin's participation in the Empress's communion service. Mass was celebrated by Father Vassiliev in the mysterious, glittering crypt of the Feodorovsky Sobor, the little archaic church whose slender cupola stands out so strangely against the trees of the imperial park---a survival or evocation of ancient Muscovy. The Tsarina was present with the three older girls; Grigory stood behind her, accompanied by Madame Vyrubova and Madame Turovitch. When Alexandra Feodorovna advanced to the ikonostasis to receive the bread and precious blood she glanced at the staretz, who followed her and took the sacrament immediately after her. Then, at the altar, they exchanged the kiss of peace, Rasputin kissing the Empress on the forehead and she returning his kiss on his hand. During the days preceding this ceremony, the staretz spent long hours in prayer at Our Lady of Kazan, where he confessed to Father Nicholas on Wednesday evening. His fervent friends, Mlle. G----- and Madame T-----, who hardly left his side, have been much struck by his melancholy, brooding air. Several times he spoke to them of his approaching death. In particular he said to Madame T-----: "Do you realize that before long I shall die in terrible agonies? But what can I do? God has given me the sublime mission of being a sacrifice for the salvation of our dear sovereigns and Holy Russia. Notwithstanding my sins, which are lamentable, I am a Christ in miniature, malenkii Kristos." On another occasion he uttered the following prophecy, when passing the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul with two women friends: "I can see many persons in agony there; I don't mean persons in the sense of individuals, but in multitudes; I can see heaps, masses of corpses, tutchy trupov, several Grand Dukes and hundreds of counts,, neskolko velikikh kniase i sotni grafiev. . . . The Neva will be all red with blood." In the evening of Friday Rasputin went off to his village, Pokrovskoe, near Tobolsk, and Madame T----- and Mlle. G----- have gone to join him there.
Thursday, April 27, 1916. I have called on Madame D-----, who is on the point of leaving for her estates in the Tchernoziom, south of Voronej.
A serious-minded and energetic lady, she takes great interest in the life of the peasants and makes herself an intelligent guardian of their welfare, education and morality. I have been asking her about their religious feelings. She describes them as very artless and unaffected, though deep, dreamy and simply saturated with mysticism and superstitions. Their belief in mysticism is particularly naive. Nothing seems to them less supernatural and more normal than the direct intervention of the Divinity in human affairs. As God is omnipotent, why should any one be surprised at his hearing our prayers or giving us an abnormal proof of his pity and kindness? To their minds the miraculous is a rare, irregular and inexplicable phenomenon on which no man can count, but which is perfectly natural. Our contrary view of the miraculous certainly presupposes very clear ideas on nature and her laws. To accept or deny the supernatural, the first essential is to know that there are rational methods and physical sciences. Madame D----- then described as one of the most typical---and alarming---characteristics of the Russian peasant the rapidity and suddenness with which he sometimes leaps from one extreme to the other, from submissiveness to revolt, apathy to fury, asceticism to licentiousness, gentleness to ferocity. She ended as follows: "What makes our moujiks so difficult to understand is the fact that the same mind bears within it every conflicting possibility. When you return home get your Dostoevsky, look for the portrait of the dreamer in The Brothers Karamazov, and you'll never forget what I've just told you." "This is the portrait: It is a forest in winter; in its depths stands a moujik, dressed in a ragged caftan. He seems to be thinking, but he is not thinking; he is lost in a vague dream. If you touched him he would start and look at you without seeing, like a sleeper on waking. He would probably come to himself very quickly; but if you asked him what his dream was about he could not tell you, because he remembers nothing. And yet he retains strong impressions of this torpor, impressions which delight him and accumulate subconsciously. One day, perhaps after a year of reveries such as this, he will start out., leave everything behind him and go to Jerusalem to win salvation; or just as likely he will set fire to his village, or perhaps commit his crime first and make his pilgrimage afterwards. There are many types like that among our people. . . ." This evening, at the Marie Theatre, Tchechinskaa was dancing Gisela and Paquita, masterpieces of old-time choreography, the conventional and acrobatic art in which the genius of the Fanny Elsslers and Taglionis once triumphed. The archaic character of the two ballets is heightened by the defects and qualities of the principal interpreter. Tchechinskaa is entirely without charm, feeling or poetry; but her formal and cold style, the tireless vigour of her pivoting, the mechanical precision of her entrechats and the giddy agility of her pirouettes make all the enthusiasts wild with delight. During the last interval I spent a few minutes in the box of the director of the imperial theatres, Teliakovsky, where the prowess of Tchechinskaa and her partner, Vladimirov, was being celebrated in terms of rhapsody. An old aide-de-camp of the Emperor said to me with a subtle smile: "Our enthusiasm may seem somewhat exaggerated to you, Ambassador; but Tchechinskaa's art represents to us, or at any rate men of my age, something that you don't perhaps see." "What's that?"
He offered me a cigarette, and continued in a melancholy tone: "The old ballets, which were the joy of my youth---somewhere about 1875, in the reign of our dear Emperor Alexander II., alas!---presented us with a very close picture of what Russian society was, and ought to be. Order, punctiliousness, symmetry, work well done everywhere; the result of which was refined enjoyment and pleasure in perfect taste. Whereas these horrible modern ballets---Russian ballets, as you call them in Paris---a dissolute and poisoned art---why, they're revolution, anarchy! . . ."
Monday, May 1, 1916. On April 29 the English suffered a severe reverse in Mesopotamia. General Townshend, who had occupied an entrenched position at Kut-el-Amara, on the Tigris, has been compelled to capitulate by lack of food and ammunition, after a siege of one hundred and forty-eight days; the garrison was reduced to 9,000 men. Simultaneously a grave insurrection, fomented by German agents, has broken out in Ireland. A regular battle between the rebels and English troops has made Dublin a scene of blood and fire. Order appears to have been restored now.
Tuesday, May 2, 1916. I have had tea with Princess K-----. She was in a talkative and even expansive mood. For once, she took off her mask of irony, her "black domino," though I must admit it suits her to perfection. Glancing back over her past, a past which is so full (though she is not yet thirty), and yet so empty, she told me several stories of her sentimental experiences, from which I gather that the Russian woman, in her duel with man, is almost always vanquished beforehand, because she is much more refined in her instincts, critical in her tastes, cultivated in mind, emotional in temperament; she is much harder to please in the selection of her sensations and pleasures, more poetical in imagination, more exacting and expert in all the secrets of passion. Between man and her there is a sort of moral, if not physical, anachronism, and she represents a far higher stage in the evolution of the human plant. By way of retort I referred to certain men, mutual acquaintances, who seem to me to combine all the qualities of heart and manner any woman could desire. She replied: "You only see them in society. If you could see them alone! The best of them can only love us just enough to make us suffer." "You've just put into words," I said, "what Madame de Stal thought of Lord Byron: "I'll give
him credit for just enough delicacy of feeling to destroy the happiness of a woman."
Wednesday, May 3, 1916. Exchange of telegrams between the Russian and French High Commands on the subject of the military assistance so long promised by Rumania. General Alexeev emphasizes the exaggerated and unreasonable character of the latest demands of the Rumanian General Staff. General Iliesco has actually stated that he could no longer be satisfied with the two conditions previously accepted, i.e.: (1) an attack by the Salonica army with the object of attracting to itself a large part of the Bulgarian forces, and (2) intervention by Russian forces in the Dobrudja to neutralize the rest of the Bulgarian army. He is now demanding that the Russians shall occupy the whole of the Rustchuk region on the right bank of the Danube. General Alexeev has judiciously pointed out to General Joffre that "the consequence of this new demand would be to compel us to occupy the line Varna-Shumla-Razgrad and Rustchuk. Even if we accepted this condition, which would transfer the centre of gravity of our operations to the south and our extreme left wing, the Rumanians would certainly do what they always do and put forward some fresh demand, with a view to gaining time until they are certain of attaining the object they have in view without any effort of their own. We must make the Rumanians realize that the adherence of Rumania is not an absolute necessity to the Allied Powers. Rumania can count on a future reward which will correspond exactly to the efforts she has made, and her military achievements." General Joffre has told me that he entirely agrees with General Alexeev's opinion: "I share his view that it would be useful to tell Rumania that her help, though desirable, is not indispensable to us; and that if that country wishes ultimately to obtain the rewards it covets, it must make up its mind to give the Allied armies the effective co-operation of its arms in the form we require. . ."
Volume II, Chapter Nine Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II
CHAPTER IX MAY 4-JUNE 15, 1916. The mission of Viviani and Albert Thomas to Petrograd; I present them to the Emperor. The questions of Poland and Rumania, and of sending Russian troops to France.---Conference at General Headquarters.---Banquet given by the Duma. The speeches: the Russians greatly moved by the magic of eloquence. Shaliapin and the Marseillaise. The French mission leaves a turmoil of excitement in its wake.---Faith in the Tsar among the masses.---General Brussilov's brilliant offensive in Volhynia and Galicia.---Russian nomadism. Thursday, May 4, 1916. Viviani and Albert Thomas will arrive in Petrograd tomorrow evening. Their mission, announced by the Press yesterday, has caused great excitement among all parties. In particular the name of Albert Thomas is having a great effect in working-class circles, and not less effect--in the opposite sense---among the autocratic clique. Konovalov, a liberal deputy for Moscow and fabulously wealthy spinner, a man of broad sympathies and devoted to all humanitarian Utopias, has just been to see me in the name of the Industrial War Committee, of which he is Vice-President. He was accompanied by one of his political friends, Yukovsky, President of the Committee of Industry and Commerce. After explaining that the President of the Industrial Committee, Gutchkov, was unable to come, as he is laid up in the Crimea, Konovalov told me that he was very anxious to get into touch with Albert Thomas as soon as possible: "Our Central Committee, which co-ordinates the activities of all the Russian committees, comprises a hundred and twenty delegates, nominated by the Union of Towns, the Union of Zemstvos, the municipalities of Petrograd and Moscow, government departments and workmen themselves. Of the hundred and twenty members ten are workmen. I and my friends are extremely anxious that M. Albert Thomas should be present at one of our meetings; he'd certainly have some good things to tell us, and they would be repeated in all the factories." I replied that I thought a visit from Albert Thomas to the Central Committee not only possible but desirable; that there is certainly no one better than he in making friends with both employed and employers, but that I relied on the good sense of the committee to prevent the visit degenerating into a political demonstration.
Friday, May 5, 1916. General Sukhomlinov, formerly War Minister, was arrested this morning and taken to the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. It is notorious that he has been grossly negligent, but I doubt whether he has been a "traitor," as is alleged, if by "treason" is meant intelligence with the enemy. I do not believe that he was an accomplice of Colonel Miassoyedov, who was hung in
March, 1915. Probably he confined himself to closing his eyes to the crimes of the traitor, who was his jackal. But I am quite prepared to believe that, inspired by hatred of the Grand Duke Nicholas and by political considerations, he has secretly thwarted the plans of the High Command. To his deliberate inaction and conscious dissimulation was due the munitions crisis which was the cause of the early disasters. Viviani, Madame Viviani and Albert Thomas arrived at the Finland station just before midnight, having travelled via Bergen, Christiania, Stockholm and Tornea. The last twenty-two months have left an appreciable mark on Viviani, who seems graver, more dignified and reserved. On her calm, pure features Madame Viviani bears the trace of an inconsolable loss---the loss of a son of her first marriage. He was killed at the beginning of the war. Albert Thomas, whom I did not know, breathes physical and moral health, energy, intelligence and enthusiasm. I took my visitors to the Htel de l'Europe, where they are being lodged by the Emperor's household. Supper was ready for them. While they were taking their meal Viviani told me the object of their mission: "We have come," he told me in substance (1) to ascertain the military resources of Russia and try to develop them; (2) to insist on the dispatch of 400,000 men to France by successive batches of 40,000, in accordance with the promise Doumer claims to have obtained last December; (3) to bring pressure on Sazonov to induce the Russian General Staff to be more accommodating with regard to Rumania; (4) to persuade the Imperial Government to give a firm and definite undertaking in favour of Poland." I replied: "On the first point you will gather your own impressions. I think you won't be dissatisfied with the work done in the last few months, particularly by the Union of Zemstvos and the Industrial War Committees. As regards the dispatch of 400,000 men, General Alexeev has always strenuously objected, alleging that the number of trained reserves at the disposal of the Russian army is totally inadequate in view of the enormous fronts, and he has convinced the Emperor; but if you persist, you may secure the dispatch of a few brigades. As regards Rumania, you will find that Sazonov and General Alexeev fully share your views; the difficulty is not here, but at Bucharest. As for Poland, I advise you to postpone any discussion until just before you leave; you can then judge for yourselves whether that topic can be broached; I have my doubts."
Saturday, May 6, 1916. After a private luncheon at the embassy Viviani, Albert Thomas and I left for Tsarskoe-Selo. Viviani wore an anxious look during the journey; he was obviously apprehensive as to what reception Nicholas II would give the demands he has come to present. Albert Thomas, on the
contrary, was in the highest of spirits, and thoroughly tickled at the idea of appearing before the Emperor. "Good old Thomas!" he cried, "so at last you're going to stand face to face with His Majesty the Tsar Autocrat of all the Russias! When you reach his palace, what will surprise you most will be to find yourself there." At Tsarskoe-Selo two court carriages were waiting for us. I got into the first with Albert Thomas. Viviani and the Master of the Ceremonies, Tieplov, occupied the second. After some moments' thought, Albert Thomas said in a wheedling tone: "There are several people I should very much like to meet during my stay in Petrograd. Very discreetly, of course! But I should find myself in trouble with my party if I returned to France without seeing them. The first is Bourtzev." "Oh!" "He's behaved very well during the war; he adopted a very patriotic tone towards the French and Russian comrades." "I know. That's the very argument I used to secure his return from Siberia when the Government gave me that ticklish job last year. But I also know that he still has the ide fixe of assassinating the Emperor. . . . just remember to whom I shall be presenting you in a moment or two. Look at that fine crimson livery on the box. You'll realize that I'm not particularly attracted by your idea of meeting Bourtzev." "So you think it impossible." "Wait till the end of your visit. We'll talk about it again." There was a great throng of vehicles outside the Alexander Palace. The whole imperial family had come to convey birthday greetings to the Empress and was returning to Petrograd. We were solemnly conducted to the vast corner room on the front looking on the garden. Under a radiant sky the park spread out its glowing perspectives; the trees, now freed from their mantle of snow, seemed to stretch their delicate branches to the sun. Only a few days ago the Neva was still bringing down ice floes. To-day it is already spring. The Emperor came in, looking fresh and smiling. After the formal presentations and compliments there was a long silence. When the Emperor had overcome the embarrassment into which first introductions always plunge him, he raised his hand to the front of his tunic, on which he wore but two decorations, the St. George's Cross and the French croix de guerre. "You see, I always wear your croix de guerre, messieurs, though I'm unworthy of it." "Unworthy!" protested Viviani. "Yes, indeed it's the same reward given to your Verdun heroes."
Another pause. I began: "Sire, President Viviani has come to discuss with you certain serious questions which are outside the province of your staffs and ministers. It is to your sovereign authority we wish to appeal." Viviani then began his story: he discharged his task with that charm and warmth of language and in that seductive voice which sometimes make him so persuasive. When he drew a picture of France bled white and suffering the irreparable loss of the flower of her race, he found tones which moved the Emperor deeply. He enlarged, with a happy selection of examples, on the prodigies of heroism which have been witnessed every day at Verdun. The Emperor interrupted him: "And to think that before the war Germany used to say that the Frenchman is incapable of being a soldier!" To which Viviani very judiciously replied: "The fact is, Sire, that the Frenchman is not a soldier: he's a warrior!" And now it was Albert Thomas's turn to speak, and bring fresh arguments to the same thesis. His classical education, his desire to please, the importance of the discussion, the historic interest of the scene, all combined to give his words, and his personality too, a singular radiance. The Emperor's ministers have not familiarized him with the magic of eloquence, and he seemed greatly affected; he promised to do "everything possible" to develop the military resources of Russia and associate her even more closely with the effort of her allies. I took note of what he said, and the audience was over. About four o'clock we returned to Petrograd.
Monday, May 8, 1916. Lunch at Madame Sazonov's with Viviani, Madame Viviani and Albert Thomas. The other guests comprised the President of the Council and Madame Sturmer, the Finance Minister and Madame Bark, the War Minister, the Naval Minister, etc. Luncheon went off well. Viviani talked pleasantly, Madame Viviani cannot fail to arouse sympathy with her sad face. Albert Thomas was liked for his high spirits and quick wit. After lunch groups were formed. We talked business. At one moment I caught Albert Thomas in earnest conversation with Sturmer. I went up and listened:
"Your factories don't work enough," said Albert Thomas. "Their output could be ten times what it is. You ought to militarize your workmen." "'Militarize our workmen!" protested Sturmer. "Why, we'd have the whole Duma up in arms!" Such was the conversation in the year of grace 1916 between the chosen representatives of French socialism and Russian autocracy!
Tuesday, May 9, 1916. Viviani and Albert Thomas, who leave for General Headquarters this afternoon, have just been to lunch at the embassy with Madame Viviani. I had not asked anyone else, as after telling them so much about Russia I wanted them to tell me a little about France, from which I have been away two years. Everything they have told me about the French spirit is splendid, and fills me with confidence. But why so much mediocrity and littleness in the political world? It might be thought that the Palais Bourbon sometimes forgets we are at war. However cruel exile may be, I have at least gained this---that I see France only at a distance, as history will see her, and in her glorious and sublime aspect.
Wednesday, May 10, 1916. My new American colleague, Romuald Francis, who succeeds the popular Marye, has just paid his first call on me. After the exchange of formal commonplaces, I tried to draw my visitor into talking about the war and enlarging on the intentions of his country. But all my efforts were in vain. Francis evaded my questions, or simply returned non-committal answers, from which I concluded that the American conscience is still insensible to the great moral interests which are at grips in the world.
Thursday, May 11, 1916. Viviani has returned from General Headquarters, while Albert Thomas has gone to visit factories in the provinces. He is not more than partially satisfied with his tour. His reception by the Chief of the General Staff was cold, or at any rate reserved---which does not surprise me. General Alexeev is a fierce reactionary, a rabid devotee of tradition and hierarchy, autocracy and orthodoxy. The intrusion of a civilian into military affairs---and such a civilian! A socialist! An atheist!---must naturally seem to him an abominable outrage. By way of opening the conversation, Viviani handed him a personal letter from General Joffre and asked him to read it at once. General Alexeev read it without a word of comment. Viviani continued: "General Joffre has also given me a verbal communication for Your Excellency. He hopes to be in a position to commence an operation on a large scale between July 1 and 15; he would be glad if you could take the offensive also, not before June 10, so that there will be not more than a month between the two attacks, and thus the Germans will not have time to transfer reinforcements from one front to the other." General Alexeev curtly replied: "Thank you; I'll take up the matter with General Joffre through General Jilinsky."(1) This was immediately followed by a conference, over which the Emperor presided. Viviani made an eloquent appeal for the dispatch of 400,000 Russians to France, by monthly batches of 40,000. General Alexeev gradually became less uncompromising, though the discussion was none the less prolonged and thorny. Ultimately the Emperor asserted his will. The following decision was reached: in addition to the brigade already sent to France, and the brigade due to leave for Salonica on June 15, five brigades, each 10,000 strong, will be sent to France between August 14 and December 15. I congratulated Viviani on this result, which certainly has its value. But we are still far from the 400,000 men which Doumer made us hope for.
Friday, May 12, 1916. General Janin, who is taking the place of General de Laguiche at the head of our military
mission, has just arrived in Russia. I received him at luncheon this morning. With his simple, jovial nature and open, supple and subtle mind he will be liked by the Russians.
Saturday, May 13, 1916. From a Warsaw friend, who has fled to Kiev, I have received a letter full of criticism, suspicion, reproach, excommunication and anathema of all the Poles who are working, with varying degrees of skill, for the restoration of Poland. No one is spared by his impulsive and turbulent patriotism. Alas! Will the Poles ever learn the necessity of discipline in the common cause? The whole history of Poland, both before and since the partitions, would furnish argument for a study on The Effects of Individualism in Politics.
Sunday, May 14, 1916. At the Marie Theatre this evening Karsavina took the part of the nymph, Sylvia, in Delibes' ballet. She revealed herself as the ideal of pagan purity, at once passionate and chaste; she exhaled a kind of heroic and youthful joy, a wild and holy ecstasy. But this mythological evocation was only partially to the taste of the mass of spectators. The Russian spirit has nothing in common with the Hellas of antiquity: it is only through Byzantium that it joins hands with Greece. So I was not surprised to observe how the public woke up again at the opening of the first scene of the following ballet, Le Nnuphar, a work of fantastic romanticism in which Karsavina appears in the form of a mermaid, a perverse and bewitching roussalka, with an insatiable craving for blood and passion.
Monday, May 15, 1916. This afternoon I received the French colony of Petrograd at the embassy for the purpose of introducing Viviani and Albert Thomas. Full livery, buffet, speeches, introductions, orchestra, and an enormous crowd which would not go away. Before the war, functions of this sort seemed to me a loathsome duty. But now, when exile is so cruel, it makes one's heart leap to be among French people.
Tuesday, May 16, 1916. The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna has asked Viviani and Albert Thomas to lunch; Madame Viviani is not well and asked to be excused. In order to put Viviani on her right and Albert Thomas on her left the Grand Duchess asked me to sit opposite her.. The other guests were Princess Vladimir Orlov, Princess Sergei Bielosselsky, Countess Shuvalov, Dimitry Benckendorff and the personal staff. It was a very lively luncheon party and compliments flew in all quarters. Her Imperial Highness seemed in the highest spirits. In spite of, or because of, her teutonic origin she never loses a chance of demonstrating her affection for France. That alone would explain to-day's invitation. But there is something more: for a long time the Grand Duchess has been cherishing the secret hope of seeing one of her sons, Boris or Andrew, mount the throne. The result is that she is always on the watch to snatch opportunities of appearing in public, opportunities which the Empress neglects. From this point of view it is not immaterial for the general public to know that she alone, of all the imperial family, has received the emissaries of the French Government at her table. This evening the Imperial Duma and the Municipal Council of Petrograd have given a banquet in honour of Viviani and Albert Thomas. The President of the Duma, Rodzianko, is responsible for this demonstration. That alone has been enough to make the Emperor's ministers suspicious, particularly as support was forthcoming from all sides, and it has become almost a political event. There were not less than four hundred guests! All parties, even the Extreme Right, but particularly the Left, were represented. None of the ministers dared be absent, and my Japanese, English and Italian colleagues were also present. The question of speeches was not settled without some difficulty. At first the ministers thought they ought not to speak in a gathering of a private character. I had to let Sazonov know that if no member of the Imperial Government would consent to speak I should advise Viviani not to attend the banquet. The matter was ultimately arranged, and it was agreed that Sazonov should
propose a toast in the name of the Government. As we entered the banqueting hall we were given a very enthusiastic reception. Rodzianko presided at the top table; I was on his right, Viviani on his left. On my right I had the President of the Council, Sturmer, who had Albert Thomas on his right. The ceremony was very long as the menu was interminable and the service very slow. Thus, with speeches to follow, I was in for at least two hours' contact with the President of the Duma and the President of the Council. Of Rodzianko I had little to learn. Everything about him---his great stature and fine bearing, his piercing eye and deep, warm voice, his bustling energies and even his tactlessness in word and action---reveal his candour, honesty and courage. For a long time we have been on terms of close friendship. He is tireless in preaching the good cause. Of Sturmer, on the other hand, I have much to learn. I do not know whether he will die "in the odour of sanctity," as the mystics say; but I know he exhales an intolerable "odour of insincerity." Under his superficial kindness of heart and affected courtesy you can see that he is a base and treacherous schemer. His sharp and sickly gaze, searching yet furtive, is the very image of hypocrisy, an ambitious and cunning hypocrisy. But he is not without culture; he has a taste for history, particularly the anecdotal and picturesque side of history. Every time some function brings us together I always question him about the past history of Russia, and his conversation never wearies. And in any case, in the exceptional and pre-eminent position in which circumstances have placed him, he is a character worth studying. This evening we talked about Alexander I and his mysterious death, and Nicholas I and his moral death struggle during the Crimean War. This brought me to emphasize the fact that it has always been to the interest of Russia and France to have an understanding or an alliance; I reminded him that as early as 1856 my brilliant predecessor, Morny, conceived the idea of an alliance, and if only his advice had been taken we should not be where we are to-day. Sturmer broke in: "The Duc de Morny! That's the kind of man I should have liked! I believe I've read everything published about him. Oh, yes! It seems to me he had all the qualities of a man called upon to govern---love of country, energy, audacity." I interrupted: "He had two more, perhaps even more valuable, a sense of reality and the right style in action." "Of course those two qualities are very necessary. But for one who rules, the first essential is to know how to take responsibility and handle events. Do you see our popular Prefect of Police, Prince Alexander Nicolaevitch Obolensky, over there? He's an excellent servant of the Emperor and I like him very much. But there's one thing I cannot forgive him. He was Governor of Riazan in 1910, when Tolstoy came to the little station of Astapovo to die there so strangely. Do you remember how the family mounted guard round the dying man to prevent any priest from approaching him? (2) If I had been in Obolensky's place I should not have hesitated: I should have had the family removed by my gendarmes and sent in a priest by force. Obolensky argues that he had no instructions, that Tolstoy's children were unfortunately within their rights, and so on. But could there be any question of rights, and were any instructions needed when it was a
matter of recovering Tolstoy's soul for our holy Church?" What would Viviani and Albert Thomas think if they had heard that? The moment for the toasts arrived. Rodzianko's speech was patriotic, banal and pompous; mine was purely formal, and Sazonov's colourless and affected. In the interval the company sang the Russian national anthem. Then Shaliapin, that great genius, sang the Marseillaise; into his singing he put such diction, breadth of style, lyrical power and passion that a breath of revolutionary fervour, the breath of Danton, seemed to sweep over the assembly. It was then that I realized what an inflammable body the Russian public is. It was in this atmosphere of excitement that Viviani rose to speak. As a great parliamentary orator he immediately felt that his audience was simply asking to be moved. His thrilling voice, his broad and varied gestures, his look of mingled pathos and tenderness, his periods with their prolonged and potent rhythms, astounded the assembly. When he cried: "No separate peace! A common cause! That is the pact of honour which binds us. We will go together to the bitter end, until that day dawns when affronted Right shall be avenged. . . . We owe it to our dead, or they will have died in vain. We owe it to the generations to come, etc..." he was hardly allowed to finish his period, and the room rocked with the applause. Shaliapin, his face inspired and his eyes full of tears, had gradually, come up to the top table. There were fresh calls for the Marseillaise; he mounted the dais once again and for the second time the sublime anthem brought the audience to its feet. The Emperor's ministers glanced uneasily at one another; it was as if they were saying: "But where is all this taking us to? ... What's going to happen?" To wind up the evening, the leader of the Cadet party in the Duma, Basil Alexeevitch Maklakov, rose to his feet. In excellent. French, and with staccato articulation and dramatic gestures, he reminded us that he had been a pacifist; he added that he was still an impenitent pacifist, a fact which did not prevent him from being heart and soul in the war: "For this war will be the suicide of war; when peace comes we will make a map of Europe which will make war futile for ever. His peroration was an invocation to France, "to France, whose voice the world needs to hear; France, which proclaimed in the eighteenth century those immortal principles which are the symbols of the pacifist idea; the France of the future, which is to establish that eternal peace already known as the French peace! . . ." The enthusiasm of the assembly knew no bounds. The faces of the ministers were gloomier than ever. As I looked at them I realized that the visit of any French statesman to Russia is per se an act of democratic propaganda. During the whole of Maklakov's speech Albert Thomas could hardly contain himself. His eyes flashed fire. Every moment I expected to see him rise in his place and launch out into an oratorical improvisation. However, Rodzianko said a few closing words. We went out to the accompaniment of cheers. For several minutes Viviani, Albert Thomas and I exchanged impressions of the evening in the vestibule. Apropos of Maklakov's speech I said:
"A fine speech, and it will have a great effect in Russia. But what an illusion to think that the next peace will be a peace for ever. Personally I think that the world is entering upon an era of violence, and that we are now sowing the germ of fresh wars." After a moment's reflection Albert Thomas replied: "Yea, after this war, ten years of wars ... ten years of wars!
Wednesday, May 17, 1916. This morning Viviani and Albert Thomas paid their farewell visits to Sazonov. I did not go with them so that their discussion should seem to have no official character; they particularly wished to talk about Rumania and Poland. On the subject of Rumania Sazonov protested that he was extremely anxious for her adherence to our cause. "But I can't regard her as a serious factor," he added, "so long as M. Bratiano refuses to negotiate a military convention with us." As for Poland, Sazonov insisted in the strongest possible terms on the danger to the Alliance of any intervention, even a discreet intervention, by the French Government in the Polish question. Thus the results of Viviani's mission may be reduced to the sending of 50,000 men to France, or rather a promise to that effect. But the influence of Albert Thomas has been genuinely effective. His prodigious energy and practical common sense have galvanized the industrial departments of the war---for how long? He has been very skilfully seconded in his task by one of his assistants, the great public-works contractor, Loucheur, one of the men who have contributed most to the industrial revival of France. At one o'clock Viviani and Albert Thomas came to luncheon at the embassy, with the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch and my Japanese, English and Italian colleagues. Nicholas Michalovitch, "Nicholas-Egalit," ever curious about advanced ideas and new men, had said to me: " I'm tremendously anxious to make the acquaintance of Albert Thomas." The acquaintance seemed to please him thoroughly, as he overwhelmed him with attentions. At seven p.m. the whole mission left for France, by the Archangel route.
Thursday, May 18, 1916. This evening Don Quixote was given at the Narodny Dom. On hearing Shaliapin, I revived my splendid impressions of two months ago: I imagine that Cervantes himself would have been delighted with an interpretation which gives his hidalgo a character so individual and broad, comical yet touching, a caricature and yet human. The genius of the great master of irony has never been so easily realized. The public was not less interesting than on the last occasion; I could see the same indulgent smiles, the same current of liking for the personality of the adventurous knight, for the figure of the hero who is gentle, generous. charitable, patient, resigned, no less intelligent than crazy, as lucid as absurd, ready to swallow any wild story, a prey to every enchantment, and utterly lost when faced with reality.
Friday, May 19, 1,916. With ruthless determination, General Alexeev is pressing on his preparations for the great offensive he proposes for the early days of June. The main action will develop in Galicia, on the Strypa and the Pruth, and between Tarnopol and Czernowitz; General Brussilov will be in command of the operation. I am assured that the moral of the troops has been revived by the return of fine weather, and is excellent. This evening I gave a dinner party, the guests being my Spanish colleague, the Conde di Cartagena, Princess Orlov, Princess Sergei Bielosselsky, Princess Cantacuzene, Count Joseph Potocki, Count Sigismund Wielopolski, Count Kutusov, Lady Muriel Paget, Lady Sybil Grey, etc. Princess Bielosselsky and Princess Cantacuzene have recently received letters from their husbands, who are fighting in Armenia and the Bukovina respectively; on the strength of these letters they have told me that the men are in excellent spirit. I had the same report from Lady Muriel and Lady Sybil, who have just been inspecting their hospitals in Volhynia.
Saturday, May 20, 1916. In all the imperial palaces, government offices, clubs, theatres and public buildings, majestic portraits of the emperors are to be seen hanging on the walls. Nothing is more monotonous, dull and commonplace than this official ikonography. Yet, notwithstanding the artificial and set character of the species, the original physiognomy of the sitters is usually brought out well. Thus Alexander I, with his elegant figure, swelling chest and the air of a beau and a paladin, takes an obvious delight in knowing that people are looking at him. Nicholas I, stiff, haughty and despotic, seems to be spying round to see if anyone has the audacity to look at him. Alexander II, more natural, but not less impressed by his office and conscious of his power, condescends to allow folk to look at him provided that they lower their eyes at once. Alexander III, heavy. calm, straightforward and bourgeois, does not care whether he is looked at or not. And Nicholas II, simple and timid, seems to be begging the public not to look at him.
Sunday, May 21, 1916. The unspeakable Manuilov, Sturmer's chef de cabinet and the fit instrument of his low designs, has just been to see me to say that he has had my wishes met on a trivial police matter. In earnest tones, which struck me greatly---as he does not always lie---he described the situation at home in very dark colours; he particularly emphasized the spread of revolutionary feeling in the army. I countered with the very favourable reports recently given me of the moral of the troops. "That's only true of the fighting troops," he replied. "The army behind the line is rotten. In the first place, the men are idle, or at any rate haven't enough to do. You know the winter's a bad time for military training. In addition, this year we've had to cut down and simplify the training once again, because we haven't enough rifles, machine-guns and guns, and perhaps even more because we're short of officers. Besides, the men have very bad quarters in the barracks. They're packed like sardines, absolutely anyhow. The Preobrajensky barracks have room for 1,200 men, and 4,000 are quartered there. You can
see them from here in their rooms; no air, no light, and stuffy with smoke. They make speeches from supper until morning. You mustn't forget that they include men of all races of the empire, all nationalities, religions and sects, even Jews! I can tell you it's a wonderful forcing house for revolutionary ideas. Our anarchists were not the last to find it out!" "What does M. Sturmer think of it all?" "All M. Sturmer asks is to be left alone. I'll promise Your Excellency he'll do very well."
Monday, May 22, 1916. In all quarters the mission of Viviani and Albert Thomas has left a stir of emotion in its wake. On this point, Joseph de Maistre, who was one of the most sagacious observers of the French Revolution, has made a remark the truth of which I am realizing to-day: "In the temperament, and particularly the language, of the French, there is a certain proselytizing force which defies imagination. The whole nation is simply one vast propaganda."
Tuesday, May 23, 1916. In the Trentino, between the Adige and the Brenta, a violent offensive of the Austrians has compelled the Italians to abandon their lines. There is intense agitation in Italy, where the public already sees the Friuli army forced to retreat to avoid being cut off from Lombardy by an enemy dash on Vicenza and Padua. In the Verdun region furious fighting has flamed up anew. After a superb attack the French troops have carried the old fort of Douaumont.
Wednesday, May 24, 1916.
In 1839 Nicholas I said to the Marquis de Custine: "I can understand a republic; it's a welldefined and genuine form of government, or at any rate can be. And, of course, I understand absolute monarchy, as I'm the head of a state with that system. But what I cannot understand is representative monarchy; it's a government of lies, fraud and corruption, and rather than adopt it I'd withdraw, into China." Nicholas II has the same views as his ancestor.
Friday, May 26, 1916. Summary of my day's work: This morning P----- brought me somewhat alarming reports of revolutionary propaganda in factories and barracks. At five o'clock Countess N-----, who does not belong to the Empress's clique, but is on terms of closest friendship with Madame Vyrubova, told me how Rasputin explained to the Tsaritsa the other day that "a man of God" should be unquestionably obeyed; he then confided to her that since his last Easter communion he felt he could fight his enemies with renewed vigour, and that he considered himself more than ever the heaven-sent champion of the imperial family and Holy Russia; Alexandra Feodorovna then fell at his feet imploring his blessing with tears of ecstasy in her eyes. At the club this evening I casually overheard the remark: "If the Duma is not suppressed we are lost!" followed by a long rigmarole proving the necessity of an immediate return of tsarism to the pure traditions of Muscovite orthodoxy. By way of conclusion I will repeat the prophecy made by Madame de Tencin, about 1740, on the subject of the French monarchy: "Unless God himself intervenes, it is physically impossible for the State not to collapse." But I think that it will not be forty years, or even forty months, before the Russian State collapses.
Saturday, May 27, 1916. King Victor Emmanuel has telegraphed to the Emperor to beg him to do all that he can to
advance the date of the general offensive of the Russian armies, with a view to relieving the Italian front. My colleague, Carlotti, is leaving no stone unturned to secure the same result.
Monday, May 29, 1916. Belief in the Tsar and his justice and goodness is still strong among the moujiks, a fact which explains the personal success Nicholas II is certain of achieving whenever he goes among peasants, soldiers and workmen. On the other hand, the public is more than ever convinced that the bureaucrats, the tchinovniks, are frustrating or paralysing all the monarch's good intentions. We are always hearing these two proverbs: The Tsar is good; his servants are wicked. The Emperor says yes but his little dog barks "no."
Tuesday, May 30, 1916. Countess N-----, Madame Vyrubova's friend, mysteriously asked me to have tea with her to-day. After swearing me to secrecy she said: "I believe Sazonov is going to be dismissed; I wanted to let you know at once. Their Majesties strongly disapprove of him. Sturmer is secretly carrying on a very active campaign against him." "But what has he done wrong?" "He's blamed for his liberal ideas and his concessions to the Duma. He's also accused---you've promised not to say a word!---of being too much under your influence and that of Buchanan.... You know that, unfortunately, the Empress hates Sazonov; she can never forgive him for his attitude towards Rasputin, whom he regards as Antichrist. Rasputin in turn says that Sazonov is branded by the devil." "But Sazonov is extremely religious! And what does the Emperor say?"
"At the moment he is entirely under the Empress's thumb." "I suppose you've heard all this from Madame Vyrubova?" "Yes, from Annie. . . But, for goodness' sake, don't say a word to anyone!"
Wednesday, May 31, 1916. Since Sturmer has been in power Rasputin's authority has greatly increased. The peasant magician is becoming more and more the political adventurer and swindler. A gang of Jewish financiers and shady speculators, such as Rubinstein, Manus, etc., have thrown in their lot with him and reward him generously. On their suggestion, he sends notes to government departments, banks and all influential people. I have seen several of these notes, in a dreadful scrawl and couched in coarsely imperious terms. No one has ever dared to refuse his demands. Appointments, promotions, postponements, favours, dispensations, subsidies---everything has been granted him. In the more important matters he sends his note direct to the Tsaritsa: "Here! Get that done for me!" She gives the order at once, never suspecting that she is working for Manus and Rubinstein, who are well known to be working for Germany.
Thursday, June 1, 1916. When I called on Sazonov this morning I was struck by his appearance; he looked ill, had hollow eyes and a downcast air. He complains of great nervous exhaustion, which deprives him of sleep and appetite; he talks of taking a rest "for several weeks" in Finland. Since the war began I have many a time seen him tired and suffering from headaches and insomnia. To some extent it is everybody's lot. In such a climate no man can carry so heavy, unending and pressing a burden of work and cares without paying for it. But this time, however great my affection for him, it is not his health which worries me most; it is his secret anxieties which have reduced him to this state, and I know all about them through the confidential communication I received the day before yesterday.
Friday, June 2, 1916. The attitude of the Greek Government has become impossible; the fact of its collusion with the Bulgarian Government is obvious. The personal complicity of King Constantine cannot be doubted. I have had a long talk with Sazonov on this subject, and he has empowered me to telegraph to Paris that he approves here and now of any measures France and England may think necessary to take against Greece. Between the Adige and the Brenta the Italians are beginning to recover. The Austrian offensive has been almost held up.
Sunday, June 4, 1916. To meet the wishes of King Victor Emmanuel, the Emperor has given orders to hasten the offensive which has been in preparation in Volhynia and Galicia. The operation has been opened vigorously by General Brussilov and promises well.
Tuesday, June 6, 1916. I have been discussing the moujiks with Princess O-----, who is president of a society for popularizing the Kustarni vechtchy, those articles and utensils of wood, leather, horn, iron and fabrics in which the artistic feeling of the Russian peasants, and their highly original and ingenious taste for decoration, are so well revealed. She was thus led to deplore the far-reaching changes produced by the extension of the great mechanical industries during the last fifteen years on the mind and morals of the rural classes: "These sugar refineries, distilleries, cotton mills, forges and factories, and the works
innumerable you can now see in country districts, have given our moujiks habits, needs and ideas for which their past had left them quite unprepared. The process of initiation has been too rapid for their primitive brains. The acquisition, or bait, of high industrial wages has demoralized whole regions. Don't forget that outside the towns money was rare until a few years ago. In many villages business was always done by barter; a man would exchange oats for a coat or some vodka; a horse or cart would be paid for by so many days' work.... To-day all that has been changed. Most of our peasants have lost their simple, natural qualities, though they still remain too backward to adapt themselves morally to their new life. They are all at sea, bewildered, fuddled. If God does not spare us a revolution after the war, there will be great trouble in the country districts."
Thursday, June 8, 1916. General Brussilov's offensive is continuing brilliantly; it is actually beginning to assume the pace of victory. In a few days the Austro-German front has been broken on a front of one hundred and fifty kilometres. The Russians have captured 40,000 men, eighty guns and one hundred and fifty machine-guns. On the Italian front east of the Trentino the fighting is continuing, but the Austrian advance has been stopped.
Friday, June 9, 1916. Since the ancient days of Muscovy the Russians have never been so thoroughly Russian as they are now. Before the war their natural craze for wandering carried them westwards periodically. Once or twice a year their worldlings swarmed in Paris, London, Biarritz, Cannes, Rome, Venice, Baden, Gastein, Carlsbad, Saint-Moritz. Those less well off, the crowd of "intellectuals," lawyers, professors, savants, doctors, artists, engineers, etc., took courses of study, cures or holiday tours in Germany, Sweden, Norway or Switzerland. In a word the majority of society---whether the brilliant or thinking, working or idle, social world---established regular and frequently prolonged contact with European
civilization. It was in this fashion that thousands and thousands of Russians secured their supplies of clothes and ties, jewels and perfumes, furniture and cars, books and works of art. Unconsciously, they also brought away with them more modern ideas, a more practical spirit and a more positive, orderly and rational view of life in general. They were certainly particularly likely to do so, owing to that power of assimilation which the Slavs possess in such high degree, a power which the great "Westerner," Herzen, called "moral receptivity." But during the last twenty-two months the war has raised an insurmountable barrier, a Chinese wall, between Russia and Europe. For nearly two years the Russians have been confined to their own country and compelled to live on themselves. The tonic and soothing medicine they used to seek in the West is lacking, and just at the moment they need it most. It is a fact of common observation that neurasthenic subjects with a tendency to melancholy need distraction, and that travelling is particularly good for them because it stimulates their energies, engages their attention and revives their mental faculties. So I am not surprised that in persons who once seemed to me perfectly healthy I am always seeing symptoms of weariness, melancholia, nervous debility, mental disorders, incoherence, an unhealthy credulity, strange obsessions and a superstitious and demoralizing pessimism.
Saturday, June 10, 1916. Can the intrigue against Sazonov have failed? Does he feel his position restored? Whatever the reason, he looks much brighter and complains less of being tired, though he still says he badly needs a rest.
Sunday, June 11, 1916. The financier G-----, who has large industrial interests in Warsaw and the Lodz district, has just made a very trenchant remark to me: "The problem of Poland means more than one surprise in store for those who have to negotiate the peace. It's the habit to look at this problem from the national point of view only, in the light of the catastrophes of the past and the heroic and romantic legend. But when the hour for practical decisions arrives, you will see two factors of vital importance stand out in the very foreground, the factor of socialism and the Jewish factor. In the last thirty years the Polish social-democracy has expanded enormously, and you can measure the expansion by the rising
figure of the working-class population. Don't forget that a town like Lodz, which had barely 25,000 inhabitants in 1850 and 100,000 in 1880, has 460,000 to-day! The manufacturing districts of Sosnowice, Tomaszov, Dombova, Lublin, Kielce, Radom, Zgierz, are developing with the same extraordinary rapidity. The proletariat is very strongly organized in those regions, and everywhere revealing immense vitality. It has not the slightest interest in the historic visions of the great Polish patriots. In the approaching resurrection of Poland it sees nothing but an opportunity of realizing its economic and social programme. You may be certain that it will speak with a strong, loud voice. . . . Nor will the Jews fail to play a great part. They share the views of the Polish social-democracy, but they also have a special and exclusively, Jewish organization; they will act as a Jewish proletariat. In addition, they are highly intelligent and very bold and fanatical. All the Polish ghettos are hotbeds of anarchy."
Tuesday, June 13, 1916. I am reading a life of Nietsche, and I see that, having developed a great admiration for the laws of Manu, his poet's and artist's enthusiasm made him record the following excellent precept of the first Aryan legislator Let the names of women be easy to pronounce---sweet, simple, pleasant and appropriate; let them terminate in long vowels, and resemble words of benediction. The Russians have followed this precept instinctively. No race has given the names of its women more musical and caressing sounds: Olga, Vera, Daria, Marina, Sonia, Kyra, Ludmilla, Tatiana, Wanda, Mona, Tamara, Xenia, Rassa, Nadevja, Sietlana, Prascovia, Dina....
Thursday, June 15, 1916. The Russians are engaged in a ceaseless advance on Tarnopol and Czernovitz; they have crossed the Strypa and the Dniester. The number of their prisoners has now reached 153,000.
Chapter Footnotes 1. Representative of the Russian High Command at French G.H.Q. 2. I can give a few particulars of the strange end of Tolstoy. At the age of eighty-two he suddenly left Yasnaa Poliana in the evening of November, 1910, accompanied by Doctor Makovitsky; his daughter Alexandra, whom Tchertkov calls his "closest collaborator," was in the secret. Next day he reached Optina monastery; he spent the night there, writing a long article on the pains of death. In the evening of the 12th he went to the convent of Chamordino, where his sister Marie was a nun; he dined with her and told her of his wish to end his life at Optina, performing the lowliest of tasks, but on condition that he was never required to enter the church. That evening he was surprised by a visit from his daughter Alexandra. No doubt she warned him that his move was known and the officials were on his track; they immediately left for Kozelsk, with the idea of going to the southern provinces. On their way Tolstoy fell ill at Astapovo station, and had to take to his bed there as he was stricken with congestion of the lungs. He was put up at the stationmaster's house. His condition suddenly grew worse and doctors from Moscow were called in for consultation; the family gathered round him. In the evening of November 18, the Abbot of Optina, Father Karsonofi, alighted at Astopovo station and demanded admission to the dying man's presence: he declared that the Holy Synod had charged him to receive Tolstoy back into the orthodox Church. The doctors and the family refused the requested interview on the pretext of the invalid's condition. It was true that Tolstoy's strength was failing rapidly, though he was still perfectly conscious. On the 19th he had two heart attacks, the second of which all but carried him off. Tolstoy died peacefully at 6 a.m. on November 20. He had time to make known his last wishes---a funeral without rites, wreaths or flowers. Two days later the body was taken to Yasnaa Poliana, where the interment took place with great simplicity.
Volume II, Chapter Ten Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER X JUNE 16-JULY 18, 1916.
The magic of solstice nights.---A lesson from the Iliad.---The Byzantine dream evaporates.--Another sketch of the Russian woman.---The Empress's relations with Rasputin: Sister Akulina.---The brilliant offensive of the Russian armies in Galicia.---The Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch and the Emperor William; the Kaiser's demonstration at Tangier in 1905.---Visit of the Russian deputies to the West.---Further successes of the Russian armies in Galicia; their offensive develops. The Allies put pressure on Bucharest,---The ministers summoned to the Stavka. The autonomy of Poland; the Emperor supports Sazonov's liberal programme. Friday, June 16, 1916. A few close friends to dinner. The table was laid in the banqueting-hall, in front of the great bay window facing north, and looking out on the Neva. Dinner was ordered for .half-past nine, so that we could enjoy the amazing spectacle of the night sky of Northern Russia in solstice week. Men the meal began it was still broad daylight. But from Okhta to the fortress the whole river bank was a blaze of fantastic colours. In the foreground the river spread the ribbon of its waters, waters of a dark metallic green into which every now and then reddish masses seemed to flow, like pools of blood. Further away, the roofs of the barracks, domes of churches and chimneys of factories stood out against a sinister background of violet, amethyst, bitumen and sulphur. The scene was constantly changing. From minute to minute. and as if under the hand of a chemist magician,---some giant Tubal Cain,---the colours rose, glowed, blazed forth in triumph, waned, melted, coalesced and dissolved into vapour. The most varied spectacles and all imaginable combinations followed each other in quick succession. It was like a kaleidoscope of the cataclysms of nature, volcanic eruptions, walls falling, the flames of furnaces, blazing meteors. But towards eleven o'clock the sky gradually lost, its colours and the pageant faded away. From the ground to the zenith the firmament was veiled in a diaphanous vapour of silver and pearls. Here and there a luminous radiation betrayed the shivering of a star. The city slept calmly in a harmony of semi-darkness and silence. At half-past twelve, when my guests left, a pink glow far away in the east was already heralding the dawn.
Sunday, June 18, 1916. The Russian Bukovina army has crossed the Pruth and occupied Czernovitz; its advance guard is already on the a Sereth, in the neighbourhood of Storotzynetz.
Monday, June 19, 1916. General Bielaev, Chief of Staff, one of the most competent, conscientious and honourable officers in the Russian army, is to visit France shortly, to settle various questions in connection with orders for artillery and munitions. He lunched with me this morning. .I began by congratulating him on the successes General Brussilov is still gaining in Galicia, successes which yesterday brought his troops to Czernovitz. He accepted my congratulations with that reserve which is consistent with his habitual caution and modesty. At table he gave me a detailed account of the recent operations on the Galician front, choosing his words with the wisdom and care which have long made me rate his opinion very highly. When we returned to the main drawing-room and lighted our cigars I asked him: "What stage of the war have we reached, and what impressions are you carrying away with you?" Weighing his words well, he replied: " Emperor is as firm as ever in his determination to continue this war until our complete victory, that is, until Germany is compelled to accept our terms---all our terms. What His Majesty was good enough to tell me, when I made my last report to him, leaves me in no doubt on that point. But if our military position has greatly improved of late in Galicia, we have not yet begun to attack the German forces. Putting things in their best light, we must still anticipate a very long and severe struggle. I'm only speaking of the strategic aspect of the problem, of course; it's not for me to consider the financial, diplomatic and other aspects. It is in view of this great final effort that I am going to make arrangements in Paris by which our army, which is so well off for men, shall no longer be held up by the inadequacy of its armament.... But there is one question which is more urgent and important than all the others: the question of heavy artillery. General Alexeev is begging me for some every day, and I haven't another gun or round to send him." "But you've had seventy heavy guns just landed at Archangel!" "I know; but we haven't got the railway wagons. You know what a terrible shortage we're suffering from in that respect. The whole result of the offensive which has begun so brilliantly is in danger of being paralysed by it." "That's serious. But why hasn't your railway department a better idea of order and energy? It's months since Buchanan and I discussed the matter with M. Sazonov and sent him note after note. We can't get any result. Our military and naval attachs are also leaving no stone unturned. They get nowhere either. Isn't it tragic to think that France sets aside a considerable part of her industrial output to supply your armies, and your armies don't benefit by it, thanks to confusion and negligence? Since the port of Archangel was reopened for navigation, French ships have landed 1,500,000 rounds of ammunition, 6,000,000 grenades, 50,000 rifles, in addition to seventy heavy guns! All that stuff is lying idle on the quays! The figure of daily railway transport must be increased at any cost. Three hundred waggons a day is ridiculous. I'm assured that with a little method and energy that figure could easily be doubled." "I'm worn out with fighting the railway department; I don't get much more of a hearing than
you... . . But, as you say, it's so serious that we have no right to lose heart. Please speak to M. Sazonov again; ask him to make representations to the Council of Ministers in your name." "I certainly will. I'll return to the charge to-morrow morning."
Thursday, June 22, 1916. A few days ago the Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovitch was having supper with his inseparable cronies and an English officer, Major Thornhill. As usual, the Grand Duke had emptied his champagne glass too often. When he was sufficiently excited, there was an outburst of the anglophobia he inherits from his father. Turning to Thornhill, he cried: "England doesn't care a straw about this war; she is letting her allies be killed. The French have been suffering massacre at Verdun for four months, and you haven't even left your trenches. We Russians would have been in Baghdad long ago if you hadn't begged us not to enter the place, to save you from admitting your inability to get there yourselves." Thornhill replied coldly: "That is not accurate, Monseigneur! And Your Imperial Highness is forgetting the Dardanelles." "The Dardanelles? ... Mere bluff!" Thornhill shot up: "Bluff that cost us 140,000 men!" "No! mere bluff! In any case you can be certain that the moment peace is signed with Germany we shall go to war with you!" General uproar. The Grand Duke went out, banging the door. Major Thornhill reported the incident to Sir George Buchanan. Without desiring to complain to the Emperor, my colleague has expressed an official wish to the Minister of the Court that a remonstrance should be sent to the Grand Duke Boris. Nothing will come of the remonstrance. Boris Vladimirovitch will calmly continue his life of pleasure and idleness. What has he been doing since the war began? Nothing. He has held vague commands and inspectorships which occasionally take him to the front, but have been simply an excuse for him to vary the round of his pleasures---from Moscow to Kiev, Warsaw to Odessa, the Caucasus to the Crimea. How comes it that this prince of thirty-
seven, strong and healthy, loaded with wealth and privileges, has not claimed his share in the marvellous effort of endurance, heroism and self-sacrifice the Russian nation has made without flinching for nearly two years? As luck would have it, I was turning over the pages of the Iliad yesterday, as I often do; my eye fell on the passage in the twelfth canto which shows us Sarpedon, son of Zeus, coming from Lycia to help the Trojans, and drawing his friend Glaukos into the fight: "Why are we so highly honoured in Lycia?" Sarpedon says to him. "Why do we have the best places at banquets? Why do we possess prosperous domains on the banks of the Xanthos? It is because we are always to be found at the head of the Lycians, where the fight rages hottest; it is because every Lycian says to himself: 'If our princes eat the largest sheep and drink the best wines, it will only make them braver and stronger when they lead us into battle.'"
Saturday, June 24, 1916. During the last few weeks I have been observing in political circles in Petrograd a curious wave of reaction against the idea of annexing Constantinople to Russia. It is being emphasized that the solution by annexation, far from solving the Eastern question, would only perpetuate and aggravate it, as neither Germany, France nor the Danube States would ever submit to leave the keys of the Black Sea in the claws of the Russian Eagle. The vital thing for Russia is to secure the free passage of the Straits, so that it would be enough if a neutral state, guaranteed by the Powers, were created on the two banks. It is also being said that the incorporation of the Greek Patriarchate in the Russian Church would raise problems both inextricable and highly unpalatable to the Russian conscience. And, again. from the point of view of domestic and social evolution it is thought that Russia would make a. very serious mistake in allowing the Turco-Byzantine virus to enter into her organism. These arguments seem to me wisdom itself. But they might have been thought of sooner.
Sunday, June 25, 1916. It is to Russia that one must come to appreciate the saying of Tocqueville that "Democracy immaterializes despotism." In its essence democracy is not necessarily liberal without denying its root principle, it can harmonize with all forms of oppression---political, religious, social, etc. But under a democratic system despotism is intangible, because it is scattered among the institutions; it is not incarnate in any single being, and it is found everywhere and nowhere at once; it is a diffuse, invisible and
asphyxiating vapour, which becomes absorbed, so to speak, in the national climate. One finds it pungent and harmful, and grumbles at it; but one does not know whom to blame. So, as a rule, one ultimately adapts one's self to the evil, and makes the best of it, as it is impossible to have a violent hatred of something one cannot see. Under an autocratic regime, on the contrary, despotism is seen in its most solid, massive and concrete form. It is personified in a man, one man it provokes the maximum of hatred.
Monday, June 26, 1916. A few months ago I gave in this diary an intimate portrait of the Russian woman, based on feminine evidence. I will now give the supplement of that sketch, based on masculine evidence. I have been dining alone with B----- on the Islands. Fifty-two years of age, a bachelor, endowed with quick wits and acute senses, he served in the Regiment of Horse Guards in his early youth. Since then he has divided his time between the development of his estates, certain work of social interest, travelling, a passion for music, the cultivation of fine friendships, and last, but not least, a successful and discreet liaison, varied by many passing fancies. His conversation, natural and many-sided, amuses and educates me, for to every aspect of his dilettantism he brings strong powers of observation. I regard him as a good physiologist of the moral world, an analyst who is accurate and sceptical, but in no way disillusioned. Having spent a good deal of his time among women, he professes that life would be intolerable without them, and that even though occasionally a few lunatics kill themselves for them, it is thanks to women alone that suicide is not rampant among men, because their function on this earth is not so much to perpetuate life as to make one forget it. However that may be, at nine o'clock this evening we were duly seated facing one another on the bank of the Neva. Before us. on the opposite bank, the charming Ielaghin Palace emerged from the foliage of its ancient trees. At the end of the island, willows, poplars and weeping willows bent their heads to the rushing waters. Before long the sky was shrouding itself in an intangible veil, a milky, pearlwhite vapour. While the magic miracle of the "white nights," the great solstice nights, was in progress around us, I questioned B----- about the Russian woman. Quite simply, and as if casually drawing on his memory, he let fall, rather than uttered, the following remarks: "I have only known Russian women. The women of one's own country are the only women one can know well; one cannot really mix with beings of any race save one's own. "Russian women are sincerity itself, in the sense that they never act a part; they never want to write about their emotions. They live their lives as fully as possible, but without thinking themselves heroines in novels and without having any model in mind. Their visions are not taken from anyone else, but are their own offspring.
"Carried away by ardour and enthusiasm at the beginning of each adventure, they are soon out of breath.... "Their great misfortune is changeability.. They hardly ever know what it is that prompts their actions; they always seem to be obeying blind forces. Often enough their most serious decisions are nothing but a relief to their nerves. A trifle, a word they casually overhear, an idea they toy with, a supper, a waltz---nay, even less than that---a cloud crossing the sky, and they become totally different creatures. A woman once said to me 'I feel another woman when I put on a new dress. . . .' "For the same reason they are highly sensitive to the influence of nature. The return of spring, or the delight of sunshine restored, or the smell of the first violets, is quite enough to make them lose their heads. The spectacle of a starry sky on the steppes makes them quite giddy. On stormy evenings they seem to be charged with electricity. . . . "Even with the happiest among them there is always something unsatisfactory, restless and unsatisfied, something which is to come, and of which they suspect nothing. . . . "It is in love, again, that they best come to anchor. When their hearts are not involved, they wander aimlessly like floating islands on the waters of a river. . . . "There is nothing more entertaining than to hear them telling each other stories. They invent as they go along; you would think they were seeking their words in your eyes.... "They very quickly make up their minds to love you---and not less quickly to take back what they have given. With them eloquence is always superfluous, whether to win them or keep them. "They have great modesty. That is why they seem to give themselves easily; they don't tolerate half-concessions. The moment their hearts consent they precipitate the crisis; they think they degrade themselves by bargaining. . . . "Their memory is a drawer which they open and close at will. They remember or forget everything as the necessities of their interests or desires dictate.... "They have a terrible enemy, an incurable disease, ennui. What silly things it makes them do !... "It is the absurd and the impossible which attract them most.... "They are always saying that very little satisfies them, whereas nothing satisfies them. . . . "The unexpected is the only thing of which they never tire. . . . "In love they have more courage, initiative and generosity than men. Their superiority is revealed even more frequently in the ordinary things of life. In difficult moments they show more conscience, energy and resiliency, a higher sense of duty and a freer and more intuitive mind. They are the soul of the family. . . . "Their depths of affection and self-denial become sheer heroism when the man they love falls upon evil days. Their devotion to him becomes bondage and self-sacrifice; they will follow him into Siberia, exile, anywhere....
"One of their serious defects is that they cannot lie. They are not sufficiently their own mistress to keep up a lie. And this it is which often makes them seem cruel.... "As they have an extremely strong imagination, they suffer torture through jealousy.... "They never admit that they are led by their senses they always try to spiritualize their desires and deceive themselves about their ecstasies. The vocabulary of mysticism is an invaluable resource to the most passionate of them who want to justify their extravagances.... "Tolstoy was perfectly right in extolling the fine, round arms of Anna Karenina. The perfection of the women's arms is one of the characteristics of the Russian race. In all social classes, and even among the masses, you will find young women with marvellous arms, full and soft, of a silky whiteness, perfectly proportioned, supple and caressing.... "In Russia, as everywhere else, great women lovers, the predestined victims of passion, are rare. But perhaps in no other country is the fatal potion so corrosive and devastating; it ravages the whole inward being with irresistible violence, leaving nothing but a wild longing for suicide and oblivion. "Fickle, crazy, perfidious, extravagant, egotistical, monopolistic, perverse, neurotic, tantalizing, elusive, disappointing, diabolical---all that and more you may call them; but never common, pedantic or tiresome. In a word, formidable and charming.
Tuesday, June 27, 1916. The entry of the Russians into Kimpolung, south-west of Czernovitz, makes them master of the whole of the Bukovina, and brings them to the foot of the Carpathians. Whilst we were following the progress of the operations on the map, Sazonov said to me: "Now's the time for the Rumanians to come in! They would find an open road to Hermannstadt, or Temesvar---or even Buda-Pesth! But Bratiano's not the man for simple, swift decisions. You'll see how he misses one opportunity after another!"
Wednesday, June 28, 1916. From a private and very reliable source: "The Empress is passing through a bad phase. Too, much prayer, fasting and asceticism. Nervous excitement; insomnia. She works herself up and concentrates more and more on the notion that it is her mission to save Holy Orthodox Russia, and that the guidance, intercession
and protection of Rasputin are indispensable to success. On every possible occasion she asks the staretz for advice, encouragement or a blessing." But for all that, the relations between the Tsarina and Grishka are still kept a profound secret. No newspaper ever refers to them. People in society only mention them to their closest friends, and under their breath, as if they were talking about a humiliating mystery it is better not to probe more deeply; in any case, no one hesitates to invent innumerable fantastic details. In principle, Rasputin seldom goes within the railings of the imperial residence. His meetings with the Empress almost always take place at Madame Vyrubova's little villa on the Sredniaa; he sometimes stays there for hours with the two ladies, while General Spiridovitch's police mount guard and keep people away from the house. In the ordinary way it is through Colonels Loman and Maltzev that the incessant communication between the palace and the staretz and his gang is carried on in practice. Colonel Loman, deputy to the Commandant of the Imperial Palaces, and curator of the Tsarina's favourite church, the Feodorovsky Sobor, is the private secretary of Alexandra Feodorovna, whose complete confidence he possesses. To help him in his daily dealings with Rasputin, he has selected Maltzev, an artillery colonel, to whose charge the aerial defence of Tsarskoe-Selo has. also been committed. On private and secret errands the Empress always employs Sister Akulina,. a young nun attached to the military hospital. in the palace. A few years ago this nun was living in the Convent of St. Tikhon at Okhta, buried in the depths of the Ural forests, not far from Ekaterinburg. A strong and healthy woman, of peasant origin, she one day displayed strange disorders, which soon grew worse and became periodical. Under the eyes of her terrified companions, she would successively go off into fits of convulsions and delirious ecstasies, followed by indescribable sensations; all the signs of demoniacal possession could be observed about her. It was during one of these attacks that she came to know Rasputin. He was then wandering about the Urals as a pilgrim, a strannik; one evening he came to ask the hospitality of Okhta Monastery. He was received as a heaven-sent messenger, and immediately ushered into the presence of the poor possessed one, who was struggling against the assaults and tortures of the infernal spirit. He was left alone with her and exorcized it in a few minutes by an adjuration so forcible and compelling that the devil never dared to touch her again. After this deliverance, Sister Akulina has always been devoted heart and soul to the staretz.
Thursday, June 29, 1916. The Russian Galicia army has now reached out to Kolomea, fifty kilometres south of the Dniester; its north-westerly sweep is becoming more marked as it advances on Stanislau.
During the month of June it has made 217,000 prisoners, including 4,500 officers; it has also captured two hundred and thirty guns and seven hundred machine-guns. General Alexeev has just sent a note to General Joffre pointing out the desirability at the present moment of the Salonica army taking the offensive against the Bulgars: he thinks this offensive would undoubtedly compel Rumania once and for all to throw in her lot with the Entente. The conclusions of this note seem to me very strong: The future is unlikely to present us with a situation more calculated than the present one to guarantee the success of an operation on starting from Salonica. The Russian army has made a large breach in the Austro-German lines of defence, and the operations in Galicia have resumed the character of a war of movement. Germany and Austria are sending all their new formations to that region and weakening themselves in the Balkans. A blow at Bulgaria would secure Rumania's rear and constitute a threat to Buda-Pesth. The necessary and profitable intervention of Rumania would thus become inevitable. The British High Command refuses to undertake an. offensive against the Bulgarians at the present moment; it considers the operation too dangerous. Briand is in London endeavouring to secure the triumph of General Alexeev's views.
Friday, June 30, 1916. I have been discussing the Emperor William with the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch, who hates him with his whole soul, and never loses a chance of scoffing at him---even though his own niece, the daughter of his sister the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Mecklenburg, married the Crown Prince. He is full of stories of the buffoonery, cowardice and hypocrisy of the Kaiser. So I made him highly delighted by adding an historical specimen to his collection, an accurate and little-known account of the incidents which marked the famous visit of the Hamburg to Tangier on March 31, 1905. The moment I spoke, the Grand Duke. interrupted: "March 31, 1965, you say. So it was sixteen days after our disaster at Mukden! William chose the moment for his outburst well!" "He couldn't have chosen a better. The Franco-Russian Alliance was utterly paralysed.... The imperial yacht Hamburg anchored off Tangier at half-past eight in the morning, an hour after the time arranged with the Maghzen. The programme provided that the Emperor should land at seven-thirty and then go straight to the German Legation to receive the compliments of the diplomatic corps and the homage of the German colony. The Sultan's representative was then to give him a luncheon at the Kasbah, which towers above the city. To crown the afternoon's celebrations, it had been arranged that there should be a gorgeous display by the Moroccan kads on Marshn Plain. The Emperor was to re-embark at five o'clock. "Within a few cable lengths from the spot where the Hamburg cast anchor, a French cruiser, the
Du Chayla, had. been stationed for several months. In accordance with the rules of maritime etiquette, the commander of that ship, Captain Dbon, immediately went on board the Hamburg to present his respects to the Emperor. After a friendly welcome, the latter asked him: "'Do you know Tangier Harbour well?' "'Yes, Sire; I've been stationed here more than three months.' "'I want you to tell me honestly, as one sailor to another: is there any danger in my going ashore? ' "'Oh, no, Sire; none at all! There's a slight ripple, but no swell, and the wind isn't strong.' "The Emperor said nothing for a moment, and then, with an air of absorption, began to talk about technical naval matters; but suddenly he repeated his question: "'You really think there's no danger in my going ashore? ' "Captain Dbon was somewhat taken aback at this persistence, but replied deliberately: "'Not the slightest, Sire;, the harbour isn't rough today.' "'What will it be like if I have to return at five o'clock?' "'I shouldn't like to say eight hours beforehand, Sire; but I can assure Your Majesty that at the moment I have no reason to think that the weather will get worse.' "The Emperor thanked and dismissed him. The very definite lies he had just received ought to have convinced him that it would be better to go ashore at once, and if necessary return earlier if the sea became rough. But he lost another two and a half hours in counterorders and hesitation. He ultimately disembarked at a quarter to twelve. At the landing stage a company of Moroccan soldiers, commanded by a French officer, did the honours. In front of this unit was the celebrated Kad MacLean, a former English deserter, who had become our great enemy. Without waiting for the bowings and scrapings, the Emperor quickly mounted a horse to ride to the German Legation; his face was yellow and he looked very perturbed. While he was climbing the steep street which crosses the' town, a number of roughs who had joined his escort began to cheer. Bending down to Kad MacLean, who was walking at his horse's head, William II jerked out: "'Do make these fellows stop! My nerves are all wrong.' "At the Legation he delivered a pompous harangue to his colony, in which he solemnly asserted his determination to preserve the rights and interests of Germany in a free Morocco. "When he came out again everyone noticed how much his face had changed. At the same time a strange excitement was observed in the imperial escort; officers hurried here and there; Kad MacLean changed the formation of his force, and sent out orderlies. Consternation was universal when it was learned that the Emperor would not attend either the luncheon in the Kasbah nor the display on the Marshn. In the midst of a melancholy silence the procession hastily descended to the port. William II embarked at once, and an hour later the Hamburg left the harbour."
Before I had even finished my story the Grand Duke Nicholas was bursting with laughter. And then, with dancing eyes and a voice of thunder, he let himself go: "I hadn't heard the details. But they're truth itself! That's William all over.... I can just see him, the glorious Hohenzollern. What a miserable figure to cut! What a low comedian! I've always said so; he's nothing but a pompous puppet. And even more of a coward than a braggart! Obviously, he didn't like going ashore and was asking the commander of your cruiser for an excuse not to disembark. At the very moment of his grand geste he was afraid, like an actor who's too nervous to come on. And the end of the adventure, his haste to get back to his ship! What a bad joke! Can you imagine anything more grotesque and pitiful? If he hadn't been born on the steps of a throne he'd have had no rival as the clown at a fair
Saturday, July 1, 1916. In Galicia the Russians, who have just occupied Kolomea, are pursuing, the Austro-Germans in the direction of Stanislau. In the Bukovina they are consolidating their successes. Since June 4 General Brussilov's armies have made 217,000 prisoners. In France a great Anglo-French offensive has opened on the Somme.
Sunday, July 2, 1916. My latest representations on the subject of the Archangel railway have not been in vain. Sazonov tells me that, on the Emperor's orders, the number of wagons employed in the daily traffic of the line is being increased from three hundred to four hundred and fifty, and it will be five hundred before long. Bratiano continues to tell Paris that the ill-will of Russia is the only thing which prevents him from coming to a final decision, a fact which is bringing a shower of impatient telegrams about my ears. To put an end to the equivocal game of the Rumanian Government, General Alexeev has just had it informed that "the present moment appears to him the most favourable for the armed intervention of Rumania, and it is also the only moment at which that intervention can interest Russia." I have been discussing it with Diamandy, who was lunching with me this morning. "M. Bratiano's eternal hesitation seems to me a great mistake," I said. "I could well understand his not wanting war; that's a defensible policy, as wars cannot be made without risk. But as you assure me he wants war, (he says so himself), and has settled on his share of the booty
beforehand and is already as compromised as any one could be in the policy of national claims, how can he fail to see that it is now or never for Rumanian intervention? The Russian offensive is in full swing the Austro-Hungarians are still stunned by their defeat the Italians have recovered, and have got their teeth in; the English and French are attacking in full strength on the Somme. What more does M. Bratiano want? Doesn't he realize that great opportunities pass quickly in time of war?" "Personally I agree with you. But I have no doubt that M. Bratiano has very strong reasons for still postponing his final decision. Don't forget that he's staking the very existence of Rumania!"
Monday, July 3, 1916. The Russian parliamentary representatives, who responded to the invitation of the English, French and Italian deputies, have just returned to Petrograd. They reported the results of their mission to-day to the Council of Empire and the Duma. Even allowing for official phraseology, their speeches have shown that they are immensely impressed by the military effort of their allies, particularly France. I was present with Buchanan and Carlotti at the sittings in the Marie and Tauride palaces; we were given an enthusiastic reception. The members of the Council of Empire and deputies of the Duma to whom I have talked privately---Gourko, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, Shebeko, Wielopolski, Miliukov, Shingarev, etc.---have all told me the same thing, in almost identical words: "Here we have no idea what war is."
Tuesday, July 4, 1916. I lunched at the Italian Embassy to-day. There I met the President of the Duma, Rodzianko, Count Sigismund Wielopolski, member of the Council of Empire, and the two Cadet deputies., Miliukov and Shingarev. I have had a long talk with Miliukov about the conclusions he has brought away with him from his visit to the West: "Our main task," he said, "is to intensify and coordinate our national effort. That is only possible by the closest association and collaboration of the Government with the country and the Duma.... Unfortunately, it is not the ruling tendency at the moment." He has been much struck by the vital importance French public opinion attaches to the
intervention of Rumania; he has none too much confidence in the value of the Rumanian army. More than once he revealed his ancient sympathies for the Bulgarians; he can forgive them anything. As I wanted to pump him more thoroughly about the internal situation, which causes me the greatest concern, I asked him to dine with me and Shingarev three days hence. Wielopolski then took me aside, and said to me in confidence: "I know for certain that the Emperor will shortly summon his ministers to Mohilev, to decide finally on the question of Polish autonomy. Sturmer and most of his colleagues are more hostile to the idea than ever. But I think Sazonov has a chance of getting his own way; it is he who has definitely grasped the nettle, and he has the active support of General Alexeev." He added that before long he would have an indirect opportunity of putting a letter under the eyes of the Emperor, and would like to insert a recommendation from me. I replied: "You may say from me that the proclamation of Polish autonomy would be received in France not merely as the first act of historical reparation to result from this war, but as an eminently wise step which will have a considerable effect on the future, and may facilitate in the most remarkable way the advance of the Russian armies in Poland." The news from Galicia and the Bukovina continues to be excellent. The number of prisoners has now risen to 233,000. In France the offensive on the Somme is involving an extremely severe struggle, but it is turning to our advantage.
Wednesday, July 5, 1916. General Polivanov has lunched privately with me. In spite of his dismissal he is still in close touch with General Alexeev, who has the highest opinion of him. He is thus in a position to have a competent opinion of the strategic situation of the Russian armies. While making it clear that he was expressing purely personal views, he said: "The offensive of our armies in the Bukovina and Galicia is only the prelude to our general offensive. Our main effort must be made against the German armies; it is only by their defeat that we shall make victory certain. Since the Battle of Verdun, Germany is no longer capable of undertaking any important offensive. But, to deal with our front alone, we must anticipate a stubborn resistance in advance of the Niemen and Bug, and then on the line of those two rivers and that of the Vistula.... Of course, I know nothing of General Alexeev's intentions, though I presume that his plan is to make all our armies sweep north-west, pivoting on Riga. General Kuropatkin, who is not a great man for the offensive, but quite out of the ordinary for the defensive, is certainly well qualified for the task thus assigned to him. General Evert and
General Brussilov, who are splendid "manoeuvrers," will do the rest. I imagine that they will be given Vilna, Brest-Litovsk and Lublin as their objectives." "What about Cracow?" "I don't think so. At any rate, that depends on the attitude taken up by Rumania. If we were certain that the Rumanian army would appear on the scene in the near future, our left wing would be covered, and all we should have to do would be to keep in touch with our new allies. On the other hand, it is plain that if Rumania remains neutral we shall be obliged to be much more cautious, and any general operation will be hung up. But, whatever the decision of the Rumanian Government may be, we need to know it at once. The authorities in Bucharest don't seem to know that we are in full career.
Thursday, July 6, 1916. While the English are developing their offensive between the Somme and the Ancre, the French have advanced beyond the enemy's second line of defence, south of the Somme. In the two zones of attack the Germans have left about 13,000 prisoners. From the Stokhod to the sources of the Pruth, i.e., on a front of three hundred kilometres, the Russians are methodically advancing. In the north, in Volhynia, they are threatening Kovel. In the south, Galicia, they are in occupation of Delatyn, which commands one of the principal gates into the Carpathians, on the line between Stanislau and Marmaros-Sziget. There is equal activity in Armenia, where the Turks have been driven back simultaneously on the shores of the Black Sea and west of Erzerum.
Friday, July 7, 1916. I have had the two Cadet leaders, Miliukov and Shingarev, to dinner. I confided to them my apprehensions about the situation at home, and the plottings and schemings of which I feel Sturmer is the centre. I asked them: "Do you believe in the possibility of grave events in the more or less near future?" Miliukov, with the approval of Shingarev, replied as follows: "If by grave events you mean popular risings or violence against the Duma, I can reassure you, at any rate for the present. There will always be strikes, but they will be local, and unaccompanied by violence. There would be risings only if our armies suffered a defeat; public
opinion would not stand another retreat from the Dunajec. We should also have to expect serious trouble if there was a famine. From this point of view I am not without apprehension for the coming winter. . . . As regards a violent coup against the Duma, I have no doubt that Sturmer and his gang are thinking of it. But we shan't give him a chance, or even an excuse. We are determined to avoid all provocation, and to reply to our enemies with patience and prudence alone. After the war we shall see. But this line of action has one great drawback for us; it causes us to be accused of timidity by liberal circles; we run a risk of gradually getting out of touch with the masses, who will then turn to men of violence. I congratulated my guests on such patriotic conduct; but I gather from what they say that if the danger is not yet present it is not far off. As they are obliged to return to Pavlovsk to-night they left me at ten o'clock. I finished my evening on the Islands. It is one of the loveliest summer nights I have ever known in Petrograd---warm, calm and clear. But is it really night? No, because there is no darkness. Then is it day? No, because there is no light; there is nothing but the glimmer of twilight and dawn. On the pale vault of the sky, the vague shivering of stars can be distinguished here and there. At the end of Ielaghin Island, the waters of the Gulf of Finland sway under a cloud of phosphorescent silvery vapours. In an atmosphere of opal, the beeches and oaks fringing the lakes seem a magic forest, a scene of dreams and incantations.
Saturday, July 8, 1916. On the Riga front and in the region of Lake Narotch the Russians have carried a whole series of German positions. In the centre they are advancing on Baranovici. In Volhynia they have crossed the Stokhod, and are approaching Kovel. In Galicia they are extending along the Carpathians. Since June 4 they have made about 266,000 prisoners. Sazonov said to me again this morning: "Now's the time for the Rumanians to come in." In spite of this long series of successes, the Russian public lacks confidence. It would not hear of the war being ended before victory; but it believes less and less in that victory.
Sunday, July 9, 1916. Briand realizes at last that if he wants to obtain the intervention of the Rumanian army, it is not in Petrograd, but at Bucharest, that he must take action. He has therefore been putting pressure on Bratiano; getting him with his back to the wall, so to speak. The note he has sent to our minister, Blondel, ends thus: All the conditions imposed by M. Bratiano have now been fulfilled. If the intervention of Rumania is to do any good, it must be immediate. A vigorous attack on the decimated and retreating Austrian armies is a task which is relatively simple for the Rumanians, and extremely useful to the Allies. That intervention would crown the demoralization of a shaken foe, and enable Russia to concentrate all her forces against Germany, giving her offensive the greatest possible momentum. Rumania would thus take her place in the coalition at the psychological moment, and legitimately entitle herself, in the eyes of all, to generous satisfaction of her national aspirations. . . . This is an historic moment. The Western Powers have not ceased to believe in M. Bratiano and the Rumanian nation. If Rumania lets slip the present opportunity, she will never have another chance of becoming a great people by the union of all her children. I told Sazonov of these instructions, and he said "It couldn't be better! General Alexeev will be just as pleased as I am."
Tuesday, July 11, 1916. The great offensive on the Somme is turning into a battle of attrition. After a painful progress of two or three kilometres, the attacking troops have been once again compelled to stop before the formidable obstacle of defences in depth. Position warfare, with its tedious delays, is thus beginning again. From the Russian point of view it is a serious prospect, as Russian opinion is even now only too prone to think that Germany is henceforth invincible.
Wednesday, July 12, 1916. All the ministers, Sazonov included, left yesterday morning for G.H.Q., whither the Emperor
had summoned them with a view to a final decision on the question of Polish autonomy. The Anglo-French offensive on the Somme is over already. The results have been very moderate. There has been an advance of from two to four kilometres on a front of twenty; 10,000 prisoners have been taken.
Thursday, July 13, 1916. In Sazonov's absence, Buchanan and I went this morning to confer with the Minister's deputy, the discreet, prudent and well-informed Neratov. We were talking about Rumania when the door suddenly opened. Sazonov entered, in travelling kit. In spite of having spent twenty-four hours travelling, he looked quite fresh and his eyes sparkled. He asked us, with a smile "I hope I'm not de trop?" When he was seated, he said: "My dear Ambassadors, I'm going to give you some good news---but on one condition, that you'll swear to keep it a dead secret!" We raised our hands to take the oath. He then said: "The Emperor has entirely adopted my views---all my views---though I can assure you we had a pretty warm debate! It's all over now! I won all along the line. You should have seen Sturmer and Khvostov storm! But there's better still! His Majesty has given orders that a draft manifesto, proclaiming the autonomy of Poland, shall be submitted to him without delay: he's commissioned me to prepare the draft!" His face beamed with joy and pride. We congratulated him very warmly. He went on: "I must leave you now; this evening I'm going to Finland, where I can work while I rest. I'll be back in a week." But I stopped him: " Please give me some idea of the sort of autonomy the Emperor has accepted. . . . Do be kind! I've promised to keep it a secret!" "Absolutely secret." "The secret of the Holy Office, the violation of which means eternal damnation!" "All right; I'll continue my confidences. This is the programme the Emperor has adopted: "(1) The Government of the Kingdom of Poland will comprise a representative of the Emperor,
or Viceroy, a Council of Ministers and two Chambers. "(2) The entire administration of the kingdom will be the province of this government, with the exception of the army diplomacy, customs, common finance and railways of strategic importance, which will remain imperial concerns. "(3) Administrative suits between the Kingdom and the Emperor will be referred to the Senate of Petrograd (which combines the functions of our Conseil d'tat and Court of Appeal); a special section will be constituted for this purpose, comprising equal numbers of Russian and Polish senators. "(4) The ultimate annexation of Austrian Poland and Prussian Poland will be provided for by some such formula as this: If God blesses the success of our arms, all Poles who become subjects of the Emperor and King shall enjoy the benefits of the arrangements hereby decreed." Thereupon we left Sazonov closeted with Neratov, and Buchanan and I returned to our embassies.
Tuesday, July 18, 1916. The Allied Powers have at length agreed to address a collective request to Rumania to join their Alliance without further delay. General Alexeev has fixed August 7 as the very last day by which the Rumanian army must take the field.
Volume II, Chapter Eleven Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume II CHAPTER XI JULY 19-AUGUST 18, 1916. The Empress and Rasputin force the Emperor to dismiss Sazonov and put Sturmer in his place; a very serious change.---Negotiations with Rumania. By the terms of a military convention signed by Colonel Rudeanu at Chantilly, the Rumanian army is to attack Bulgaria at once.---Secret
negotiations between Bucharest and Sofia; Bratiano throws over the Rudeanu agreement.--Russian victory at Brody.---Sazonov's dismissal.---Future prospects; an historical precedent: the Seven Years' War.---Rumania hesitates again.---A telegram from the President of the Republic to the Emperor.---Autocracy and regicide.---Polish uneasiness about the fate of their country; the reactionary party regards the settlement of the Polish question as the basis for a reconciliation between tsarism and the Teutonic empires.---Rumania joins our Alliance.---The Treaty of Bucharest. Wednesday, July 19, 1916. Near Lutzk, on the Volhynian frontier, the Russians have scattered the Austro-Germans, who have left 13,000 prisoners in their hands. In the Bukovina the Russian advance guards are crossing the Carpathians.
Thursday, July 20, 1916. When I called on Neratov this morning with Buchanan, we were both struck by his grave air. He said to us: "I have serious reason to think we are going to lose M. Sazonov." "What has happened "You know that M. Sazonov has long had enemies, and who they are. His success the other day in the Polish question has been exploited against him. Someone who is very fond of him, and whom I can trust absolutely, has told me that His Majesty has decided to relieve him of his post." Coming from a man as reserved and cautious as Neratov, such words left no room for doubt. It was quite unnecessary for Buchanan and me to put our heads together to realize the full meaning of the blow in store for us. Buchanan asked: "Do you think that M. Palologue and I could even now do anything to prevent the dismissal of M. Sazonov?" "Possibly." "What could we do?" To clear the air, I begged Neratov to give us full details of the news which has so naturally alarmed him:
"The person from whom I've received this report," he said, "has seen the letter His Majesty ordered to be drafted; it is couched in friendly terms and simply relieves M. Sazonov of his functions on grounds of health." I fastened on to these last words, which seemed to me to offer the ambassadors of France and England a legitimate excuse to intervene. Then I sat down at Neratov's table for a few moments and drafted a telegram which Buchanan and I could dispatch simultaneously to the heads of our military missions at Mohilev, asking them to show them to the Minister of the Court. The telegram ran as follows I am told that M. Sazonov has decided to place his resignation before His Majesty on grounds of health. Please get this report officially confirmed by the Minister of the Court. If it is true, please impress very strongly on Count Fredericks that a sympathetic word from His Majesty would, no doubt, inspire M. Sazonov to a fresh effort, which would enable him to complete his task. My English (. . . French) colleague and I cannot help being greatly perturbed by the thought of the comment which the resignation of the Russian Foreign Minister would not fail to arouse in Germany, for the overstrain from which he is now suffering is unquestionably not serious enough to justify his retirement. At this decisive moment of the war, anything which could look like a change in the policy of the Allies might have the most disastrous consequences. Neratov entirely approved this telegram, and Buchanan and I immediately returned to our embassies to send it to Mohilev. This afternoon I received from a reliable source certain details of the intrigue against Sazonov. My informant (a woman) does not know how far things have got and I have been careful not to tell her. "Sazonov's position is very much compromised," she said; "he has lost the confidence of Their Majesties." "What's the accusation against him?" "He's accused of not getting on with Sturmer and, on the other hand, getting on too well with the Duma. . . . And then Rasputin hates him---which is enough by itself." "So the Empress has absolutely made common cause with Sturmer?" "Yes, absolutely. Sturmer is full of low cunning and he has succeeded in persuading her that she alone can save Russia. She's saving her at this very moment; she went off to Mohilev quite unexpectedly last night
Friday, July 21, 1916. In Armenia the Russians are continuing their offensive with brilliant success. On the Black Sea shore they have occupied Vaksi-Kebir, west of Trebizond, and their advance guards are entering the valley of Kelkit-lrmak. Further inland, the capture of Gemish-Kanch makes them master of the great road which starts from Trebizond and branches to Erzerum and Erzinghan. They are also threatening this latter town by a rapid advance along the upper course of the Euphrates.
Saturday, July 22, 1916. General Janin and General Williams have delivered their messages to the Minister of the Court. General Janin's reply is as follows: The Minister of the Court, though not always seeing eye to eye with M. Sazonov, had already impressed on the Emperor that his departure, at the present juncture, would certainly make a bad impression. The Emperor replied that the extreme exhaustion from which M. Sazonov is now suffering, and which deprives him of both appetite and sleep, really does not allow him to go on with his work; in any case his sovereign decision had been taken. Count Fredericks has, however, promised to show the Emperor the two telegrams of the French and English Ambassadors, but he added that he would not ask His Majesty to answer them. Sazonov, who is still in Finland, was informed yesterday of his dismissal. He received the news with the quiet dignity that might have been expected of his character: "At bottom," he said, "His Majesty is right in dispensing with my services. I disagreed with Sturmer on too many questions." As the afternoon was ending Neratov came to tell me, on express orders from His Majesty, that the change at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs would have no effect whatever on the foreign policy of the Empire.
Sunday, July 23, 1916. This morning the Press officially announces the retirement of Sazonov(1) and Sturmer's appointment in his place. No comments. But I hear that first impressions are a wave of amazement and indignation. This evening I have been dining with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, in the company of
Princess Paley, Madame Helen Narishkin and the maids-of-honour. After dinner the Grand Duchess took me to the bottom of the garden; she made me sit beside her and we had a talk. "I simply can't tell you," she said, "how grieved I .am about the present and how worried about the future." "Tell me how you think it's all happened. Then I'll tell you the little I know." We shared our information. Our conclusions were as follows: The Emperor and Sazonov saw absolutely eye to eve on foreign policy. They were also at one on the Polish question, as the Emperor had entirely adopted the views of his minister and actually instructed him to draw up the manifesto to the Polish nation. In the other questions of home policy Sazonov's liberal leadings had in practice no opportunity to find expression; in any case he had but a purely personal right to voice them and they were extremely moderate. Last but not least, he was on the best possible terms with General Alexeev. His sensational dismissal cannot therefore be explained by any admissible motive. The explanation unhappily forced upon us is that the camarilla, of which Sturmer is the instrument, wanted to get control of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. For several weeks Rasputin has been saying: "I've had enough of Sazonov, quite enough!" Urged on by the Empress, Sturmer went to G.H.Q. to ask for Sazonov's dismissal. The Empress went to his rescue, and the Emperor gave way. By way of conclusion the Grand Duchess asked me: "You regard the prospect pessimistically, don't you?" "Yes, very. The French monarchy once saw good ministers dismissed through the influence of a Court faction; their names were Choiseul and Necker; Your Highness knows the sequel." In Volhynia, at the confluence of the Lipa and the Styr, General Sakharov's army has routed the Austro-Germans and made 12,000 prisoners.
Tuesday, July 25, 1915. I have telegraphed to Paris: Looking at the future this is how the situation appears to me: I do not fear any change for the immediate, or even near future in the foreign policy of Russia and the declaration the Emperor sent me On July 22 through M. Neratov makes me quite confident for the present. The official action of imperial diplomacy will thus probably continue as before. We must, however, expect to see new faces and a new spirit gradually appear in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We must also expect that the secrets of our negotiations will not long be a secret to certain persons who, by their pro-German leanings, indirect relations with the
German aristocracy or German finance and their hatred of liberalism and democracy, have been completely won over to the idea of a reconciliation with Germany. At the present time these people can only work for the realization of their desires in a very underhand and circumspect fashion. The patriotic impulse of the nation is still so strong that if it discovered their game it would destroy them. But if a few months hence, when winter comes, our military efforts have not realized all our hopes, or victory inclines more to the Russian armies than ours, the German party in Petrograd would become dangerous, owing to the tools it possesses in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Wednesday, July 26, 1916. The Press announces that the former War Minister, General Sukhomlinov, who was confined in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, has been stricken by a mental affliction which makes it necessary to move him to an asylum. According to the information in my possession he is simply suffering from neurasthenia. In any case, no one accepts the reason put forward to explain the change.
Thursday, July 27, 1916. Colonel Rudeanu, the Rumanian military attach in, France, has negotiated with the delegates of the Allied General Staffs a convention which fixes at 150,000 the number of men to be employed by the Rumanian High Command in an immediate attack on Bulgaria, such an attack being timed to coincide with an offensive by the Salonica army. The convention, which also governs the relations of the two army groups, was signed at Chantilly on July 23. General Sarrail, commanding the Allied armies of the East, has already received an order to plan a vast operation, the successive objects of which will be: (1) to tie down the Bulgarian forces in Southern Macedonia, in order to cover the mobilization and concentration of the Rumanian army; (2) to aim at the destruction of the enemy by an attack, to be pressed through ruthlessly the moment the Rumanians take the offensive on the right bank of the Danube. But it came to my ears yesterday, from a secret source, that, far from preparing to take the offensive against the Bulgarians, the Rumanian Government is engaged in clandestine conversations with the Sofia cabinet. The report is partially confirmed by a telegram Buchanan received this morning from the English Minister in Bucharest, in which it is said that the Rumanian President of the Council has never accepted the idea of attacking Bulgaria or even of
declaring war on her.
Friday, July 28, 1916. Poklenski, the Russian Minister in Bucharest, telegraphs that Bratiano has categorically refused to attack Bulgaria; his English colleague, Sir George Barclay, insists that the Allied Powers should refrain from demanding such an attack, "otherwise the help of Rumania will be irrevocably lost." Buchanan and I have discussed the matter with Neratov. The latter thinks that the Allied Powers should insist on Bratiano's carrying out the undertakings specified in the Rudeanu Convention. Buchanan agreed with Barclay. I supported Neratov. I reminded them of all the sacrifices France has made to uphold the Allied cause in the Balkan Peninsula. "The French public," I said, "would never understand the offensive being taken by the Salonica army without a joint offensive on the Danube; they would be furious at the idea of French soldiers being killed in Macedonia to make it more easy for the Rumanians to annex Transylvania. And then again, without being an expert in strategy, I think that it is to the interest of the Rumanians themselves to put the Bulgarians out of action before they take the field north of the Carpathians. As for the secret conversations which I am told are in progress between Bucharest and Sofia, I have no doubt they will fail. I should be terribly upset if they succeeded, as that would mean that the whole of the Bulgarian army would turn against our Army of the East." Neratov entirely agrees with me.
Saturday, July 29, 1916. The Russian Army won a victory yesterday at Brody, in Galicia. This afternoon Sturmer came to pay me his official call. Ceremonious and "soapy," as he always is, he told me that in entrusting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to him the Emperor had ordered him to conduct the foreign policy of the Empire on the same principles as before, i.e., in the closest co-operation with the Allied Governments. "I attach special importance," he added, "to working hand in hand with the Government of the Republic. So I want all your help and confidence."
I thanked him for his assurances, telling him he might rely on the friendly energy I should bring to our collaboration, and congratulating him on opening his period of office under the auspices of the Brody victory. Then I tried to draw him into explaining the ultimate aims of his policy and his ideas on the future status of Germany. On this point he seems to me to have but very vague notions; he does not even seem to know the Emperor's own views; but he made a remark I have frequently heard from the imperial lips "No pity, no mercy for Germany!" He took his leave of me with exaggerated and obsequious bows. In the doorway he repeated: "No pity, no mercy for Germany!"
Sunday, July 30, 1916. The British Government has to-day asked the Russian Government not to insist that Rumania shall attack Bulgaria. When appealed to by Neratov, I repeated the arguments I used yesterday, adding that I also could not see what was the object of sending 50,000 Russians to the Dobrudja if they were to stand idle while the Salonica army faced the whole shock of the Bulgarian armies. Late in the afternoon Neratov let me know that General Alexeev would not allow 50,000 Russians to be sent to the Dobrudja unless their function was to make an immediate attack on the Bulgarians.
Monday, July 31, 1916. Continuing their offensive on a front of one hundred and fifty kilometres, the Russian Volhynian and Galician armies have driven the Austro-Germans before them in the direction of Kovel, Vladimir-Volynsk and Lemberg, capturing 60,000 prisoners. Thus, since this vast operation began, the Russians have made 345,000 prisoners. In Armenia the Turks have been driven out of Erzinghan and are fleeing towards Karput and Sivas.
Tuesday, August 1, 1916. Briand has telegraphed to me as follows: As regards a Rumanian declaration of war. I share the view of Sir Edward Grey and General Joffre that in the last resort we should not insist on an immediate declaration of war on Bulgaria; it is quite probable that the Germans will force the Bulgarians into attacking the Rumanians at once, and the Russian divisions can then commence hostilities. It is equally probable that as the Rumanians have not prepared for operations south of the Danube, but have concentrated the bulk of their forces in the Carpathians, they will get a rude shock from the Bulgarians.
Thursday, August 3, 1916. Sazonov is back from Finland and yesterday called at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take leave of the staff. He has just been to see me. We had a long and affectionate chat. He was exactly what I was sure he would be---selfpossessed, dignified, without the least trace of bitterness, glad for his own sake to have recovered his independence, but grieved and anxious about the future of Russia. He confirmed all I had heard about the circumstances of his dismissal: "It's a year since the Empress began to be hostile towards me," he said. "She's never forgiven me for begging the Emperor not to assume command of his armies. She brought such pressure to bear to secure my dismissal that the Emperor ultimately gave way. But why this scandal? Why this 'scene'? It would have been so easy to pave the way for my departure with the excuse of my health! I should have given loyal assistance! And why did the Emperor give me so confident and affectionate a reception the last time I saw him?" And then, in a tone of deepest melancholy, he more or less summed up his unpleasant experience in these words: "The Emperor reigns: but it is the Empress who governs ---under Rasputin's guidance. Alas! May God protect us!"
Friday, August 4, 1916. I have been for a solitary motor ride on the Sestroretzk road, which runs along the northern edge of Kronstadt Bay. The deep blue of the sky, the utter peacefulness of sunshine, the infinite distances of the horizon and the deep, gentle murmur of the waves created a marvellous atmosphere for quiet reflection. I thought of the sinister possibilities which Sazonov's dismissal compels me to contemplate. More than ever before, the future appears to me as "a night of doubt and darkness," to use Bossuet's fine phrase. I must now face the possibility of a Russian defection; it is an eventuality which must henceforth enter into the political and strategical calculations of the French Government. No doubt the Emperor Nicholas will stand by our alliance to the very end; I feel no anxiety whatever on that score. But he is not immortal. How many Russians, even---or rather, especially---those in closest contact with him, are secretly longing for his disappearance! What would happen if there was a change of sovereign? On that point I have no illusions: there would be an immediate defection of Russia. Besides, is there not an historical precedent? Can I forget the end of the Seven Years' War, and how Peter III had barely mounted his throne before he lost no time in deserting the French Alliance and seeking a shameful reconciliation with Frederick II? I have considered every aspect and all the consequences of this hypothesis, and however ruthless I am in my survey it is an immense relief to me to realize that my faith in our ultimate victory remains unshakable. But there is one thought which has crossed my mind several times already. and has now taken root in my soul as the logical conclusion of my reflections. My original idea of our ultimate victory was too simple-minded. That Germany and Austria are doomed to defeat there can be no doubt; it is on that point that my confidence is unshaken. But it will be a very long time before the Teutonic empires meet their fate, and the feebler the Russian effort the longer that time will be. If Russia cannot find within her the strength to perform her duties as an ally to the bitter end, if she prematurely retires from the struggle or falls into revolutionary convulsions, she will inevitably dissociate her cause from ours; she will make it impossible for herself to share in the fruits of our victory and she will find herself involved in the defeat of the Central Empires.
Saturday, August 5, 1916. General Alexeev has come round to the opinion of General Joffre and Briand, and agrees that the Rumanian effort shall be directed exclusively against Austria; he consents to the operations against Bulgaria being deferred, but thinks that such operations are bound to begin by themselves. He insists that Bratiano's procrastination shall be put an end to, once and for all, by definitely fixing the date on which the Rumanian army must take the field.
Sunday, August 6, 1916. Bratiano's procrastination and haggling still continue; the explanation being, I think, that he still hopes to arrive at a direct understanding with the Bulgars. Ever faithful to the principles of his game, he ascribes his hesitation to the ill-will of Russia. Hence, further bickerings between Paris and Petrograd. This morning I was instructed to convey to the Emperor a telegram from the President of the Republic.(2) When handing this telegram to Sturmer, I repeated the arguments I have recently dinned into his ears; the main argument--and to my eyes the real one---being the enormous sacrifices France has already made in the common cause and the wastage of our effectives in the carnage of Verdun. Sturmer, who fears nothing so much as being drawn into dealings with the Emperor, replied at first by protestations of loyalty to the Alliance and a panegyric of Verdun. He continued: "So I attach the same importance as your Government to securing the immediate assistance of Rumania. Of course you know General Alexeev's view on the subject. In military matters his influence with the Emperor is final. You will remember that it was he who suggested putting an end to M. Bratiano's hesitation by fixing a date limit for the negotiations. How good his judgment was! You may take it from me that it was a terrible mistake to reopen the discussion with the Rumanian Government; we ought to have stood by the very liberal terms of our memorandum of July 17 and refused any further haggling. Can't you see that M. Bratiano is only trying to gain time? The date originally fixed by General Alexeev was August 7; it had to be extended to August 14. M. Bratiano, in now requiring that your Salonica army shall take the offensive ten days before Rumania opens hostilities, is patently aiming at securing further delay. I tell you again we made a great mistake in lending ourselves to his game, which is only too obvious. But I'll promise to' report to His Majesty exactly what you've just told me." Sturmer is sincere in what he tells me, for a reason which makes any other unnecessary, i.e., General Alexeev, has taken charge of this Rumanian business and the Emperor is in agreement with all his views. Now Sturmer knows that General Alexeev hates and despises him, and he is not the man to oppose him in any way. Quite the contrary: he is extremely tactful with him and talks very small in his presence.
Monday, August 7, 1916. I believe I have frequently remarked oh the casual way in which the Russians ---even the most ardent devotees of tsarism and reaction---admit the possibility of the Emperor's assassination. No one minds talking about it in my presence. The only limit is that they slightly clothe their meaning in the sketchy veil of euphemism or allusion.
As I was strolling on the Islands this afternoon I met Prince O-----, a typical old Russian nobleman, of haughty manners, broad and cultured views; a proud and glowing patriot. We walked and talked together. After a long and pessimistic diatribe he casually enlarged on the death of Paul I. I understood what he meant and betrayed some surprise. Then he stopped crossed his arms, and looking me full in the face, blurted out: "What do you expect, Monsieur I'Ambassadeur! Under a system of absolute power, if the sovereign goes mad, there's nothing for it but to put him out of the way!" "Obviously regicide is the necessary corrective to autocracy," I said. "In a sense, it might almost be called a principle of public law." We proceeded no further on this scandalous ground. If we had continued the conversation, I should have reminded Prince O----- that he could have supported his doctrine with several ancient and venerable authorities. As far back as the reign of Nero, the philosopher Seneca put an audacious aphorism into one of his tragedies: For sacrifice to Jupiter there is no more acceptable victim than an unjust monarch. And Joseph de Maistre, who was in St. Petersburg at the time of the crime of March 23, 1801, has introduced an ingenious distinction into the casuistry of regicide: "Though I might have to admit the right to kill Nero, I should never admit any right to judge him."
Wednesday, August 9, 1916. The following is the Emperor's reply to the telegram I forwarded to the Emperor three days ago from the President of the Republic: Being entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Prsident, as to the necessity of Rumania's taking the field immediately, I have ordered my Foreign Minister to authorize my minister in Bucharest to sign the convention, the terms of which will be agreed between M. Bratiano and the representatives of the Allied Powers. The arrival of German and Turkish reinforcements is reducing the pace of the Russian advance on the Galician front, but the Russians are still approaching Tarnopol and Stanislau.
Thursday, August 10, 1916. At luncheon to-day I had General Leontiev, who is to command one of the Russian brigades in France, Dimitri Benckendorff, Count Maurice Zamoski, Count Ladislas Wielopolski and
others. In the smoke room I had a long and confidential talk with Zamoski and Wielopolski. They told me of the anxiety, or rather the acute apprehension, they feel over the latest attitude of the Russian Government towards Poland; they know that the Emperor's liberal intentions remain unchanged, but they do not think him capable of resisting the intrigues of the reactionary party and the daily, insistent influence of Rasputin and the Empress. As Zamoski is shortly going to Stockholm, I have asked him to lunch with me again in a few days' time.
Friday, August 11, 1916. Yesterday the Italians entered Gorizia, where they have made 15,000 prisoners; they are pressing their attack in an easterly direction. On the right bank of the Sereth the Austro-Germans have been routed once more and the Russians have captured Stanislau. If only the Rumanians had come in a month ago!
Saturday, August 12, 1916. When I summarize all the signs of political and social decomposition I see before me, I feel sorry that the satirical genius of Gogol has no heir in Russian literature to give us a fresh edition---a somewhat enlarged and more melancholy edition---of the Dead Souls. And I understand the remark wrung from Pushkin by his reading of that caustic masterpiece God in Heaven, what a gloomy place Russia is!
Sunday, August 13, 1916. I have recently had opportunities of talking to French or Russian manufacturers and merchants residing in the provinces, Moscow, Simbirsk, Voronej, Tula, Rostov, Odessa and the Donetz, and I have asked them all if the conquest of Constantinople is still considered the indispensable war
aim in circles in which they move. Their replies have been almost identical; summarized, they are as follows: Among the rural masses the dream of Constantinople, which has never taken definite shape, is becoming increasingly vague, remote and unreal. From time to time a priest reminds them that the Russian people is under a sacred duty, a holy obligation, to wrest Tsarigrad from the infidel and raise the orthodox cross on the dome of Santa Sophia. His audience listens to him with a composed and dutiful attention, but without attaching more practical and direct significance to his words than if he were speaking of the Last Judgment and the torments of Hell. It should also be observed that the moujik,who is eminently peace-loving and tender-hearted and always ready to fraternize with his enemy, is revealing an increasing loathing for the horrors of war. In working-class circles there is not the slightest interest in Constantinople. Russia is considered large enough already, and instead of shedding the blood of the people in absurd conquests the Tsar's government would do far better to relieve the woes of the proletariat. In the next higher stage, i.e., among the middle class, business men, industrial leaders, engineers, lawyers. doctors, etc., the importance of the problem with which the fate of Constantinople faces Russia is fully recognized; it is not forgotten that the outlet through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles is necessary to the export of Russian grain, and everyone wishes to end a situation in which an order from Berlin can sever that outlet. But the historical and mystic doctrine of the Slavophiles is disregarded, and even reprobated, arid the conclusion reached is that it would be enough to secure the neutralization of the Straits under the guarantee of an international organism. The advocates of the idea of incorporating Constantinople in the Empire are now to be found only in the very small camp of the Nationalists and the group of doctrinaire Liberals. But apart from the question of Constantinople and the Straits, the attitude of the Russian people towards the war is in general satisfactory. With the exception of the Social-Democratic party and some members of the Extreme Right of the reactionaries, there is no one who is not determined to continue the war to final victory.
Monday, August 14, 1916. Count Maurice Zamoski is preparing to leave for Stockholm very shortly and has been to lunch again with me. We were alone. Our talk lasted two hours and was confined exclusively to Poland and her future. In everything he has said or given me to understand, I trace the echo of the discussions which have been agitating Polish circles in Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev since Sazonov's dismissal. There is no doubt that the increasing influence of the reactionary party in the Imperial Government is delaying and complicating the settlement of the Polish question. On the one hand, notwithstanding the successes of the Russian army in Galicia, the Poles are convinced that
Russia will not emerge from the war victorious, and that tsarism at bay is even now preparing to negotiate a reconciliation with the Teuton empires at the expense of Poland. Under the spur of that notion they feel all their old hatreds reviving, and the sentiment is reinforced by a sarcastic contempt for the Russian colossus, whose weakness, impotence and moral and physical infirmities are now being ruthlessly revealed. But the very fact that they have lost all confidence in Russia absolves them, they think, from all obedience or obligation to her. Henceforth they are fixing all their hopes on France and England, and putting forward national claims which are altogether excessive. Autonomy under the sceptre of the Romanovs is not enough: they must have complete and absolute independence, and the wholesale resurrection of the Polish State; they will not stop until they have secured the triumph of their cause at the peace congress. More. emphatically than ever they deny the empire of the tsars any right to domination over the Slav peoples, or to speak in their name or control their historical evolution; the Russians must henceforth realize that in the hierarchy of civilization the Poles and the Czechs are far ahead of them. . . .
Tuesday, August 15, 1916. With a large number of Russians---I could almost say with the majority---moral instability is such that they are never satisfied to be where they are, and can never wholly and wholeheartedly enjoy anything. They are always wanting something new and unexpected, stronger emotions, greater shocks, more titillating pleasures. Hence the eternal search for stimulants and narcotics, an insatiable appetite for adventures and an uncontrollable love of the freakish. To sum up the conversation which has just inspired me to these remarks, I have only to record the melancholy confession which Turgueniev puts into the mouth of one of his heroines, the attractive Anna Sergueevna Odintsov: "When we're enjoying a musical performance, or an evening party, or a heart-to-heart talk with someone we like, how is it that our enjoyment seems an allusion to an unknown and remote happiness rather than a real happiness from which we should be deriving actual pleasure?" And the friend to whom she is speaking replies: "You can never be happy in. the spot you happen to be at the moment!"
Wednesday, August 16, 1916. Between the Dniester and the Zlota-Lipa the Russians are continuing their advance. They occupied Jablonitza yesterday. The Bucharest negotiations are on the point of fruition.
Friday, August 18, 1916. Bratiano and the ministers of the Allied Governments signed the Treaty of Alliance at Bucharest yesterday. By the terms of this treaty, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia guarantee the territorial integrity of Rumania; they also undertake to secure her the Bukovina (with the exception of a few northern districts), Transylvania and the Banat of Temesvar when the general peace is signed: Rumania will thus double her present population and territory. Rumania, for her part, undertakes to declare war on Austria-Hungary and break off all economic relations with the enemies of her new allies. A military convention is annexed to the Treaty of Alliance. This convention provides that the Rumanian High Command guarantees to attack the AustroHungarian forces by August 28 at the latest. The Russian High Command in turn undertakes to open a vigorous offensive along the whole Austro-Hungarian front. and more particularly in the Bukovina, in order to cover the mobilization and concentration of the Rumanian forces. With the same object in view the Allied General Staffs undertake that the Salonica army shall make a strong attack on the whole Macedonian front by August 20 at the latest. History will say whether Bratiano has chosen his moment well. Speaking personally, I still think that through over-caution or over-subtlety he has already let slip three opportunities far more favourable than the present juncture. The first occasion was early in September, 1914, when the Russians were entering Lemberg. At that time Austria and Hungary were bewildered and terror-stricken, and quite incapable of defending the Carpathian frontier; the Rumanians would have found all the roads open to them. The second chance was in the month of May, 1915. Italy had just appeared on the scene. In a political and military sense, Russia was at the height of her power. In Athens, Venizelos was in office. And Bulgaria was still hesitating as to her course. The third and final opportunity was two and a half months ago, at the beginning of the great Russian offensive, before the arrival of German and Turkish reinforcements in Galicia and Transylvania, and before Hindenburg, the "Iron Marshal," had concentrated all the power of his strategic genius on the eastern front. But in action one must never waste time over retrospective hypotheses: they are not legitimate, and are useful only in so far as they throw light on the present. From this point of view it is obvious that the dilatory policy of Bratiano has made the enterprise on which Rumania has embarked much more difficult and hazardous. I should also say that it is his fault that proper preparation has not been made for the co-operation of the Russian armies, their supply and
transport, and the co-ordination of their action with the plan of campaign in the Balkans. Things are still where they were six months ago, at the time of my conversations with Philippesco. But for all that the accession of Rumania to our Alliance is an event of high importance, not only for the practical results of the present war but also for the ulterior development of French policy in Eastern Europe.
Chapter Footnotes 1. The Emperor's rescript to Sazonov ran as follows: Sergei Dimitrievitch, since your entry into the service of the State you have devoted your attention to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and held important posts in diplomacy, and in 1910 I called you to the responsible office of Minister for Foreign Affairs. You have carried out the important duties associated with the headship of that Ministry with tireless zeal, and devoted yourself wholeheartedly to realize my wishes, which have been inspired by the requirements of justice and the honour of our dear country. Unfortunately your health has been shattered by overwork and you have decided to ask me to relieve you of the office you hold. In granting your request I consider it a duty to tell you of my sincere gratitude for your devoted service. You will always have my friendship and sincere gratitude. NICHOLAS. At Imperial Headquarters, July 7, 1916. 2. The telegram ran as follows: I think it my duty to inform Your Majesty of the very great importance the French General Staff attaches to the conclusion at the earliest possible moment of the agreement with Rumania. Rumanian assistance would be very important at the present moment, as the enemy has not yet been able to take steps to meet the danger on that side, but if that assistance were delayed its value would only be secondary because the enemy would have received notice and made his arrangements. The Austrian army is the weak point in the hostile coalition. If it were put out of action, it would have a direct effect on the German army which has to support it. By making the necessary arrangement with Rumania to crush the Austrian army, we should compel Germany go make an additional effort which may well be beyond her immediate resources. The data at the disposal of the Russian General Staff and ours seem to indicate that the Central Empires have no troops available at the moment. Suddenly to open a new and immediately critical theatre of operations, while Germany has all she can do to meet the dangers of the vigorous Russian thrust, would deprive her of time to make good her losses or organize and bring up new formations. On the other hand, if the negotiations are spun out, it will give our enemies time to have the passes
of the Transylvanian Alps occupied by formations of purely defensive value, but adequate to hamper, if not to hold up, any advance by the Rumanian army. General Joffre and the French General Staff thus think that we are faced with a fleeting opportunity which must not be allowed to slip. An immediate intervention by Rumania would enable us to break the deadlock definitely in our favour. In a few weeks, when snow falls in the Carpathians and the passes are held, the right moment will have passed. Success appears to be a matter of days. I am sure that Your Majesty sees the military situation in the same light as the Government of the Republic and the French Commander-in-Chief, and considers the speedy conclusion of the convention with Rumania as equally desirable. I ask Your Majesty to accept my fresh congratulations on the magnificent successes of the Russian army and the assurance of my loyal friendship. POINCAR. Paris, August 5, 1916.
Volume III, Chapter One Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III THE CAPTIVE EMPEROR AT TSARSKOI-SELO (Photograph by M. Pierre Gaillard) CHAPTER I AUGUST 19-SEPTEMBER 18, 1916. The Empress's camarilla: the direction in which she endeavours to influence Russian diplomacy.---The Salonica army ties down the Bulgarians on the Macedonian front in order to cover the mobilization of the Rumanian army.---The political education of Nicholas II: "The Emperor will always be Pobiedonostzev's pupil !"---Victories of the Russian army in Upper Armenia. ---The Empress and Sturmer; he treats her as the regent.---Exhaustion of the Russian forces on the Galician front.---One of the Russian regiments sent to France mutinies at Marseilles.---The arrest of Manuilov, director of Sturmer's secretariat.---Ennui, the chronic disease of Russian society.---Influence of the Jewish question on relations between Russia and America.---The perilous situation of Rumania; the action at Turtukai; invasion of the Dobrudja; the Russian General Staff studies the possibility of sending an army to help in the Danube region.---The strategic plan of Marshal Hindenburg.---Rasputin and Sturmer; their conferences in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul.---Russian notions of time and space.
Saturday, August 19, 1916. During the last few days I have had many talks with persons of all shades of opinion. When I sum up all they tell me---and, even more, what they do not tell me---I arrive at the following conclusions. Without the Emperor's approval or knowledge, the Empress's camarilla is endeavouring to influence Russian diplomacy in a new direction, i.e., preparing the ground for a reconciliation with Germany. The predominating motive is fear, the fear to which the reactionary party is inspired on seeing Russia involved in so close and prolonged an association with the democratic powers of the West; I have referred to this matter several times before. There is also the community of industrial and commercial interests which existed before the war between Germany and Russia and which many are anxious to re-establish. And again there is the poor result of the recent offensive of the Russian armies on the Dvina, a result which proves that the military resistance of Germany is far from being exhausted. On the other hand, the successes in Galicia and Armenia have popularized the idea that the profits of the war must be made at the expense of Austria and Turkey rather than that of Germany.
Sunday, August 20, 1916. The Salonica army, an army of not less than four hundred thousand men under the command of General Sarrail, is to take the offensive to-day between the Vardar and the Struma, north-west of Seres. As provided by Article 3 of the Bucharest Military Convention, it is an endeavour to hold down the Bulgarians on the Macedonian front in order to cover the mobilization and concentration of the Rumanian army.
Tuesday, August 22, 1916. The ex-Minister for Agriculture, Krivoshein, who is undoubtedly the most open-minded and intellectual of the liberal imperialists, was telling me not long ago of the stubborn and invincible resistance opposed by the Emperor to anyone who advises him to allow tsarism to develop in the direction of parliamentary monarchy. He concluded with the depressing remark: "The Emperor will always be Pobiedonostzev's pupil!" Who can doubt that it is to the famous procurator of the Holy Synod, the close friend and colleague of Alexander III, that Nicholas II owes the whole of his political and moral education. An eminent jurist and learned theologian, the fanatical champion of orthodox autocracy,
Pobiedonostzev brought to the advocacy of his reactionary doctrines ardent conviction, exalted patriotism, a lofty and inflexible conscience, culture of an immense range, rare dialectical skill and lastly---though it seems contradictory---unaffected simplicity and great charm of manner and conversation. His whole programme could be summed up in the words "absolutism, nationalism, orthodoxy," and he pursued its fulfilment with an uncompromising ruthlessness and sovereign scorn of the realities which stood in his path. To him "the modern spirit," democratic principles and western atheism were necessarily anathema. His stubborn, daily influence left an indelible mark on the impressionable mind of Nicholas II. In 1896, just at the time when he was completing the political education of his young sovereign, Pobiedonostzev published a volume of Thoughts. I have just been reading it, and note the following suggestive reflections: "One of the most. erroneous political principles is that of popular sovereignty, the idea--widespread, unfortunately, since the French Revolution---that all power comes from the people and has its source in the national will. The greatest of the evils of the constitutional system is the formation of ministries on the parliamentary pattern, based on the numerical standing of parties. . . . The body and the spirit cannot be separated. The body and the spirit live one, inseparable life. . . . The atheist state is merely a Utopia, for atheism is the negation of the State. Religion is the spiritual force which creates law. That is why the worst enemies of public order never fail to proclaim that religion is a personal, private affair. . . . The ease with which men allow themselves to be deluded by the commonplaces of popular sovereignty and individual liberty leads to general demoralization and the decay of the political sense. France offers us today a striking example. Of that demoralization and decay; the contagion is already reaching England.
Thursday, August 24, 1916. The general offensive which the Salonica army was preparing to open on August 20 was anticipated on the 18th by an audacious attack by the Bulgarians. Their main effort was made on the two extremities of our line, in the Doiran region east of the Vardar, and Western Macedonia south of Monastir. The Serbians were holding the latter sector and the blow was so violent that they have had to fall back for thirty kilometres, thus losing the towns of Florina and Koritza which the enemy at once occupied. The news has produced great agitation in Bucharest.
Sunday, August 27, 1916.
The Russian army is developing its operations in Upper Armenia in the most brilliant fashion. It has just occupied Mush, west of Lake Van. The Turks are retreating through Bitlis on Mosul.
Monday, August 28, 1916. Italy declared war on Germany yesterday, thus consummating the breach with Germanism; Rumania has also declared war on Austria-Hungary.
Tuesday, August 29, 1916. A former president of the Council, Kokovtsov, is passing through Petrograd and I called on him this afternoon. I found him more pessimistic than ever. The dismissal of Sazonov and General Bielaiev has made him extremely uneasy. "The Empress is now all-powerful," he said. "Sturmer is incapable and vain but astute and shrewd enough when his personal interests are at stake, and had known only too well how to make her serve his purposes. He reports regularly to her, tells her everything, consults her on all points, treats her as the regent and trains her in the notion that as the Emperor has received his power from God he has to account for it to God alone, so that it is sacrilege for anyone to take the liberty of opposing the imperial will. You can imagine how much an argument of that kind appeals to the brain of a mystic! Thus it has come about that Klivostov, Krivoshein, General Polivanov, Samarin, Sazonov, General Bielaev and myself are now regarded as revolutionaries, traitors and infidels!" "Do you think there is no remedy for this state of affairs?" "None! It's a tragical situation." "Tragical' is rather a strong word, isn't it?" "Not at all! take my word for it! It's a tragical situation. Speaking personally, I'm thankful I'm not a minister now, and have no share of responsibility for the catastrophe which is coming. But as a citizen I weep for my country." Tears stood in his eyes. To recover himself he paced the full length of his room two or three times. Then he talked about the Emperor, without a trace of bitterness or recrimination, but in a tone of the deepest melancholy. "The Emperor is judicious, moderate and hard working. As a rule his ideas are very sensible. He
has a lofty idea of his functions and the strongest sense of duty. But his education is inadequate and the scale of the problems it is his mission to solve only too frequently exceeds the measure of his intelligence. He does not know men, affairs or life itself. His distrust of himself and others means that he is always suspicious of superiority,, and the result is that he can only tolerate nobodies around him. He is also very religious, in a narrow and superstitious way, and this makes him very jealous of his authority, as he receives it from God." We returned to the subject of the Empress. "I protest with all my might," he said, "against the infamous rumours that are spread abroad about her relations with Rasputin. She's the noblest and purest of women. But she's an invalid, neurotic and a prey to hallucinations: she'll end up in the frenzy of mysticism and melancholy. I shall never forget the extraordinary things she said to me in September, 1911, when I took the place of the unfortunate Stolypin(1) as President of the Council. I was telling her of the difficulties of my task and quoting the example of my predecessor when she cut me short: 'Don't mention that man's name again, Vladimir Nicolaievitch. He died because Providence had decreed that he should disappear that day. So he's finished with: never mention his name again.' She also refused to pray at his coffin and the Emperor did not condescend to appear at the funeral, all because Stolypin, devoted, wholly and utterly devoted, to his sovereigns though he was, had dared to tell them that some slight reforms were necessary in the social edifice
Wednesday, August 30, 1916. The Salonica army, by vigorous attacks in the region of the Moglenitza and the Beles massif, has at last succeeded in tying the Bulgarians down on the Macedonian front. By thus depriving them of the possibilities of strategic movement towards the north, it has entirely fulfilled its mission, a very difficult mission, which was assigned to it by the military convention of August 17.
Thursday, August 31, 1916. The Russian armies are continuing their advance from the Stokhod to the Carpathians, i.e., on a front of three hundred and fifty kilometres. But their progress is very slow, a fact which is explained by the weariness of the men and the horses, the growing difficulties of communications, the wastage of artillery and the necessity of economizing in ammunition. Thus Rumania enters the war at the moment when the Russian offensive is petering out.
Friday, September 1, 1916. There is great humiliation at General Headquarters and the War Ministry. The 2nd Russian brigade, which recently arrived in France and was about to embark for Salonica, has mutinied at Marseilles; the colonel has been murdered and several officers were wounded. To restore order the vigorous intervention of French troops was required. Severe measures of repression have been taken and about twenty men shot. I cannot help remembering what Sazonov said to me last December when justifying his opposition to Doumer's request: "When the Russian soldier is off his own soil he's worthless; he goes to pieces at once."
Saturday, September 2, 1916. Manuilov, the policeman convict whom Sturmer made the director of his secretariat, has just been arrested: he is said to be guilty of blackmailing a bank, a fact which is proved a priori, as swindling is his normal method of money-making and the most ordinary and venial of his crimes. The incident would not have been worth mentioning if the arrest had not been decided upon by the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Khvostov, and carried out without Sturmer's knowledge. So evidently there is something behind it, something more or less scandalous, which we shall hear about before long.
Sunday, September 3, 1916. In Galicia the Russians are advancing on Kalicz. North of the Transylvanian Alps the Rumanians have captured Brasso. In the region of the Upper (Moldavian) Sereth they are operating side by side with the Russians and crossing the Carpathians. On the Salonica side the army of General Sarrail is continuing to harass the Bulgarians.
On the Somme the Anglo-French offensive has been resumed with great vigour.
Monday, September 4, 1916. At tea time at Madame S-----'s house to-day, we were talking about ennui, which is the chronic disease of Russian society. Tall and lithe, the pretty Princess D------, standing with her hands behind her back---her usual posture---was listening to us in silence. In the depths of her brown eyes there was a glow of scepticism and reverie: suddenly and quite casually she let fall the following remarks: "It's a funny thing. When you men are afflicted with ennui it knocks you flat, makes you helpless. You're simply good for nothing and it's an exhausting business to get you going again. But in the case of women, ennui rouses us, whips our senses, makes us want to commit every imaginable futility and folly. And it's even more difficult to hold us back than to revive you." The observation is perfectly accurate. Generally speaking the men get bored through exhaustion or satiety, overindulgence in pleasure, drink or high play, whereas with ,the women ennui is usually brought on by the monotony of their existence, their insatiable craving for emotional excitement. the secret yearnings of their hearts and their passions. Hence the depression of the former and the feverishness of the latter.
Tuesday, September 5, 1916. I have been talking about America with Neratov. We both regret that so large a fraction of the American people still refuses to realize the universal significance of the conflict which is devastating Europe, and cannot see which side is in the right. It is more. than a year since a German submarine sank theLusitania, more than a year since the great New York paper, The Nation, wrote: "The torpedoing of the Lusitania is an act which would have made Attila blush, an act of which a Turk would be ashamed and for which a Barbary corsair would have apologized. All human and divine laws have been violated by these bandits . . ." And still the conscience of America hesitates to declare itself! I said to Neratov: "Russia could do a lot to remove the last misgivings of the American public and bring them to our side once and for all." "What could we do? I can't imagine."
"All that is necessary is for you to make some slight improvement in your laws dealing with the Jews; the effect in America would be considerable." Neratov protested: "What! Reopen the Jewish question in the middle of a war! It's impossible. We'd have the whole country against us. That would be an enormous injury to the Alliance; you may be quite sure that our parties of the extreme Right would immediately accuse France and England of having secretly supported the claims of the Jews." We returned to current topics. The Jewish question is a heavy cloud over relations between Russia and the United States; I have often discussed it with my American colleague, Marye, Francis's predecessor. There are hundreds of thousands of Russian. Jews in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.(2) With their energy and intelligence, wealth and influence, they keep hatred of tsarism alive in the United States. The system of persecution which was introduced by Catherine II in 1791, and confirmed and intensified in 1882 by the famous "Ignatiev Laws," is regarded by the Americans as one of the most revolting iniquities which the history of human societies records. I can easily imagine what a free "Yankee." brought up on the superstition of the democratic ideal and the craze and reverence for individual initiative, must think of the idea of five million human beings being confined, on the sole ground of their religious beliefs, to a small area where their very numbers doom them to misery. What must he think of the facts that they cannot own or cultivate land, are deprived of all public rights, their slightest acts exposed to the arbitrary control of the police and are always living in fear of periodical massacre? My American colleague, Marye, said to me one day: "What shocks us most about the position of the Jews in Russia is that they are persecuted solely on the ground of their faith. The reproaches of race and economic grievances are only pretexts. This must be so because a Jew has only to abjure Judaism and become converted to orthodoxy to be immediately treated like any other Russian." In 1904 the pogroms at Kishinev aroused such indignation in the United States that President Roosevelt thought it his duty to make a solemn protest, an act which Russian society hotly resents even now: "Crimes are sometimes committed," he declared, "so monstrous that we wonder if it is not our bounden duty to express our detestation of the oppressors and our pity for the victims. Of course we cannot intervene save in very grave cases. But in extreme cases our intervention is legitimate. The American nation owes it to itself to confess its horror when it hears of massacres as terrible as those of Kishinev."
Thursday, September 7, 1916. Bratiano's mistake in repudiating the Rudeanu agreement, a mistake shared by his allies when
they accepted that repudiation, is beginning to bear fruit. While the Rumanian troops are advancing beyond the Carpathians and occupying Brasso, Hermannstadt and Orsova, the Austro-Bulgarians are invading the Dobrudja and approaching Silistria. A Rumanian division which was in an exposed position on the right bank of the Danube in the neighbourhood of Turtukai, has just suffered a serious reverse. Surrounded by four Germano-Bulgarian divisions, it has lost twelve thousand men and two hundred guns. The shock of this news has filled Bucharest with consternation and the agitation is all the greater because the city has been assiduously bombed by hostile aviators for the last three days. General Joffre, who is very naturally uneasy about the peril to Rumania, is asking that two hundred thousand Russians shall be sent to the Dobrudja at once. In conversation with Sturmer I have vigorously seconded his request, pointing out that the whole policy of the Alliance and the very issue of the war are at stake. He replied: "During my recent visit to Mohilev I considered with General Alexeev whether it would not be possible to intensify our operations against Bulgaria. The General certainly does not fail to realize what an enormous advantage it would be to us to restore communication with Salonica at the earliest possible moment. But he says that he is without the necessary resources. Of course the, problem is not merely how to send two hundred thousand men to the Dobrudja; it's a question of forming those two hundred thousand men into army corps, with officers, horses, artillery and all the accessory services; we have no such reserves so they have to be taken from the front. No doubt you know that at the present moment there is no part of our line where fighting is not in progress. General Alexeev is continuing his operations with the greatest intensity, particularly as the bad weather is coming. So I doubt whether he will agree to suggest to His Majesty the despatch of an army south of the Danube. And don't forget the time it would take to organize and transport that army. Six weeks at least! Wouldn't it be a grave error to neutralize two hundred thousand men in that way for so long?" "What about the Emperor? Have you mentioned it to him?" "The Emperor quite agrees with General Alexeev." "The matter is serious enough to deserve further consideration. So please be good enough to refer to His Majesty again and acquaint him with my arguments." "I'll report our conversation to His Majesty to-day."
Saturday, September 9, 1916. A Russian financier, of Danish origin, who is in constant business touch with Sweden and, through that channel, always well informed about public opinion in Germany, said to me to-day:
"In the last few weeks Germany has been suffering generally from an attack of war-weariness and apprehension. No one now believes in the sudden overwhelming victory which will bring a victorious peace. Only the uncompromising Pan-Germans still affect to believe in it. The invincible resistance of the French at Verdun and the Russian advance in Galicia have produced a deep sense of disappointment which is not diminishing. People are also beginning to say that the submarine war is a stupid mistake, that it in no way prevents France and England from obtaining supplies, that the Teutonic Powers are faced with the danger of seeing the United States declare war on them before long, etc. Lastly economic discomforts are on the increase and there are frequent strikes, particularly in northern Germany, due to food restrictions. With a view to combating this wave of pessimism the Kaiser has just made Marshal von Hindenburg Chief of the General Staff in General von Falkenhayn's place. The appointment has restored the spirits of the public somewhat. All the hopes of the German people are now centred in the saviour of East Prussia, the victor of Tannenberg. The official press is lavish with dithyrambs exalting the nobility of his character, the grandeur of his ideas and the genius of his strategy; it does not fear to call him the equal of Moltke, and to compare him to the great Frederick. It is assumed that he will want to justify this enthusiastic confidence at the earliest possible moment. As, for the time being, no victory is possible on the Russian or western fronts, it is presumed that he will seek his triumph in Rumania.
Tuesday, September 17, 1916. Princess Paley invited me to dinner this evening with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna. It was a very private party, and I was particularly glad to have a talk with the Grand Duchess as I had not seen her since Sazonov's dismissal. We continued our conversation from the point at which we left off and took stock of all the changes. Our information was identical: the Empress is taking an ever growing part in politics and the Emperor is offering an ever diminishing resistance to her. "For example," said the Grand Duchess, "the Emperor loathes Sturmer; he knows he's incapable and dishonest; he sees through all his advances to the Empress and is uneasy about it, as he's as jealous of his authority with the Empress as with anyone else. But he had not the courage to uphold Sazonov and he let Sturmer be thrust upon him." "Isn't there anyone in his household who can open his eyes?" "No one. You know the crowd around him. Old Fredericks is still the only person who can talk really frankly to him. But he hasn't any influence. In any case, you must not think that the Emperor's eyes need opening all that much. He knows quite well what he's doing; he fully realizes his mistakes and faults. His judgment is almost always sound. I'm sure that at the present moment he's extremely sorry he ever got rid of Sazonov." "Then why does he go on making all these mistakes? After all, the consequences fall directly on
his own head." "Because he's weak. He hasn't the energy to face the Empress's brow-beating, much less the scenes she makes! And there's another reason which is far more serious: he's a fatalist. When things are going badly he tells himself it is God's will and he must bow to it! I've seen him in this state of mind before, after the disasters in Manchuria and during the 1905 troubles." "But is he in that frame of mind at the present moment?" "I'm afraid he's not far from it; I know he's dejected, and worried to find the war going on so long without any result." "Do you think he's capable of abandoning the struggle and making peace?" "No, never; at any rate, not so long as there's an enemy soldier on Russian soil. He took that oath in the sight of God and he knows that if he broke it his eternal salvation would be jeopardized. And then he has a lofty conception of honour and will not betray his allies; he will be unshakable on that point. I believe I told you before that he would go to his death rather than sign a shameful or treacherous peace."
Wednesday, September 13, 1916. General Janin has reported to me a conversation he had with the Emperor yesterday at Mohilev, a conversation which unfortunately confirms what Sturmer said to me five days ago. The Emperor has told him that he is not in a position to send two hundred thousand men to the Dobrudja, on the ground that the armies in Galicia and Asia have suffered very heavy losses during the last few weeks and he is obliged to send them all the available reinforcements. As he ended he asked General Janin to telegraph to General Joffre and say that he urgently begs him to order General Sarrail to act with greater energy. The Emperor repeated: "It's a personal request from me to General Joffre."
Thursday, September 14, 1916. For some time there has been a rumour that Rasputin and Sturmer have fallen out: they are never met together, they never call on each other. And yet they see and consult each other daily. Their meetings take place in the evening in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, the most secret place in Petrograd. The Governor of the Romanov Bastille is General Nitikin, whose daughter is one of the most
fervent adorers of the staretz. It is through her that messages pass between Sturmer and Grishka; she it is who goes to find Rasputin in the town and brings him in her carriage to the fortress; it is in the Governor's house, in fact Mlle. Nitikin's own room, that the two accomplices hold conclave. Why do they wrap themselves up in so much mystery? Why have they selected this secret hiding-place? Why do they only meet at night? May it be that they know that everyone loathes them and they wish to conceal the closeness of their association from the public? Perhaps, too, they fear that the bomb of some anarchist may disturb their meetings. Of all the tragic spectacles which have left memories in this fearsome state prison, are there any more sinister than the nocturnal gatherings of these two criminals who are ruining Russia?
Friday, September 15, 1916. In this diary I have frequently had occasion to remark that the Russians have no precise ideas of space and usually content themselves with vague estimates and approximate figures. Their notion of time is just as vague. I was struck by this fact once more to-day at an administrative conference in Sturmer's house in which methods of assisting Rumania were under examination. In the transport programme presented to us most of the dates were uncertain, the intervals too short or too long, the timings problematical. Of course this inability to realize the temporal relations of facts is still more obvious in the case of the illiterate, who are the mass. The whole economic life of the Russian nation is kept back by it. The phenomenon is explained easily enough if it be admitted that the accurate visualization of time is simply an order of succession introduced into our memories and plans, an organization of our mental ideas with reference to a focussing-point which is our present state. With the Russians that focussing-point is usually shifting or misty, because their perception of reality is never very distinct, they do not clearly define their sensations and notions, their power of attention is low and their reasoning and calculations are almost always blended with the imaginary.
Saturday, September 16, 1916. Under the increasing pressure of the Bulgarians the Rumanians are progressively evacuating the Dobrudja, and every day and night Austrian airmen bomb Bucharest from their base at Rustchuk. From the moment the Rudeanu agreement was thrown over these misfortunes were easy to foresee. The Rumanian Government is paying dearly for the mistake it made in directing its
whole military effort towards Transylvania, allowing itself to be taken in by vague rumours from Sofia and particularly in imagining that the Bulgarians had abandoned the idea of a military revenge for the disaster and humiliation of 1913.
Sunday, September 17, 1916. Sylvia and The Water-Lily were given at the Marie Theatre this evening. In both works the lead is in the hands of Karsavina. The sumptuous hall, with its blue and gold hangings, was quite full; the evening marked the opening of the winter season and the resumption of those ballets in which the Russian imagination loves to follow the interplay of flying forms and rhythmic movements through the music. From the stalls to the back row of the highest circle I could see nothing but a sea of cheery, smiling faces. In the intervals the boxes came to life with the irresponsible chatter which made the bright eyes of the women sparkle with merriment. Irksome thoughts of the present, sinister visions of war and the melancholy prospects of the future vanished as if by magic the moment the orchestra struck up. An air of pleasant unreality was in every face. Thomas de Quincy, the author of the Confessions of an Opium Eater, tells us that the drug often gave him the illusions of music. Conversely, the Russians go to music for the effects of opium.
Monday, September 18, 1916. The Salonica army has resumed the offensive on the whole of the Macedonian front. The Bulgarians have been driven back in the neighbourhood of Florina and are now withdrawing towards Monastir.
Chapter Footnotes 1. Assassinated at Kiev on September 14, 1911. He was the brother-in-law of M. Sazonov. 2. The total number of Jews scattered over the globe is computed to be 12,500,000; 5,300,000 in Russia and 2,200,000 in the United States. Outside these two countries the largest Jewish populations are to be found in Austria-Hungary (2,250,000), Germany (615,000), Turkey
(485,000). England (445,000), France (345,000), Rumania (260,000), and Holland (115,000).
Volume III, Chapter Two Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER II SEPTEMBER 19-OCTOBER 25, 1916. The heralds of winter.---The Church of the Saviour-on-the-Waters.---The Emperor is often charged with being heartless.---The combined effort of the Allies to relieve Rumania.---Public education in Russia: the primary schools.---Ignorance of the rural masses; a contrast with the brilliant development of science, letters and art.---A political crisis in Athens; Venizelos goes to Crete.---Prince Kanin's visits to Petrograd: the reflections of a moujik.---Another Minister of the Interior: Protopopov; his relations with Rasputin.---Sturmer's treachery; the intrigues of which he is the centre.---Clandestine activities of the socialist leaders.---Successive defeats of the Rumanian army; a very grave situation.--- General Berthelot passes through Petrograd on his way to take command of the French mission in Romania.---My Japanese colleague, Viscount Motono, is appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs; a great authority on Asiatic and European problems.---The Minister of Communications, Trepov, boldly attacks Sturmer; his confidence in the Emperor.---German agents in Petrograd: dinners at the house of Manus, the financier.--Constanza captured by the Austro-Bulgarians; the Rumanians evacuate the Dobradja. Tuesday, September 19, 1916. Winter is already at hand. Under the livid sky a slow-falling, invisible and icy rain seems to fill the air with a snowy vapour. The light is going by four o'clock. I was finishing my drive about that hour and happened to pass the little church of the Saviour-on-the-Waters which is on the bank of the Neva, near the Arsenal. I stopped my carriage and got out to visit this poetic sanctuary which I have not entered since the war. It is one of the very few churches in Petrograd in which the conventional and showy style of Italo-Germanic architecture has not had its fling; it is perhaps the only one in which the worshipper breathes an atmosphere of quiet meditation and an odour of mysticism. It was built in 1910 in memory of the twelve thousand sailors who died in the war against Japan, and is an exquisite copy of Muscovite art in the twelfth century, the church of Bogoliubovo, near Vladimir. Externally it has simple, well-defined lines, with Roman arches and a graceful dome. In the warm half-darkness inside. the sole decoration of the bare walls consists of bronze plaques on
which are engraved the names of all the vessels, officers and men lost at Port Arthur, Vladivostock and Tsushima. I know nothing more moving in its very simplicity than this memorial church. But one's feelings are transformed and touch on the sublime at the sight of the iconostasis. In the depths of the dark apse a figure of Christ, more than life size, hovers and glows in a golden cloud above black waves. In the majesty of the attitude, the nobility of the gestures and the infinite pity which speaks in the eyes, this figure reminds one of the finest Byzantine mosaics. When I first visited this church, at the beginning of 1914, I did not realize all the pathetic symbolism of this sacred figure. To-day its grandeur and eloquence seemed prodigious, as if it were an interpretation of that last vision which has soothed and sanctified the dying moments of thousands upon thousands during this war. By a natural connection of ideas I remembered what Rasputin said to the Empress one day when she was weeping on hearing of the enormous losses in a great battle: "Take heart! When a moujik dies for his Tsar and country, another lamp is immediately lit before the throne of God."
Wednesday, September 20, 1916. Hindenburg's plan is taking shape and in course of realization on the whole of the circular Rumanian front. Along the Danube and in the Dobrudja the region of Orsova and the defiles of the Carpathians, the German, Austrian, Bulgarian and Turkish forces are exercising sustained and converging pressure, under which the Rumanians are giving way at all points.
Thursday, September 21, 1916. I often hear the Emperor accused of heartlessness and selfishness. He is charged with having always shown himself indifferent not only to the misfortunes of his relatives, friends and most faithful servants, but even to the sorrows of his people. Several memorable incidents are quoted in which he certainly displayed astonishing indifference. The first occasion was during the celebrations attending his coronation at Moscow on May 18, 1896. A public fte had been arranged in Khodinsky meadow, near Petrovsky park. But the police arrangements were so bad that the crowd began to heave violently. Suddenly there seemed to be a panic and a general stampede ensued; there were four thousand victims, of which two thousand died. When Nicholas II heard of the catastrophe he did not display the slightest sign of emotion and did not even cancel a ball for that evening. Nine years later, on May 14, 1905, Admiral Rojdestvensky's fleet was utterly destroyed; with it disappeared Russia's whole future in the Far East. The Emperor was just about to play a game of
tennis when the telegram announcing the disaster was handed to him. He simply said: "What a horrible catastrophe!" and without another word, asked for his racket. It was with the same unruffled composure that he received the news of the assassination of the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, in 1904, of his uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei, in 1905, and of Stolypin, his President of the Council, in 1911. And, quite recently, the hasty, underhand way in which he dismissed his close associate, Prince Orlov, has again revealed a stratum of callousness in him, a soul all but impervious to the generous impulses of gratitude and friendship. After referring to all these incidents, old Princess D-----, who has known the Emperor since his childhood, concluded with the bitter remark: "Nicholas Alexandrovitch has no heart at all." I protested that for all that, he appears to be capable of affection towards his own family; he is certainly extremely devoted to the Empress; he adores his daughters and idolizes his son. He cannot be denied instincts of tenderness. I am inclined to think that the superhuman situation in which he is placed has gradually changed his feelings towards other men and that his indifference is also one result of his fatalism.
Friday, September 22, 1916. Are Sturmer's political fortunes in danger? I am told that, judging by credible indications, his bitter enemy, the Minister of the Interior, Khvostov, has turned the Emperor completely against him by telling His Majesty the inner history of the Manuilov affair and making him extremely alarmed at the prospect of an imminent scandal. What is this inner history? We do not know. but it cannot be doubted that there are one or more corpses between Sturmer and the director of his secretariat. It is even being said that the question of Sturmer's successor as President of the Council has already been settled in secret. The choice is said to have fallen on the present Minister of Communications., Alexander Feodorovitch Trepov. I could only congratulate myself on such an appointment. Trepov is as honest, intelligent and hard-working as energetic and patriotic. I dined this evening at the Donon restaurant with Kokovtsov and Putilov. The ex-President of the Council and the millionaire banker outbid each other with lugubrious forebodings. Kokovtsov said: "We're heading for revolution." Putilov added:
"We're heading for anarchy." To explain himself, he continued: "The Russian is not a revolutionary; he's an anarchist. There's a world of difference. The revolutionary means to reconstruct; the anarchist thinks only of destroying."
Saturday, September 23, 1916. The Allies are attacking on all the fronts with a view to taking the weight off Rumania. In Artois and Picardy the English and French have carried an extensive series of German trenches by storm. In the Isonzo region the Italians are intensifying their offensive east of Gorizia. In Macedonia the English are crossing the Struma whilst the French and Serbians, after occupying Florina, are hustling the Bulgarians in the direction of Monastir. In Volhynia the Russians are harassing the Austro-Germans from the Pinsk marshes to Lutzk. In Galicia they are advancing on Lemberg and south-west of Kalicz. In the Bukovina Carpathians they have captured several hostile positions north of Dorma Vatra.
Sunday, September 24, 1916. A popular misconception, both in France and England (and I am always hearing the echo of it) is that tsarism would easily settle its domestic difficulties if it abandoned its antiquated principles and boldly entered the path of democratic reforms. It is said that all the latent energies and unsuspected virtues of the Russian people would be revealed at once. There would be a prodigious outpouring of patriotism, intelligence, moral fervour, force of character, spirit of initiative and organization, practical idealism, lofty conceptions of social, national and human duty. The western Allies should therefore put pressure on the Emperor Nicholas to make him adopt the necessary innovations. The change would also mean doubling the effective power of the Alliance. The recent visit of the "Cadet" deputies to London and Paris has contributed not a little to the spread of these ideas. These gentlemen have even made a complaint about myself---the complaint that I am not seen enough in liberal circles, that I do not display my sympathy with them as openly as I might and do not take advantage of my friendly relations with the Emperor to convert him to Parliamentary principles. In this diary I have on several occasions explained the attitude of reserve I have felt bound to
adopt towards the liberal parties. Whatever the defects of tsarism may be, it is the tie-beam of Russia, the basis and framework of Russian society, the sole link between the heterogeneous territories and peoples which ten centuries of history have gradually gathered under the sceptre of the Romanovs. So long as the war lasts the Allies must therefore uphold it at any cost. I have frequently developed this argument. But I go further: I am convinced that for a long time to come, one or two generations perhaps, the internal evils from which Russia is suffering will only admit of treatment which is palliative, partial and cautiously graduated. The outstanding reason is the colossal ignorance in which the mass of the Russian nation is vegetating. It is there that the real weakness of Russia lies, and the principal source of her incapacity for political progress can be found. In this vast empire there are not more than one hundred and twenty thousand primary schools for a population of one hundred and eighty million souls. And such schools, suchteachers! As a general rule the teaching is entrusted to the parish priest who is usually a poor creature, idle and despised. In his syllabus reading, writing and arithmetic take second place to prayers, the catechism, sacred history and church music. Thus the education of the nation is more or less directly in the hands of the clergy. The Holy Synod recently reminded its priests that the schools must be kept "in the closest association with the church, and in strict observance of the orthodox faith," and that the religious education of the children must be "the first concern of the masters." The system functions in the most defective manner. In many districts the schools are poorly attended or actually empty, either because of the distances, snow and cold, or because educational material and books are lacking, or the moujiks have quarrelled with the priest and thrashed him too hard. To the great Catherine, the empress-philosopher and friend of Voltaire and Diderot, is due the credit, as of so much else, of founding public education in Russia. Some twenty secondary schools and a hundred primary schools were established in her reign. She threw herself into this enterprise with her usual enthusiasm, though without forgetting those principles of government which still inspire her successors. One day, when the governor of Moscow was complaining of the indifference his citizens displayed towards the new institution, the tsarina replied: "Are you complaining because the Russians don't try to educate themselves? I didn't start these schools for their sake, but for the sake of Europe, where we must keep our place in public opinion. If a day comes when our peasants want to be educated, neither you nor I will remain where we are."
Monday, September 25, 1916. Thinking over what I wrote yesterday about the general ignorance of the Russian nation, it is a pleasure by contrast to draw up a list of all the eminent men who are the glory of Russia to-day in the domain of science, thought, literature and art; for if the masses are uneducated and backward, the elite are brilliant, active, highly productive and vigorous. I know few countries which can produce so fine a contingent of great minds, unprejudiced, luminous and discerning
intellects, original, fascinating and irrepressible talent. There is fierce rivalry in all the departments of scientific work. Nowhere is experimental and practical science more worthily represented, as it is carried on by biologists such as Pavlov and Metchnikov, chemists such as Mendeleiev, physicists like Lebedev, geologists like Karpinsky and mathematicians like Liapunov, Vassiliev and Krylov; I will even venture the opinion that Pavlov and Mendeleev are as great as Claude Bernard and Lavoisier. The historians, archologists and ethnographers also form a solid phalanx of erudite and sagacious investigators. I need only name Kliutchevsky, Miliukov, Platonov and Rostovtsev in the historical field; in the archological, Vesselovsky and Kondakov; in the ethnographical, Moguilansky. Several groups of linguists have been doing excellent work for many years, displaying the same strict method and the same subtle power of analysis and intuition. Professors Chakmohtov and Zelinsky are up to the level of the best foreign masters. Philosophy has never been highly developed in the empire of the Tsars, any more than it could develop in the Papal states in the days of temporal power: when theological dogmatism has a society in its grip philosophers necessarily feel themselves hampered. On the other hand, metaphysical speculation is seriously cultivated in intellectual circles in Petrograd and Moscow; its leading experts are Lopatin, Berdiaev and Prince Sergei Trubetzko, the disciple and successor of the great idealist, Vladimir Soloviev. Imaginative literature, though still mourning the loss of Tolstoi and Dostoievsky, displays a vitality in every branch which justifies the greatest hopes. From the generous output of these last ten years one could extract some thirty works, novels or plays, which are remarkable for their chaste beauty of form, careful composition, regard for moral and pictorial truth, psychological divination, the lifelike quality of the characters, the corroding flavour of pessimism, the vivid portrayal of life, turbid or sordid, insatiable or passive, the moving obsession of mental derangement, and last but not least the clear and tragic vision of social problems. Several writers who have thus made their mark since 1905 have already disappeared; but to judge the evolution of the literary movement in Russia, an assembly of talents so varied as those of Gorky, Anreiev, Korolenko, Veressaiev, Merejovsky, Madame Hippius, Artzibachev, Kuprin, Kamensky, Sologub, Kuzmin, Ivanov, Bunin, Tchirykov, Gumilov and Brussov certainly constitutes one of the most favourable symptoms. There is the same vitality in painting, in which realistic and national tendencies are sometimes so happily brought out under the brush of Repin, Golovin, Roerich, Somov, Maliavin, and Vrubel, not to mention the powerful portrait-painter Serov, who died four years ago. And could I omit the names of the two men responsible for the revolution in theatrical decoration, those marvellous magicians of scenic illusion, Alexander Benois and Bakst? In music: the glorious era of Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov is over. But their artistic offspring, Glazunov, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and young Prokofiev, are manfully continuing the great tradition and as anxious to prolong it as to enrich and extend it. With the wealth and freedom of its inspiration, the dreamy arid enticing grace of the melodic design, its fertility of invention, the brilliance of orchestral colour and the bold pursuit of polyphonic complexities, Russian music seems to be on the very threshold of a second blooming.
Tuesday, September 26, 1916. The situation in Athens is getting worse: the duel between the King and Venizelos has reached the critical phase. A Russian journalist, who to my knowledge has some kind of relations with Sturmer, has just been to see me to tell me privately that "certain people at court" are not at all sorry to contemplate the possibility of a dynastic crisis in Greece, and are even cherishing hopes that the French will precipitate that crisis, "which would be so advantageous to the cause of the Allies." 1 cautiously replied that the views which inspire Briand's policy towards Greece in no way involve a dynastic crisis and that it is for King Constantine himself to carry out the splendid programme of national expansion which the Allies have put before him. He dropped the subject. It is quite easy to see through the designs of Sturmer and the "people at court." Obviously the disciples of Russian autocracy could not be a party to overturning a throne. But if events in Greece are bound to lead to the proclamation of a republic, would it not be better, they say, to put a swift stop to the crisis by a change of monarch? There is no lack of candidates in the Russian imperial family. And as an autocratic government could not decently undertake so dirty a job as the dethronement of a King, does not everything show that the government of the French Republic is designated for this operation? . Prince Kotohito Kanin, cousin of the Mikado, is arriving in Petrograd to-morrow; he has come to return the visit which the Grand Duke George Michailovitch recently paid to the Emperor Yoshihito. On orders from the police, bunches of Russian and Japanese flags are being displayed in the streets. These preparations are prompting the moujiks to curious reflections. My naval attach, Commander Gallaud, has been telling me that when he was driving in the Champ-de-Mars today, his isvostchik turned round, pointed to some recruits who were drilling and asked him in a sly tone "What are they being drilled for?" "To fight the Germans." "What's the good? Look at me. I was in the Manchurian campaign myself in 1905; I was wounded at Mukden. And now! Look at them hanging out flags from all the houses and raising triumphal arches on the Nevsky Prospekt in honour of this Japanese prince who is coming! In a
few years it'll be the same with the Germans. We shall be welcoming them under triumphal arches. Then why have thousands and thousands of men killed if all this is bound to end like the Japanese business?"
Wednesday, September 27, 1916. Sturmer has just spent three days with the Emperor at Mohilev. I am told that he put his case with great skill. He has come out of the Manuilov affair as well as he could hope, pleading that if he erred it was only through innocence and too much kindness of heart. He emphasized the point that the Duma is shortly to meet, there is a ferment of revolutionary feeling and that it is more vital than ever not to weaken the government. But all his eloquence would have been wasted if the Empress had not supported him with all her stubborn energy. He has been saved. I saw him in his room to-day; he looked pleased and. confident. I asked him about military matters first. "Does General Alexeev fully realize the great, the vital importance to the common cause, of the safety of Rumania?" "I have been able to satisfy myself that General Alexeev attaches very high importance to the operations in the Dobrudja. Four Russian divisions and one Serbian division have already crossed the Danube; another Serbian division will be sent there shortly. But that is the most that His Majesty has authorized him to do in that quarter. You know that we have to cope with enormous forces in the region of Kovel and Stanislau." He confirmed a fact which my officers had already mentioned to me---that the Russian armies in Galicia have recently suffered excessive losses without any appreciable result. Between Pinsk and the Carpathians they are fighting twenty-nine German divisions, forty Austro-Hungarian and two Turkish; their task is made extremely difficult by their inadequate supply of heavy artillery and aeroplanes. Then we discussed the ministerial crisis which is at hand in Athens and the nationalist movement of which Venizelos is the centre. "I've not yet had time," said Sturmer, "to read all the telegrams that have arrived to-night but I can tell you now that the Emperor has used very stern language about King Constantine."
Thursday, September 28, 1916. Bombshell in Greece. Venizelos and Admiral Condouriotis have secretly sailed for Crete where the insurgents have declared in favour of the Entente; nationalist demonstrators are parading the streets of Athens and thousands of officers and men are gathering at the Pirus, demanding to be sent to Salonica so that they can take service in General Sarrail's army. I have been considering the possible consequences of these occurrences with Sturmer. "It's in our own hands whether the situation turns to our advantage," I said, "provided we act promptly and vigorously." "Yes, yes. Certainly." Then he hesitatingly remarked, as if picking his words: "What are we to do if King Constantine persists in his resistance?" He gave me a curious look, fixing a questioning and shifty eye upon me. I pretended to be thinking. He repeated his question. "What are we to do with King Constantine?" If his question was not an insinuation it was certainly a bait, and was obviously connected with the pseudo- secret of the Russian journalist. I replied in evasive terms that I was not yet sufficiently acquainted with the course of events in Athens to venture to offer any practical advice, and added: "In any case I'd rather wait until Monsieur Briand lets me know his views; but I won't fail to tell him that in your opinion the position of King Constantine is directly involved in the present crisis." We then turned to other topics: Prince Kanin's visit and the unfortunate development of the military operations in the Dobrudja and the Transylvanian Alps, etc. As I was leaving I noticed on the walls of the room three engravings which were not there yesterday. The first was of the Congress of Vienna, the second of the Congress of Paris and the third of the Congress of Berlin. "I see you like to have inspiring pictures around you, President." "Yes, you know how passionately fond of history I am. I know nothing more instructive." "And more deceptive." "Come, don't be sceptical! Nobody believes enough! But you haven't noticed the most interesting thing." "What's that?"
"That vacant place!" "Well?" "That's the place I'm keeping for the picture of the next congress; it's to be called the Congress of Moscow, if God wills!" He crossed himself and closed his eyes a moment, as if breathing a short prayer. I answered quietly: "But will there be any congress? Haven't we agreed to make Germany accept our terms?" With an ecstatic expression he developed his idea and repeated: "How splendid it would be at Moscow! How splendid! May God grant it! May God grant it!" He was already imagining himself Chancellor of the Empire, the successor of Nesselrode and Gortchakov, opening the general peace congress in the Kremlin. All the pettiness, stupidity and infatuation of the man were laid bare at that moment. All he can see in his heavy task, one of the heaviest ever laid on human shoulders, is an opportunity for bragging---and personal advancement. This evening I returned, in full uniform, to the Foreign Office, where the President of the Council has given an official banquet to Prince Kanin. Too much glare, silver and plate, food and music; too many flowers and servants! It was all dazzle and noise. I could not help thinking what a better tone there was in Sazonov's time, when official show was still in good taste. At the head of the table sat the Grand Duke George Michailovitch; I was on Sturmer's left. During the whole of dinner we simply talked commonplaces. But at dessert Sturmer said to me ex abrupto. "The Congress of Moscow! Don't you think it would be a magnificent consecration of the Franco-Russian alliance? A century after the burning of our sacred city it would see Russia and France proclaiming the peace of the world!" He complacently expatiated on this theme. I continued: "I have no idea of the views of my government as to the seat of the next congress and should be surprised if, in the present stage of our military operations, Monsieur Briand had even turned his thoughts to so distant an eventuality. In any case, as I told you this morning, I hope there will be no congress. In my opinion it is of great importance for the Allies to agree upon all the general terms of the peace, so that we can make our enemies accept them en bloc. Part of the work has already been done; we are agreed about Constantinople, the Straits, Asia Minor, Transylvania, the Adriatic littoral, etc. The rest will be settled when a favourable opportunity presents itself. But first and foremost we must concentrate on victory. Our motto must be: Primum et ante omnia, vincere! Your health, my dear President!" During the evening I had a talk with Prince Kanin. He told me of his long residence in France, at
the school at Saumur, and then said how much he had been touched by the Emperor's cordial welcome, and what a pleasant impression his reception by the crowd had made upon him. We talked about the war and I noticed how he avoided all detailed discussion and expressed no opinion on situations and facts. Under his cold compliments I could guess his contempt for the vanquished of 1905 who have learned their lesson so badly.
Friday, September 29, 1916. The economic situation has become much worse in the last few weeks. The increased cost of living is causing hardship all round. The price of the most elementary necessaries is three times what it was at the beginning of the war; in the case of wood and eggs it is four times, and in that of butter and soap five times. The main causes of this situation are unfortunately as fundamental as obvious---the closing of foreign markets, congestion on the railways and confusion and dishonesty in the public services. What will it be in a few weeks time when we have to cope with the rigours of winter and the tortures of the cold, which are even more cruel than those of hunger?
Saturday, September 30, 1916. A stubborn struggle is in progress in Galicia, between the Styr and the Zlota Lipa. The Russians, who have taken the offensive, are trying to force their way through in the region of Krasnie and Brzezany, fifty kilometres from Lemberg.
Sunday, October 1, 1916. There has been a reception at the Japanese embassy in honour of Prince Kanin. It has been a particularly brilliant function. the guests including the Grand Duke George, the Grand Duke Sergei, the Grand Duke Cyril, etc. I congratulated my colleague, Motono, on his success. In his shrewd, phlegmatic way he replied: "Yes, it's gone off quite well. When I first came as ambassador to Petrograd in 1908, hardly anyone spoke to me; no one ever asked me out and the Grand Dukes affected not to see me. All that has changed. I have achieved the object I set before me: Japan and Russia are linked by the
ties of real friendship." In the throng around the buffet I spied E-----, a high official at court, who has taken a liking to me and never misses an opportunity of pouring his suspicious and extravagant nationalism into my ear. I asked him his news. Without appearing to have heard my question, he pointed to Sturmer who was holding forth a few feet away from us. Then, with a tragic glare, E------ burst out: "Why haven't you and your English colleague put a stop to that man's treachery before now, Ambassador?" I calmed him down: "It's a subject I'd like to discuss with you ... but not here. Come and lunch with me alone on Thursday." "I'll certainly be there."
Monday, October 2, 1916. The battle which has begun between the Styr and the Zlota Lipa is taking a favourable turn for the Russians, who have pierced the enemy's forward lines and made five thousand prisoners. But there are indications of a formidable counterattack by the Germans in the region of Lutzk, a hundred kilometres north.
Tuesday, October 3, 1916. Sturmer has succeeded in ruining his mortal enemy, Alexander Khvostov, the Minister of the Interior. Henceforth the Manuilov affair has no terrors for him. The new Minister of the Interior is one of the vice-presidents of the Duma, Protopopov. Hitherto the Emperor has very seldom chosen his members from the representative chamber. But the selection of Protopopov does not herald any evolution in the direction of parliamentary government. Quite the contrary. On the strength of his earlier opinions, Protopopov ranked as an "Octobrist," i.e. a very moderate liberal. Last June he was a member of the parliamentary delegation which visited the West; both in London and Paris he showed himself to be a fervent advocate of the war outrance. But during a short stay in Stockholm on his way back he had a strange conversation with a German
agent, Warburg, and though the affair remains somewhat obscure, there is no doubt that he spoke in favour of peace. When he returned to Petrograd he made common cause with Sturmer and Rasputin, who immediately put him in touch with the Empress. He was soon taken into favour and at once initiated into the secret conclaves at Tsarskoe-Selo. He was entitled to a place there on the strength of his proficiency in the occult sciences, principally spiritualism, the highest and most doubtful of them all. I also know for certain that he once had an infectious disease which has left him with nervous disorders, and that recently the preliminary symptoms of general paralysis have been observed in him. So the internal policy of the empire is in good hands!
Wednesday, October 4, 1916. It is the Grand Duke Paul's birthday to-day, and he invited me to dinner with the Grand Duke Cyril and his wife the Grand Duchess Victoria, the Grand Duke Boris, the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, Madame Narishkin, Countess Kreutz, Dimitry Benckendorff, Savinsky and others. Everyone looked very downcast, and indeed one would have to be blind not to see the portents of disaster which are gathering on the horizon. The Grand Duchess spoke to me in a voice of anguish about her sister, the Queen of Rumania. I dared not reassure her, for if the Rumanians are still holding their ground in the Carpathians it is only with the greatest difficulty, and if they relax their efforts in the slightest there will be a complete disaster. "For Heaven's sake, insist that reinforcements shall be sent there at once," she said. " From what my poor sister says---and you know how brave she is---there's not a moment to lose. If help is not sent to Rumania without delay, a catastrophe is inevitable." I told her of my daily protests to Sturmer. "Theoretically, he agrees to all I say and consents to everything I ask. But in practice he shelters behind General Alexeev, who does not seem to realize the dangers of the situation. And the Emperor only looks at things through General Alexeev's eyes." "The Emperor is in a deplorable frame of mind." Without further explanation, she suddenly rose and, on the excuse of getting a cigarette, rejoined the group of ladies. I then tackled the Grand Duke Paul, the Grand Duke Boris and the Grand Duke Cyril---one by one. They have seen the Tsar recently; they move in his circle so that they are well qualified to give me news. But I was very careful not to make my questions too direct, as I knew they would evade them. I introduced the monarch's opinions incidentally and as if not attaching any importance to them; I referred casually to certain of his decisions or some remark he has made
to me. They answered quite candidly. Their replies, which they could not have concocted together, have left me in no doubt as to the Emperor's moral condition. There has been no change in what he says; he still proclaims his determination to win and his absolute confidence in victory. But despondency, apathy and resignation can be seen in his actions, appearance, attitude and all the manifestations of the inner man.
Thursday, October 5, 1916. E-----, the high court functionary, came to lunch at the embassy. To make him quite at home I had not invited any other guests. As long as we were at table he kept a check on himself because of the servants. When we returned to the drawing-room he tossed down two glasses of brandy, filled a third, lit a cigar and with a flaming countenance looked me full in the face and asked me bluntly. "Ambassador, why are you and your English colleague waiting to put an end to Monsieur Sturmer's treacheries?" "We're waiting until we have some definite grievance against him. Officially we have nothing to complain about; all his words and actions are all that they ought to be. He's always telling us: 'War to the knife! No mercy for Germany!' As regards his real views and secret manoeuvres, we have only impressions and intuitions which carry us no further than conjectures and suspicions. You would be doing us a very great service if you could produce one actual fact to support your beliefs." "I don't know of any actual fact. But the treachery is obvious enough. Don't you see it?" "It's not enough to see it; I must be in a position to make my Government see it, and then the Emperor. One can't embark on a serious matter like this without even a vestige of evidence." "You're right." "As we're reduced to hypotheses for the time being, would you mind telling me what form you think Sturmer's treachery takes?" He then told me that, in themselves, Sturmer, Rasputin, Dobrovolsky, Protopopov and Co. are only of minor and secondary importance, as they are simply tools in the hands of an anonymous and small, but very powerful clique which is bent on peace, either because it is tired of the war or because it fears revolution. "At the head of this clique," he continued, "you find---as you would expect to find---the nobility of the Baltic provinces and all the principal officials at court. Then there is the ultra-reactionary party in the Council of Empire and the Duma, our Lords of the Holy Synod, and all the high
financiers and big industrials. They've got the Empress through Sturmer and Rasputin, and the Emperor through the Empress." "No! They haven't got the Emperor yet! They'll never get him! I mean they'll never induce him to separate from his allies." "Then they'll have him assassinated or force him to abdicate." "Abdicate? Can you see the Emperor abdicating? In whose favour?" "In favour of his son, with the Empress as Regent. You may be certain that that is what Sturmer, or rather those controlling him, are planning. That gang will stop at nothing to gain their ends; they re capable of anything. They'll foment strikes, riots, pogroms; they'll try to produce social distress and famine and make everyone so thoroughly wretched and despondent that the continuation of the war will become impossible. You should have seen them at work in 1905? " I turned over in my mind all he had just said and concluded: "I see. The first thing to do is to demolish Sturmer. I'll set about it."
Saturday, October 7, 1916. Between the Styr and the Zlota Lipa the Russians have been held up by the network of impregnable fortifications constructed to defend Lemberg. They have also been compelled to shift their centre of gravity to the region of Lutzk, a hundred kilometres to the north, where the Germans are making a strong attack. Since their vast offensive began, the armies of General Brussilov have captured four hundred and thirty thousand men, six hundred and fifty guns and two thousand seven hundred machineguns. Madame G-----, whose husband holds an important post in the Ministry of the Interior, has been Sturmer's Egeria for many years. Ambitious and addicted to intrigue, she has helped Boris Vladimirovitch all through his administrative career. Since the day when, thanks to Rasputin, she got him made President of the Council, there is no limit to her visions of greatness for him. She recently remarked to one of her friends, putting a mysterious gravity into her words as if she were telling some state secret: "You'll be seeing great things before long. In a short time our dear country will be in the true path of safety. Boris Vladimirovitch will be the First Minister of Her Majesty the Empress!"
Sunday, October 8, 1916. Someone who keeps me well informed as to what is being said and done in advanced circles has been telling me of great activity in the social-democratic party, and particularly its extreme wing. the Bolsheviki. The long drawn-out war, doubts about victory and the difficulties of the economic situation have given revolutionary hopes new life. Preparations are being made for the struggle which is believed to be at hand. The leaders of the movement are the three "labour" deputies in the Duma, Tcheidze, Skobelev and Kerensky. Great influence is also being exercised from abroad, the influence of Lenin who has fled to Switzerland. What strikes me most about the Petrograd triumvirate is the practical character of its activity. The disappointments of 1905 have borne fruit. There is no idea now of joining hands with the "Cadets," who are bourgeois and will never understand the proletariat: all illusions as to the immediate help to be expected from the rural masses have now vanished, and the revolutionaries are merely promising them the division of land. But the main thing is that the "armed revolution" is being organized. It is by the closest association between the workmen and the soldiers that the "revolutionary dictatorship" will be established: victory will be secured by the co-operation of the factory and the barracks. Kerensky is the soul of this movement.
Monday, October 9, 1916. The new Minister of the Interior, Protopopov, is showing that his opinions and programme are ultra-reactionary. He has no fear, it is said, of facing the forces of revolution; if need be, he will provoke them and annihilate them at a blow. He feels himself the man to save tsarism and orthodox Holy Russia: he will save them. Such is the way he talks to his personal friends with inexhaustible loquacity and a self-satisfied smile. And yet it is only a few months since he was reckoned among the moderate liberals in the Duma. His friends of those days, who thought enough of him to make him vice-president of the assembly, cannot recognize him now. His swift conversion is explained, so I am told, by his state of health. The sudden revulsions of feeling and the excitement of his imaginative faculties are the preliminary symptoms of general paralysis. A fact which is undoubted and has recently come to my knowledge is that he was brought into touch with Rasputin by his doctor, the therapeutist Badmaiev, the Mongolian quack who treats his patients with the magical remedies and mystical pharmacopoeia of the sorcerers of Tibet. I have referred previously to the alliance between the spiritualist charlatan and the staretz which was formed at the bedside of the little Tsarevitch. As Protopopov had long been initiated into the doctrines of occultism he was predestined to become a client of Badmaiev. The latter is always engaged in some intrigue or other and he immediately realized that the vice-president of the Duma would be a very valuable recruit to the
Empress's camarilla. In the course of his cabalistic operations he had no difficulty in dominating the disordered mind and shattered brain in which the early signs of megalomania were already perceptible. Before long he introduced him to Rasputin. The neurotic politician and the magician-mystic were delighted with each other. A few days later Grigori described Protopopov to the Empress as the God-sent saviour of Russia. Sturmer seconded with his customary servility and the Emperor once again gave way.
Tuesday, October 10, 1916. The Rumanians are in retreat along the whole line. The High Command is incapable and the troops are tired and dispirited: the news is horrible. Very fortunately, General Berthelot, who is going to take command of the French mission in Rumania, has just arrived in Petrograd. I have been very favourably impressed by him. His shrewd and roguish glance contrast with his stout and massive figure. He has a lucid and thoughtful mind and his speech is simple and to the point. But his outstanding quality is strength of will, a determination which is quiet and pleasant, but quite inflexible. I introduced him to Sturmer and we set to work at once. Neratov and Buchannan were present at the conference. I took up the theme I have so often argued of the vital importance to Russia of the operations in the Danube region. "In spite of the brilliant successes of General Brussilov, your offensive has not justified all our hopes. Failing some fortunate happening---which becomes less probable every day---there is likely to be a deadlock on the whole front from Riga to the Carpathians, owing to the lack of heavy artillery and aeroplanes. In these circumstances, if we let Rumania be crushed and Bucharest and Constanza fall into the enemy's hands, it is Russia which will mainly have to face the consequences, as Odessa will be threatened and the road to Constantinople will be blocked. In face of such a prospect, could not General Alexeev spare out of all his armies the equivalent of three or four army corps to send to the help of Rumania? The offensive of the Salonica army has started well, but all its efforts will be in vain if the Rumanian army is put out of action." General Berthelot supported this argument with facts and figures. Sir George Buchanan agreed. Sturmer acquiesced, as usual, but would not commit General Alexeev, also as usual.
Wednesday, October 11, 1916. My Japanese colleague, Viscount Motono, has just been appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. Of all the Japanese I have known he is certainly the most open-minded, the best informed on European politics and the most accessible to European thought and culture. With his departure I
shall lose an excellent colleague, a man who is perfectly safe to deal with and one with a remarkable all-round knowledge. After congratulating him I asked him about the direction he proposes to give the diplomacy of Japan. "I shall try," he replied, " to apply the ideas I have so often expounded to you. In the first place I should like to make our help in the war more effective. That will he the most difficult part of my task, as public opinion with us does not realize the universal character of the problems which are now being solved on the European battlefields." This pronouncement in no way surprised me as he has always been advocating a more active intervention in the European struggle; he has even tried to persuade his government to send Japanese army corps to France and has pleaded unceasingly for the output of Japanese arms and munitions for Russia to be increased, and the rate of supply accelerated. At every stage he has adopted the most lofty views of the alliance. Then I asked him his intentions with regard to China. He continued: "What can I add to what I have already told you so often? You know what I shall try to do---and also what I shall refuse to do." I will summarize the opinions and prophecies he has often uttered in my presence on the subject of China: (1) When the present struggle is over, the Chinese question will gradually take that place in the general policy of the Powers which was formerly taken by the Eastern question; (2) At the present moment there is not one Chinese question; there are several. The problem has not yet been stated in its full import. The succession of the Chinese Empire is not open. For a very considerable time, twenty years and perhaps more, the Powers will only be able to keep China under observation; they will have to confine themselves to applying provisional remedies to her, giving her symptomatic treatment, as the doctors say; (3) The European Powers should realize that geographical propinquity, ethnical affinities and historical memories give Japan not prerogatives, but special interests in China. On her side Japan must realize that the successful solution of the Chinese problems can only be reached in Europe. If Japanese diplomacy succeeds in taking a lofty view of its task, Japan should become the instrument of conciliation between all the rivalries and antagonisms of which China is the theatre. She must therefore renounce a policy of exclusive advantages and act as a balance, as her interests require. What will become of this wise programme when it has to face the test of reality? Will not Motono unconsciously recover Japanese mentality when he has breathed his native air again for a short time? It is a secret of the future. As we were separating he said: "What about the internal situation in Russia? Aren't you alarmed at it?" "Alarmed? At the moment, no. Anxious, yes. Judging by all the information I am getting, the liberal parties in the Duma have made up their minds not to take up any of the government's challenges and to defer their claims. The danger will not come from them; but their intentions
may be controlled by events. A military defeat, a famine or palace revolution---that's what I'm particularly afraid of. If any one of those three occurrences materializes it means certain disaster." Motono was silent. I resumed. "Don't you think the same?" Still he did not speak. Then his features contracted as if he were absorbed in some painful reflection, and he said: "You've interpreted my own view so faithfully that I thought I was hearing myself speak."
Friday, October 13, 1916. Diamandy, the Russian Minister whom Bratiano has been keeping in Bucharest the last two months, returned to Petrograd this morning after a visit to the Stavka. He has been to see me. "The Emperor received me in the kindest possible way," he said, "and has promised to do everything he can to save Rumania. I am much less satisfied with the results of my talk with General Alexeev who does not seem to realize how terribly serious the situation is, or else his conduct is dictated by selfish private motives or exclusive regard for his own operations. I was commissioned to ask him to despatch---at once---three army corps to the region between Dorna Vatra and the valley of the Oituz; these three corps should cross the Carpathians at Piatra and Palanka and march due west, that is towards Vasarhely and Klausenburg. The invasion of Wallachia by the southern Carpathians would thereby be stopped at once. But all General Alexeev consents to do is to send two army corps which are to operate only in the valley of the Bistritza, in the neighbourhood of Dorna Vatra, and keeping in liaison with General Letchitsky's army. These two corps will be drawn from the Riga army so that they cannot arrive in Transylvania for fifteen or twenty days! In spite of all my pleading I have not been able to win him over to the views of the Rumanian General Staff." He then told me with what feelings of grief he had left his country. Our long-standing friendship made it possible for him to speak quite freely. I vigorously maintained that there is nothing fatal about the military failures so far, but that unless the Rumanian people and government pull themselves together at once Rumania is lost beyond hope: "Whatever happens, your country must take heart and your ministers recover their courage. I can promise you they're going to get a splendid tonic in the person of General Berthelot." We then discussed the circumstances under which Rumania declared war on Austria and I asked Diamandy a question which, I must admit, has only a historical interest now: "Why, at the last moment, did Monsieur Bratiano throw over the military agreement which
Colonel Rudeanu made with the French and British High Commands at Chantilly on July 23?" It wasn't an agreement, but simply a plan which had to be ratified by the Rumanian Government." "If it was only a plan, why did Monsieur Bratiano, after knowing of, and impliedly approving all the work preliminary to the agreement, authorize Colonel Rudeanu to sign it? In any case, a fact which adequately proves that the French and British High Commands regarded your undertaking as definite is that the Salonica army immediately received orders to prepare to attack the Bulgarians in Macedonia, in order to facilitate the offensive of your army south of the Danube. Between ourselves, were not considerations of an exclusively political nature responsible for the sudden disavowal of the Rudeanu agreement? Were there not secret negotiations between Bucharest and Sofia at that time? Didn't Tsar Ferdinand induce Monsieur Bratiano to believe that the continued neutrality of the Bulgarians could be relied on?" "I can only repeat that Monsieur Bratiano regarded the Rudeanu agreement simply as a plan which required ratification by the government. The main and vital negotiations were being carried on at Bucharest between General Iliesco and Colonel Tatarinov. Neither of them ever contemplated the idea of a Russo-Rumanian attack south of the Danube, as had been stipulated at Chantilly. In any case, wasn't that a very dangerous plan? In an exposed position on Bulgarian territory, the Rumanian army would have been in a very critical plight if the Germans succeeded in forcing the Carpathians and taking them in rear along the Danube. As for the secret negotiations between Bucharest and Sofia, it is true that Monsieur Radoslavoff made indirect overtures to Monsieur Bratiano, offering him the neutrality of Bulgaria. But it was easy to recognize Tsar Ferdinand's usual cunning in these overtures and the Rumanian cabinet paid hardly any attention to them. Monsieur Bratiano himself has never believed that Bulgaria would remain neutral." "It would be ill-bred of me to dispute your argument any longer. It will be judged by history, when all the documents are available."
Saturday, October 14, 1916. B----- has been quoting a proverb which expresses in a very picturesque form the inability of the Russians to discipline themselves voluntarily for the sake of a common effort: "When three Germans meet they immediately form a Verein and elect a president. When two Russians meet, they immediately form three parties."
Monday, October 16, 1916. A few days ago a curious rumour was circulating in Petrograd; it was being said in all quarters that Sturmer had at last convinced the Emperor of the necessity of ending the war, if necessary by making a separate Peace. More than twenty people came to ask me about it. To each of them I gave the same answer: "I don't pay the slightest attention to these silly tales. The Emperor will never betray his allies." But I thought that the story could not have been so widely credited without the collusion of Sturmer and his gang. To-day, on the Emperor's orders, the telegraphic agency publishes an official note which is a categorical dmenti of "the rumours published by certain papers as to the possibility of a separate peace between Russia and Germany."
Tuesday, October 17, 1916. I have been giving Motono a farewell dinner. My other guests were the President of the Council and Madame Sturmer, the Minister of Communications, Trepov, the Italian Ambassador, the Danish minister and Madame Scavenius, General Volkov, Princess Contacuzene, M. and Madame Polovtsov, Prince and Princess Obolensky, General and the Baroness Wrangel, Princess Lucien Murat, who is about to join her husband in the Caucasus, Vicomte d'Harcourt, who is going to Rumania with a French, Red Cross mission, and others. A party of twenty. Madame Sturmer and her husband are remarkably well matched. She has the same type of intellect and the same moral qualities. I was particularly nice to her, as I wanted to get her to talk. She gave me a long panegyric on the Empress. In the flood of encomiums and servility I could recognize the wily practices by which Sturmer has captured the Empress's confidence. He has persuaded that poor, neurotic soul that she is greatly loved by the nation, contrary to her previous conviction that she was hated by all her people. "Not a day passes," said Madame Sturmer, without the Empress receiving letters and telegrams which have, been sent her by workmen, peasants, priests, soldiers and wounded men. All these lowly people, who are the true voice of the Russian nation, assure Her Majesty of their warm affection and boundless confidence, and implore her to save Russia." She artlessly added: "When my husband was Minister of the Interior, he, too, received such letters, either directly or through the provincial governors. It was a great pleasure to him to take them to Her Majesty the Empress." "That pleasure is now Monsieur Protopopov's."
"Yes, but my husband still has many opportunities of seeing for himself how greatly Her Majesty is revered and loved in the country." Making a great show of sympathy for her worthy husband,, with his heavy burden of work, I led her on to tell me how he employed his time. And I can see that all his activities are inspired by the Empress and culminate in her. During the evening, I questioned Trepov about the economic crisis which is raging in Russia and trying the public nerves. "The food problem," he said, has certainly become very worrying; but the opposition parties misuse it to attack the government. I'll tell you frankly what the position is. In the first place, the crisis is far from being general; it attains serious proportions only in the towns and certain rural areas. But it is true that the public is nervous in certain cities, Moscow for example. On the other hand, there is no shortage of food, except certain products which we used to import from abroad. But the means of transport are inadequate and the method of distribution is defective. Active measures are about to be ordered. I assure you that in a very short time the situation will improve, and I hope that in a month at the outside the present discontent will have vanished." He added in a confidential tone: "I should like to have a quiet talk with you, Ambassador. When could you receive me?" "I think I'll come and see you. It would be better to have our talk at your ministry." With a glance at Sturmer he replied: "Yes, it would be better." We arranged to meet the day after to-morrow. I went up to Baron Wrangel who was talking to my military attach, Lieutenant-Colonel Lavergne, and my naval attach, Commander Gallaud. He is aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor's brother, and was giving them his impressions of the operations in Galicia. "There is now a deadlock on the Russian front, from one end to the other," he said. "You must not expect any further offensive on our side. In any case we're helpless against the Germans; we shall never beat them."
Wednesday, October 18, 1916. Calling on Madame C----- to-day, I found her absorbed in a lively discussion with three friends. They were talking about a certain liaison, a recent liaison which seemed to have a delightful future before it, but has just been mysteriously broken off. All four of them were hard at work
conjecturing the causes of the rupture. The mystery was particularly thrilling to them because the parties to the romance are no ordinary people. But they could find nothing. But it had to end somehow. Then one of the callers, Countess 0-----, a young and pretty widow, long of limb, quiet in her movements, hard-faced and with sparkling, dark-ringed eyes, gave utterance to the following aphorism: "We women always yield too soon. The moment the man has made us his own he hat achieved his object; he has no further interest in us; he has finished with us. But when we give ourselves, we women think that our happiness is only just beginning. And so, all our lives we pursue love because we cannot bring ourselves to believe that these beginnings have no sequel." Thereupon she lapsed into silence, with a face that was simply a mask, and mechanically holding to her lips the pearl pendant which hung from her neck.
Thursday, October 19, 1916. Trepov received me at two o'clock in his room at the Ministry of Communications which looks out on the Yussupov gardens. Discussing the economic crisis, he repeated what he said to me at the embassy the day before yesterday, supporting his argument with figures. Then with that sometimes brutal candour which is one of his characteristics, he spoke of the alliance and the objects it has set before it. He added: "We are at a critical moment. What is being decided at the present moment between the Danube and the Carpathians is the issue, or rather the length of the war. The issue of the war can---must no longer be in doubt. Quite recently I reported to the Emperor who allowed me to say exactly what I thought, and I had the satisfaction of finding that he agreed with me as to the necessity not only of saving Rumania but of attacking Bulgaria with all our might as soon as the Rumanian army has received some reinforcement and gained war experience. It is in the Balkan peninsula---not elsewhere---that we can hope to obtain a decisive result in the near future. If we don't, the war will go on indefinitely---and at what risk!'" I congratulated him on his fearless advocacy of views I argued to Sturmer more than a month ago, and added: "As we are talking entre nous, I will not conceal from you that I am very unfavourably impressed by the pessimistic rumours which are being spread abroad in every quarter. I feel it all the more because this propaganda is patently inspired by persons in high social or political positions." "I suppose you are referring to those people who are clamouring for the end of the war at any price and Russia's return to the system of Teutonic alliances? First let me tell you that they are all mad. Peace without victory, complete victory, means an immediate revolution. The
individuals in question would be its first victims! But there's more than that: there's the determination of the Emperor. That determination is unshakable: no amount of influence will ever make him yield. Only the other day he repeated that he would never forgive the Emperor William for his insults and double-dealing, would refuse to make peace with the Hohenzollerns and continue the war until the hegemony of Prussia is destroyed." "Then why does he let M. Sturmer and M. Protopopov, who are notoriously contravening his intentions, remain in power?" "Because he's weak! But he's as stubborn as he's weak. It's a curious thing, but there it is!" "No, it's not curious at all. Psychologists will tell you that stubbornness is only a form of weakness, and so his present obstinacy does not really console me. Men who know his temperament will not defy him to his face; they'll act behind his back. One fine day they'll present him with a fait accompliand he'll give way, or, to speak more accurately, give up the fight and accept what seems inevitable." "No, no! I believe in my Emperor. But it's more than ever necessary to have the courage to tell him the truth." Our talk had lasted more than an hour. I rose to leave. But before reaching the door I stopped at the window a moment to gaze at the picture of the Yussupov gardens which adjoin the Minister's town residence. It was almost dark and snow was falling: it was as if night and the snow were softly descending together in slow flakes and mist. After a perplexed silence Trepov walked up to me and then, as if he had suddenly come to a bold decision, he. rapped out: "I shall be seeing the Emperor again in a few days' time. Have I your authority to report our conversation?" "I not only authorize, but ask you to do so." "Suppose he asks me to what persons you are referring?" "You can name M. Sturmer and M. Protopopov; you may add that though officially I have no complaint to make about them, I am none the less satisfied that they are hostile to the alliance, and that they work for it against their will and are preparing to betray it." "I'll tell him that, word for word. No doubt you realize the gravity of the matters we have been discussing. May I absolutely count on your keeping everything to yourself?" "You have my promise." "Good-bye. Our talk may have great results." "It all depends on you. Good-bye."
Saturday, October 21, 1916. Of all the secret agents kept by Germany among Russian society I doubt whether there is any more energetic, astute and untiring than the financier Manus. A Jew by confession, he employed the usual methods to obtain permission to reside in Petrograd and in recent years has made a considerable fortune by operations on the stock exchange and speculation. The genius of his race had inspired him to throw in his lot with the most rabid defenders of the throne and the altar. It was thus that he became a servile tool of old Prince Mestchersky, the famous director of the Grajdanine and the fearless champion of orthodox absolutism. At the same time his discreet and well-placed generosity gradually won over the whole of the Rasputin gang to his cause. Since the beginning of the war he has been conducting a campaign in favour of a speedy reconciliation between Russia and the Teutonic powers. He gets a good hearing in the financial world and has established links with most of the papers. He is in regular touch with Stockholm---which means Berlin. I strongly suspect that he is the main channel of distribution for German subsidies. Every Wednesday he gives a dinner to Rasputin; Admiral Nilov, the aide-de-camp of the Emperor and employed in his service, is invited on principle by virtue of his superb deportment. under the influence of wine. Another indispensable guest is the ex-director of the Police department, the fearsome Bieletzky, who is now a senator; but he has preserved all his influence with the Okhrana and through Madame Virubova he is in constant touch with the Empress. Of course there are some charming ladies to grace and enliven the festivities. One of the regular guests is a ravishing Georgian, Madame E-----, a lady who is as lithe, ingratiating and coaxing as a syren. They drink all night. Rasputin gets drunk very quickly and then talks his head off. I have no doubt that a detailed description of these orgies is sent off to Berlin next morning---with appropriate comments and proofs.
Sunday, October 22, 1916. General Bielaiev, who is going to represent the Russian High Command in Rumania, has been to say good-bye. He tells me that in addition to the two Russian army corps which have already been sent to Moldavia and are to try and enter Transylvania by Palanka, a third corps will leave on November 7, for Wallachia, where it will operate between the Danube and the Carpathians side by side with the Rumanian army. He is commissioned to tell King Ferdinand that "the Emperor is considering the possibility of sending further reinforcements later on." I impressed on General Bielaiev that this later reinforcement seemed to me extremely urgent:
"The character of the operations in the Balkan theatre is becoming more and more decisive every day---and in whose favour! The Dobrudja is lost. Constanza is about to fall. All the defiles of the Transylvanian Alps have been forced. Winter is approaching. The least delay is irreparable." He agreed: "I have pleaded strenuously with the Emperor and General Alexeev for an army of three or four corps to be sent in the direction of Bucharest without delay. There it would amalgamate with the Rumanian army. We should thus have a fine mass of manoeuvre in the heart of Rumania and it would enable us not only to close the Carpathian passes but even to invade Bulgaria. The Emperor came round to my view; he realizes the necessity of gaining a great success in the Balkans here and now. But General Alexeev will not consent to weaken the Russian front; he fears that the Germans would take advantage of it to improvise an offensive in the region of Riga." "But it's for the Emperor to give orders. General Alexeev is only his technical adviser and must carry out his orders!" "Yes, but His Majesty would hesitate long before imposing his will on General Alexeev." I questioned General Bielaiev about the Emperor's state of mind. He was obviously uncomfortable as he replied: "His Majesty is depressed and preoccupied. Sometimes when you are speaking to him, he seems not to be listening to you. I was not happy about him." As we were separating, he reminded me of all the serious confidences we have exchanged since the war began and thanked me for the welcome I had always given him. His last words were: "We have difficult times, very difficult times ahead of us."'
Tuesday, October 24, 1916. Contrary to Trepov's anticipations, the economic situation has got worse instead of better. One of my informers, who went through the industrial quarters of Galernaia and Narvskaia yesterday, tells me that there is much distress and bad feeling. The ministers are openly accused of causing a food shortage in order to provoke riots and thus have an excuse for taking strong measures against the socialist organizations. In the factories the workmen are passing round pamphlets inciting labour to strike and demand peace. Where do these pamphlets come from? No one knows. Some say that they are distributed by German agents, others by the Okhrana. Everyone is saying, "it cannot go on like this." The bolsheviki, or extremists, are very active, organizing councils in the barracks and announcing that "the great day of the proletariat is at hand." I put a question to my informer, who is intelligent, moderately honest and moves in liberal
circles: "Do you think there is reasonable ground for crediting Sturmer or Protopopov with the machiavellian idea of causing famine in order to provoke strikes and thus make the continuation of the war impossible?" He answered: "Why, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, that's the whole history of Russia! Since the time of Peter the Great and his famous secret chancellery, it has always been the police which has fomented popular risings in order to have the credit. of saving the throne. If the continuation of the war means a danger to tsarism, you may be certain that M. Sturmer and M. Protopopov will have recourse to the classic methods of the Okhrana. But next time it will be different from 1905."
Wednesday, October 25, 1916. The Austro-Bulgarians captured Constanza yesterday. We have now lost not only the right bank of the Danube---with the possibility of a subsequent offensive in the direction of the Balkan mountains---but also the Danube delta, and with it the most direct route between southern Russia and Rumania, between Odessa and Galatz. The problem of supplying the Russian and Rumanian armies will soon become insoluble. Diamandy has been to see me; he was in despair. "I'm simply worn out with pleading for further Russian contingents to be sent. I'm told at headquarters here that they can only refer the matter to General Alexeev. I know what that means. When I apply to Sturmer, all he does is to raise his eyes. to the ceiling and repeat: "Cheer up! Providence is so great and good! Oh, so good!" "It shows that M. Sturmer is not a Jansenist; M. de Saint Cyran was quite different; he used to say "God is terrible! God is terrible!" "But what am I to do "See the Emperor." "Seriously, is that what you advise?" "What else can you do, alas?"
Thursday, October 26, 1916. The Rumanians have evacuated the whole of the Dobrudja: they have also had to leave the enemy in possession of the famous Cerna Voda bridge over the Danube, the spot at which the principal railways of Wallachia and Moldavia converge.
Volume III, Chapter Three Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER III OCTOBER 27-NOVEMBER 22, 1916. The Empress's increasing influence on the government of the Empire.---Strikes in Petrograd: the troops fire on the police.---Frequency of divorce in Russian society; deterioration of moral standards since Anna Karenina.--Count Witte's crime in 1914.---The Central Powers proclaim the autonomy of Russian Poland under an hereditary monarchy.---Indignation in Petrograd and Moscow at this news.---Protopopov's reactionary policy: memories of the "Black Bands."--Opening of the Duma: the government's declaration; the ministers leave the chamber; Miliukov's violent indictment of Sturmer; various expressions of public opinion.---Frequency of suicide in Russia; a symptom of social disintegration.---The magician, Papus, and the Russian sovereigns: a spiritualistic sance at Tsarskoe-Selo in 1905; a prophecy of revolution.---Death of the Emperor Francis Joseph. Friday, October 27, 1916. This afternoon the Grand Duchess Marie opened an exhibition at the corner of the Champ-deMars and the Moika, of prosthetic appliances for facial injuries. She asked me to meet her there. The weather outside was depressing in the extreme. Through a sky which was the colour of slate or lead filtered a dull, wan, pallid light, the kind of light that accompanies an eclipse. The surface of the great square was simply a marsh of slimy mud and brackish pools. Snowflakes were slowly whirling. In the background the Expiatory Church of the Resurrection was wrapped in mist like a transparent veil. I went through the various rooms with the Grand Duchess. The wan light which came through the windows made this melancholy exhibition seem still more depressing. In every showcase photographs, plaster masks and wax figures alternated with appliances for demonstrating their working and uses. All these torn and battered faces, with bones fractured or missing and in some cases deprived of all resemblance to the human countenance, made a loathsome picture for
which no word can be found in any tongue. The most disordered imagination could not conceive such a museum of horrors. Goya himself has never reached such nightmare heights: those terrible etchings in which he delights to depict scenes of massacre and torture pale beside these monstrous realities. The Grand Duchess was heaving sighs of pity or covering her eyes with her hand the whole time. When we had been through all the galleries she rested for a few minutes in a private room. She made me sit down beside her and then, assuming a casual expression, as we were under observation, she murmured: "Please say something comforting, mon cher ambassadeur! I was terribly depressed when I arrived and now these horrible sights make me feel simply overwhelmed. DO cheer me up at once!" "But why were you so depressed when you arrived?" "Because . . . because . . . Need I tell you?" Then she rapidly gave me a list of the reasons for her anxiety. On the Russian front Brussilov's offensive is held up, without any decisive result. In Rumania disaster is inevitable and imminent. At home war-weariness, despondency and anger are growing every day. The winter is beginning under the most sinister auspices. I cheered her up with several variations on my usual theme. "Whatever may happen," I said, "France and England will go on fighting until complete victory. That victory cannot escape them now, as it is perfectly clear that Germany is as incapable of crushing them as of carrying on the war indefinitely. If Russia deserted her allies to-day, which is unthinkable, she would at once find herself in the camp of the vanquished. It would mean not only eternal disgrace for her, but national suicide." I ended by asking her a question: "Is the explanation of your anxiety that you have lost confidence in the Emperor?" Taken aback by the suddenness of my question, she fixed a haggard eye upon me for a moment. Then she answered in a low tone: "The Emperor? I shall always believe in him. But there's the Empress as well. I know both of them well. The worse things get, the greater will be Alexandra Feodorovna's influence, because her will is active, aggressive and restless. His will, on the other hand, is merely negative. When he ceases to believe in himself and thinks God has abandoned him, he does not try to assert himself, but merely wraps himself up in a dull and resigned obstinacy. Just see how powerful the Empress already is! Before long she'll be the sole ruler of Russia!"
Saturday, October 28, 1916.
I have been thinking over my talk with the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna yesterday. The fact is that making allowances for her mystical aberrations, the Empress is a stronger character than the Emperor, her will is more tenacious, her mind more active, her virtues more positive and her whole spirit more militant and regal. Her idea of saving tsarism by bringing it back to the traditions of theocratic absolutism is madness, but the proud obstinacy she displays is not without an element of grandeur. The rle she has assumed in affairs of state is disastrous,, but she certainly plays it like a tsarina. When she appears in "that terrible valley of Josaphat," vieto oujassno doline josaphata, ofwhich Rasputin is always telling her, she will be able to point not only to the irreproachable honesty of her intentions but also to the fact that her actions have been absolutely consistent with the principles of divine right on which Russian autocracy is founded.
Tuesday, October 31, 1916. For the last two days all the factories in Petrograd have been on strike. The workmen left the shops without giving any reason, and simply on an order issued by some mysterious committee. . This evening there was a dinner in Motono's honour at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. As I finished dressing at half-past seven, I was told that two French industrials, Sicaut and Beaupied, were asking to see me. They are representatives of the "Louis Renault " motor-car house and in charge of a large factory in the Viborg quarter. 1 received them at once. They said to me "Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, you know we've never had anything but praise for our workpeople, because they've never had anything but praise for us. So they've refused to join in the general strike. While work was in full swing this afternoon, a party of strikers from the Baranovsky works besieged our establishment, shouting: 'Down with the French! No more war!' Our engineers and foremen wanted to parley with them. They were received with stones and revolver shots. One French engineer and three French foremen were seriously wounded. The police had meanwhile arrived and soon realized that they could not cope with the situation. A squad of gendarmes then succeeded in forcing a way through the crowd, and went to fetch two infantry regiments which are in barracks quite near. The two regiments appeared a few minutes later, but instead of raising the siege of our factory they fired on the police." "On the police!" "Yes, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur; you can see the bullet marks on our walls. . . . A number of gorodovo and gendarmes were killed. A stand-up fight followed. At length we heard the gallop of the Cossacks, four regiments of them. They charged the infantrymen and drove them back to
their barracks at the point of the lance. Order has now been restored." I thanked them for their promptness in letting me know of the incident, as it would enable me to tell the President of the Council all about it to-night. At the Ministry the scene was as sumptuous as at the recent dinner to Prince Kanin. After greeting Madame Sturmer, I took the President of the Council aside and told him of what had just occurred at the Renault works. He tried to demonstrate that it is a trivial episode, adding that the Prefect of Police had already reported the matter to him on the telephone, and that all measures had been taken to protect the works. "The fact remains that the troops fired on the police," I said. "That's what makes it so serious--extremely serious." "Yes, it's serious; but it will be punished mercilessly." I left him to his guests, who were pouring in. To reach our places at table we had to pass through a forest of palms. There were so many of them and their foliage was so luxuriant that it was like being in a jungle. I sat between Madame Narishkin, Grand Mistress of the Court, and Lady Georgina Buchanan. Madame Narishkin, a worthy and congenial dowager, told me of her life at Tsarskoe-Selo. 'Maid of Honour to Their Majesties the Empresses,' ' Lady of the Order of Saint Catherine,' and 'High Excellency,' she carries her seventy-four years with a pleasant and kindly grace which likes nothing better than "reminiscing." This evening she was in a disconsolate mood. "My duties as Grand Mistress make practically no demand on my time. Every now and then I have a private audience or a family function; that's all. When the Emperor returns from the Stavka he sees no one except in working hours and shuts himself up in his private apartments. The Empress is almost always ill.... She is greatly to be pitied." She then told me of the many charitable organizations in which she is interested., homes for the aged, war hospitals, schools for apprentices, rescue work among prisoners. and so on. "You can see that I'm not idle," she said. "In the evening, after dinner, I always go to see my old friends, the Benckendorffs. Like myself, they reside in the palace, but at the other end. We talk about the present, but not much, and a lot about the past. I leave them about midnight. To reach my room I have to pass through the endless series of huge rooms you have seen. At long intervals there's an electric light. An old servant goes in front of me to open the doors. It's a long walk and anything but enlivening. I often wonder whether these rooms will ever see the splendours and glories of other days again. What a multitude of things are coming to an end, Ambassador! And such a bad end! I oughtn't to say that to you. But we all regard you as a real friend and think aloud in your presence." I thanked her for her trust in me and took advantage of it to tell her that the sky would soon clear if the Emperor worked together with his people and appealed straight to the national conscience. She replied: "That's what we sometimes tell him---very cautiously. He listens to us quietly---and talks of
something else." And imitating her august master she too talked of something else. I incidentally uttered the name of the lovely Marie Alexandrovna D-----, formally Countess K-----, whose delicate purity of form and supple harmony of line always remind me of Houdon's Diane. Madame Narishkin remarked: "That charming lady has followed the new and universal fashion. She's divorced her husband. What for? Nothing! Sergei Alexandrovitch K----- was a model husband to her; she never had any complaint against him. But one day she fell in love, or thought she fell in love with D-----, a mediocrity and inferior in every way to Sergei Alexandrovitch, and though she has had two daughters by the latter she left him to marry the other. I can assure you that in the old days divorces were very rare; there had to be very serious and quite exceptional reasons. The position of a divorced woman was as difficult as possible." "I admit that the frequency of divorce is one of the things that have struck me most here. The other day I was calculating that in more than half the mnages in my social circle there are one or two divorced spouses. Have you observed, Madame, that no one understands the story of Anna Kareninanowadays? And yet I believe the book was only written in 1876! To-day, Anna Karenina would have immediately divorced her husband and married Vronsky, and there the story would have ended." "That's perfectly true! It gives you an idea of what a social scourge divorce has become." "Isn't the Holy Synod largely responsible? After all, it alone grants divorces, its exclusive right." "Unfortunately the Holy Synod is not the great moral authority it used to be." I refrained from quoting to Madame Narishkin Seneca's remark about the young patrician women of his day: "They reckon their age not by the consulates, but by their marriages; they divorce to marry and marry to divorce." Dinner ended at last. We had been at table an hour and a half! In the smokeroom I tackled Sturmer about the strikes and incidents of this afternoon. But his reception had made him so pleased and proud that I did not succeed in damping his optimism.
Wednesday, November 1, 1916. For the last five days the Salonica army has been attacking the Bulgarians without respite. The main operation is developing in the lower bend of the Cerna; its objective is Monastir.
Thursday, November 2, 1916. Viscount Motono, who has been to present his letters of recall to the Emperor, has been giving me his impressions of the Stavka. "I have no doubt," he said, "that the Emperor is determined to continue the war at any cost. He told me so in terms, and with an accent of sincerity, which would have convinced the most sceptical. So I exclude any possibility of a separate, or even premature, peace. But I have observed once more how ill-informed the Emperor is, and what little interest he takes in affairs of State. He did not seem to realize that I have been called upon to direct the foreign policy of my country and that there is a certain connection between the interests of Japan and those of Russia. He did not say a word about the task I am taking up: he did not ask me a single question. He was extremely kind, of course. But his remarks could not have been more commonplace and vague if I had simply come to tell him that I had been transferred to Washington or Madrid." "Did you have a talk with General Alexeev?" I asked him. " What's your opinion of the Russian army?" "Oh yes, I had a long talk with General Alexeev. I said nothing about the operations in Rumania: I should have had too much to say on that subject! You know that he doesn't like civilians meddling in strategy. My special topic was the orders placed with our industries. As regards the Russian army, he told me voluntarily that it is in excellent condition and its moral is very high, as witness Brussilov's offensive. The Japanese officers who are visiting various parts of the front tell me that the men are in good fettle and high spirits. But they also tell me that their training is very defective. The system of tactics has remained practically what it was at the beginning of the war. Heavy artillery and flying tactics are particularly backward; one might almost call them primitive. It is actually worth considering whether the heavy guns which are now being manufactured for Russia in France and England had not better be kept on the western front where they could be put to much better purpose. Yet the fact remains that the Russian army, such as it is, represents a solid mass which puts enormous pressure on our enemies." "So we must henceforth look to it for the effects of mass rather than shock action?" "Yes, the effect of mass, and no more." "What about the internal situation?" "It's bad! People are patently tired of the war. Yet I don't believe the Russian nation would accept a peace which did not give it Constantinople." As it was our last time together we reviewed our common memories. How many things---and what things---we have seen together! How many impressions have we exchanged in words, and sometimes with a mere glance! As he rose to go, Motono said to me: "Before we separate, my friend, I want to tell you a last secret which will complete your education on certain intrigues we often discussed together at the beginning of the war. It's
something about Count Witte and relates to the bad days of December, 1914, when public opinion in Russia was so despondent over the defeats in Poland. You may remember that at that time Russia, France and England were anxious to make joint representations at Tokio to persuade us to send an army to Europe. Now Witte came to see me one morning. He fixed his eyes hard upon me and said at once, with that haughty assurance you will remember: 'I know that your government is going to be asked to send troops to Europe. It must do nothing of the kind! It would be madness. Believe me, Russia's at the end of her tether; tsarism is on the point of perishing. And don't think France and England will ever regain the upper hand. Victory cannot slip from Germany's grasp now. . . . ' A man who was a former minister of the Tsar, the man who signed the Treaty of Portsmouth, had the audacity to say that to me, the Ambassador of Japan!" "It doesn't surprise me, if it was Witte. To my mental picture of his haughty, self-centred personality, this act of felony simply adds a bold feature which completes it perfectly. His outstanding characteristics were a thirst for power and intellectual pride. He belonged to the race of men of boundless ambition who do not admit defeat. Hence his arrogance and sarcasms, the bitterness of his hatreds, and the ever-increasing boldness of his intrigues. It is only logical that his character and the course of events should have carried him even to the stage of treason. But what must have been the conflict of feeling within him before he reached that stage and could bring himself to say to you anything so infamous as: 'Your government must not help my country, as it is at the end of its tether? ' Just think of the accumulated grudges, miscalculations, thwarted hopes, jealous and smouldering rage, well fanned and pondered hatreds an action such as that presupposes! I shall read Shakespeare's Coriolanus again this evening."
Friday, November 3, 1916. During the last few days a curious rumour has been going round in germanophile circles in Petrograd; it has been mentioned to me by several people, two of whom, sound and sensible persons, have actually assured me that its origin is to be found in a categorical statement by Protopopov. The theory which these circles are complacently discussing is as follows: "It is now obvious that Russia will never be able to win Constantinople by force of arms. In any case, whatever England and France may have promised, they will never allow the empire of the Tsars to annex the Straits: Germany alone is in a position to secure Constantinople for Russia, as she has only to leave the Turks to their fate; she is prepared to do so if Russia will realize where her true interests lie and agree to sign peace at once. What a great day it will be when Slavism and Teutonism make up their quarrel under the dome of Santa Sophia!"
Sunday, November 5, 1916. At the Marie Theatre this evening I saw a number of delightful ballets, the Nuits Egyptiennes, Islamey, Eros. The entire audience seemed fascinated by these charming fairy tales, scenes of fantasy and passion, the whole atmosphere of mystery and enchantment. During one of the intervals I went to smoke a cigarette in the Minister of the Court's box. There I found General W---- whose duties keep him in daily touch with the garrison of Petrograd. As I had an opportunity of doing him a service quite recently and know that he is inspired by feelings of the deepest patriotism, I asked him: "Is it true that the troops in Petrograd have been seriously contaminated by revolutionary propaganda and that there is an idea of sending most of them to the front and replacing them by reliable regiments?" He hesitated a few moments and then candidly replied: "Quite true; the spirit of the Petrograd garrison isn't good. We saw that a week ago, when the mutiny in the Viborg quarter occurred. But I don't believe there's any idea of sending the bad regiments to the front and replacing them by sound units. In my opinion, the troops guarding the capital ought to have been weeded out long ago. In the first place there are far too many of them. Do you realize, Ambassador, that there are not less than one hundred and seventy thousand men in Petrograd and the vicinity, Tsarskoe-Selo, Pavlovsk, Gatchina, Krasnoe-Selo and Peterhof? They hardly ever do any drill; they are badly officered; they are at a loose end and thoroughly corrupt, in fact they're good for nothing but to supply cadres and recruits for the army of anarchy. We ought not to keep in Petrograd more than forty thousand men, selected from. the best elements in the guard, and twenty thousand Cossacks. With such a picked force we should be in a position to deal with any and every eventuality. Otherwise . . ." He stopped; his lips were twitching and he looked very agitated. I pressed him as a friend to continue. He gravely resumed: "If God does not spare us a revolution, it will be started not by the people, but by the army!"
Monday, November 6, 1916. My English colleague was received by the Emperor at Tsarskoe-Selo to-day. His Majesty shows himself as determined as ever to continue the war until the triumph of our coalition is complete. Sir George Buchanan then alluded to the manoeuvres on which the advocates of a separate peace are openly engaged in so many quarters, and in so many ways. The Emperor replied: "The leaders of this campaign are traitors."
My colleague then asked: "Has not Your Majesty heard it said that if Russia would agree to separate from her allies, Germany would leave Constantinople to her?" The Emperor vaguely shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. someone mentioned that to me. But who was it? I can't remember now. Perhaps it was M. Protopopov? In any case, I don't attach the slightest importance to it . . . " I have telegraphed this news to Briand and added: The Emperor has thus once again affirmed his determination to continue the war until full and final victory. But if so, why does he not put a stop to the manoeuvres my English colleague denounced to him, and which he himself branded so appropriately? Why does he give his confidence and delegate his authority to ministers so tainted and compromised as M. Sturmer, M. Protopopov and several others? And why does he suffer his own palace to be that hotbed of intrigues of which the Empress is the centre? And yet a nod from him would be enough to put everything right at once. But weakness of will or fatalism makes him prefer to hide himself away in Mohilev for months with his generals, thus leaving the Empress and the ministers who take their inspiration from her in undisputed possession of the field.
Tuesday, November 7, 1916. At the suggestion of the cabinet of London, the Allied Governments have decided that a military and diplomatic conference shall assemble in Petrograd quite shortly, with a view to giving effect to the discussions which have just concluded in Paris. Sturmer is beside himself with delight: he already sees himself a grand and glittering figure in the capacity of president, making a name for himself in history and eclipsing the glory of Talleyrand, Metternich, Bismarck and Gortchakov.
Wednesday, November 8, 1916. The Emperors of Germany and Austria have just proclaimed the autonomy of Russian Poland 'under a system of hereditary monarchy. The Emperor Francis Joseph has also issued a rescript granting autonomy to Galicia. In announcing this piece of news, the Petrograd papers are protesting against this "cynical
violation of the rights of nations." I ended my day by turning into the Yacht Club. In the midst of an excited group, Prince Viazemsky, Prince Victor Kotchubey, General Svetchin, Prince Engalytchev, Nicholas Balaschov, Prince Urussov and others were indignantly holding forth. "It's an outrage! What an affront to our history! What an insult to the Emperor! The crown of Poland is torn from his head!" And then there was a flood of charges and imprecations against "the Polish betrayal," no one doubting that if Poland has become subject to German allegiance, it is a result of a conspiracy of all the Poles. So it is being said that Russia owes them nothing more, that they have torn up the manifesto of August 14, 1914, with their own hands, and they are being threatened with terrible reprisals. Prince Viazemsky took me into a corner and said: "You may take it from me, Ambassador, that all this would not have happened if people in France and England had not taken up the cause of Polish independence so warmly." I replied somewhat drily: "To my knowledge the French Government has never recommended to the Russian Government anything more than the complete autonomy of Poland. And even now that is still His Majesty's intention."
Thursday, November 9, 1916. This morning one hundred and fifty men of the regiments which fired on the police on October 31 have been shot. The news of the execution spread to the factories about ten o'clock. The workmen have immediately gone on strike as a protest. General Sukhomlinov, ex-Minister of War, who was incarcerated in the fortress of Petrograd last April on charges of treason and collusion, has been released for the time being on the ground of ill-health. His poor condition, physical and mental, would appear to justify this measure of indulgence, but the public simply regards it as another ground for abusing Sturmer. . Count Sigismond Wielopolski and Count Sobanski have just been to see me. They are angry at the charge of treachery which the party of the extreme Right is making broadcast against the Poles. Wielopolski said to me: "For pity's sake get your government to say something, in fact anything, to show the Poles that
France will not abandon them when peace is made!" I replied that the provinces of Russian Poland will certainly be reconquered as the Emperor has sworn that he will never sign peace so long as a single enemy soldier remains on the territory of the Empire. "The Polish question will then be put in really practical terms. And, of course, Poland knows that France will never abandon her." As for France "saying anything," it would hardly be opportune, if I am to judge by the remark Prince Viazemsky made to me yesterday. . The Anglo-French offensive on the Somme has not produced the great results which have followed the Russian offensive in Galicia., but for all that it has been very fruitful. Between July 1 and November 1, the allied troops have captured seventy-one thousand five hundred men. one thousand five hundred officers, three hundred guns and one thousand machine-guns.
Friday, November 10, 1916. By proclaiming the autonomy of Poland under a new dynasty the Teutonic Emperors have wounded a fibre of Russian nationalism which is still very sensitive. It is in Moscow and Kiev that the blow has been felt most deeply. The Government has therefore decided to protest against the manifesto of November 5. Sturmer read to me the protest which he had drawn up. I found it colourless and insipid. "It's not enough to protest against such an act: you must declare it null and void." "Yes, perhaps that would be better." "It's essential." Faithful to his customary tactics of always avoiding inconvenient pressure, he promised me to frame his protest in somewhat stronger language. At that point Buchanan came in. He read us a telegram from the Foreign Office informing him that the British Government is disposed to publish the agreement relating to Constantinople as soon as the Russian Government thinks the publication desirable and opportune. He added that he is invited to act with me in the matter if and when I have the necessary instructions. As I have not yet received these instructions, I could only take part in the ensuing conversation
between us three in a purely personal and unofficial capacity. It gave me a much freer hand to question Sturmer and express my own opinion. First of all I frankly said that the weakening of the national will in Russia and the manoeuvres of the germanophile party fill me with apprehension. I mentioned several instances. Sturmer did not dispute them, but confined himself to minimizing their symptomatic importance. Buchanan bore me out. The inference I drew was that if the Government did not take immediate steps to counteract the general depression and this epidemic of apathy, pessimism and slackness, things would go from bad to worse. "You'll find yourselves in the bad days of 1905 again, and pass straight into revolution!" Sturmer spluttered out vague denials. The turn the conversation was taking made him obviously uncomfortable. On Buchanan and myself he kept switching that sidelong and unsteady glance which at moments gives his crafty face a grotesquely base, cowardly and cunning expression. At length he said: "The most encouraging thing for our people would be the certainty of getting Constantinople after the war. His Majesty the Emperor told me so only the other day." Buchanan remarked that the telegram he had just read to us was on all fours with the Emperor's idea. He hopes that the French Government also will agree to publish the agreement relating to Constantinople. "I imagine it will," I said, " and hope so. To make assurance doubly sure I will telegraph to that effect. But I can't help anticipating certain objections. Won't public opinion in France be surprised, or indeed disconcerted, by the publication of our agreement? Won't it insist on further information? Won't it want to know what will be France's share of this oriental booty of which Russia gets the tit-bit? I must wait to hear what Monsieur Briand thinks. But as we are talking in formally, may I tell you all that is in my mind. Don't you think that you would be acting more in the spirit of the alliance if you aimed at both Turkey and Germany by announcing the vital results Russia is determined to obtain from the war? In my opinion your proclamation would be incomplete, and in danger of being misunderstood by your allies, if you mentioned Constantinople and said nothing about Poland. I don't see how you can authoritatively repeat your claims to Constantinople without simultaneously declaring that Poland will be restored in her entirety under the sceptre of the Romanovs, in conformity with the manifesto of August 14, 1914." The corners of the agitated and cautious Sturmer's mouth drooped---a sign of disapproval. After an evasive stammer, he said something to the effect that the publication of the Constantinople agreement should at any rate precede the proclamation of Polish autonomy: there was a flash of honest patriotism in his eyes as he gravely declared: "I'm more anxious to satisfy the Russian nation than the people of Poland." I objected that the forced and sudden subject ion of Poland to the Teutonic empires demanded an immediate reply: "It's an excellent thing to tell the world that the Emperor Nicholas is determined to take the
crown of Byzantium, but simultaneously he must have the crown of Poland put back on his head." "I'll consider the matter." I heard this evening that Sturmer took the two o'clock train to Tsarskoe-Selo, and had a long audience with the Empress, though this is not his regular "report" day. The position of the armies at grips on the Eastern front between the Baltic and the Black Sea, is as follows: (1) On the Russian front: one hundred and forty Russian divisions face sixty-three German, forty-one Austro-Hungarian and two Turkish divisions, i.e. a total of one hundred and six divisions; (2) on the Rumanian front: twenty-four Rumanian and nine Russian divisions face twenty Austro-German, eight Bulgarian and two Turkish divisions, i.e. thirty-three divisions against thirty.
Saturday, November 11, 1916. Sturmer was beaming with assurance and cordiality when he received me this morning. Holding my hand in his, he said: "I was very perplexed when you left me yesterday. I have fully considered what you said I've been thinking about it all night." "I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep!" "God is so good that he never lets me feel how tired my heavy responsibilities make me." "What has been the result of your nocturnal meditations?" "I've entirely come round to your views. Like you, I think that we must now link up the questions of Poland and Constantinople. All that remains is to secure the assent of His Majesty the Emperor." 1 asked him about the Duma, which is to resume its work in three days time: "Many of the deputies are back already," I said. "What do you know of their state of mind?" "The deputies of the progressive group have returned with the most evil intentions. They want to turn the temporary and grossly exaggerated difficulty of the shortage of supplies to the towns into a weapon against the Government. But we shall not allow ourselves to be intimidated and we shall know how to restrict the Duma to the functions His Majesty has condescended to assign
to it." We discussed various topics of the day and then I left. As he was opening the door we saw the Minister of the Interior, Protopopov, in the room leading into his. He has designed a civil general's uniform for himself it is field dress, with a sword-belt of undressed leather, high boots with spurs and the ribbon of some order round the neck. We exchanged a few pleasant commonplaces. Protopopov is far ahead of Sturmer as regards intellect and savoir-faire; his conversation is not without a certain charm and it makes him all the more dangerous. In any case, his grotesque costume and the steady brilliance of his eyes would be enough to betray his megalomania, an advanced symptom of the general paralysis which will soon have him in its clutches. As I was leaving these two men, I remembered Royer-Collard's remark about Polignac and Peyronnet, the last ministers of Charles X: "From the moment they attained to power they had the ordinances written on their faces." In the afternoon I met Miliukov. He confirmed that the deputies of the " Progressive Bloc"(1) have come back exasperated with the Government: they accuse it of provoking the economic crisis in order to make the continuation of the war impossible. The "Cadet" party has been secretly discussing the possibility of organizing a violent demonstration against Sturmer and Protopopov. It is improbable that there will be anything more than speeches. I asked Miliukov: "So in your opinion we need anticipate nothing serious from the return of the Duma?" "No, nothing serious. But certain things will have to be said from the tribune. Otherwise we should lose all our influence with our constituents and they would go over to the extremists."
Monday, November 13, 1916. D-----, a journalist who has secret relations with the Okhrana and honours me with his confidences when he is "hard up," assured me to-day that Protopopov is taking active steps to reorganize the "Black Bands," the famous Tchernia Sotny of 1905 and 1906. His principal colleague in this task is Nicholas Feodorovitch B----The instrument is worthy of the job. B-----, an ex-officer of cavalry who has since become the Antinous of old Prince Mestchersky (whom he recently succeeded), has been engaged in several high police missions in Russia and abroad during the last few years. I remember dining with him and Nicholas Maklakov, who was then Minister of the Interior, at Prince Mestchersky's house on May 9, 1914. We were a party of four and I was quite anxious to
know the formidable advocate of the Gradjanin, the renowned champion of autocratic tsarism and Divine Right. Our talk, at a table piled high with bottles, continued until after midnight. Notwithstanding the burden of his seventy-three years and, the incurable disease which was already undermining his strength, Vladimir Petrovitch amused me greatly with his disdainful and biting wit, his flashes of rage and pride, his grim prophecies, the splendid fury of his cursings and revilings and all the riotous, explosive and inflammable eloquence which reminded me of the eruption of a volcano. Every prophecy and aphorism which fell from his lips brought a cry of admiration from Maklakov. B----- kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling in a kind of ecstacy, but from time to time I caught him switching on me a sidelong, but piercing, enquiring and crafty glance, the glance of spy or police agent. Nicholas Feodorovitch is thus quite worthy of the mission Protopopov has entrusted to him of re-establishing the powerful instrument of reaction which General Bogdanovitch and Doctor Dubrovin created in 1905. It was that "Union of the Russian People " which gained so atrocious a reputation through the exploits of its "Black Bands." The idea of mobilizing the rural masses in the name of orthodox autocracy and inciting them against the liberals and intellectuals, subject races and Jews, is being considered every day by those in the entourage of the Minister of the Interior. In addition to B----- who is a go-between and adviser rather than a man of action, the effective direction of the movement is said to be in the hands of three former leaders of the Tchernia Sotny, Markov, Bulavtsel and Zamysslovsky. It is thought that a few well arranged pogroms would be enough to revive the "old popular virtues." Under the gis of this national reawakening, the Duma would be dissolved, or rather that baneful institution, the source of all evil, would be suppressed once and for all. Thus the party's doctrine and programme have not changed since that day in 1907 when Doctor Dubrovin sent the following telegram to the Emperor to congratulate him on having dissolved the second Duma: Tears of joy prevent us from giving utterance to the thoughts that have crowded in upon us on reading your manifesto, oh beloved Sovereign, and on hearing your imperious words which have put an end to the criminal existence of the Duma. We fervently implore the Most High to give you the strength and firmness required to complete your holy task. Russia has nothing to fear from her enemies at home and abroad so long as the Russian people is defended by its Tsar autocrat, God's envoy on earth.
Tuesday, November 14, 1916. This morning Neratov communicated to me officially the speech the Government is to read to the Council of Empire and the Duma on the opening of the session this afternoon. It is couched in appropriate terms. The Government reaffirms that to Russia Constantinople is a war-aim of such vital importance that the Russian people must leave nothing undone to attain it. As regards Poland, the speech repeats that the Emperor is firm in his resolve to reunite the
territories of Poland in an autonomous kingdom. But at the last moment the ministers, who have heard of the hostility the Duma proposes to show them, have decided to omit the speech and leave the Chamber immediately after the opening speech of President Rodzianko. Sturmer has also requested the ambassadors to leave the diplomatic gallery at the moment when the ministers withdraw. When I arrived at the Tauride Palace at two o'clock, I discussed with my English, Italian and American colleagues the strange request Sturmer has just made to us. Buchanan, who is our doyen, pointed out that if we remained in our places after the ministers left and some parliamentary incident, or demonstration damaging to the Government, took place, our position might well become awkward. We came round to his opinion. After a short patriotic harangue by Rodzianko, all the ministers rose, to the general stupefaction. They then slowly left the chamber, Sturmer leading, leaving behind them a great hubbub, above which the yells of the socialists could be heard. We left the diplomatic gallery, after explaining to. those around us that we were doing so in deference to a request from the President of the Council. As we passed out we were cheered. From the Tauride Palace we went to the Marie Palace where the Council of Empire met at four o'clock. We confined ourselves to hearing the President's speech and stayed no longer, as we did not wish to hurt the feelings of the Duma. But outside the chamber itself several members of the Council invited us to tea in the salons. Stakhovitch, General Polivanov, Sigismond Wielopolski, Vladimir Gourko and Krivoshein, who are among the wisest and most liberal-minded members of the upper chamber, are very grieved at the Government's attitude towards the Duma. General Polivanov said to me: "This war cannot be brought to a successful conclusion without the active and willing help of the Duma, so it's sheer madness to presume to govern without it. As for governing in defiance of it, I can't believe anyone's thinking of it; it would be the climax of insanity." There is great rejoicing in the camp of reaction. I have overheard remarks such as the following: "How can the rage and opposition of the Duma hamper the Government in any way? The Duma can only storm. Let it storm, to its heart's content!" After the ministers left, the sitting continued at the Tauride Palace. Schildlovsky, the leader of the "progressive block," and Miliukov, the leader of the "cadets," made very grave charges against the Government. Miliukov formally accused Sturmer of treason and double-dealing. In support of his charge of treason he referred to the provocative rle of the police in the strikes in munitions factories, the secret communications with Germany, Protopopov's talk with the German agent, Warburg, at Stockholm, and so on. As regards the double-dealing, he cited the Manuilov affair. He wound up as follows: "If I am asked why I open such a discussion during the war, I reply that it is because M. Sturmer's ministry is itself a peril during the war, and a danger to the prosecution of the war. We must therefore fight on until we have ministers worthy of our confidence." The pressure of the Austro-Germans on Rumania is increasing steadily. In the valleys of the Jiul
and the Oltu the Rumanians are retreating. On the other hand, in Macedonia the Franco-Serbian troops are advancing in the bend of the Cerna and the plain of Monastir.
Wednesday, November 15, 1916. I have been shown a letter which Prince Lvov, president of the Union of Zemstvos, has just written to Rodzianko to enlighten the Duma on the dangers of the policy which the Imperial Government has adopted. It includes the following phrases: The situation at home is growing worse every day. The meaningless and inconsistent actions of the Government have increased the general disorganization of the State. The nation is getting exasperated and indignant. The continual changes of ministers have paralysed authority. But that is not all. A horrible suspicion, rumours of treason and scandalous stories have propagated a belief that the hand of the enemy is at work in our public affairs. This belief is strengthened by the persistent reports to the effect that the Government has already decided to conclude a separate peace. The delegates of the Union of Zemstvos indignantly denounce the idea of a shameful peace; they consider that patriotism and honour compel Russia to continue the war at the side of her allies until victory is achieved. They firmly believe in the triumph of our heroic army but they are obliged to admit that the main danger is not from without but from within. They are therefore determined to support the Duma in its efforts to set up a government capable of making all the resources of the country available. Great Russia will give all the help in her power to the government of the people. This letter has been passing from hand to hand and has been the cause of excited comment in the lobbies of the Tauride Palace.
Thursday, November 16, 1916. The press has been forbidden by the censorship to reproduce or comment on Miliukov's attack on Sturmer the day before yesterday. But it is being circulated among the public, and the effect is all the greater because everyone is improving upon it by exaggerating the phraseology or adding revelations of his own. In the Duma the speech has had a curious result. The "Progressive Bloc" has been split by the action of the advanced elements who regard Miliukov's intervention as too timid and platonic and insist upon an open fight against the Government. On the other hand a letter is being secretly hawked round which the leader of the "Octobrists," Gutchkov. recently wrote to General Alexeev, pointing out the "mortal peril" to which Russia is
exposed by the policy of Sturmer. The letter ends thus: The nation and the army are at one in believing that if M. Sturmer has not already committed treason, he is quite prepared to do so. Is it not terrible to think that all the secrets of our diplomacy are in that man's hands? The infamous policy of which he is the instrument is likely to cost us all the fruits of our military effort. Forgive me for sending this letter, but I felt I must write to you, as if anyone can remedy the evil it is you alone.
Friday, November 17, 1916. Last night the Council of Ministers had a long discussion on a project of Sturmer's for dissolving the Duma and arresting Miliukov. Protopopov, the Minister of the Interior, was the only minister to agree with this scheme. According to a secret report which comes indirectly from Trepov, the position of Sturmer and Protopopov has become impossible, as the Emperor is absolutely determined that there shall be no conflict between the Government and the Duma. Trepov is expecting to succeed Sturmer very shortly. As his ardent patriotism in no way affects his dynastic loyalty, he cannot, of course, approve of the aggressive attitude which the Duma has recently adopted; he will be very firm in his dealings with that body. This afternoon the sitting of the Duma was marked by a curious incident which has created a sensation. Since the first sitting after the reopening, none of the ministers had entered the Tauride Palace. Great was the astonishment of the Assembly, therefore, when General Shuvaev, the War Minister, and Admiral Grigorovitch, Naval Minister, were seen to come in about two o'clock. They immediately asked to speak and announced that they were anxious to work wholeheartedly with the Duma to prosecute the war to complete victory. This unexpected pronouncement was greeted with frantic cheers. The two ministers then proceeded at once to the Armaments Committee. It has been a heavy blow for Sturmer. The idea originated with Admiral Grigorovitch, but it was only with the help of General Alexeev that he managed to win over his colleague at the War Ministry.
Saturday, November 18, 1916. Of the symptoms which have impelled me to a very gloomy diagnosis of the moral health of the Russian people, one of the most alarming is the steady increase in the number of suicides in
recent years. As this question has caused me serious concern, I have discussed it with Dr. Shingarev, a Duma deputy and neurologist, who came to see me on a private matter. He tells me that the number of suicides has trebled or even quadrupled in Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa during the last ten years. The evil has spread to the country districts also, though it has not reached such high proportions there or made such rapid progress. It is the youth of the country which is paying the heaviest tribute. Two-thirds of the victims are under twenty-five and the statistics record cases of children of eight. The causes of most of these crimes are neurasthenia, melancholia, hypochondria and general disgust with life. Cases due to impulsive obsession or physical suffering are rare. As always in Russia, mental contagion and mutual suggestion play an important part. Thus epidemics of suicide are frequent among students, soldiers, prisoners and prostitutes. When a society is firmly held together and all its political, civil and religious organs are well adapted to their functions, the figure of suicides remains infinitesimal. Putting aside pathological accidents, exceptional circumstances are required to make an individual try to escape from his social group, so long as he finds it his natural atmosphere and feels himself in harmony and communion with his fellows. Thus the immense increase in the number of suicides shows that the silent forces of disintegration are at work in the heart of Russian society.
Sunday, November 19, 1916. During recent months the Emperor has frequently suffered from nervous maladies which betray themselves in unhealthy excitement, anxiety, loss of appetite, depression and insomnia. The Empress would not rest until he had consulted the quack Badmaev, an ingenious disciple of the Mongol sorcerers. The charlatan soon discovered in his pharmacopoeia the remedy appropriate to the case of his august patient: it is an elixir compounded of "Tibetan herbs" according to a magic formula and has to be prescribed very strictly. Every time that the Tsar has used this drug, his baneful symptoms have vanished in a twinkling. He has not only recovered sleep and appetite, but experienced a general feeling of well-being, a delightful sense of increased vigour and a curious euphoria. Judging by its effects, the elixir must be a mixture of henbane and hashish, and the Emperor should be careful not to take too much.
Monday, November 20. 1916.
The stubborn offensive on which the Salonica army has been engaged for nearly a month in the valley of the Cerna has at length broken the resistance of the Bulgarians. The Serbians occupied Monastir yesterday; it was the anniversary of their entry into the town in 1912. The Emperor Francis Joseph is dying. . Sturmer has been sent for by the Tsar and left for Mohilev this evening.
Tuesday, November 21, 1916. The practice of the occult sciences has always been popular among Russians; since the days of Swedenborg and Baroness de Krudener, all spiritualists and illuminati, mesmerists, fortunetellers and high-priests of mysticism and magic have found a sympathetic welcome on the banks of the Neva. In 1900 the magician Papus (his real name was Dr. Encausse) who revived alchemy in France, came to St. Petersburg and soon made an enthusiastic clientle for himself. In the years following he was seen there on several occasions during the residence of his great friend, the magician Philippe of Lyons; the Emperor and Empress honoured him with their whole confidence. His last visit was in February, 1906. Newspapers which have recently reached us from France via the Scandinavian countries report that Papus died on the 26th October. I confess that I had not given the news a moment's thought, but I am told that those who used to know the "Spiritual Master," as his fervent disciples used to call him, are in consternation. Madame R-----, who is both a professing spiritualist and a disciple of Rasputin, has been explaining this consternation to me by reference to a strange prophecy which is worth recording: the death of Papus presages nothing less than the downfall of tsarism in the near future. This is how it comes about: At the beginning of October, 1905, Papus was sent to St. Petersburg by some of his highlyplaced followers who badly needed his guidance in the formidable crisis through which Russia was then passing. The disasters in Manchuria had produced revolutionary agitation in every part of the Empire, bloody strikes, outbreaks of looting, massacre and arson. The Emperor was living in a state of torturing anxiety, finding himself unable to make his choice among the contradictory and agitated pieces of advice with which his family, ministers, dignitaries, generals and the whole court pestered him daily. Some said that he had no right to abandon traditional autocracy, and exhorted him not to shrink from the necessary severities of a ruthless reaction. Others adjured him to yield to the exigencies of modern times and introduce a constitutional
rgime in all good faith. The very day on which Papus arrived in St. Petersburg, a riot spread terror in Moscow and a mysterious syndicate proclaimed a general railway strike. The magician was immediately summoned to Tsarskoe-Selo. After a summary talk with the Emperor and Empress, a great spiritualistic sance was arranged for the next day. Apart from the sovereigns there was only one spectator of this secret ceremony, Captain Mandryka, a young A.D.C. of His Majesty who is now a major-general and governor of Tiflis. By an intense concentration of will and a prodigious expenditure of fluid dynamism, the "Spiritual Master" succeeded in calling up the spirit of the most pious Tsar Alexander III; the presence of the invisible spectre was attested by signs indubitable. In spite of the fear which clutched at his heart, Nicholas II bluntly asked his father whether he should or should not resist the current of liberalism which was threatening to overwhelm Russia. The spirit replied: "At any cost you must crush the revolution now beginning but it will spring up again one day and its violence will be proportionate to the severity with which it is put down to-day. But what does it matter! Be brave, my son! Do not give up the struggle!" While the horrified sovereigns were reflecting on this appalling prophecy, Papus told them that his magic powers enabled him to avert the threatened catastrophe, but that the efficacy of his spells would cease the moment he himself ceased to be "on the physical plane." Then he solemnly performed the necessary rites. Now the magician Papus has ceased to be "on the physical plane" since the 27th October last; the efficacy of his spells has been destroyed, so revolution is at hand. After leaving Madame R-----, I returned to the embassy and opened my Odyssey at Canto IX, the famous episode of the Nekuia. Under the influence of the story I had just heard, that magnificent scene of primitive humanity, a gloomy and barbarous phantasmagoria, seemed to me as natural and true to life as if it had taken place yesterday. I saw Ulysses in the misty land of the Cimmerians offering a sacrifice to the dead, digging a hole with his sword, pouring out libations of wine and milk and slaughtering a black ram on the edge of the cavity. The multitude of shades, rising up from Erebus, crowd round to drink the streaming blood. But the King of Ithaca roughly drives them off, for the only spirit he wishes to see is that of his mother, the venerable Anticlea, that she may tell him the future through the medium of the soothsayer Tiresias I have been reflecting that only thirty centuries lie between Ulysses and Nicholas II, Tiresias the soothsayer and Papus the magician.
Wednesday, November 22, 1916.
Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria., Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia., Croatia, Esclavonia, Illyria and Galicia, King of Jerusalem, etc., died yesterday in his eightyseventh year. The fact is barely mentioned, and only as an unimportant incident, the reality being so much beyond all the consequences we foretold in the old days when we used to speculate on the results of the aged Emperor's disappearance! I have no time to write his funeral oration; but to judge his reign I have only to recall the terrible words of his predecessor Ferdinand I, who was compelled to abdicate in 1848 and lived in retirement at Prague until 1875. Shortly after Sadowa the old and throneless sovereign, calling to mind the defeats of 1859 and the loss of Lombardy, and seeing Austria finally excluded from Germany and obliged to cede Venetia, burst out: "Why was I got rid of in 1848! I should have been just as capable as my nephew of losing battles and provinces!"
Chapter Footnote 1. The "Progressive Bloc" includes all the parties of the Left except the socialists, i.e., 250 out of 402 deputies. There are 15 socialists.
Volume III, Chapter Four Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER IV NOVEMBER 23-DECEMBER 24, 1916. Sturmer's dismissal; the Empress's irritation.---Trepov is appointed President of the Council; the appointment a guarantee for the Alliance.---General Alexeev is replaced by General Gourko for reasons of health.---Conflict between the Duma and the Minister of the Interior; fierce attacks on the "occult forces which are ruining Russia."--"Public opinion loses interest" in Constantinople and the oriental dream.---The massacre of French sailors at Constantinople.---Consideration of the measures to be taken to deal with Greece.---The Empress's camarilla. Who are its real
leaders? Germany invites the United States to open negotiations for peace; the motive which inspires this step.---Pokrovski, the Comptroller-General of the Empire. is appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. His first meeting with the Duma; the patriotic fervour of his speeches. I discuss with him the situation arising out of the German proposal.---Position of the allied armies in Rumania; the transport difficulty.---With a view to the reply to the German proposals, the French Government defines the "higher war aim" which the Allies have taken as the goal of their common effort: the reorganization of Europe on the principle of nationality, the rights of the nations to unhampered economic development, etc. Gokrovaki accepts every article of this programme.---The Emperor prohibits the use of German terms in the nomenclature of official titles. Thursday, November 23, 1916. As I was working alone in my room about ten o'clock this evening, one of my most reliable informers handed me a note which ran thus: I do not want to wait until to-morrow to give your Excellency a great piece of news: M. Sturmer has resigned, and his place as President of the Council has been taken by M. Trepov. I am delighted with the news, though it does not surprise me. By getting rid of Sturmer, the Emperor proves once again that he is capable of the wisest decisions when he is not under the influence of the Empress. . The Austro-Germans captured Craova yesterday.
Friday, November 24, 1916. Sturmer's retirement is officially published this morning. Trepov takes his place as President of the Council; the new Minister for Foreign Affairs has not yet been appointed. From the point of view of the war, which must take precedence of any other aspect, the selection of Trepov is a great relief to me. In the first place, Trepov has the merit of loathing Germany. His presence at the head of the Government is a guarantee that there will be no wavering in Russia's loyalty to the Alliance and that German intrigues will not continue with the same freedom as before. Moreover, he is active, intelligent and methodical; his influence on the various public services can only be excellent. Another piece of news: General Alexeev is going on leave. While he is away, his post is being taken over by General Vassili Josiffovitch Gourko, son of the field-marshal who was the hero of the Balkans. The reason for General Alexeev's retirement is his health. It is quite true that the General is suffering from an internal malady which makes an operation in the near future essential. But
there is also a political reason; the Emperor considers that the Chief of the General Staff committed himself too openly against Sturmer and Protopopov. Will General Alexeev ever return to the Stavka? I cannot say. If his departure is final, I shall not be very sorry. No doubt he has won the respect of everyone by his patriotism, energy, scrupulous honesty and extraordinary capacity for work. But unfortunately he is lacking in other qualities which are not less necessary---broad views, a high conception of the Alliance, the power of visualizing all the theatres of war synthetically and as a whole. He has rigidly confined himself to his duties as Chief of Staff to the High Command of the Russian Armies. The fact is that it was for the Emperor himself to play the great part the importance of which General Alexeev has never properly grasped; but the Emperor's failure to realize it has been even more complete, especially since the time when Sturmer became his sole interpreter of the common interests of the Alliance. General Gourko, who takes his place, is active and brilliant and has an open mind; but it is said that he is somewhat irresponsible and lacks authority. I was dining with some friends at the Caf de Paris this evening. Sturmer's downfall was a subject of gleeful comment by all the guests who have great faith in Trepov and are already counting on a vigorous and immediate revival of the national conscience. Besak alone said nothing. He was plied with questions and answered in his usual vein of sarcasm: "Henceforth, nothing will stop the victorious advance of our armies! On Xmas Day we shall enter Constantinople! In three months we shall be in Berlin! It's the idea of Constantinople that I like best; between ourselves, we were rather forgetting Peter the Great's will and Santa Sophia, etc." When dinner was over, I took Besak in my car to call on a friend of mine who has a house on the Admiralty Canal. I asked him: "Seriously, what do you think of Sturmer's dismissal?" He thought a minute, and then said in grave tones: "M. Sturmer is a great citizen, who has tried to stop his country from proceeding down the fatal slope to which criminal folly has brought her, a slope which can only lead to defeat, shame, ruin and revolution." "Really; so you're a pessimist too?" "We're lost, Ambassador!"
Saturday, November 25, 1916. Sturmer's dismissal was decided upon without the knowledge of the Empress; she knew of it at
the same time as he received notice himself. She was beside herself with rage and has left at once for Mohilev, taking her daughters with her, her object being at any rate to save Protopopov, who has joined her train. Protopopov's retention of the post of Minister of the Interior would cause a conflict in the Duma which would be particularly dangerous because the new President of the Council, Trepov, is not the man for tactful compromises.
Sunday, November 26, 1916. For several days there has been much excitement in the councils of the "Cadets." The leaders of the party. Trekrassov, Militikov, Shingarev, Konovalov and others, are saying that the time may have come, not to overthrow the imperial rgime of course, but to arrange some striking demonstration which would frighten the Tsar and at last compel him to discard his autocratic prerogatives and establish free government. That was the very spirit which inspired the members of the "Monarchical Opposition" in France towards the end of 1847. We know where the ingenious "banquet" campaign ultimately took them to.
Monday, November 27, 1916. I forget who it was said of Csar that he had "all the vices and not one fault." Nicholas II has not a single vice, but he has the worst fault an autocratic sovereign could possibly have---a want of personality. He is always following the lead of others. His wishes are always being evaded, surprised or over-ridden; it never makes itself felt by any direct and spontaneous action. In this respect he in many ways resembles Louis XV, whom the consciousness of his innate weakness of character always kept in constant fear of subjection to others. Hence the love of subterfuge, which is a characteristic of both of them.
Tuesday, November 28. 1916. I had some thirty guests to dinner this evening. Conversation was slow to kindle and quickly
died out. The tone of the voices was dull and the very air we breathed seemed oppressive. The explanation was that the news from all quarters is bad. To begin with, there are rumours of strikes in the city and the daily rise in the cost of food has produced scenes of violence in the markets. Then the German-Bulgarian pincers are closing round Bucharest; the Danube has been crossed at Limnitza and Giurgevo; the line of the Oltu has been forced; Kimpolung and Pitesti are in the enemy's hands; the royal government has hastily fled to Jassy. True to the Russian character of swiftly losing heart, always anticipating the worst, and so to speak meeting the decrees of fate half way, my guests were already foretelling the arrival of the Austro-Germans at the Pruth, the loss of Bessarabia and Podolia and the capture of Kiev and Odessa. I did what I could to combat these sinister prognostications which paralyse the spirit of resistance beforehand, by excluding a priori the possibility of success and pronouncing something to be impossible which is only uncertain. I developed the argument supplied me by a fine thought from La Rochefoucauld: "We should always have enough means if we had enough will, and when we think that things are impossible, it is often because we want to find excuses for ourselves."
Wednesday, November 29, 1916. Trepov, who certainly cannot be suspected of either fearing or humouring the Duma, has recognized the impossibility of governing with Protopopov who is betraying signs of mental disorder which become more obvious every day. When he was received by the Emperor at Mohilev the day before yesterday, he begged him to appoint another Minister of the Interior, reminding His Majesty that he had made the dismissal of Protopopov an indispensable condition of his accepting the presidency of the Council. But the Empress, who is still at the imperial headquarters and keeping a sharp look-out, had anticipated the step. The Emperor, duly prompted, answered Trepov that he counted on his loyalty to help Protopopov in his task. Trepov firmly but respectfully repeated his appeal, but the Emperor was not to be shaken. "In that case," continued Trepov, "there is nothing for me but to ask Your Majesty to accept my resignation. My conscience does not allow me to assume the responsibilities of power while M. Protopopov retains the portfolio of the Interior." After a moment's hesitation, the Emperor replied in an imperious tone: "Alexander Feodorovitch, I order you to carry out your duties with the colleagues I have thought fit to give you." Trepov went out, choking down his anger.
Thursday, November 30, 1916. At my suggestion, Trepov has been made Grand'croix of the Legion of Honour. I went straight to his house to give him the news. "The Government of the Republic," I said, "wished this to be some recognition of the signal service you rendered the Alliance in carrying through the construction of the Murman railway with such energy; it also wants to give you a token of its confidence in you in the trying circumstances under which you take power." Trepov was very much touched, I think he was sincere, as he always liked France where he has spent much of his life. Then we talked business. Without going into the details of his differences with the Emperor and the obstacles which the Duma puts in his way, he told me that he is going to the Tauride Palace the day after to-morrow and will at once make a speech. The main points on which he will touch are the following: (1) war to the bitter end; Russia will shrink from no sacrifice; (2) a pronouncement on the subject of Constantinople and the Straits; promise to safeguard the interests of Rumania; (3) confirmation that Poland will be restored within her ethnical frontiers to form an autonomous state; (4) a solemn invitation to the Duma to collaborate with the Government in bringing the war to a successful conclusion. Trepov added: "I hope the Duma will give me a decent reception. But I'm not certain . . . You can guess why, and on whose account." Then he told me that the Duma is absolutely determined to have nothing to do with Protopopov, and to boo him and break up the sitting if he enters the chamber. I asked him: "How is it that the Emperor, after being wise enough to get rid of M. Sturmer, does not realize that M. Protopopov's retention of office is becoming a public and national danger?" "The Emperor is too sensible not to be aware of the fact. But it's the Empress who would have to be convinced. And she's absolutely uncompromising on the point!" After a short silence, he continued in low tones, as if he were talking to himself: "It's a decisive moment for Russia. At the rate we are going, the German party will soon be in control, and that means disaster, revolution and disgrace! We must put an end to all these intrigues, once and for all! In the hearing of Russia, or rather the whole world, the Government must utter irrevocable words which will bind all future governments. When the Duma meets the day after to-morrow, the Government will commit itself beyond recall to continue the war until Germany is crushed; it will burn all its boats." "What a great relief it is to hear you talk like that!"
Friday, December 1, 1916. Sturmer was so terribly humiliated by his fall that he left the Ministry for Foreign Affairs without saying goodbye to the allied ambassadors or even leaving a card. It is a significant lapse from good manners on the part of a man who is usually so ceremonious and such a slave to tradition. As I was driving along the Moka in my car this afternoon, I saw him opposite the imperial stables. He was stumbling along against the wind and snow, his back bent, his eyes fixed on the ground and his face gloomy and grief-stricken. He did not see me. He did not see anything. As he left the pavement to cross the road, he nearly fell
Saturday, December 2, 1916. I was present at the sitting of the Duma this afternoon. The storm burst the moment the ministers appeared in the doorway and Protopopov was seen in their ranks. Trepov ascended the tribune to read the Government programme. The deputies shouted "down with the Ministers! Down with Protopopov!" Quite unperturbed, and proudly facing his audience, Trepov began to read. Three times in succession the yells from the Extreme Left compelled him to leave the tribune, but at length he was allowed to speak. The speech was the same as he outlined to me the day before yesterday. The passage in. which the Government affirmed its determination to continue the war was vociferously cheered, but the phrases referring to Constantinople left the Assembly cold, a coldness compounded of indifference and surprise. When Trepov had finished, the sitting was suspended. The deputies poured out into the corridors. I returned to the embassy. This evening I was told that the resumption of the sitting had been marked by two unexpected and violent speeches by the two leaders of the Right, Count Vladimir Bobrinski and Purishkevitch. To the intense amazement of their political brethren, they fulminated against the "occult forces which are dishonouring and ruining Russia." Purishkevitch actually said that "it only requires the recommendation of Rasputin to raise the most abject creatures to the highest offices. To-day, Rasputin is more dangerous than the false Dimitri in days of old. Up, you
Ministers! If you are true patriots, go to theStavka,; fall at the Tsar's feet and have the courage to tell him that the crisis at home cannot continue, the multitude is muttering in its wrath, revolution threatens, and an obscure moujik shall govern Russia no longer!"
Sunday, December 3, 1916. Trepov's position is very delicate. On the one hand, he realizes the impossibility of governing, or rather of loyally supporting the Alliance, while the direction of public opinion and the police remains in Protopopov's hands. On the other hand, he is firmly. attached to the legal constitution of the Empire and denies the right of the Duma to interfere with the exercise of the sovereign prerogatives, of which one of the most important is incontestably the selection of ministers. Thus the conflict between the Government and the Duma means that we have more than one awkward incident ahead of us. . Yesterday and the day before, Athens was the scene of grave events. As the Greek Government refused to surrender the war material demanded by the Allies, a detachment of French marines landed at the Pirus and marched to Athens. The Greek troops opened fire on our men and killed a large number of them. The next step was for the principal adherents of Venizelos to be massacred and their houses looted.
Monday, December 4, 1916. The passage in the ministerial speech referring to Constantinople has fallen as flat among the public as it did in the Duma. There is the same phenomenon of indifference plus amazement, as if Trepov had exhumed an ancient Utopia, once fancied, but long since forgotten. Several months ago I was already observing the progressive disappearance of the Byzantine dream. The charm has been broken. How Russian it is to surrender one's hopes, to abandon the very thing one has longed and striven for most ardently, and even to experience a kind of bitter-sweet delight in admitting one's failure and disillusionment Madame P----- said to me this evening: "The Government's pronouncement is ridiculous. Everyone has stopped thinking about Constantinople. It was a fine craze, but a sheer craze for all that. And when you're cured of a
craze you don't start it again; you find another. Trepov and all the rest who are trying to bring the Russian nation back to the vision of Constantinople remind me of men who think they can reawaken the love of a woman by suggesting that they shall revive old memories together. It's no good recalling how delightful it was in Venice, in a gondola by moonlight; she will not even listen. When it's over, it's over."
Tuesday, December 5, 1916. The detachment of French troops has had to evacuate Athens, where the germanophile party is the ascendant. To deal with Greece, Briand is proposing that the Allies shall take the following steps: (1) blockade of the kingdom; (2) deposition of King Constantine; (3) recognition of Venizelos. But he specifies that there can be no question either of declaring war on Greece or attacking her monarchical constitution. As Sturmer's successor at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has not yet been appointed, I have been discussing the matter with Neratov who is pro tem. in charge. Like Briand, he thinks that the King's personal responsibility is seriously involved by the attack on our troops. But he objects to the deposition of the monarch: "It would be taken very badly," he said, "by conservative circles here. The pro-German gang and the Empress's camarilla would not fail to use it as a weapon against the policy of the Alliance with the democratic governments of the West." From the practical point of view, Neratov is impressed by the difficulties of the enterprise and the dangerous consequences it would involve. By virtue of what principle would the deposition of the King be pronounced? By what means could hands be laid on Constantine? If he fled to Larissa or Trikala, would we go after him? To whom would the crown be transferred? To the Crown Prince? Suppose the latter refused to participate in the dethronement of his father? In any case, should we not find ourselves drawn into a great display of military force, and perhaps an actual conquest of Greece? If so, would not the Salonica army be reduced to impotence? Neratov prefers a more prudent and less risky solution. In his view, the Allied Governments should defer settling their account with King Constantine. For the moment all that is required is that (1) the Pirus should be occupied; (2) the principal ports of the kingdom should be subjected to a strict blockade; (3) strategic dispositions should be taken in Thessaly in order to protect the left flank of the Army of the East. These conclusions seem to me the very essence of wisdom.
Thursday, December 7, 1916. Yesterday, the Austro-Germans and Bulgarians entered Bucharest. Hindenburg's strategic genius has brought about his masterpiece.
Saturday, December 9, 1916. The cry of alarm, to which Count Bobrinsky and Purishkevitch , the two champions of naked tsarism, recently gave utterance in the Duma has had its echo in that archaic citadel of monarchical absolutism, the Council of Empire.(1) This high assembly has to-day plucked up courage to express a wish in the matter of general policy, warning the Emperor against the evil action of occult influences. This bold stroke---and how timorous it is!---is provoking lively comment. History is nothing but a long succession of fresh beginnings. In March, 1830, the Chambre des Pairs took the same course when it respectfully proffered Charles X a piece of wise advice But has anyone ever profited by the lessons of history?
Sunday, December 10, 1916. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the action of Russia is inspired by the Empress's camarilla. But by whom is this camarilla itself inspired? From whom does it get its programme and leadership? Certainly not the Empress. The public, which likes simple ideas and clear-cut types, has got a wrong idea of the part played by the Tsarina; it materially exaggerates and contorts it. Alexandra Feodorovna is too impulsive, wrong-headed and unbalanced to imagine a political system and carry it out logically. She is the omnipotent political tool of the conspiracy I am always sensing about me; but she is nothing more than a tool. So with the individuals who flutter around her, Rasputin, the Virubova, General Voyeikov, Taneiev, Sturmer, Prince Andronnikov and the rest; they are only subordinates, supers, servile plotters or marionettes. The Minister of the Interior, Protopopov, who seems made of more solid
stuff, owes that illusion solely to the irritation of his meninges. Behind his expansive bravado and restless activity, there is nothing but cerebral erethism. He is a monomaniac who will soon be under restraint. Then by whom is the Tsarskoe-Selo camarilla really inspired? In vain have I questioned those who seemed best qualified to satisfy my curiosity. All I have got is vague or contradictory replies, hypotheses and suppositions. But if I had to come to some conclusion, I should say that the evil course for which the Empress and her coterie will be responsible to History is inspired by four individuals: Stcheglovitov, the leader of the Extreme Right in the Council of Empire; Monsignor Pitirim, the Metropolitan of Petrograd; Bieletzky, the ex-Director of the Police Department, and the banker, Manus. Apart from these four persons, I see nothing but the play of nameless, collective, scattered and sometimes unconscious forces, which are perhaps the sole interpreter of the traditional policy of tsarism and its instinct of self-preservation, and represents all the organic vitality and acquired momentum that remains to it. In this quartet I assign a special position to the banker Manus: it is he who keeps it in touch with Berlin, and through him that Germany plans and fosters her intrigues among Russian society. He is the distributor of the German subsidies.
Wednesday, December 13, 1916. Yesterday, Germany transmitted a note to the United States of America, a note in which she speaks for herself and her Allies, and declares that she is ready to open negotiations for peace here and now. This magniloquent pronouncement is not supported by the slightest hint of what the terms may be. At first blush this note seems to be a stratagem, or trap, calculated to provoke a pacifist movement in the hostile camp and to disintegrate our coalition. If Germany will first inform us what are her plans, what reparations she is prepared to make, and what guarantee she offers us, we shall take her proposals seriously. I have just had a visit from Buchanan and Carlotti, as I am kept in bed by a very severe attack of rheumatism. We all think alike.
Thursday, December 14, 1916.
The Emperor has entrusted the portfolio of Foreign Affairs to the Comptroller-General of the Empire, Nicholas Nicolaevitch Pokrovski. It is an unexpected choice. Pokrovsky is sixty and has devoted all his life to questions of finance and public accounts; he has no idea of foreign problems and diplomacy. But, subject to that reservation---which is important at the present moment---I am not dissatisfied with the appointment. In the first place he is sensible, clever, hard-working and thoroughly devoted to the idea of the Alliance. As a man, he is of quite uncommon quality, warm-hearted and modest, with a touch of gay cynicism. He is not well off, has a large family and leads an extremely simple and upright life. During the thirty-five years in which he has been employed in the financial administration of the Empire, not a breath of suspicion has ever rested upon him.
Friday, December 15, 1916. By way of inaugurating his term of office, Pokrovski made a speech to the Duma to-day in which he showed up the illusory and insidious character of the German proposal in the firmest language. "The Entente Powers," he said, "proclaim their unwavering determination to continue the war until final victory. Our countless sacrifices would be rendered of no purpose by a premature peace with an enemy who is exhausted, but not yet over thrown." These words, which are in such happy contrast to the ambiguous and tricky phraseology of Sturmer, have made a great impression on the Duma; the important thing is that they were uttered to destroy the effect of the German initiative. As I am still confined to bed, I have not been without visitors. I hear the same observation from all quarters: "We have got one very important result already---that the peace question has now been brought to the attention of public opinion everywhere! Men's minds are thus being gradually prepared for a reasonable outcome."
Saturday, December 16, 1916. Pokrovski called on me this afternoon. I congratulated him on the firm and frank statements he made in the Duma yesterday. "In every detail," he replied, " I carried out the orders of His Majesty, with whose ideas I have the good fortune to find myself in perfect agreement. His Majesty is determined that there shall be no further doubt about his intentions, which are well known to you; on that point he has given me the most categorical instructions. Why, he has asked me to lose no time in submitting a draft manifesto, informing the army that Germany is asking for peace."
We then discussed the proper reply to be made to the note of the Teutonic coalition. Although he has not come to any definite conclusion on the subject, Pokrovski thinks that the military situation (or "the war map," as the Germans call it) does not yet enable us to formulate our intentions and that it would be prudent for us to confine ourselves to general expressions, such as "material and moral reparations," "political and economic guarantees."
Monday, December 18, 1916. B-----, who is keeping a pretty close watch on the labour movement, tells me of a growing tendency among the leaders of the socialist groups to cut loose from the Duma and organize their plan of action on other than legal lines. Cheidze and Kerensky are always saying: "The Cadets don't know anything about the proletariat. They are no use to us!" At the moment these leaders are directing their main propaganda at the army, insisting that it is its interest to throw in its lot with the workmen in order to secure for the peasants---of which it is the direct emanation---the triumph of their agrarian claims. So the barracks are being flooded with pamphlets on the classic themes: "The land belongs to the agricultural workers. It is theirs in full right, and therefore without purchase; no one buys back something of which he has been robbed. The revolution alone can bring about this great work of social reparation." I asked B----- if the "defeatist" doctrine of the famous Lenin, now a refugee in Geneva, is making any headway in the army: "No," he said; "the only advocates of that doctrine here are a few lunatics who are supposed to be in the pay of Germany---or the Okhrana. The 'Defeatists,' or porajentzy, as they are called, are only a negligible minority in the social-democratic party."
Wednesday, December 20. 1916. I have had a talk with General Polivanov who has himself. had a long conversation with one of his former aides-de-camp, newly arrived from Jassy. The situation of the allied armies in Rumania is as follows: (1) The Russian forces now operating on Rumanian, territory comprise six divisions in the Dobrudja, ten divisions (of which six are cavalry) in the region of the Yalomita, five divisions (one cavalry) in southern Moldavia. The army of General Leezinsky, who is under the direct orders of General Brussilov, extends from Tocna to the Bukovina; (2) the transport of troops and war material has suffered enormous delays (between four and six weeks) owing to the defective organization of the Rumanian railways; the seventeen trains per day which had been reckoned on has often been reduced to four; (3) with a view to gaining time, some of the troops are
marching along the railway track, the transport of material and supplies being given a preference. But that does not prevent the concentration being a very slow business, as the distance between the Bukovina and Focsani is three hundred kilometres; (4) all that remains of the Rumanian army (about seventy thousand) is to be sent to the rear of the Russian troops in order to be reorganized in training camps. With the reserves which have not yet been mobilized on Moldavian territory, we shall probably be able to form an army of three hundred thousand men for next spring.
Thursday, December 21, 1916. Twice and three times a week Protopopov asks an audience of the Tsarina, with the excuse of making his report and asking her advice. The other day, the moment he entered he fell on his knees before her and cried out: "Oh Majesty, I can see Christ behind you!"
Friday, December 22, 1916. Yesterday, the President of the United States suggested to the governments of all the belligerent Powers that they should make known their various views as to the terms on which the war could end. President Wilson makes it clear that he "is not proposing peace," that he is not even "offering meditation, but simply suggesting' soundings,'" so that we may know "how far off the long-desired haven of peace may be."
Saturday, December 23, 1916. This morning I have received from Paris a draft reply to the American note. After paying tribute to the sentiments by which President Wilson is inspired, Briand protests against the fact that the note seems to treat the two groups of belligerents on the same footing, although one alone bears the whole responsibility for the aggression. Then he defines the "higher war aims" which the Allies have made their own. These war aims involve the complete independence of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with all the compensation due to them; the evacuation of the occupied territories in France. Russia and Rumania, with just reparations; the
reorganization of Europe in accordance with the principle of nationality and the rights of peoples to unhampered economic development; the restitution of territories torn from the Allies by force or against the wishes of the inhabitants in times past; the liberation of the Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czecho-Slovaks; the emancipation of the peoples subjected to Ottoman tyranny; the exclusion of the Turks from Europe; the re-establishment of Poland in its national integrity. An hour later I was in Pokrovski's cabinet, where I had arranged with Buchanan to meet me. I read Briand's draft to them. They listened to me with the closest attention, and the further I got the better they seemed pleased. When I had finished, they burst out together: "Splendid! It's perfect! That's the way to talk That's what we must tell the world!" At this point my Italian colleague arrived. Pokrovski to whom I had handed a copy of the draft, re-read it aloud, dwelling on each phrase. Carlotti warmly approved. Before expressing his official and final opinion, Pokrovski asked me to give him time to think it over. I insisted that he ought at any rate to give me his approval in principle so that Briand could fortify himself with it in answering President Wilson. There is no doubt that it is of high importance to us not to delay our reply, so that we can frustrate the pro-German intrigues which are feverishly trying to work American opinion. "Very well! As you please!" he said. "Be good enough to cable Monsieur Briand that, speaking generally, I approve his draft and in fact admire it. But I reserve the right to suggest certain slight and purely formal amendments in the paragraphs which more particularly concern Russia, those referring to Poland and Armenia for example." On leaving, I took Buchanan in my car. We were silent and anxious. The same thought spontaneously possessed both of us---how far we still are from seeing the realization of this splendid peace programme! After all, everything is going from bad to worse here! We shared our latest news, which is lamentable. The Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, the great private associations which have worked so hard together since the war began to supply the army and the civil population, were to meet in congress at Moscow next week. The police have just forbidden that congress, though the two Unions represent all that is most sound, sincere and energetic in Russian society! On the other hand, Protopopov is in the highest favour. He has sent himself off on some mission in the provinces, with a view both to avoiding contact with the Duma and preaching sound doctrine to the Governors. A friend of mine, who has come from Moscow and called on me yesterday, told me that the public there is furious with the Empress. In drawing-rooms, shops and cafs, it is being openly said that the Niemka, the "German Woman," is about to ruin Russia and must be put away as a lunatic. And as to the Emperor, men do not stop at remarking that he would do well to reflect on the fate of Paul I.
Sunday, December 24, 1916. I will reveal one fact-trivial enough, superficially---which proves how anxious Nicholas II is to remove the many existing traces of German influence in Russia. At the very beginning of the war, he substituted the Slav name "Petrograd" for the German name "Petersburg." Many a time since has he shown himself shocked and annoyed at the German words which are met with in profusion in the nomenclature of official titles and ranks. Thus "Grand Marshal of the Court," is called Oberhofmarschall, "Secretary of State" Staats-sekretr, "Chamberlain" Kammerherr, "Master of the Horse" Stalmeister, "Master of the Hunt" Jgermeister, "Aide-de-camp" Flgeladjutant, " Maid of Honour " Frelina. The Emperor has now made up his mind to remove all these evil-sounding names from the hierarchical lists and replace them by words drawn from the national idiom. This linguistic task has been entrusted to Prince Michael Serguevitch Putiatin, Marshal of the Court and head of the administrative services of the Tsarskoe-Selo palaces. It is an excellent choice. Prince Putiatin is not only an expert in history, archology and the science of heraldry, but also belongs to one of the oldest families in Russia. In his veins he has nothing but Russian blood, dating back to the tenth century, for he is a descendant of the line of Rurik, through his ancestor Ivan Seinenovitch, vovode of Lithuania in 1430, who was himself descended from St. Vladimir, through Michael Romanovitch, Prince of Drutzk in the thirteenth century.
Chapter Footnote 1. The Council of Empire is composed of one hundred and ninety-two members, one-half of whom are appointed directly by the Emperor and the other elected by the clergy, the provincial assemblies, the nobility, the great landowners, the chambers of commerce and the universities.
Volume III, Chapter Five Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER V
DECEMBER 25, 1910-JANUARY 8, 1917. The Emperor's manifesto to his armies; Nicholas II reaffirms his confidence in victory and announces his unwavering determination to restore Poland and gain Constantinople. I see a hidden meaning in this manifesto.---The Russian General Staff's real share of responsibility for the Rumanian disaster.---Proposal to call a conference of the Allies at Petrograd.---Personal relations between my English colleague, Sir George Buchanan, and the opposition parties: unfounded charges made against him in this matter.---Murder of Rasputin; mysterious setting of the drama. The Empress's despair. Prince Felix Yussupov, the Grand Duke Dimitri and Purishkevitch (deputy of the Extreme Right) are soon indicated as the murderers or accomplices.---Arrest of the Grand Duke Dimitri. Effect on the public of the assassination of the staretz. The discovery of the corpse in the Neva; it is conveyed to the Tchesma Home. Sister Akulina prepares it for burial; a letter from the Empress to the "martyr:" Nocturnal obsequies at Tsarskoe-Selo.---A conspiracy against the sovereigns; propaganda among the regiments of the Guard; the share of the Grand Dukes.---Details of the murder of Rasputin: the trap; the execution; the corpse is thrown into the Neva.---The Emperor receives me at Tsarskoe-Selo; his anxious and absorbed appearance; the strength of his obsessions; my gloomy impression of this meeting.---The Grand Duke Dimitri is sent to Persia and Prince Felix Yussupov banished to the Government of Kursk.---Postponement of the Allied conference to be held in Petrograd. Monday, December 25, 1916. As Pokrovski informed me on the sixteenth of this month, the Emperor has to-day issued a manifesto to his military and naval forces, telling them that Germany has made an offer of peace and once more expressing his determination to continue the war until full and final victory. The time for peace, he says, has not yet come. The enemy has not yet been driven from the occupied territories. Russia has not yet performed the tasks this war has set her, by which I mean the possession of Constantinople and the Straits, as well as the restoration of a free Poland, composed of her three portions. The peroration has a pathetic and personal ring which contrasts vividly with the colourless banality of documents of this kind . We remain unshaken in our confidence in victory. God will bless our arms: He will cover them with everlasting glory and give us a peace worthy of your glorious deeds. Oh, my glorious troops, a peace such that generations to come will bless your sacred memory! This noble and courageous language cannot fail to find an echo in the national conscience, and yet it leaves me with an uneasy feeling. The Emperor is too sensible to fail to realize that the Rumanian catastrophe has robbed him of any chance of winning Constantinople, and that his people have long since given up the Byzantine dream. Then why this high-sounding reference to a scheme, the futility of which none knows better than he? By speaking thus, has it been his intention to reply to the current of disaffection towards him which is on the increase among the most devoted servants of the dynasty? Or does he feel that he is lost, " abandoned of God," and has he therefore desired to summarize in a final proclamation or a kind of political will the noble motives, inspired by considerations of national dignity, which justify him in having exposed the Russian nation to the fiery trial of this war? The latter hypothesis appeals to me strongly.
. The Rumanians have not yet brought the Austro-German thrust to a standstill they are continuing their retreat towards the Sereth.
Tuesday, December 26, 1916. With a view to clearing the Russian General Staff of any responsibility f or the Rumanian disaster, General Gourko has just sent the following note to General Joffre Rumania's entry into the field did not take place under the circumstances we should have deemed best from the point of view of the general plan of campaign. The Rumanians, ignoring the suggestions we considered most convenient for ourselves and most advantageous to them, persisted in forcing upon us a division of forces and programme of operations, and jealously reserving to themselves. the area which is the object of their national claims. Hence a bad distribution of the troops which has hampered all the subsequent course of events. On the other hand, after a few weeks we were forced to recognize that the military value of our new ally did not come up either to our hopes or expectations. Her army's lack of training and feeble powers of resistance have upset all calculations. As soon as it was possible to realize the situation, we decided to come to her help by sending her large forces, the number of which speaks eloquently enough for the importance we attached to it. But, apart from the time required for the precautions we had to take on the front from which they were drawn, their movement was delayed to an unprecedented extent by the inadequacy of the railway, an inadequacy which was aggravated by the difference of gauge. On November 27, when, the position in western Wallachia became threatening, we offered the Rumanian General Staff to send to Bucharest part of the forces we had concentrated on the left flank of the ninth army, abandoning the latter's projected offensive. But the Rumanian General Staff, basing their argument on the impossibility of supplying the rolling-stock required, refused this direct support and asked us to order the offensive of the Ninth Army across the Carpathians in the direction Of Czik-Szereda. From that moment the sudden collapse of the Rumanian army, when the enemy had crossed the Danube, gave us very little time. The Russian troops were not able to prevent the retreat and our generals, very much against the grain, have been compelled to give ground. The retreat had to continue until their forces were joined by other Russian troops sent to their aid. You may be certain that all steps will be taken to hasten the despatch of further reinforcements. Preparations are also being made to develop the rail ways so as to permit of powerful action, when adequate supplies are available. Once again I assure you that nothing will be left undone to set in motion everything which can repair the situation in Rumania.
Wednesday, December 27, 1916. There is to be a conference of the Allies in Petrograd towards the end of January. The representatives of the French government will be Doumergue, senator, ex-Prsident du Conseil and formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs, and General de Castelnau. In view of the instructions with which our delegates will be armed, I am giving Briand my own ideas on certain subjects. After confirming that the Emperor is still determined to continue the war, I have explained that, for all that, the firmness of his intentions is not a sufficient guarantee from our point of view. In actual practice, the Emperor is continually at fault. Whether it is that he weakly yields to the importunities of his wife, or that he has neither the intelligence nor the strength of will to dominate his bureaucracy, the fact remains that he is always doing things, or allowing things to be done, which conflict with his policy. So far as home affairs are concerned, he leaves public opinion to be led by ministers, such as M. Sturmer and M. Protopopov, who are notoriously compromised in Germany's favour, not to mention the fact that he allows a hot-bed of Teutonic intrigues to exist in his own palace. In the economic and industrial sphere, he signs everything put before him. And when an allied Government secures some promise from him which the authorities find inconvenient, it is easy game for them to get him to ratify a decision which indirectly cancels the promise. From the military point of view, the Rumanian affair is typical. It is more than six months since the President of the Republic, King George and the ambassadors of France and England all told him that the drama opening on the banks of the Danube would be decisive, that it was to Russia's interest more than anyone else's to force her way to Sofia, as the conquest of Constantinople depended upon it, and so on. He promised everything he was asked, and his personal intervention stopped there! His impotence, or neglect to secure the triumph of his views in the realm of action has done us enormous harm. While France is pulling all her weight in the Alliance, Russia puts forth only a half or a third of the effort of which she is capable. This situation is particularly serious because the critical phase of the war has perhaps begun and the question now is whether Russia will have time to recover all she has lost before the fate of the East is decided. I am therefore anxious that during the deliberations of the approaching conference the delegate of the Government of the Republic shall endeavour to make the Imperial Government adopt a very definite and detailed programme which will so to speak arm the Emperor against his weaknesses of character and the insidious action of his bureaucracy. As regards the diplomatic guarantees with which I think we ought to provide ourselves in dealing with Russia, you know my opinion: I will not discuss it now. From the strategic point of view, the presence of General Gourko at the head of the General Staff permits us to hope that it will be possible to agree upon a very rigid and detailed plan.
The presence of M. Trepov at the head of the Council will also facilitate the conclusion of a detailed agreement on matters of manufacture, transport and supply.
Thursday, December 28, 1916. I have been questioned several times about Buchanan's relations with the liberal parties, and actually asked in all seriousness if he is not secretly working for a revolution. On each occasion I have protested with all my might. In the first place, in all our daily conversations, which have been as cordial and frank as anyone could wish, I have never caught a word or a hint, however slight, which has given me ground for thinking that he is in touch with the revolutionary leaders. In any case, all I know of his character would be enough to give the lie to the rle attributed to him. We have been friends since 1907; we were colleagues at Sofia for four years and passed through the dangerous crisis of Bulgarian independence together; for the last three years we have been working side by side here: we have thus pretty well found each other out. I say that I do not know a more upright man, or a more perfect gentleman, than Sir George Buchanan. He is the soul of honour and loyalty; he would think it an utter disgrace to intrigue against a sovereign to whose court he is accredited. Old Prince Viazemsky, to whom I have just been talking in this strain, protested with a challenging glance: "But if his Government has ordered him to encourage our anarchists, he is obliged to do so!" I retorted: "If his Government ordered him to steal a fork the next time he dines with the Emperor, do you think he would obey?" The charge now made against Buchanan by the reactionaries has an historical precedent. After the assassination of Paul I, it was alleged that the plot had been conceived and planned by the British Government. The legend soon gained acceptance; a few years later it was almost the official truth. It was actually embellished with certain details: the ambassador. Lord Whitworth, had personally organized the crime and bribed the participants through his mistress, the beautiful Olga Jerebtsov, a sister of one of the conspirators, Prince Plato Zubov. It was forgotten that Lord Whitworth had left Russia in April, 1800, i.e., eleven months before the tragedy.
Friday. December 29, 1916. The Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, whose next congress was recently forbidden,
have secretly adopted a motion. Its most striking passage runs thus: Our salvation lies in a deep sense of our responsibility to the country. When power becomes an obstacle in the road to victory, the whole land must shoulder the responsibility for the fate of Russia. The Government, which has become the tool of occult forces, is leading Russia to her ruin and shaking the imperial throne. We must create a government worthy of a great people at one of the gravest moments of its history. In the critical struggle upon which it has entered, may the Duma come up to what the country expects of it! There is not a day to lose! Countess R-----, who has just spent three days in Moscow ordering clothes from the famous dressmaker, Lomanova, confirms what I have recently heard about the rage of the Muscovites against the imperial family: "I dined in different circles each evening," she said. "Everywhere one hears the same indignant outcry. If the Emperor appeared on the Red Square to-day, he would be booed. The Empress would be torn to pieces. The kind, warm-hearted and pure-minded Grand Duchess Elizabeth dare not leave her convent now. The workmen accuse her of starving the people. There seems to be a stir of revolution among all classes."
Saturday, December 30, 1916. About seven o'clock this evening an excellent informer, who is at my service, told me that Rasputin was murdered this morning during a supper at the Yussupov palace. The murderers are said to be young Prince Felix Yussupov, (who married a niece of the Tsar in 1914) the Grand Duke Dimitri, son of the Grand Duke Paul, and Purishkevitch, leader of the Extreme Right in the Duma. Two or three society women are supposed to have been present at supper. The news is still being kept a strict secret. Before telegraphing to Paris, I tried to obtain some confirmation of what I have just heard. I immediately went to see Countess K-----. She telephoned to Madame Golovin, a relation of hers and the great friend and protectoress of Rasputin. A weeping voice replied: "Yes, the Father disappeared last night. No one knows what's become of him. It's a horrible disaster!" The news was circulating in the Yacht Club by the evening. The Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch refused to credit it: "We've had Rasputin's death announced too often before. Each time he has come back to life, and more powerful than ever!" However, he telephoned to Trepov, the President of the Council, who replied: "All I know is that Rasputin has disappeared; I presume he has been murdered. I can't tell you
any more: It's the Chief of the Okhrana who has the matter in hand."
Sunday, December 31, 1916. Rasputin's corpse has not yet been found. The Empress is stricken with grief. She has begged the Emperor, who is at Mohilev, to return to her at once. It is confirmed that the murderers are Prince Felix Yussupov, the Grand Duke Dimitri and Purishkevitch. There was no lady present at supper. If so, how was Rasputin enticed to the Yussupov palace? Judging by the little I know, it is the presence of Purishkevitch which gives the drama its real meaning and high political interest. The Grand Duke Dimitri is a young man about town of twenty-five, active, a fervent patriot and capable of courage in the hour of battle, but flighty and impulsive; it seems to me he plunged blindly into this adventure. Prince Felix Yussupov is twenty-nine and gifted with quick wits and sthetic tastes; but his dilettantism is rather too prone to perverse imaginings and literary representations of vice and death, so I am afraid that he has regarded the murder of Rasputin mainly as a scenario worthy of his favourite author, Oscar Wilde. In any case his instincts., countenance and manner make. him much closer akin to the hero of Dorian Grey than to Brutus or Lorenzaccio. On the other hand, Purishkevitch, who is over fifty, is a man of doctrine and action. He has made himself the champion of orthodox absolutism; he brings equal vehemence and skill to his advocacy of the theory of the "Tsar Autocrat, God's Emissary." In 1905 he was the president of the famous reactionary league, the Association of the Russian People, and he it was who inspired and directed the terrible pogroms against the Jews. His participation in the murder of Rasputin throws light on the whole attitude of the Extreme Right in the last few months; it means that the champions of autocracy, feeling themselves threatened by the Empress's madness, are determined to defend themselves in spite. of the Emperor; and if necessary against him. I was at the Marie Theatre this evening, where Sleeping Beauty, Tchakovski's picturesque ballet, was given, with Smirnova as premiere danseuse. Of course, the only topic of conversation was yesterday's drama, and as nothing definite is known, the Russian imagination was given free rein; Smirnova's leaps, pirouettes and "arabesques" were not more fantastic than the stories which passed from lip to lip. During the first interval, Count Nani Mocenigo, Councillor of the Italian embassy, said to me: "We're back in the days of the Borgias, Ambassador! Doesn't yesterday's supper remind you of the famous banquet of Sinigaglia?" "The resemblance is but a remote one. There is not merely the difference of time; there's the difference---and a far more vital one---of civilization and character. So far as cunning and
treachery are concerned, yesterday's crime is certainly not unworthy of the satanic Csar. But it isn't the bellissimo inganno, as the Valentinois called it. Magnificence in lust and villainy is not given to everyone."
Monday, January 1, 1917. If I must judge solely by the constellations of the Russian sky, the new year is beginning under bad auspices. Everywhere I see anxiety and down-heartedness. No one takes any more interest in the war, no one believes in victory any longer; the public anticipates and is resigned to the most evil happenings. This morning I was discussing with Pokrovski the draft reply to the American note on our war aims. We tried to find a formula on the subject of Poland; I pointed out that the complete restoration of the State of Poland, involving the recovery of Posen from Prussia, is of vital importance; we must therefore proclaim our intentions far and wide. Pokrovski agrees in principle, but hesitates to commit himself, for fear of giving the Allies a right to meddle in the affairs of Poland. I smilingly protested: "You seem to be borrowing your arguments from Count Nesselrode, or Prince Gortchakov." He smiled in turn, and replied: "Give me a few days more to escape from such archaic influences." Then he became serious once more, and in low tones re-read the draft we had been discussing. He added in a grave voice: "How splendid all this is. But what a long way we are from it! Just look at the present situation!" I consoled him to the best of my ability, telling him that our complete and final victory depends solely on our own endurance and energy. Sighing deeply, he replied: '"But just look what's going on here!" . On orders from the Empress, General Maximovitch, A.D.C., General of the Emperor, yesterday arrested the Grand Duke Dimitri, who is confined under police observation to his palace on the Nevsky Prospekt.
Tuesday, January 2, 1917. Rasputin's corpse was discovered yesterday in the ice of the little Nevka, alongside Krestovsky Island and near the Bielosselsky palace. Up to the last moment the Empress has been hoping that "God would spare her her comforter and only friend." The police are not allowing any details of the drama to be published. Besides, the Okhrana is pursuing its enquiries in such secrecy that even this morning Trepov; the President of the Council, replied to the impatient questions of the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch: "Monseigneur, I swear to you that I have nothing whatever to do with what is going on, and know nothing of the enquiry." There was great rejoicing among the public when it heard of the death of Rasputin the day before yesterday. People kissed each other in the streets and many went to burn candles in Our Lady of Kazan. When it was known that the Grand Duke Dimitri was one of the assassins there was a crush to light candles before the ikons of Saint Dimitri. The murder of Grigori is the sole topic of conversation among the unending queues of women who wait in the snow and wind at the doors of the butchers and grocers to secure their share of meat, tea, sugar, etc. They are saying that Rasputin was thrown into the Nevka alive, and approvingly quoting the proverb: Sabky, sabtchya smerte! "A dog's death for a dog!" They are also whispering that the Grand Duchess Tatiana, the Emperor's second daughter, witnessed the drama disguised as a lieutenant of the Chevaliers-Gardes, so that she could revenge herself on Rasputin who had tried to violate her. And carrying the vindictive ferocity of the moujik into the world of the Court, they add that to satiate her thirst for vengeance the dying Grigori was castrated before her eyes. Another popular story is this: "Rasputin was still breathing when he was thrown under the ice of the Nevka. It is very important, for if so he will never become a saint." It is a fact that the Russian masses believe that the drowned can never be canonized.
Wednesday, January 3, 1917. As soon as Rasputin's body was taken from the Nevka it was conveyed with much mystery to the Tchesma Veterans' Home, five kilometres from Petrograd on the Tsarskoe-Selo road. After Professor Kossorotov had made an examination of the body and noted the marks of the wounds, Sister Akulina, the young nun whom Rasputin knew in the old days at the nunnery of
Okhta where he exorcised her, was brought into the room where the autopsy was performed. Armed with an order from the Empress she proceeded to lay out the body, assisted solely by a hospital orderly. No one else has been admitted to the presence of the dead man: his wife and daughters, and even his most fervent disciples, have pleaded in vain for permission to see him for the last time. The pious Akulina, once possessed by the Evil One, spent half the night in washing the body, embalming its wounds, dressing it in new garments and laying it in the coffin. She ended up by placing a crucifix on the breast and putting a letter from the Empress into the dead man's hands. This is the wording of the letter, as reported to me by Madame T-----, who was the staretz's friend and also a great friend of Sister Akulina: My dear martyr, give me thy blessing, that it may follow me always on the sad and dreary path I have yet to traverse here below. And remember us from on high in your holy prayers! ALEXANDRA. The next morning, which was yesterday, the Empress and Madame Virubova came to pray over the corpse of their friend, which they smothered with flowers, ikons and tears. Many a time in my journeys to Tsarskoe-Selo have I passed the Tchesma home, an old pleasure palace built by Catherine II, which can be seen from the road through the trees. At this time of the year, under a winter sky and lost in the immensity of the fog-bound, icy plain, the place is mournful and melancholy. It was a very proper setting for yesterday's scene. Has the great dramatist of History conceived many episodes more pathetic than this baneful Tsarina and her pernicious companion, weeping over the swelling corpse of the lustful moujik whom they loved so madly and Russia will curse for centuries? About midnight the coffin was conveyed to Tsarskoe-Selo in charge of Madame Golovin and Colonel Loman, and then laid in a chapel of the imperial park.
Thursday, January 4, 1917. I have been to see Kokovtsov in his neat and irreproachable flat on the Mokhovaa. Never before has the ex-President of the Council, whose pessimism has so often proved justified, given utterance to such gloomy forebodings in my presence. He is prophesying a palace drama or revolution in the very near future. "It's a very long time since I last saw His Majesty," he said. " But I have a very close friend who sees the sovereigns frequently, and has been working with the Emperor during the last few days. The reports this friend gives me are deplorable. The Empress is outwardly calm but silent and absorbed. The Emperor has hollow cheeks, a parched throat and looks ill; he has spoken in terms
of bitter reproach of the members of the Council of Empire who have taken the liberty of addressing remonstrances to him while still professing their attachment to autocracy. So he has made up his mind to change the president and vice-president of this high assembly, whose functions expire on the 14th January, but who are normally always retained in office. The Emperor's irritation with the Council of Empire is diligently fed by the Empress, who has been told that certain members of the Extreme Right are talking about having her repudiated and shut up in a nunnery. I'll tell you a secret. Trepov came to me see this morning to say that he doesn't wish to bear the responsibilities of office any longer and has offered the Emperor to resign the post of President of the Council. Now you'll understand that I have good cause to be anxious!" "In short," I said, "it becomes increasingly clear that the present crisis is a conflict between the Emperor and the natural, official defenders of autocracy. If the Emperor does not give way, do you think we shall see a repetition of the tragedy of Paul I? "I'm afraid so." "But what line will the parties of the Left take?" "The parties of the Left (I mean in the Duma) will probably be kept out of the drama; they knew that the course of events can only turn to their advantage and they will wait. But as regards the masses, it's a different story." "Do you anticipate their appearance on the scene already?" "I don't think that any political incident of the moment or even a palace drama would be enough to cause a popular rising. But there will be a rising the moment a military disaster or a famine occurs." I then told Kokovtsov that I intend to ask an audience of the Emperor: "Officially I can only discuss diplomatic and military affairs with him. But, if I feel he is becoming confidential, I shall try to draw him into the sphere of domestic politics." "For heaven's sake, don't shrink from telling him everything!" "If he consents to hear me, I shall stop at nothing. If he turns the conversation, I shall confine myself to telling him how anxious I am about what is going on, matters which I have no right to mention to him." "Perhaps you're right. In the Emperor's present frame of mind, he can only be approached with great caution; but as I know he has a feeling of friendship for you I shouldn't be surprised if he lets himself go a bit before you." Since the Grand Duke Dimitri has been under arrest in his palace on the Nevsky Prospekt, his friends are not without anxiety for his personal safety. On the strength of information, the source of which I do not know, they are afraid that Protopopov, the Minister of the Interior, has decided to have him murdered by one of the police officers appointed to guard him. The plot, planned by the Okhrana, would take the form of a feigned attempt at escape; the police officer would pretend that his life had been threatened by the Grand Duke and he had been obliged to defend himself with his arms.
To be ready for any eventuality, Trepov, the President of the Council, has sent an order to General Kabalov, the Governor of Petrograd, to post infantry at the grand-ducal palace. So for every policeman there is a sentry who keeps an eye on him.
Friday, January 5, 1917. To throw public curiosity and surmise off the scent, the Okhrana is spreading a rumour that Rasputin's coffin has been conveyed to his native village of Pokrovskoe, near Tobolsk, or to a monastery in the Urals. As a matter of fact, the obsequies were celebrated with the greatest secrecy at Tsarskoe-Selo last night. The coffin was buried in a plot of ground which Madame Virubova and two Moscow merchants bought recently on the edge of the imperial park, near Alexandrovka, with a view to building a chapel and almshouse upon it. About a month ago Monsignor Pitirim came to give this piece of land his official blessing. The only persons present at the interment were the Emperor, the Empress, the four young Grand Duchesses, Protopopov, Madame Virubova, Colonels Loman and Maltzev and the officiating priest, Father Vassiliev, archpriest of the Court. The Empress has secured possession of the blood-stained blouse of the "martyr Grigori" and is preserving it piously as a relic, a palladium on which the fate of her dynasty hangs. . That same evening, an industrial magnate, Bogdanov, was giving a dinner at his house; the guests comprised a member of the imperial family, Prince Gabriel Constantinovitch, several officers (among them Count Kaprisit, A.D.C. to the Minister of War), Oserov, a member of the Council of Empire, and several representatives of high finance, including Putilov. During the meal, which was very animated, the only topic of conversation was the situation at home. Helped by champagne, the company painted it in the blackest colours, with that riotous pessimism in which the Russian imagination delights. In conversation with Prince Gabriel, Oserov and Putilov insisted that in their opinion the only way to save the reigning house and the monarchical system is to summon a meeting of all the members of the imperial family, the party leaders in the Council of Empire and the Duma, and representatives of the nobility and the army, to declare that the Emperor is weak, unequal to his task, and unfit to reign any longer, and to proclaim the accession of the Tsarevitch under the regency of one of the Grand Dukes. So far from protesting, Prince Gabriel confined himself to putting forward certain practical
objections, but promised to let his uncles and cousins know what he had just been told. The evening ended with a toast "to an intelligent Tsar, conscious of his duties and worthy of his people!" The Emperor has refused Trepov's resignation without a word of explanation. In the course of the evening I have heard that there is great excitement and agitation in the family of the Romanovs. Several Grand Dukes, among whom I am told are the three sons of the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, Cyril, Boris and Andrew, are talking of nothing less than saving tsarism by a change of sovereign. With the help of four regiments of the guard, whose loyalty is said to be already shaken, there would be a night march on Tsarskoe-Selo; the monarchs would be seized, the Emperor shown the necessity of abdicating and the Empress shut up in a nunnery. Then the accession of the Tsarevitch Alexis would he proclaimed under the regency of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch. The promoters of this scheme think that the Grand Duke Dimitri, by his share in the murder of Rasputin, is marked out by fate to direct the plot and win over the troops. His cousins, Cyril and Andrew Vladimirovitch., went to see him in his palace on the Nevsky Prospekt and begged and prayed him to "persevere relentlessly with his work of national salvation." After a long mental conflict, Dimitri Pavlovitch finally refused to "lay hands on the Emperor;" his last word was: "I will not break my oath of fealty." The troops of the guard, with some of whom the organizers of the plot have already got into communication, are the Pavlovsky Regiment (barracks in the Champ de Mars), the Preobrajensky Regiment (barracks near the Winter Palace), the Ismailovsky Regiment (barracks off the Obvodny Canal), the Guard Cossacks (barracks behind St. Alexander Nevsky Monastery) and a squadron of the regiment of the Emperor's Hussars, who are in garrison at Tsarskoe-Selo. The Okhrana knew almost immediately what was going on in the barracks. Bieletzky has been instructed to open an enquiry conjointly with his present enquiry into the murder of Rasputin. His principal colleague is Colonel of Gendarmerie Nevdakov, head of the detective force to which the safety of the Emperor is entrusted; he recently succeeded General Spiridovitch.
Saturday, January 6, 1917. The most contradictory and absurd versions of the murder of Rasputin are still circulating in every quarter. The mystery is all the greater because at the very first moment the famous Bieletzky, ex-Director of the Police Department and now a senator, was commissioned by the Empress to conduct the enquiry in Person. He set to work at once with General Globatchev, Chief of the Okhrana, and his Deputy-Chief, Colonel Kirpitchnikov. When insisting that all the powers of the Okhrana should be concentrated in Bieletzky's hands for the purpose of the enquiry, the Tsarina emphatically remarked: "He's the only man I trust; I shall only believe what
I hear from him, and him alone. . ." From two different sources, one of which is peculiarly private and personal, I have obtained a quantity of information which enables me to reconstruct the principal phases of the murder. I am assured that the details agree with the facts so far established by the police enquiry. The drama took place in the night of December 29-30 at the palace of Prince Yussupov, No. 94, Moka Quay. Prior to that date, Felix Yussupov's relations with Rasputin had been purely casual and indefinite. To entice him to his residence he resorted to a not particularly pleasant device. On the 28th December he went to the staretz's house and said to him: "My wife came back from the Crimea yesterday and is extremely anxious to meet you. She would like to see you quite privately and have a quiet talk with you. Won't you come and take tea to-morrow evening at our house? You must come rather late, about half-past eleven, as my mother-in-law is dining with us; but she will certainly have left by then." The idea of making friends with Princess Irene, a very pretty woman, who is a daughter of the Grand Duke Alexander Michalovitch and a niece of the Emperor, took Rasputin's fancy immediately, and he promised to come. But., contrary to Yussupov's statement, Princess Irene was still in the Crimea. About eleven o'clock the next evening (December 29), all the conspirators met at the Yussupov palace, in one of the rooms on the first floor where supper was served. Prince Felix had with him the Grand Duke Dimitri. Purishkevitch, a member of the Duma, Captain Sukhotin and a Polish doctor, Stanislas de Lazovert, who is in charge of one of the great medical departments of the army. Whatever rumour may say, there was no orgy at the Yussupov palace that night; no ladies were present at the gathering, whether Princess R-----, or Madame D-----, or Countess P-----, or the dancer Karally. At a quarter past eleven Prince Felix drove in his car to Rasputin's residence which is No. 68, Gorokhovaa, about two kilometres from the Moka. Yussupov groped his way up Rasputin's staircase, for the lights of the house were out and the night was exceedingly dark. In this darkness he could not find his way. When on the point of ringing, he thought he had mistaken the door and even the right floor. Then he said to himself: "If I'm wrong, it means that fate is against me and Rasputin must live." He rang. The door was opened by Rasputin in person; his faithful servant Dunia, followed him. "I've come for you, Father, as we arranged," said Yussupov. "My car is at the door." And in Russian fashion, with a great show of affection, he gave the staretz a resounding kiss on the mouth. Rasputin, suspicious by nature, protested in a mocking tone: "Heavens! What a kiss, boy! I hope it isn't the kiss of Judas . . . Come, let's go! You go in front! Good-bye, Dunia!"
Ten minutes later, i.e. about midnight, they got out of the car at the palace on the Moka. Yussupov introduced his guest into a small room on the ground floor leading into the garden. The Grand Duke Dimitri, Purishkevitch, Captain Sukhotin and Dr. de Lazovert waited on the upper floor from which the sound of a gramophone playing dance music could be heard from time to time. Yussupov said to Rasputin: "My mother-in-law is still up there with a few young friends of ours, but they are all just about to go. My wife will then join us at once. Let's sit down!" They seated themselves in large armchairs, and talked about occultism and spiritualism. The staretz never required any invitation to discourse on such subjects to his heart's content. In any case, he was in great form that evening; his eyes sparkled and he seemed very pleased with himself. With a view to enlisting all the arts of seduction in his attack on young Princess Irene, he had put on his best clothes, his ceremonial get-up; he was wearing wide trousers of black velvet disappearing into new top boots, a white silk blouse with blue embroidery and a sash of black satin trimmed with gold braid, which was a present from the Tsarina. Between the chairs in which Yussupov and his guest, were lounging a table had previously been placed; on it stood two plates of cream cakes, a bottle of Marsala and a tray with six glasses. The cakes nearest to Rasputin had been poisoned with cyanide of potassium, supplied by a doctor from Obukhov Hospital, who is a friend of Prince Felix. Each of the three glasses by the side of these cakes contained three decigrams of cyanide, dissolved in a few drops of water. Small though it may seem, this is a tremendous dose, four centigrammes alone being fatal. Hardly had conversation begun before Yussupov casually filled a glass of each kind and took a cake from the plate nearest to him. "Aren't you drinking, Father Grigori?" he asked the staretz. "No, I'm not thirsty." The conversation continued in lively tones on the practices of spiritualism, spell-binding and divination. Once again Yussupov invited Rasputin to have something to eat and drink. Declined again. As the clock was striking one, Grishka suddenly lost patience and cried out rudely: "Why isn't your wife coming down! You know I'm not used to being kept waiting. No one ever takes the liberty of keeping me waiting---not even the Empress." Knowing how swift to anger Rasputin is, Felix murmured soothingly: "If Irene isn't here in a few minutes I'll fetch her." "You'd better; I'm beginning to get very tired of this place." In a casual tone, but with fear gripping at his throat, Yussupov tried to get the conversation going
again. Suddenly the staretz emptied his glass. Smacking his lips, he said: "Your marsala is lovely. I could drink lots of it!" Yussupov mechanically filled the two other glasses which contained the rest of the cyanide but not the glass which Grishka held out to him. Rasputin snatched one and tossed down the contents at one gulp. Yussupov expected to see his victim totter and collapse. But poison does not always have any effect. Another glassful. Still no effect. The murderer, who had hitherto displayed remarkable nerve and self-possession, began to feel very uncomfortable. On the excuse of going to fetch Princess Irene, he left the room and went upstairs to consult his accomplices. The conference was a short one. Purishkevitch emphatically declared in favour of precipitating the crisis. "If we don't," he said "the beast will escape us. And as he's at any rate half-poisoned, we shall reap the full consequences of the crime without any of the advantages." "But I haven't a revolver," said Yussupov. "Take mine!" replied the Grand Duke Dimitri. Yussupov went back to the ground floor holding the Grand Duke's revolver in his left hand, behind his back. "My wife is exceedingly sorry to have kept you waiting," he said; "her guests have only just left; she's following me." But Rasputin could hardly hear what he was saying; he was striding up and down, puffing and blowing. The cyanide was working. Still Yussupov hesitated to use his weapon. Suppose he missed! Being slight and effeminate, he was afraid to attack the burly moujik from in front; the latter could have knocked him out with one blow of his fist. But there was no time to lose. At any moment Rasputin might discover that he had fallen into a trap, catch his enemy by the throat and escape over his prostrate body. Recovering his self-possession, Yussupov walked casually to the far end of the room, stopped at a table on which various objets d'art were laid out, and said: "As you're on your legs, come and have a look at this fine Italian Renaissance crucifix I bought recently." "Show it me; you can't look too often at the image of Our Lord crucified." The staretz walked up to the table. " Here you are," said Yussupov. "Look at it. Isn't it beautiful!" As Rasputin was bending over the sacred figure, Yussupov stood on his left and fired twice into
his ribs, almost point blank. Rasputin cried out "Oh!" and he fell in a heap on the floor. Yussupov stooped down to the body, felt the pulse, examined the eye by raising the lid and could see no sign of life. At the sound of the shots, the accomplices upstairs rushed down at once. The Grand Duke Dimitri said: "Now we must throw him in the water quick. I'll go and find my car." His companions went back to the first floor to arrange how to move the body. Twelve minutes later Yussupov returned to the room downstairs to have a look at his victim. He shrank back in horror. Rasputin had half risen, supporting himself on his hands. With a supreme effort he staggered to his feet, brought his heavy fist down on Yussupov's shoulder and tore off his epaulette, saying in a last whisper: "You wretch! You'll be hung to-morrow! I'm going to tell the Empress everything!" Yussupov shook him off with great difficulty, ran out of the room and went upstairs again. White to the lips and covered with blood, he called to his accomplices in a choking voice: "He's still alive! He spoke to me! Then he collapsed on a sofa in a dead faint. Purishkevitch seized him in his rough hands, shook him, lifted him, took away his revolver and dragged him with the other conspirators to the room on the ground floor. The staretz was not there. He had had strength enough to open the door leading to the garden and was dragging himself over the snow. Purishkevitch fired one bullet into his neck and another into his body, while Yussupov, now a yelling maniac, went to fetch a bronze candlestick and battered in his victim's skull with it. It was a quarter past two in the morning. At the same moment, the Grand Duke Dimitri's car drew up at the little gate of the garden. Assisted by a servant on whom they could rely, the conspirators wrapped Rasputin in his cloak and even put on his overshoes, so that nothing incriminating should be left in the palace. They lifted the body into the car, in which the Grand Duke Dimitri, Dr. de Lazovert and Captain Sukhotin quickly took their places. Then the car made for Krestovsky Island at full speed, Lazovert showing the way. Captain Sukhotin had explored the banks on the previous evening. On a signal from him, the car stopped by a small bridge below which the swift current had produced a mass of ice-floes with holes between them. Not without difficulty, the three accomplices carried their heavy victim to
the edge of a hole and threw it in the water. But the practical difficulties of the operation, the intense darkness of the night, the icy hiss of the wind, fear of discovery and anxiety to get it all over put their nerves on edge to such an extent that they did not notice that, in thrusting the corpse in by the feet, they knocked off one of the goloshes which remained on the ice. It was the discovery of this golosh which three days later showed the police where the body had been thrown in. While this sinister task was in progress on Krestovsky island, something happened at the palace on the Moka where Prince Felix and Purishkevitch had been left alone, and were occupied in feverishly obliterating all traces of the murder. When Rasputin left his residence on the Gorokhovaa, an agent of the Okhrana, Tikhomirov, whose function it was to watch over the safety of the staretz, had immediately posted himself so as to keep an eye on the Yussupov palace. Of the preliminaries of the drama he necessarily had no knowledge. But if he could not hear the two revolver shots which wounded Rasputin, he heard those fired in the garden quite clearly. He began to feel uneasy and hastily went off to advise the police lieutenant at the nearest station. When they returned together, they saw a car leave the Yussupov palace and tear away at top speed towards the Blue Bridge. The police lieutenant wanted to enter the palace, but the Prince's majordomo, who received him at the door, said: "What has happened has nothing to do with you. His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Dimitri will inform the proper authority to-morrow. You must go away!" The lieutenant pushed his way in. In the vestibule he found Purishkevitch who said to him: "We've just killed the man who was disgracing Russia." "Where is the body?" "You shall not know. We are sworn to absolute secrecy about what has happened." The lieutenant returned post haste to his station on the Morskaa and telephoned to Colonel Grigoriev, Chief of Police of the 2nd District. Barely half an hour had elapsed before General Balk, Prefect of Police, General Count Tatichev, Commander-in-Chief of the Gendarmerie, General Globatchev, head of the Okhrana, and Vassiliev, Director of the Police Department, arrived at the Yussupov palace.
Sunday, January 7, 1917. Pokrovsky told me yesterday evening that the Emperor would receive me at 6 p.m. to-day; he added:
"I beg of you to talk to him frankly, without any reserve . . . You can do us such a great service!" "If only the Emperor will be good enough to listen to me, I'll tell him everything that's on my mind. But I know his present frame of mind and my task will not be easy." "1 hope God will inspire you!" "It is far more important that a certain person should give God a chance of inspiring me!" Shortly before six I was taken into the palace of Tsarskoe-Selo by Tieplov, the Master of the Ceremonies. who has accompanied me from Petrograd in the imperial train. Prince Dolgorukov, Marshal of the Court, and the A.D.C. on duty received me at the door of the main drawing-room. When we reached the library, which is next to the Emperor's study and the spot where the Ethiopian sentry keeps his motionless watch and ward, we chatted together for ten minutes or so. We talked about the war and the very long time it will still last; we again pledged our faith in final victory; we recognized the necessity of telling the world that we are more determined than ever to shatter the power of the Germanics, etc. But the strong words of those with whom I was speaking were contradicted by the gloomy and anxious expression of their faces and the unuttered counsel I could read in their eyes: "For God's sake, speak your mind to His Majesty!" The Ethiopian opened the door. The moment I entered, I was struck by the Emperor's tired look and his anxious and absorbed expression. "I asked Your Majesty to receive me," I said, "because I have always received great encouragement from you and I need encouragement very badly to-day." He answered in a dead, dull voice, which I had never heard before: "I am still ruthlessly determined to continue the war until victory, decisive and complete victory. Of course you have read my recent prikaz to the army?" "Yes, indeed, and I admire the spirit of confidence and unfailing energy which animates the document. But what a gap, what a gulf there is between this glowing declaration of your sovereign will and the facts as they are." The Emperor looked at me, suspicion in his eye. I continued: "In that prikaz you proclaim your inflexible determination to conquer Constantinople. But how will your armies get there? Are you not alarmed at what is happening in Rumania? If a halt is not called at once to the retreat of the Russian troops, will they not have to evacuate the whole of Moldavia before long and retire behind the Pruth, or even the Dniester? And in that case, do you not fear that Germany will organize a provisional government at Bucharest, raise another Hohenzollern to the throne and then make peace with a Rumania thus restored?" "It is certainly a very alarming possibility, so I am doing everything possible to increase General Sakharov's army; but the transport and supply difficulties are colossal. Still, I hope that in ten
days or so we shall be able to resume the offensive in Moldavia." "Oh! In ten days! Then are the thirty-one infantry divisions and twelve cavalry divisions which General Sakharov demanded already on the spot He replied evasively: "I cannot say; I don't remember. But he already has many troops, very many . . . And I shall send him many more, many more . . ." "Very soon?" "I hope so." The conversation feebly dragged on. I did not succeed in fixing either the Emperor's eyes or attention. We seemed to be a thousand miles from each other. Then I resorted to the great argument I have always found so effective in opening the gates of his mind: I invoked the memory of his father, Alexander III, whose portrait hung above us as we talked: "You have often told me, Sire, that at difficult moments you have appealed to your beloved father and never appealed in vain. May his noble spirit inspire you now! The situation is so serious!" "Yes, my father's memory is a great help to me." And with that vague remark he again let the conversation drop. With a disconsolate sigh, I continued "I see, Sire, that I shall leave this room far more anxious than when I came in. For the first time, I feel that Your Majesty's thoughts and mine are not in touch." He protested affectionately: "But I have every confidence in you! We have so many common memories, and I know I can count on your friendship!" "It is because of that very friendship that you see me so sad and anxious; I have only told you the least part of my fears. There is one subject on which the ambassador of France has no right to speak to you; you can guess what it is. But I should be unworthy of the confidence you have always shown in me if I did not admit that all the symptoms which have struck me for several weeks, the horrible doubts I observe among the best minds, the anxiety I see written on the faces of your most loyal subjects, are making me very alarmed for the future of Russia." "I know that there is great excitement in the Petrograd drawing-rooms." Without giving me time to deal with these words, he asked me quite casually.. "What's become of our friend Ferdinand of Bulgaria?"
I replied in the coldest and most official tone: "I have heard nothing of him for many months, Sire." I lapsed into silence. With his usual awkward timidity, the Emperor could find nothing to say. But he did not dismiss me; no doubt he did not want me to leave him with painful impressions. Gradually his features relaxed and his face lit up with a sad smile. I felt sorry for him and came to his rescue. On the table near which we were seated I noticed a dozen magnificently bound volumes with the monogram of Napoleon I: "Your Majesty has paid the ambassador of France a delicate compliment by having these books by you to-day. Napoleon is a great master to consult at critical moments; no man ever gave Fate greater shocks." "That's why I revere him so much." I kept back the reply: "Yes, but a very platonic reverence!" The Emperor rose and accompanied me to the door, holding my hand long and affectionately in his own. While the imperial train was taking me back to Petrograd through a blinding snowstorm, I reviewed my memories of this audience. The Emperor's words, his silences and reticences, his grave, drawn features and furtive, distant gaze, the impenetrability of his thoughts and the thoroughly vague and enigmatical quality of his personality, confirm me in a notion which has been haunting me for months, the notion that Nicholas II feels himself overwhelmed and dominated by events, that he has lost all faith in his mission or his work, that he has so to speak abdicated inwardly and is now resigned to disaster and ready for the sacrificial altar. Thus his last prikaz to the army, with its proud claim to Poland and Constantinople, can only be what I thought it at the time, a kind of political will, a final announcement of the glorious vision he had imagined for Russia and which he now sees dissolving into thin air.
Monday, January 8, 1917. By imperial order the Grand Duke Dimitri has been sent to Kasvin, in Persia, where he will be attached to the staff of one of the combatant armies. Prince Felix Yussupov has been banished to his estate in the Government of Kursk (South Russia). In the case of Purishkevitch, his prestige among the rural masses and his enormous influence with the reactionary party as one of the leaders of the "Black Bands " have made the Emperor reflect that it would be dangerous to strike at him; he has been left at liberty. But on the day after the murder he left for the front where the military police are keeping him under observation. The idea of removing Rasputin seems to have been conceived in the brain of Felix Yussupov about the middle of November. He is said to have mentioned the matter then to one of the leaders of the "Cadet" party, the brilliant lawyer, Basil Maklakov; but at that stage he was
thinking of having thestaretz killed by hired assassins and not of doing the deed himself. Apparently the lawyer dissuaded him from that course: "The wretches who agreed to kill Rasputin for pay would promptly go and sell you to the Okhrana the moment they had your money in their pockets." In his perplexity Yussupov is supposed to have asked: "Couldn't reliable men be found? " To which Maklakov wittily replied: "I don't know; I don't keep a murderers' agency!" It was on the second December that Felix Yussupov made up his mind to act himself. On that day he was present in a front box at the public sitting of the Duma. Purishkevitch had just mounted the tribune and was thundering out his terrible indictment of the "occult forces which are disgracing Russia." When the orator cried to the quivering assembly: "To your feet, you Ministers! Go to the Stavka, fall on your knees before the Tsar, and don't shrink from telling him that the nation is murmuring in its fury and that an obscure moujik shall govern Russia no longer!" Yussupov was shaken by uncontrollable emotion. Madame P-----, who was sitting by him, saw him all of a sudden turn pale and tremble. The next day, December 3, he went to Purishkevitch. After swearing him to secrecy, he told him that for some time he had been making friends with Rasputin with the idea of discovering what intrigues he was plotting at court, and that he had shrunk from no subterfuge to gain his confidence: he had been wonderfully successful, as he had learned from thestaretz's own lips that the Tsarina's supporters were proposing that Nicholas II should be deposed and the Tsarevitch Alexis proclaimed emperor under the regency of his mother, and the first act of the new reign would be to offer peace to the Teutonic Empires. Seeing Purishkevitch utterly overwhelmed by this revelation, Yussupov then revealed his scheme of killing Rasputin and added: "I should like to be able to count on your help, Vladimir Mitophanovitch, to deliver Russia from the ghastly nightmare with which she is contending." Purishkevitch has a warm heart and great rapidity of decision, and he enthusiastically assented. Then and there they planned the scheme of the trap and fixed the date of December 29 for its execution. The French, English and Italian delegates to the allied conference were to have left for Petrograd about this time, but Buchanan, Carlotti and I are advising our governments to postpone their departure. It is futile to expose them to the fatigue and risks of a voyage through the Arctic if they will only find an utterly helpless government here.
Volume III, Chapter Six Table of Contents
AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER VI JANUARY 9-28, 1917. The imperial family address a joint appeal to Nicholas II; the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna confides her sorrows and anxieties to me.---My English colleague, Sir George Buchanan, tries to tackle the Emperor on the problems of domestic politics; he receives cutting replies.---A storybook element in the conspiracy of the Grand Dukes.---Reception of the Diplomatic Corps at Tsarskoe-Selo, on the first day of the orthodox New Year; lugubrious impressions.---The Emperor's rage with the Grand Dukes; an historical precedent.---The Crown Prince of Rumania arrives in Petrograd; cordial relations between Russia and Rumania.---A talk with the Grand Duke Paul about his son's share in Rasputin murder.---An A.D.C. General of the Emperor ventures to advise him to send away the Empress; Nicholas II's chivalrous attitude.---The ghost of Rasputin; nocturnal apparitions.---What the magician Papus thought of the staretz; future miracles. Tuesday, January 9, 1917. Sir George Buchanan, who is no less anxious than I am about the situation, thinks that the Emperor might possibly listen to advice from his cousin, the King of England, and has therefore asked Balfour to have a personal telegram from the King sent to the Tsar. When delivering this telegram, Buchanan would impressively add the necessary comments. Balfour approved of this step, and Buchanan has just prayed an audience of the Emperor. Yesterday evening Prince Gabriel Constantinovitch gave a supper to his mistress, formerly an actress. The guests included the Grand Duke Boris, Prince Igor Constantinovitch, Putilov, Colonel Shegubatov, a few officers and a squad of elegant courtesans. During the evening the only topic of conversation was the conspiracy,---the regiments of the Guard which can be relied on, the most favourable moment for the outbreak, etc. And all this with the servants moving about, harlots looking on and listening, gypsies singing and the whole company bathed in the aroma of Mot and Chandon, brut imprial which flowed in streams! To wind up, there was a toast to the salvation of Holy Russia.
Wednesday, January 10, 1917. About a month ago, the Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, wife of the Grand Duke Cyril, was received by the Empress and, finding her more communicative than usual, ventured to mention
certain burning topics to her. "It is with grief and horror," she said, "that I have observed the growth of hostile feeling towards your Majesty . . ." The Empress interrupted: "You're quite wrong, my dear. As a matter of fact, I've been quite wrong myself. Only quite lately I was still thinking that Russia hated me. I know now that it is only Petrograd society which hates me, the corrupt and godless society which thinks of nothing but dancing and dining and takes no interest in anything but its pleasures and adulteries, while everywhere around us blood is flowing in streams! . . . Blood! . . . Blood!" She seemed to be almost choking with rage as she uttered those words, and had to stop for a moment. Then she continued: "But now I have the great consolation that the whole of Russia---the real Russia, poor, humble, peasant Russia is with me. If I showed you the telegrams and letters I receive every day from all parts of the Empire, you'd see it all for yourself. But still I'm very grateful to you for speaking so frankly." What the poor Tsarina does not know is that Sturmer had the brilliant idea---continued and improved upon by Protopopov---of getting the Okhrana to send her every day scores of letters and telegrams worded something like this: Oh our beloved sovereign, mother and guardian of our adored Tsarevitch . . . Guardian of our traditions . . .Oh our great and good Tsarina . . . Protect us against the wicked . . . Save us from our enemies . . . Save Russia! During the last few days, her sister, the Grand Duchess Sergei, abbess of the Convent of Marthaand-Mary, came specially from Moscow to tell her of the growing exasperation of Moscow society and all the plotting that is going on in the shadow of the Kremlin. The Emperor and Empress gave her a very frigid reception; she was so amazed at it that she asked: "Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come?" "Yes, " replied the Empress drily. "Then perhaps I'd better go?" "Yes. by the first train," sternly replied the Emperor. Trepov having asked again and again to be allowed to resign was put on the "retired list " yesterday. His successor is Prince Nicholas Dimitrievitch Golitzin, a member of the Extreme Right in the Council of Empire. Hitherto his career has been purely administrative---and obscure. He is said to be sensible and honest, but weak and indolent.
In Trepov the cause of the Allies loses its strongest guarantee, and I fear that in this blunt and faithful servant the monarchy of the tsars is also losing its last pillar and its last safeguard.
Thursday, January 11, 1917. Yesterday the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna invited me to lunch to-day with my First Secretary, Charles de Chambrun. At a few minutes before one I reached the Vladimir palace. I was about to mount the stairs when General Knorring, who is attached to the Grand Duchess's person, came flying down towards me and handed a letter to a colonel who swiftly walked away. "Forgive me for not being in the vestibule to receive you," he said. "These are such serious times!" I noticed his pallor and haggard features. We had ascended a few steps together when another colonel appeared at the hall door; Knorring immediately went down again. As I reached the upper landing, through the open door of the drawing-room I caught a wonderful view of the. Neva, the Cathedral of SS. Peter-and-Paul, the bastions of the Fortress and the state prison. Seated in the embrasure of the window was the lovely Mademoiselle Olive, maid of honour to the Grand Duchess; she was lost in thought and gazing out at the Fortress. She did not hear me come. I broke in on her reverie: "Mademoiselle, I've just guessed the direction of your thoughts, if not your thoughts themselves. You seem to be looking at the prison very hard!" "Yes, I was looking at the prison. In these days one can't help looking at it." As she turned to my secretary, she added with her delightful laugh: "Will you come and see me, Monsieur de Chambrun, when I'm lying on the straw in a dungeon there?" At ten minutes past one, the Grand Duchess, who is usually very punctual, came in with her third son, the Grand Duke Andrew. She was pale and emaciated. "I'm late," she said. "But it's not my fault. You know, or at any rate you can guess what I'm going through. We'll have a quiet talk after lunch. Meanwhile, tell me about the war. What is your opinion?" I answered that notwithstanding all the doubts and difficulties of the moment, my faith in our
final victory remains absolutely unshaken. "It does me good to hear you talk like that !" Luncheon was announced. There were six of us at table; the Grand Duchess and myself, the Grand-Duke Andrew, Mademoiselle Olive, Chambrun and General Knorring. Conversation was very slow at first. And then, bit by bit and half hinting, we broached the topic which was on all our minds, the crisis at home and the great thundercloud gathering on the horizon. When we rose from table, the Grand Duchess offered me a chair next to hers and said: "Now let's talk." But a servant approached and told us that the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch had just come and been taken into the next room. The Grand Duchess apologized to me, asked the Grand Duke Andrew to look after me and went into the other room. As the door was opened, I recognized the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch: he had a high colour and his eyes were burning and grave; he had drawn himself up and was leaning forward in a fighting attitude. Five minutes later, the Grand Duchess called in her son. Mademoiselle Olive, General Knorring, Chambrun and I were left alone. "We're in the thick of a drama," Mademoiselle Olive said to us. "Did you notice how terribly upset the Grand Duchess looked? What has the Grand Duke Nicholas come to say?" At ten minutes to two, the Grand Duchess came in again, breathing rather hard. With an effort to appear self-possessed, she fired questions at me about my recent audience with the Emperor. "So you weren't able to discuss the internal situation with him? " she asked. "No, he obstinately shut his ears to that subject. After beating about the bush time and time again, I thought at one moment that I was going to force him to hear me. But he cut me short by asking me if I had had any recent news of Tsar Ferdinand!" "It's deplorable!" she said, dropping her arms in a despairing gesture. After a pause, she resumed: "What can we do? With the exception of her who is the source of all the trouble, no one has any influence with the Emperor. During the last fortnight we have all worn ourselves out with trying to prove to him that he is ruining the dynasty and ruining Russia, and that his reign, which might have been so glorious, is going to end in a catastrophe. He won't hear a word. It's simply tragic! However, we are going to try joint action by the whole imperial family. That's what the Grand Duke Nicholas came to see me about." "Will it be confined to platonic action?" We looked at each other in silence. She guessed that what was in my mind was the tragedy of Paul I, as she replied with a horrified stare: "Oh God! Whatever will happen?"
She sat dumb for a moment, fear staring in her eyes. Then she continued timidly: "I could count on you, in case of need, couldn't?" "Yes, Madame." "Thank you," she gravely murmured. A servant interrupted us for the second time. The Grand Duchess explained that the whole of the imperial family had assembled in the next room and were only waiting for her to join them to start the discussion. Her last words were: "And now pray to God to protect us!" She held out her hand; it was trembling violently.
Friday, January 12, 1917. I am told from various sources that an attempt to assassinate the Empress was made the evening of the day before yesterday, when she was visiting her hospital at Tsarskoe-Selo. It is said that the author, an officer, was hanged yesterday morning. Absolute secrecy is maintained as to the motive for the act and its details. All the members of the imperial family, including the Dowager Queen of Greece, who met at the house of the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlova yesterday, have addressed a joint letter to the Emperor. The letter, couched in the most respectful terms, draws the sovereign's attention to the dire peril to which his policy at home is exposing Russia and the dynasty; it ends by pleading for a pardon for the Grand Duke Dimitri, lest worse evils befall. Sazonov, on whom I called to-day, said to me: "There is no way out of the course on which the Emperor has embarked. judging by our historical precedents, the era of assassinations has begun. From the point of view of the war, we have a nasty ditch ahead of us; it will be a violent shock; but afterwards all will go well I maintain my steadfast faith in our ultimate victory."
Saturday, January 13, 1917. Sir George Buchanan was received by the Emperor yesterday. After telling him of the grave concern of King George and the British Government at the
internal situation in Russia, he asked the sovereign's permission to speak to him absolutely candidly. The two men were standing when these introductory phrases were spoken. Without asking Buchanan to sit down, the Emperor drily replied: "I'm listening." In firm and very agitated tones, Buchanan then pointed out the enormous harm that was being done to Russia, and therefore her allies, by the confusion and anxiety which was on the increase in every class of Russian society. He did not shrink from denouncing the intrigues which German agents are fomenting in the immediate entourage of the Empress and which have cost her the affection of her subjects. He referred to the evil influence of Protopopov, etc. At last, after protesting his devotion to the Russian sovereigns, he implored the Emperor not to hesitate between the two courses which are now open to him, one of which leads to victory and the other to the most dire catastrophe. The Emperor's manner was cold and stiff; he broke the silence only to put forward two objections in a dry tone. The first was: "You tell me, Ambassador, that I must deserve the confidence of my people. Isn't it rather for my people to deserve my confidence?" The second was: "You seem to think that I take advice in choosing my ministers. You're quite wrong; I choose them myself, unassisted . . . " And thereupon he brought the audience to a close with the simple words: "Good-bye, Ambassador." At bottom, the Emperor has simply given expression to the pure doctrine of autocracy, by virtue of which he is on the throne. To realize how far that doctrine is behind the English theory, I have only to remember what the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Winchelsey, writing on behalf of King Edward I, penned to Pope Boniface VIII about the end of the thirteenth century: "It is the custom of the Kingdom of England that, in all matters of public interest, all those who are concerned should be consulted." I give the wording of the Emperor's reply to the letter which the imperial family sent him the day before yesterday: I allow no one to give me advice. A murder is always a murder. In any case, I know that the consciences of several who signed that letter are not clear. Dining at the Restaurant Contant this evening, I saw pretty Madame D----- at the next table with three officers of the Chevaliers-Gardes; she was in mourning. During the night of January 6-7, she was arrested on suspicion of having taken part in the murder of Rasputin, or at any rate known of the preparations. Thanks to the high influences which protect her, she was simply kept under observation in her flat and released three days later. When a police officer asked her for the key of her bureau in order to secure her papers, she replied sweetly and simply: "You'll only find love-letters."
The remark is Madame D----- personified. Twenty-six years of age, divorced, remarried at once, then separated from her second husband, she leads a wild life. Every evening, or rather every night, she holds high revel until morning: theatre, ballet, supper, gypsy singers, tango, champagne, etc. And yet it would be a great mistake to judge her solely by this tawdry dissipation; at bottom she is warm-hearted, proud and an enthusiast. Rasputin's murder, of the preparations for which she knew, came as a thunderbolt to her. The Grand Duke Dimitri seemed to her a hero, the saviour of Russia. She went into mourning on learning the news of his arrest. When she heard that he had been sent to the Russian army front in Persia, she swore to continue his patriotic work and avenge him. Since the police evacuated her residence four days ago, she has been concerned in all the ramifications of the plot against the Emperor, carrying letters to some and passwords to others. Yesterday she called on two colonels of the guard to win them over to the good cause. She knows that the agents of the terrible Okhrana are watching her, and is fertile in resources to throw them off the scent. Any night she expects to be incarcerated in the fortress or sent to Siberia; but she has never been so happy before. The heroines of the Fronde, Madame de Longueville, Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Lesdiguires must have known this unreal exaltation, by virtue of which the conscientiousness of a great peril rekindles a great love. When she finished dinner she passed close to my table, followed by her three officers. She came up to me. I rose to shake hands. In rapid tones she said: "1 know that our mutual friend came to see you yesterday and told you everything . . . He's extremely anxious about me. It's only natural . . . he loves me so much! Anyhow, he thought you would be ready to help me in case of disaster and was anxious to make certain. But I knew what you'd say. What could you do for me if things went badly? Nothing; that's obvious . . . . But I'm grateful for the nice things you've said about me, and I'm sure that at the bottom of your heart--though not as ambassador---I have your approval . . . We may never meet again. Good-bye!" And with these words she sped away swiftly and silently, escorted by her chevaliers-gardes.
Sunday, January 14, 1917. To-day, the first day of the New Year according to the orthodox calendar, the Emperor received the congratulations of the Diplomatic Corps at Tsarskoe-Selo. The cold is intense---38! The horses of the court carriages, which were waiting for us at the imperial station, were accoutred in ice, and all the way to the Great Palace I could see nothing of the landscape, the thick frost on the windows making them quite opaque.
When we entered the ballroom in which the function was to take place, Evrenov, the Director of Ceremonies---an ardent patriot and hot-headed nationalist who has often been to give me the benefit of his loathing of Rasputin and hatred of the pro-German party---whispered in my ear in a tense voice: "Well! Ambassador; haven't I been right all these months in telling you that our great and holy Russia was being led to disaster! Don't you feel that we're now on the very brink?" We had hardly taken our places before the Emperor appeared, surrounded by his A.D.C., Generals and high dignitaries. He took the staff of each embassy and legation in turn, and there was the formal and routine exchange of compliments and congratulations, smiles and handshakes. As usual Nicholas II was kind and natural and he even affected a certain care-free air; but his pale, thin face betrayed the nature of his secret thoughts. While he was making his rounds, I talked to my Italian colleague, the Marchese Carlotti, and we simultaneously passed the same observation: among the whole of the Tsar's brilliant and glittering suite, there was not a face which did not express anxiety . . . On our way back to the imperial station, our carriages passed a small church, a picturesque and isolated structure in the Muscovite style. It was the Feodorovski Sobor; in its mysterious crypt is the favourite private chapel of Alexandra Feodorovna. It was dark already and under its thick shroud of snow the dome of the sanctuary projected vaguely through the fog. I thought of all the hours of sighing exaltation or utter prostration the Empress has spent there. And I seemed to see the ghost of Rasputin flitting round the entrance.
Monday January 15, 1917. The Grand Duke Nicholas Michaiovitch has been banished to his property at Grushevka, in the Government of Kherson, far from any town and even from a human habitation. The imperial order was conveyed to him yesterday, notwithstanding the religious significance of New Year's Day. As he was given no time to make any arrangements, he took his departure the very same evening. When I heard the news, an historical precedent came to my mind at once. On November 19, 1787, Louis XVI banished the Duc d'Orlans to his Villers-Cotterets estate, as a punishment for having told the Parliament of Paris that the States General alone had the right to grant the King additional taxes. Has Russia really got as far as 1787? No . . . she is already a long way beyond it. By wreaking his vengeance on the Grand Duke Nicholas Michaiovitch, the Emperor has obviously intended to frighten the imperial family. He has succeeded: it is terror-stricken. But it may be that Nicholas Michaiovitch deserved "neither this too great honour nor the indignity." He is not really dangerous. The final crisis, through which tsarism and Russia are passing, calls for a Retz or a Mirabeau. Nicholas Michaiovitch is a critic and dilettante rather than a party
man; he is too fond of drawing-room epigrams. He is in no way an apostle of adventure and the offensive. Whatever the cause, the conspiracy of the Grand Dukes has missed fire. Maklakov, the Duma deputy, was quite right the day before yesterday when he told Madame de Derfelden (who is my authority) that "the Grand Dukes are incapable of agreeing on a plan of campaign. Not one of them dares show the slightest initiative, and each of them claims to be working solely on his own behalf. They want the Duma to put the match to the powder. In other words, they are expecting of us what we are expecting of them."
Wednesday, January 17, 1917. Yesterday, Pokrovski had a long audience of the Emperor. He told him in the strongest terms how impossible it is for him to accept responsibility for foreign policy in existing circumstances. Appealing to his long, loyal and devoted past, he pleaded with his master to break with the evil counsels of Protopopov; he actually begged him, with clenched hands, to open his eyes to the "imminent catastrophe." The Tsar listened to him very gently and then ordered him to remain in office, telling him that "the situation is not as tragic as all that, and everything will come right." In the evening of the day before yesterday, His Majesty received his new President of the Council, Prince Nicholas Golitzin, who is a perfectly honest man, had expressly declined the presidency of the Council, which has been forced upon him "by imperial order." He therefore considered himself entitled to discuss the matter quite frankly with the Emperor; he painted him the gloomiest picture of the public state of mind in Russia, particularly Moscow and Petrograd; he did not hide from him that the lives of the sovereigns are in danger and that the Moscow regiments are talking openly of proclaiming another Tsar. The Emperor received his statements with placid indifference. He merely replied: "The Empress and I know that we are in God's hands. His will be done!" Prince Golitzin wound up by begging the Emperor to accept his resignation. He received the same answer as Pokrovski. At this very time, the Empress was praying at the tomb of Rasputin. Every day she goes there with Madame Virubova, and spends hours absorbed in prayer.
Friday, January 19, 1917.
Schubin-Pozdeev, who is not without sense and perspicacity under his old rou exterior, has just told me something very true: "You know what I thought of Rasputin. The mystical and filthy rake always filled me with unutterable loathing. I met him only once in a decent house into which I'd strayed. He was going out as I went in. The ladies present were watching him make his exit with languishing glances. Speaking personally, I had an irresistible desire to kick him through the door. So you see I'm not exactly in mourning for him. But all the same I think it was a great mistake to kill him. He had won the confidence and affection of our beloved sovereigns. He inspired them, encouraged and amused them, consoled and exhorted them, and was a general tonic. In the intervals of his fornications he gave them advice for the good of their souls and the government of the Empire. He often made them cry, as he didn't shrink from brow-beating them. He sometimes made them laugh too, for when he kept out of his mystical drivel, he had no equal in broad humour. They couldn't get on without him. He was their mainspring, their toy and their fetish. He oughtn't to have been taken from them. Since his departure they haven't known which way to turn. I expect the wildest follies from them now!
Saturday January 20, 1917. The Crown Prince Carol of Rumania and Bratiano, the President of the Council, have just arrived in Petrograd. The Minister for Foreign Affairs lost not time in receiving Bratiano. Their talk was exceedingly friendly. At the very outset, Bratiano told Pokrovski that he was determined to establish the alliance between Russia and Rumania on a permanent basis: "The alliance must not be restricted to the present war," he said; "I'm extremely anxious that it shall apply to the future too." Prince Carol and Bratiano have been invited to dinner at Tsarskoe-Selo, to-morrow.
Sunday, January 21, 1917. The Emperor has told his aunt, the Grand Duchess Vladimir, that in their own interests, his cousins, the Grand Dukes Cyril and Andrew, should leave Petrograd for a few weeks. The Grand Duke Cyril, who is a captain in the navy and in charge of the stores of the Guard, has "asked" to be sent on a tour of inspection to Archangel and Kola; the Grand Duke Andrew has a delicate chest, and is going to the Caucasus.
Sazonov has been appointed Ambassador in London, in the place of Count Benckendorff who died recently.
Tuesday, January 23, 1917. I have dined at Tsarskoe-Selo with the Grand Duke Paul's family party. When we rose from table, the Grand Duke took me into a distant room so that we could talk as man to man. He made me the confidante of all his griefs and anxieties. "The Emperor is more under the Empress's thumb than ever. She has succeeded in persuading him that the hostile movement against her---and it's beginning to be against him, unfortunately---is nothing but a conspiracy of the Grand Dukes and a drawing-room revolt. All this can only end with a tragedy . . . You know my belief in monarchy, and that to me the Emperor represents everything that is sacred. You must realize what I am suffering through what is happening, and is yet to happen." From his emotion and the tone of his words I could see that he is terribly upset that his son Dimitri should have been involved in the prologue of the drama. . He continued umprompted: "Isn't it dreadful that, all over the Empire, candles are being lit before the ikon of Saint Dimitri and my son is being styled the liberator of Russia!" The notion that his son might be proclaimed Tsar at any time does not seem to have entered his head. He is what he has always been, a paragon of loyalty and chivalry. He then told me that when he heard at Mohilev of Rasputin's murder, he immediately returned to Tsarskoe-Selo. When he arrived in the station late in the day of the 31st December, he found on the platform Princess Paley who told him that Dimitri had been arrested in his palace at Petrograd. He at once asked an audience of the Emperor, who consented to receive him at eleven o'clock the same evening, but "only for five minutes," as he had a great deal to do. On being ushered into his august nephew's presence, the Grand Duke Paul made a strong protest against the arrest of his son: "No one has any right to arrest a Grand Duke without a formal order from you. Please have him released . . . Surely you're not afraid that he'll run away?" The Emperor evaded any definite reply and put an end to the conversation. Next morning the Grand Duke Paul went to Petrograd to see his son at the palace on the Nevsky Prospekt. He asked him:
"Did you kill Rasputin? "No." "Are you prepared to swear it on the holy ikon of the Virgin and your mother's photograph?" "Yes." The Grand Duke Paul then handed him an ikon of the Virgin and a photograph of the late Grand Duchess Alexandra: "Now: swear that you didn't kill Rasputin." "I swear it." As he told me this incident, the Grand Duke made a really touching picture of nobility, truth and dignity. He ended with these words: "I know nothing more of the tragedy; I didn't want to know any more." During the railway journey back to Petrograd I discussed what the Grand Duke had told me with Madame P-----. "I'm even more pessimistic than he," she exclaimed with flashing eyes. "The tragedy now on its way will be not only a dynastic crisis but a terrible revolution; we can't escape it . . . Don't forget what I'm foretelling; the disaster is at hand." I then quoted her the terrible prophecy which the blindness of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette wrung from the lips of Mirabeau in September, 1789: All is lost. The King and Queen will perish. The people will batter their corpses! She replied "If we only had a Mirabeau!"
Thursday, January 25, 1917. The most devoted servants of tsarism, and even some of those who form the monarch's ordinary entourage, are beginning to be alarmed at the pace of events. To take one example, I have just learned from a very reliable source that Admiral Nilov, A.D.C. General to the Emperor and one of his closest personal friends, quite recently had the courage to point out to him the whole peril of the situation; he actually went so far as to beg him to send the Empress away---as being the only thing which could still save the empire and the dynasty. Nicholas II, who is chivalrous and worships his wife, rejected the suggestion with intense scorn: "The Empress is a foreigner," he said, "she has no one to protect her but myself. I shall never
abandon her, under any circumstances. In any case, all the charges made against her are false. Wicked lies are being told about her. But I shall know how to make her respected!" Admiral Nilov's intervention is particularly impressive because until quite recently he has always sided with the Empress. He was a close friend of Rasputin and intimately associated with the gang; he always arrived punctually for the famous Wednesday dinners at the house of the financier Manus and is therefore largely responsible for the discredit and disgrace into which the imperial court has now fallen. But at bottom, he is honest and patriotic. At long last he has seen the abyss which is opening at Russia's feet, and he is trying---too late---to clear his conscience.
Friday, January 26, 1917. Old Prince Kurakin, a master of necromancy, has had the satisfaction of raising the ghost of Rasputin the last few nights. He immediately sent for Protopopov, the Minister of the Interior, and Dobrovolski, the Minister of justice; they came at once. Since then, the three of them have been in secret conclave for hours every evening, listening to the dead man's solemn words. What an extraordinary creature old Prince Kurakin is! With his bowed frame, bald head, hook nose, pallid complexion, piercing and haggard eyes, hollow features, halting, sepulchral voice and sinister expression, he is the typical spiritualist. At Count Witte's funeral two years ago, he was seen gazing fixedly for several minutes at the dead man's haughty features (the coffin being open in accordance with orthodox rites). Then the sepulchral voice was heard "We'll compel you to come to us to-night!"
Sunday, January 28, 1917. Madame T-----, who was one of Rasputin's most fervent disciples and dabbles in the occult sciences, has been telling me of the relations between the Russian sovereigns and the famous French magician Papus, relations which date from as far back as 1900. Last November I recorded in this diary a spiritualistic sance at Tsarskoe-Selo, at which this miracle worker presided in 1905. "It is twelve years or so," said Madame T----, "since Papus was in Russia; but he has kept up a correspondence with Their Majesties. Several times he tried to convince them that Rasputin's influence on them was evil, because he got it from the Devil. The result was that Father Grigori loathed Papus and when Their Majesties mentioned his name, he would burst out: "Why do you
listen to that charlatan? What's he poking his nose into now? If he wasn't a low schemer, he'd have his hands full enough with all the evil-doers and pharisees he has around him. There are more sins over there in the West than anywhere else in the world; nowhere else is the crucified Jesus so continuously affronted. . . . How often have I told you that everything that comes out of the Europes is wicked and harmful!" Madame T----- also tells me that she saw in the hands of Mademoiselle Golovin, the staretz's favourite, a letter which the Empress received from Papus some fifteen months ago. It ended thus: "From the cabalistic point of view, Rasputin is a vessel like unto Pandora's box, and contains all the vices, crimes and lusts of the Russian people. Should this vessel break, we shall immediately see these horrible contents spilled all over Russia." The Empress read this letter to Rasputin, who simply replied: "Why, I've told you that many a time. When I die, Russia will perish." By way of completing the staretz's prophecies, Madame T----- told me that shortly before his death she heard him say: " I know I shall die amidst horrible sufferings. My corpse will be torn in pieces. But even if my ashes are scattered to the four winds., I shall go on performing miracles at my tomb. Through my prayers from above, the sick will recover and barren women will conceive." I admit I have not the slightest doubt that sooner or later the memory of Rasputin will give rise to legends and his tomb will be prodigal with miracles.
Volume III, Chapter Seven Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER VII JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 21, 1917. Allied conference at Petrograd: arrival of the French, British and Italian plenipotentiaries; the Government of the Republic sends a former President of the Council, Doumergue, and General de Castelnau.---The programme of the conference is too vague.---The plenipotentiaries presented to the Emperor; exchange of trivialities. Nicholas II's notion of his autocracy.--General Gourko acquaints the conference with the strategic intentions for 1917 of the High Command; great offensives to be postponed. Disappointment of the delegates.---The Emperor gives Doumergue a private audience; he consents to all the guarantees on the right bank of the Rhine which France may think it her duty to exact from Germany.---Banquet at Alexander Palace.---Slow progress of the conference: "We are wasting time." Deep impression made on the moujiks by Rasputin's murder; the first symptoms of legendary transfiguration.---End of the
conference; poor results.---In my last conversation with Doumergue I beg him to tell the President of the Republic of my great anxiety about the internal situation in Russia. Monday, January 29, 1917. The French, British and Italian delegates to the allied conference arrived in Petrograd this morning. It has only taken them three days to come from Port Romanov, and their train is the first to traverse the Murman coast line from end to end. Leaving General de Castelnau to the care of my military attach, I took Doumergue to the Hotel de 1'Europe. He asked me about the internal situation in Russia. I painted it without sparing the darker colours, and drew the inference that it was necessary to hasten military events. "On the Russian front," I said, "time is not working for us now. The public does not care about the war. All the government departments and the machinery of administration are getting hopelessly and progressively out of gear. The best minds are convinced that Russia is walking straight into the abyss. We must make haste." "I didn't think the mischief had got so far." "You'll be able to see for yourself." He then told me in confidence that the Government of the Republic is anxious to secure the Emperor's express promise that the peace treaty shall include a clause giving France full liberty to decide the fate of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine. I reminded him that the question of the Rhine Provinces was settled between France and Russia long ago, at any rate so far as the "war map" made it possible. "In November 1914 the Emperor told me on his own initiative that he unreservedly gave us the left bank of the Rhine; he said so again on the 13th March last year. What more could we want?" "But Monsieur Briand thinks we ought to bind the Russian Government by a written and detailed record . . . We cannot be too careful in so serious a matter." After a private luncheon at the embassy, I took Doumergue and General de Castelnau to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where the conference was to hold a preliminary and official sitting to lay the foundations for its work. The following representatives were present: Russian: Pokrovsky, Foreign Minister; the Grand Duke Sergei Michalovitch, Inspector-General of Artillery; M. Woynovski, Minister of Communications; M. Bark, Finance Minister; General Bielaev, War Minister; General Gourko, Chief of Staff to the High Command; Admiral Grigorovitch, Minister for the Navy; M. Sazonov, who has just been appointed ambassador in London, and M. Neratov, assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs French: M. Doumergue, Minister for the Colonies General de Castelnau and myself:
English: Lord Milner, minister without portfolio, Sir George Buchanan; Lord Revelstoke and General Sir Henry Wilson: Italian: Signor Scialoja, minister without portfolio; the Marchese Carlotti and General Count Ruggieri. At the very outset it appeared that the governments of the western Powers had only given their delegates vague instructions; no directing principle to co-ordinate the allied effort and no joint programme to hasten the common victory. After a prolonged exchange of generalities, the emptiness of which everyone felt, we modestly agreed to say that the recent conferences in Paris and Rome had sufficiently defined the object of the present meeting. We next decided that questions of a political nature should be examined by the chief delegates and ambassadors; plans of operations should be settled by the generals; a technical committee should look into questions of matriel, munitions, transport, etc.; final decisions to be taken by the full conference.
Tuesday, January 30, 1917. The Emperor will receive the members of the conference to-morrow; the first official sitting has therefore been fixed for the day after to-morrow. Official luncheon of forty covers at the embassy. The afternoon was spent in drives and calls. Bratiano, the President of the Rumanian Council, has postponed his departure from Petrograd; he will participate officially in the labours of the conference whenever the interests of his country are involved. At eight o'clock state banquet at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Prince Nicholas Golitzin, President of the Council, was present; but simply as a silent figurehead. He carries the heavy burden of responsibility which has been thrust upon him with utter indifference and complete detachment. But so long as politics were not mentioned, his replies were courtesy itself.
Wednesday, January 31, 1917. At eleven o'clock the Emperor received the members of the conference at the smaller palace at Tsarskoe-Selo. Court etiquette prescribes that ambassadors take precedence of their missions, so that the order of presentation is determined by their seniority.
The three delegations were thus arranged in a circle in the order: English---Italian---French. The scene I was witnessing had an eloquence all its own. The English mission comes first not only in virtue of Buchanan's seniority but in the matter of numbers also. It has two civil delegates, Lords Milner and Revelstoke, whereas the Italian and French missions have only one. Scialoja and Doumergue; it also has six generals to show against the Italian and French two each. Still, from the military point of view, General de Castelnau undisputably gives us pre-eminence in moral and technical prestige: his brilliant services during this war, the glorious death of his three sons, the Christian stoicism of his submission to fate, the nobility of his character and his greatness of soul cast a kind of halo round his brows. Buchanan and Carletti presented their delegates in turn. Once more I noticed that the Emperor said hardly anything to the leaders, but gladly lingered to talk to guests of lower rank. When my turn came, I presented Doumergue and heard the inevitable questions fall from the Emperor's lips: "Have you had a pleasant journey? I hope you are not too tired? Is this your first visit to Russia?" With a few more or less meaningless remarks about the Alliance, war and. victory, Doumergue made vain efforts to raise the tone of the conversation. Nicholas II cannot help liking him for his candour and friendly simplicity. With General de Castelnau the Emperor was equally vague. He seemed to have no idea at all of his eminent services in France, and could not find a word to say about his three sons who were killed in battle. After a few pleasant words to the junior officials and officers who form the suite of the French mission, Nicholas II withdrew, and the function was over. As we were returning to Petrograd, I observed that Milner, Scialoja and Doumergue had been equally disappointed with the ceremony. I could not help thinking to myself to what good use a monarch who really knew his business--someone like Ferdinand of Bulgaria---would have put such an event. I can imagine the dexterous interplay of questions and insinuations, allusions and hints, confidences and compliments in which he would have revelled. But Nicholas II, as I have so often said, does not enjoy the exercise of power. If he jealously upholds his autocratic prerogatives, it is solely on mystical grounds. He never forgets that he has received his power from God Himself, and is always reminding himself that he will have to account for it in the valley of Josaphat. This notion of his sovereign function is the exact opposite of that which inspired Napoleon's famous remark to Roederer: "I myself love power; but I love it with an artist's love; I love it as a musician loves his violin, something from which to draw sounds, chords and harmonies!" Conscience, humanity, gentleness, honour---these, I think, are the outstanding virtues of Nicholas II. But the sacred spark is not in him.
Thursday, February 1, 1917. I had Kokovtsov, Trepov, General Gourko, Doumergue and General de Castelnau to luncheon. The talk was animated and candid, and for the occasion Kokovtsov put the mute on his only too well justified pessimism. Trepov spoke very frankly of the dangers of the internal crisis through which Russia is passing; but his speech, and perhaps even more his personality, exhale such an abundance of energy and authority that the evil seems easy to repair. General Gourko was even more impulsive than usual. Around me I could feel the bracing atmosphere which Doumergue and Castelnau have brought from France. At three o'clock the conference met at the Marie Palace; we sat in the large rotunda room which looks out on Saint Isaac's Square. Pokrovski presided; but his lack of experience in diplomatic affairs and his gentleness and modesty prevented him from steering the course of the discussion, which wandered aimlessly. There was talk about Greece, Japan, Serbia, America, Rumania, the Scandinavian countries, and so on; but all without logical sequence, dominating purpose or practical conclusions. Several times, Lord Milner, who was next to me, whispered impatiently in my ear. "We are wasting time!" The President next called upon the Chief of Staff of the High Command to address the assembly. In a booming and jerky voice, General Gourko read us a string of questions on the conduct of military operations which he desired to put to the conference. The first question amazed us. It was couched in these terms: "Are the campaigns of 1917 to have a decisive character? Or must we not abandon the hope of obtaining definitive results this year?" All the French, English and Italian delegates protested warmly that vigorous, co-ordinated offensives must be launched on the various fronts at the earliest possible moment. General Gourko informs us, however, that the Russian army will not be in a position to undertake a great offensive until it has been reinforced by the sixty new divisions the creation of which has recently been arranged. It will take many months, perhaps even a year, to form and train these divisions, and equip them with all the matriel they require. Between now and then the Russian army can only undertake minor operations, though they will be enough to pin the enemy down on the Eastern front. The conference could not express an opinion on so grave a motive without the seasoned advice of the generals. The other questions which General Gourko read to us were simply the corollary of the first, or else referred to technical problems, so the whole lot were sent for examination by the military committee.
Saturday, February 3, 1917. To-day the Emperor received the heads of the delegates to the conference in private audience. Doumergue advocated the necessity of accelerating the general offensives with great warmth. The Emperor replied: "I entirely agree with you." I should have preferred an acquiescence which was less unqualified, an answer which had more light and shade and was flavoured, if need be, with a note of objection. Doumergue then broached the topic of the right bank of the Rhine. He judiciously developed all the political, military and economic aspects of that grave problem which so to speak dominates our whole national history, as it was raised between France and Germany as early as the time of Lothair, and we may profitably reflect even now on the famous "Partition Treaty," signed at Verdun in 843. Invoking His Majesty's statements to me on November 21, 1914 and March 13, 1916, he explained that the government of the Republic had decided to include the following demands and guarantees in the terms of peace to be imposed on Germany: (1) Alsace-Lorraine to be returned to France; (2) its frontiers must extend at any rate to the limits of the ancient Duchy of Lorraine, in such a way as to incorporate the mining areas of that region in French territory; (3) the other territories on the left bank of the Rhine will be completely separated from Germany; (4) such of those territories as shall not be incorporated in French territory shall form an autonomous and neutralized state; French troops shall be garrisoned there until the guarantees, imposed by the Allies to secure general peace, shall have been fulfilled. Each of these points was examined in the greatest detail and Doumergue obtained the Emperor's unqualified assent. Doumergue then said that the Allies should jointly agree in denying the Hohenzollerns the right to speak in the name of Germany when the time for negotiations arrives. This is an idea the Emperor has long cherished and mentioned to me several times; he promised Doumergue to have the matter examined from the historical and juridical points of view by his Minister for Foreign Affairs. Something was then said about the future of the Alliance., the fraternal feelings which unite France and Russia now and for evermore, etc., and the audience came to a close. At eight o'clock state banquet at Alexander Palace. As a matter of fact, the state part of it was displayed only in the liveries., lights and plate, for the menu was simplicity itself, a thoroughly bourgeois simplicity which contrasted forcibly with the ancient and far-famed splendour of the
imperial cuisine, but was dictated by the ethical conventions of a time of war: Potage crme d'orge. Fruites glacs de Gatchina. Longe de veau Marengo. Poulets de grain rtis. Salade de concombres. Glace maniarine. The Tsar looked as he does on his good days; he feared, I am told, that the delegates would give him unwanted advice on internal politics; he is now reassured on the point. The Tsarina is not well and remained in her room. At table the Emperor had Buchanan on his right and Carlotti on his left. Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, sat opposite His Majesty; I was on his right and had Prince Nicholas Golitzin, President of the Council, on my right. The old and excellent Count Fredericks, who is almost worn out by his years, told me how greatly he suffered from the press attacks and drawing-room epigrams which accuse him of being a German: "To begin with," he said, "my family is of Swedish not German origin; and besides it has been in the service of Russia for more than a century, in fact since the reign of Catherine the Great!" The truth is that his family hailed from Swedish Pomerania and has supplied Russian autocracy with a long line of docile retainers. He is thus a very typical representative of the caste of "Baltic Barons" which have governed Russia since the reign of Anna Ivanovna, men who are all absolutely devoted to their sovereigns but have little in common with the Russian spirit. Nearly all of them have relations in the military or civil service of Germany. With them, their attachment to the Romanov dynasty is not merely a. family tradition and obligation it is their very reason raison d'tre. So I was not exactly surprised at the naive suggestion Count Fredericks put forward over dessert: "The conference must agree together that after the war the Allies shall come to each other's aid in case of internal disorders. We are all interested in fighting revolution!" He is back in the days of the Holy Alliance; only a century behind the times O sancta et senilis simplicitas! Dinner ended at last and we went into the next room where coffee was served. The Emperor lit a cigarette and passed from group to group. Lord Milner, Scialoja, Doumergue, General de Castelnau, Lord Revelstoke, General Ruggieri, General Wilson and the three ambassadors all had a kind word from him, but nothing more; he did not linger to talk to anyone. While these dull conversations were in progress, the Empress received the chief delegates in turn in her room. She was particularly gracious to Doumergue and remarked at the conclusion of their talk: "Prussia must be punished!"
Shortly before ten, Nicholas II returned to the centre of the room and with the kindliest of smiles took leave of the company.
Sunday, February 4, 1917. On the 1st February Germany decided to extend the strict application of the maritime blockade to the whole coast-line of Europe. The act is a ruthless cancellation of the solemn assurances which America obtained from the German Chancellor that naval warfare should be restricted after the Lusitania, Ancona and Sussex had been torpedoed. The reply of the Federal Government has been prompt. Yesterday, President Wilson asked the Senate for authority to employ any means which may become necessary to protect American ships and citizens in the exercise of their peaceful activities. He concluded with a noble declaration that "we are not thinking only of defending our material interests; we also desire to defend the fundamental rights of humanity, without which there can be no civilization." With the approval of the Senate, Gerard, the American Ambassador in Berlin, has been immediately recalled. The Russian public has favourably received this important piece of news, but the impression it conveys is but vague and superficial. For Russia knows nothing of America; she does not even suspect what a great drama has been taking place in the conscience of the American people during the last twenty months.
Monday, February 5, 1917. My luncheon party was made up of Doumergue, Rodzianko (President of the Duma), Bratiano, several members of the Council of Empire, including Count Alexis Bobrinsky and Michael Stakhovitch, the financier Putilov, etc. With the exception of Putilov, who remained wrapped in a significant silence, all my Russian guests professed an optimism which they were very far from feeling only a few days ago. As a matter of fact, the same current of optimism has been travelling through Petrograd society ever since the arrival of the foreign delegates. But alas! the moment they leave, the barometer will fall to its lowest point again. No nation is so easily influenced or so sensitive as the Russian. Bratiano bears the misfortunes of his country and his crushing load of personal responsibility with high-souled resolution. Adversity has made him greater. This evening there was a formal dinner of a hundred and fifty covers at the Military Club. The
first qualification of him who would take part in a diplomatic conference is to have a good digestion. As we came away, I repeated to Lord Milner the remark he made the other day: "We are wasting time!"
Wednesday, February 7, 1917. The work of the conference is dragging on to no purpose. No practical result has emerged from all the diplomatic verbiage. To take one example, we are trying to find a formula asking Japan to accelerate her assistance! The technical munitions and transport committee alone is doing anything useful, but the requirements of the Russian General Staff exceed anything we had anticipated and its demands even exceed its requirements. To my way of thinking, it is not so much a matter of knowing what Russia needs as of ascertaining what she is capable of putting to good use. What point is there in sending her guns, machine-guns, shells and aeroplanes, which would be so valuable to us, if she has neither the means of getting them to the front nor the will to take advantage of them? There is a perfect understanding between General de Castelnau and General Gourko. General de Castelnau insists that the Russian offensive must be launched about the 15th April, so that it will synchronize with the French offensive; but General Gourko does not think it possible to embark on an operation on any great scale before the 15th May! . . .
Thursday, February 8, 1917. I have been trying to give Doumergue the fullest possible insight into the Russian world by introducing him to men who can be regarded as the most representative. This morning I invited certain people to meet him at my table: General Polivanov and the great mathematician Vassiliev, both liberal members of the Council of Empire, Miliukov, Maklakov and Shingarev, leaders of the "Cadet" Party in the Duma. The conversation, which was quite unrestricted and very animated, was mainly on the subject of internal politics. At one moment, Doumergue thought that my guests were a little too impulsive, a shade too eager to take the field against tsarism, and was advocating patience. At the very mention of the word "patience," Miliukov and Maklakov burst out:
"We've had quite enough patience! . . . Our patience is utterly exhausted! Besides, if we don't act soon, the masses won't listen to us any longer." Maklakov went on to remind us of Mirabeau's remark: "Beware of asking for time! Disaster never gives it!" Doumergue continued, very wisely: "I'm talking about patience, not resignation. I realize your anxieties and annoyances, and the extreme difficulty of your position. But whatever you do, put the war first!" I noticed that Maklakov, who is a native of Moscow, deputy for that city, and, the typical Muscovite, never says "Petrograd," but always "Petersburg." I asked him why. "Because 'Petersburg' is its real name; it's a German city and has no claim to a Slav name. I'll call it 'Petrograd' when it deserves it."
Friday, February 9, 1917. Prince O----- has just come from Kostrovna, where he has large farming and manufacturing interests. The old city of Kostrovna, which rises on the left bank of the Volga between Yaroslavl and Nijny-Novgorod, is rich in memories. In ancient days it was the refuge and citadel of the Romanovs, and in the famous monastery of Saint Ipatiev it preserves the remains of the heroic peasant Sussianin, whose story is commemorated in Life for the Tsar. It is one of the provinces of the Empire where dynastic loyalty is most intense and the hereditary tendencies, social habits and national sentiments of the Russian people are preserved in all their integrity. I am therefore somewhat anxious to know the state of public feeling in that region. I could not possibly have found a better source of information than Prince O-----, as he is splendid at talking to moujiks. In reply to my questions he said: "Things are going badly! They're tired of the war they don't understand anything about it now except that victory is impossible. And yet they haven't clamoured for peace so far. I've seen a melancholy and resigned discontent in all quarters. Rasputin's murder has made a vivid impression on the masses." "Oh! What sort of an impression?" "It's a very curious phenomenon and thoroughly Russian. To the moujiks Rasputin has become a martyr. He was a man of the people; he let the Tsar hear the voice of the people; he defended the people against the Court folk, the pridvorny. So the pridvorny killed him! That's what's being said in all theisbas." "But the public in Petrograd was overjoyed when Grishka's death became known! Why, people rushed to the churches to light candles at the ikon of Saint Dimitri because they then thought
that it was the Grand Duke Dimitri who had killed the dog." "In Petrograd men knew all about Rasputin's orgies, and to gloat over his death was one way of showing hostility to the Emperor and Empress. But I have an idea that, speaking generally, all the moujiks of Russia think the same as those of Kostrovna . . ." So the process of transforming Rasputin into a hero of legend has already begun in the mind of the Russian nation.
Saturday, February 10, 1917. Bratiano left Petrograd this evening and is returning straight to Jassy. When he came to say good-bye to me, I found him in a state of mind which does him credit; in other words, calm, grieved and resolute. No futile recriminations and no attempt at selfjustification. He sees and judges the situation as a practical man should. He said he was very satisfied with the numerous conversations he has had with the Emperor's ministers and the members of the inter-allied conference. He is particularly pleased at the confident and cordial attention General Gourko has shown him: he is too shrewd not to have discovered that the whole policy of Russia towards Rumania is now determined directly by the Russian High Command and he has very cleverly established the closest touch with the Chief of the General Staff. Yet I cannot find that in his conferences with General Gourko any practical conclusion has been reached on the two points which are exceedingly urgent at the present moment---the supply of food to the civil population of Moldavia and the resumption of operations in the northern Carpathians and the Danube region. I am told that during his visit to Petrograd, Bratiano has sounded the Emperor as to his ultimate consent to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga to Prince Carol, the presumptive heir. The idea of this union has been mooted several times before. The Emperor's answer was quite encouraging: "I shall have no objection to the marriage if my daughter and Prince Carol find they suit each other."
Sunday, February 11, 1917. Skvortsov, an important official of the Holy Synod and editor of the religious journal, Kolokol, has, confirmed what Prince O----- told me the day before yesterday about the impression which the Rasputin murder has made on the rural masses: "The peasants," he said, "have been greatly moved by it; Grigori was a moujik, one of themselves, and they thought it quite natural that the imperial palace should be open to him.
Their explanation of the crime is therefore a simple one: the enemies of the people killed the staretz because he pleaded the people's cause before the Tsar. The impressions of the higher social classes, my clerical clientle and the merchants and officials, pomiechtchiks, are no better: the Rasputin murder is considered as an evil omen. You know how superstitious we Russians are. All I can tell you is that everyone is hawking round the prophecy which Grigori often uttered to Their Majesties: If I die or you desert me, you will lose your son and your crown within six months." "Did he really prophesy that?" "Yes, indeed, Ambassador! I've heard him say so myself a score of times and more! Only a few days before his death, he repeated it to His Eminence the Metropolitan Pitirim."
Monday, February 12, 1917. Taking advantage of the fact that the generals have gone on a tour of inspection to the Galician front, the civil delegates to the conference have paid a visit to Moscow.
Tuesday, February 13, 1917. Eleven workmen, members of the Central Committee of Military Industries, have just been arrested on a charge of "plotting a revolutionary movement with the object of proclaiming a republic." Arrests of this kind are common enough in Russia, but in the ordinary way the public hears nothing about them. After a secret trial, the accused are sent to a state gaol or banished to the depths of Siberia. The press never mentions the matter, and quite frequently even their families do not know what has happened to their missing relative. The silence in which these summary convictions are wrapped has a good deal to do with the tragic notoriety of the Okhrana. But this time the element of mystery has been dispensed with. A sensational communiqu informs the press of the arrest of the twelve workmen. This is Protopopov's way of showing how busy he is in saving tsarism and society.
Wednesday, February 14, 1917.
Acting on instructions received from Briand, I have just sent the following letter to Pokrovski: I have the honour to inform the Imperial Government that the Government of the Republic is proposing to incorporate the following territorial claims and guarantees in the terms of peace to be imposed on Germany: (1) Alsace-Lorraine shall be returned to France; (2) its frontiers shall extend at the least to the limits of the former Duchy of Lorraine; they will be drawn in such a way as to provide for strategic necessities and include the whole of the coal basin in the valley of the Sarre in French territory; (3) the other territories on the left bank of the Rhine, which are now incorporated in the German Empire, shall be completely severed from Germany and liberated from any political and economic dependence upon her; (4) the territories on the left bank of the Rhine which are not incorporated in French territory shall form an autonomous and neutralized State; they will be occupied by French troops until the enemy States, shall have completely carried out all the terms and guarantees stipulated for in the peace treaty. The Government of the Republic will therefore be glad to be able to count on the support of the Imperial Government in realizing its projects. Pokrovski immediately replied that the Government of the Republic may count on the support of the Imperial Government in realizing its projects.
Friday, February 16, 1917. The Rasputin party has survived Rasputin, but it is a body without a head. Though still very powerful from the political point of view, it has already lost much of its influence from the religious point of view, and the control of ecclesiastical affairs threatens to slip from its hands altogether before long. With a view to recovering the leadership of the party, Raev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, has just despatched Monsignor Basil, the Bishop of Tchernigov and the fine flower of Rasputinism, to Petrograd. This prelate's mission will be to arrange with the Minister of the Interior to organize a moral propaganda service; in other words, police surveillance of the clergy.
Saturday, February 17, 1917. One of the sights which has made the greatest impression on the members of the three allied missions since their arrival in Russia---and particularly during their excursion to Moscow---is the amount of traffic on the snow. The animated picture which both town and country offer in
that respect has surprised them all. In Western countries the snow never lies deep or for long at a time, and is simply an obstacle to movement; it blocks the streets and makes vehicular traffic difficult often enough, it actually paralyses economic activity. In Russia it is quite otherwise. In spring thaws transform the Russian plain into a vast swamp which stretches from the Black Sea to the Baltic. In certain regions, such as that of the Pripet and middle Dnieper the mud lies five and six feet deep. But as soon as summer begins to warm the earth, the roads, which are not metalled, become quagmires and gullies with the slightest traffic; before long most of the highways are nothing but tracks, furrowed with ruts and a mass of holes. Towards the middle of September the ground becomes soft again and is transformed into a sticky mass once more. Under the autumn rains the boundless plain reverts to its character as a vast slough; villages are cut off from communication with each other; the railway stations, congested with goods, cannot distribute them to the surrounding districts. Then winter comes. The snow falls in heavy flakes; it accumulates, settles, hardens and lays a firm, flat carpet over the ground. Traffic by sleigh is organized at once. Everywhere life reawakens, and movement begins again over the infinite, white spaces.
Sunday, February 18, 1917. General Berthelot, who is in command of the French Military Mission in Rumania, has just arrived in Petrograd to confer with General de Castelnau and General Gourko. For the last four months it is General Berthelot who in practice has been directing the operations and reorganization of the Rumanian army. In the most thankless and desperate situations, he has impressed everyone by his prudent and methodical work, his calculated reasoning, his unshaken and infectious confidence and unruffled and ruthless energy. When, Rumania emerges from her present trials, he will have been one of the best agents of her resurrection.
Monday, February 19, 1917. I gave a lunch to-day in honour of General Berthelot my guests were Doumergue, Pokrovski, Bark, General de Castelnau, Neratov, General Bielaiev, Polovtsov, General Yanin, etc. On rising from table, Doumergue, Pokrovski, Bielaiev, Castelnau, Berthelot, Janin and I discussed the critical situation of Rumania. The impenetrable reserve behind which Pokrovski and Bielaev took shelter confirms the impression left upon me by my last talk with Bratiano, an impression that the Russian High Command has now taken sole charge of Rumanian affairs and
is anxious to keep the other allied Powers out of the business.
Tuesday, February 20, 1917. Doumergue and General de Castelnau lunched at the embassy very privately to-day. We conjured up memories of the days just before the war. Doumergue, then President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, was one of the first who saw, or rather confessed himself obliged to see, the threatening reality. I reminded General de Castelnau of a very serious talk we had on the 26th November, 1913. At that time he was Deputy Chief of the General Staff. We had just been to a sitting of the Advisory Committee of the Superior Council of National Defence, of which I was a member in my capacity of director of political affairs. General Joffre had presided. When all the other members had left the room, I asked General Joffre and General de Castelnau to stay behind with me. Then I told them of the conversation the Emperor of Germany had had with the King of the Belgians a few days before, a conversation in which William II had solemnly said that he considered war was henceforth "inevitable and necessary." General Joffre listened to me in silence. When I had finished, his eyes lit up with a sinister glow; he raised his head; took a deep breath. Then he let his massive hand fall on Castelnau's shoulder and said in a calm and steady voice: It'll have to come this time, mon vieux!" After luncheon, I questioned General de Castelnau about his impressions of his visit to the front and the value of the assistance we may expect from Russia." "The morale of the men seemed to me excellent," he said, "the men are strong, high-spirited and full of courage; there is a frank, gentle look in their eyes which augurs well. But the High Command is badly organized; armament is totally inadequate and the transport service very defective. What is perhaps even more serious is the poor quality of the tactical instruction. They have not broken away from out-of-date methods; the Russian army is a year behind our armies in the West. It is incapable of carrying through an offensive on a large scale."
Wednesday, February 21, 1917. After an interminable series of luncheons, dinners and receptions at the embassy, the Finance Ministry, the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce, the President of the Council's residence, the Town Council, the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna's palace, the Yacht Club, etc., the foreign delegates are now returning westwards, via the ice-bound Arctic Ocean. The results of this conference, which has been the subject of so much mystery---and likewise so
much talk---are very poor. We have exchanged views about the blockade of Greece, the inadequacy of Japan's help, the prospective value of intervention by America, the critical position of Rumania and the necessity of closer and more practical allied co-operation; we have ascertained the colossal requirements of the Russian army in matriel and made joint arrangements to provide for them as soon as possible. That is all. When Doumergue and General de Castelnau came to bid me good-bye, I gave them a message to take: "Please tell the President of the Republic and the President of the Council that you have left me very anxious. A revolutionary crisis is at hand in Russia; it nearly broke out five weeks ago and is only postponed. Every day the Russian nation is getting more indifferent towards the war and the spirit of anarchy is spreading among all classes and even in the army. About the end of last October a very significant incident occurred in Petrograd; I reported it to Monsieur Briand. A strike broke out in the Vibori, quarter and as the police were very roughly handled by the workmen, two regiments which were in barracks in the vicinity, were sent for. These two regiments fired on the police. A division of Cossacks had to be hastily called in to bring the mutineers to their senses. So in case of a rising the authorities cannot count on the army. My conclusion is that time is no longer working for us, at any rate in Russia, and that we must henceforth take the defection of our ally into our calculations and draw all the inferences involved." "I am just as pessimistic as yourself," replied Doumergue; "I shall certainly tell the President of the Republic and M. Briand all you say, and will confirm it myself."
Volume III, Chapter Eight Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER VIII FEBRUARY 22-MARCH 11, 1917. Tchadaev's prophecy.---The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna goes to the Caucasus; she tells me her fears of the approaching crisis.---The functions of tsarism in the political and social life of the Russian people. An imaginary hypothesis: the Gunpowder Plot.---A retrospective survey of the origins of the Russo-Japanese War: the Emperor William's duplicity.---Cruel sufferings of the Rumanian civil population and army in Moldavia; famine and typhus. Noble behaviour of the King, Queen and Bratiano.---Paradoxes in the Russian character: meekness and revolt.---The military operations in Rumania and the problem of Constantinople.---The effect of war on the morals of the moujik; a bishop's complaints to the Empress.---Disturbances in Petrograd: "Bread
and peace!" The ministers hold a special council. "Perhaps this is the last social function of the rgime." A warning to the demonstrators: a Guard regiment refuses to fire on the mob. Thursday, February 22, 1917. I have just been reading the letters of Tchadaev, a paradox-loving and discerning author, the ironical enemy of Slav particularism and the great and inspired philosopher who thundered his eloquent prophecies at the Russian people in or about the year 1840. I have incidentally noted the following profound observation: "The Russians are one of those nations which seem to exist only to give humanity terrible lessons. Of a certainty these lessons will not be wasted. But who can foretell the sufferings and trials in store for Russia before she returns to the normal course of her destiny and her place in the bosom of humanity?"
Friday, February 23, 1917. The foreign delegates have hardly left Petrograd before the horizon of the Neva is darkening anew. The Imperial Duma is to resume its labours on Tuesday next, the 27th February, and the fact is causing excitement in industrial quarters. To-day, various agitators have been visiting the Putilov works, the Baltic Yards and the Viborg quarter, preaching a general strike as a protest against the government, food-shortage and war. The agitation has been lively enough to induce General Kharbalov, Military Governor of the capital, to issue a notice prohibiting public meetings and informing the civil population that "all resistance to authority will be immediately put down by force of arms." . This evening I gave a dinner to the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna and her son, the Grand Duke Boris. My other guests were Sazonov, Shebeko, the former ambassador to Vienna, Princess Marie Troubetzko, Princess Bielosselsky Prince and Princess Michael Gortchakov, Princess Stanilas Radziwill, M. and Madame Polovtsov, Count and Countess Alexander Shuvalov, Count and Countess Joseph Potocki, Princess Gagarin, M. Poklevski, Madame Vera Narishkin, Count Adam Zamojski, Benckendorff, General Knorring and my staff. The Grand Duchess was at the head of my table. I was on her left and Sazonov on her right. The Grand Duke sat opposite her; on his right was the Vicomtesse du Halgout, wife of my secretary who acts as hostess, and on his left Princess Marie Troubetzko. During dinner, my conversation with the Grand Duchess was purely small-talk and her conversation with Sazonov was of the same character.
But when we returned to the drawing-room, she asked me to sit by her, and we talked more freely. With an air of the deepest dejection she told me that she is leaving the day after tomorrow for Kislovotsk, on the northern slopes of the Caucasus: "I badly need sun and a rest, " she said. "The emotions of recent times have worn me out. I'm leaving with my heart heavy with apprehension. What will have happened by the time I see you again? Things can't go on like this!" "So affairs are not improving?" "No. How could they? The Empress has the Emperor entirely under her thumb her only adviser is Protopopov who consults the ghost of Rasputin every night! I can't tell you how downhearted I feel. Everything seems black, wherever I look. I'm expecting the most dire catastrophes. And yet God can't mean Russia to perish!" "God only helps those who help themselves; I have never heard of Him preventing a suicide. And what the Emperor is now doing is simply suicide, suicide for himself, his dynasty and his people." "But what can we do?" "Fight on. The recent intervention by the Grand Dukes has failed: we must try again, but on broader grounds and, permit me to add, in a more serious and prudent, and less censorious spirit. Both the Right and Left sections of the Council of Empire and the Duma contain elements well qualified to organize resistance to the abuses of autocracy. I believe that Protopopov, Dobrovolsky and all the rest of the Empress's camarilla would soon crumble into dust if all the reasonable and patriotic men in these two assemblies made common cause for the sake of national salvation and undertook to show the Emperor, firmly and logically, but with due moderation, that he is leading Russia straight to disaster; if the imperial family combined to speak with one voice while carefully avoiding the slightest suspicion of intrigue or conspiracy, and if you thus succeeded in creating in the upper strata of the State an all-embracing concentration on national revival. But there is no time to lose! The danger is pressing; every hour counts. If salvation does not come from above, there will be revolution from below. And that will mean catastrophe!" Her only answer was a despairing sigh. Then she remembered her royal duties, in the performance of which she has no superior, and asked some of the ladies to come and talk to her . . .
Saturday, February 24, 1917. The Marchese Carlotti, my Italian colleague, has just been comparing notes with me on the results of the conference. The course of our conversation led us to discuss the internal situation. Without minimizing the gravity of the symptoms that come under our observation every day,
Carlotti does not think that a revolution is imminent. In any case, he presumes that if the tsarist monarchy were overthrown by a popular rising, it would be immediately replaced by a constitutional and democratic rgime, in accordance with the programme of the "Cadet" Party; with the exception of a little bloodshed at the start, the new order would find no great obstacles to its inception. He argued this point of view with the ingenious subtlety of the Italian character which, in a political crisis, at once perceives all the possible combinations and desirable solutions. I argued contra, that the abolition of tsarism would probably inaugurate an unlimited period of disorder such as that which followed the death of Ivan the Terrible; tsarism, I said, is not only the official form of Russian government; it is the very foundation, tie-beam and structure of the Russian community. It is tsarism which has made the historic individuality of Russia and still preserves it. The whole collective life of the Russian nation is so to speak summed up in tsarism. Outside tsarism there is nothing. To bring home to Carlotti what I meant by assertions so dogmatic, I had recourse to an imaginary comparison which has often occurred to me of late: "You remember the famous Gunpowder Plot in the reign of James I of England, in 1605: a number of conspirators mined Westminster Palace with the idea of blowing up the sovereign, the ministers and all the members of Parliament at one and the same time. Suppose that at the present time a few English anarchists, using some highly improbable explosive, succeeded in annihilating at one blow King, Ministers, House of Lords, House of Commons, all government departments, police, armed forces and courts of law; in a word, all the machinery of the British constitution. Anyone can see there would be instant and general confusion in the State and a sudden cessation of almost all its vital functions. But it would only be a case of syncope. After a short period of paralysis and amazement, you would see public life revived and reorganized by the spontaneous action of provincial and municipal institutions, ecclesiastical bodies, the Universities, clubs, chambers of commerce, corporations and those innumerable private associations---religious, political, charitable, philanthropic, literary, scientific and sporting--which swarm on English soil and co-ordinate to a certain extent the free play of individual initiative. Such an exhibition of automatic reconstruction is impossible to imagine in a country like Russia, where no manifestation of political or social activity escapes the interference, supervision or strangling grip of the central authority, and the whole life of the nation is the slave of an omnipotent bureaucracy . . . My conclusion is that if tsarism collapsed, it would bring the whole Russian edifice down with it in its fall. I even wonder whether national unity would survive; for by what force, or in virtue of what principle could the belt of subject races be kept in place which the traditional policy of the tsars has girt about the Muscovite State? Would it not mean the end of Russia?"
Sunday, February 25, 1917. Pokrovski and I have been academically discussing the origins of the war, the action of the collective forces and individual intentions which had long made war inevitable, the terrible responsibility which History will certainly assign to Germany, and so on. While thus
investigating first causes, we came to mention the Russo-Japanese War and I alluded to the double game which William II played towards Russia at that time. Pokrovski interrupted: "As we are on this subject, .1 should like to ask you a question which will demonstrate once more how little I know about diplomatic affairs. Is it true that in 1904 the Kaiser was urging Japan to attack us while simultaneously inciting us on to make no concessions?" "Absolutely true. To see what advice and encouragement Germany gave Russia at that time, you have only to examine your archives or, better still, study the report of your excellent colleague, Neratov. there is no doubt that from 1897 onward the Emperor William was always dangling before your eyes the vision of the Far East; it was he who suggested the seizure of Port Arthur to you. He paraded before you the spectre of the 'Yellow Peril' and denounced the monstrous selfishness of France in trying to keep you out of Asiatic adventures. In the following years he was always complimenting you on your work in Manchuria. The moment you had any difficulty with Japan, he gave you secret assurances that if the 'dirty little yellows' became too bold, the German fleet would go to the help of yours in the China Seas. Towards the end of 1903, while France was exerting herself to procure you an honourable outcome of the Yalu affair, he made the Tsar a solemn promise to keep the peace in Europe while your armies were away fighting in the Far East. Until the Mukden defeat, he never ceased exhorting you to continue the war, increase your effectives and throw the whole of your national resources into that disastrous struggle. Such was his attitude towards Russia . . . But the Kaiser might conceivably say: 'Admitted that the advice I gave Russia was bad, all she had to do was not to take it. You reproach me with having encouraged her to involve herself in the Far East with the secret desire of seeing her weakened in Europe. All that is only policy, and good policy: I have furthered German interests . . . ' So I should not pass too severe a judgment on his behaviour towards you if it were not for something else. The fact is that while he was fooling and mystifying you, he was secretly encouraging the restiveness of Japan: he was inciting her to attack you and saying to her 'In a duel with Russia: you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Your friend England will never allow you to be crushed. France will abandon her ally. My personal contribution will be to promise you neutrality, a benevolent neutrality!' On the 8th February, 1904, without the slightest warning, Japanese destroyers sank three of your largest cruisers off Port Arthur. To excuse behaviour such as that, the Kaiser cannot plead the traditional processes of political calculation. It was pure deceit, knavery and double-dealing on his part." Pokrovski sat dumbfounded, then flung up his arms: "Do you mean to say that machiavellianism such as that is possible in the twentieth century! The twentieth century!" "Yes. even in the twentieth century. But what does the century matter Machiavellianism was several thousand years old when Machiavelli invented it. I don't suppose the events of the present war have exactly persuaded you that the world grows wiser as it gets older. The future will always be the product of the past." "Then I'm sorry for humanity! Gospodi pomilou. . .But is what you've just been telling me absolutely true and authentic? And how do you know, if it's not indiscreet to ask?" "The Japanese Government was immensely surprised by Germany's encouragement; it immediately informed the British Government which at once recognized the scheming and
mischief-making brain of the Emperor William. "Shortly afterwards the war-party got the upper hand at Tokio. I heard all this in 1913 from the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir Francis Bertie, who was Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office in 1903."
Monday, February 26, 1917. The food situation in Moldavia is getting worse every day: the Rumanian army is rationed below subsistence level and the civil population is dying of starvation. The natural result of physical distress has been a shocking epidemic of typhus. General Berthelot maintains that the sole remedy is an offensive north of the Dobrudja, carried out in such a way as to free one arm of the Danube and thus open a fresh line of supply. General Gourko, however, refuses to undertake this offensive, which he regards as extremely dangerous and in any case does not fit in with his strategic plans. In this national trial---one of the most cruel which has overtaken any country---King Ferdinand, Queen Marie and Bratiano are real shining lights. All the evidence we are getting from Jassy agrees on that point. By his calm and fearless energy, the King is keeping up the nation's courage and rallying everyone to the defence of the flag; gravely and without any sort of affectation, he is carrying out his professional duties splendidly as sovereign and leader. Bratiano shows the same strength of character and calm and deliberate fortitude; he, too, is facing the necessary sacrifices in the same manly way. In the case of the Queen on the other hand, patriotism is taking the heroic form; there is a fiery and warm-hearted ardour about her, an enthusiastic and chivalrous ardour, something of the sacred flame. So she has already become a figure of legend, for her proud and winning loveliness is the very incarnation of the soul of her people.
Wednesday, February 28, 1917. From whatever point of view the Russian be regarded, whether political, intellectual, moral or religious, he always presents the paradoxicaI spectacle of extreme docility combined with a spirit of revolt which is very strongly marked. The moujik is famed for his endurance and fatalism, his gentleness and meekness; his tenderness and resignation often border on the sublime. But all at once you will see him assert himself and rebel. His blind rage immediately impels him to the most shocking crimes, ferocious acts of vengeance and paroxysms of wickedness and savagery. There is the same contrast in the religious sphere. All who study the history and theology of the
Russian Orthodox Church, "the True Church of Christ," realize that its essential characteristics are its conservative instincts, the immutable rigidity of its creed, reverence for canon law, the importance of forms and rites, routine devotions, sumptuous ceremonial, an imposing hierarchy and humble, blind submission on the part of the faithful. By way of contrast, the great sect of the Raskol which separated from the official Church in the XVIIth century and has no less than eleven million adherents, shows us the abolition of priesthood, a primitive rough-and-ready form of worship and a negative and subversive radicalism. The innumerable sects which the Raskol produced in its turn, sects such as the Khlisty, Dukhobors, Stranniky, Pomortsi, Duchitely, Molokanes and Skoptzy, have gone very much further. With them there is no limit to individualism, no organization or discipline, unbridled licence, all the freaks and aberrations of religious emotion; in fact absolute anarchy. These two sides of the Russian nature appear equally well in the sphere of morals and private life. I know no country where the social fact is so impregnated with the spirit of tradition and religion; domestic life so solemn, patriarchal, inspired by so much tenderness and affection, enveloped in so much poetry and reverence. Nowhere are family duties and responsibilities accepted more readily; the irksomeness and privations, distresses and adversities of daily life borne with more patience. On the other hand, in no other country are individual revolts more frequent and sudden, and nowhere do they create such a sensation. On this point the records of crimes of passion and fashionable scandals abound in startling examples. There is no excess of which Russians, whether men or women, are not capable, the moment they have decided to "assert themselves as free beings."
Thursday, March 1, 1917. In spite of my repeated appeals, General Gourko has peremptorily refused to launch an offensive north of the Dobrudja with a view to creating a new line of supply for Rumania. There is undoubted force in his technical objections, but his real reason is one he does not mention, though General Polivanov gave me a hint of it not long ago. The Russian High Command attaches but slight importance to any operations of which Rumania might become the theatre; it intends to maintain a strict defensive there, its sole strategic object being to keep the enemy away from Kiev and Odessa. It has no illusions whatever about the possibility of clearing the way to Constantinople by forcing the Danube and the Balkans. It regards a march on Constantinople as necessarily postponed to the very end of the war, when an exhausted Germany will leave Turkey to her fate. Then and only then will a Russian army undertake the conquest of Constantinople: its point of departure will not be the Danube, or Sinope, or Heraclea, but the western shore of the Black Sea, Midia, Cape Inadia, or perhaps even Burgas if the military and political situation in Bulgaria makes it possible. As I was telling Pokrovski of my annoyance at General Gourko's refusal, he replied with some
warmth: "I assure you that we are doing and shall continue to do everything possible to save Rumania. But we must wait for a favourable moment! And that means a long time, no doubt! I know that at Jassy the Rumanians are saying nasty things about us, and even accusing us of treachery. I can forgive them, because they're in a very wretched state. But the honesty of our conduct is sufficiently proved by the fact that our Moldavian army is no less than five hundred thousand strong with a colossal amount of equipment. Bratiano should realize that most of the present troubles are due to this vast accumulation, for which he himself pleaded so long and so often." As General Alexeev is about to return to his post as Chief of the General Staff, Pokrovski has promised to put before him, in my name, the political and humanitarian arguments in favour of an offensive north of the Dobrudja.
Friday. March 2, 1917. The effects of the stimulant which the Allied Conference provided to the Russian Government departments, or at any rate the departmental offices in Petrograd, has already worn off. The artillery, war-factory and supply and transport departments have fallen back into their old casual and leisurely ways. Our officers and engineers are up against the same dilatory replies, the same dead weight of inactivity and indifference as before. It is enough to make one despair of everything. How I can sympathize with the spur of Ivan the Terrible and the cane of Peter the Great!
Saturday, March 3, 1917. I have just been told of a long conversation which took place recently between the Empress and Monsignor Theophanes, the Bishop of Viatka. This prelate is a creature of Rasputin, but the way he spoke to his sovereign shows that he has a sensible and independent mind. The Tsarina first asked him about the attitude of his flock towards the war. Monsignor Theophanes replied that the spirit of patriotism had not waned in his diocese which lies west of the Urals: of course the public was suffering from so long a trial; there was grumbling and criticism, but men were willing to put up with many more losses and much more privation in the cause of victory. He could reassure the Empress on that point. But in other respects he had much to worry and grieve him; he had observed that the demoralization of the people was making alarming progress every day. The men who returned from the army, sick, wounded, or on leave, were giving utterance to scandalous opinions; they openly professed unbelief and atheism and did not even shrink from blasphemy and sacrilege. Anyone could see at once that they had been
in touch with intellectuals and Jews. The cinemas, which had now spread to every little provincial town, were now another cause of degeneration. Melodramatic adventures and scenes of robbery and murder were too heady for simple souls such as moujiks: they fired their imaginations and turned their heads. It was thus that the bishop accounted for the unwonted number of sensational crimes of violence which have been recorded in recent months not only in the diocese of Viatka but the neighbouring dioceses of Ekaterinburg, Tobolsk, Perm and Samara. In support of his statements, he showed the Empress photographs of looted shops, sacked houses and mutilated corpses, all of them obviously showing the handiwork of audacious criminality. He, then castigated a wholly modern vice---morphia-taking---of which the masses in Russia had not even heard until quite recently. The evil had come from all the military hospitals with which the country is dotted. Many doctors and chemists had got into the habit of taking morphia; through them the use of the drug had spread among officers, officials, engineers and students. Before long the hospital attendants had followed their examples, and their case was far more pernicious because they had made men of the people their companions in debauchery. When they did not take morphia themselves they sold it to others; everyone in Viatka knew the cabarets where this trade was carried on. The police had good reasons for shutting their eyes to it . . . Monsignor Theophanes ended thus: "The remedy for all these evils should be sought, I think, in strong action by the clergy. But I confess with grief to Your Majesty that the general demoralization has not spared our priests, particularly in the country districts. A few are real saints but the majority are abandoned and degraded. They have no influence with their parishioners. The religious education of the people must begin all over again, and to that end the moral ascendancy of the clergy must be restored to them. The first step is to suppress the sale of the sacraments. The State must pay the priest a stipend sufficient to live upon and then he must be forbidden to accept any money save that given voluntarily for his church or the poor. The wretched condition to which the sviat chenik is reduced, as things are now, compels him to resort to a scandalous sort of trading which deprives him of all prestige and dignity. I anticipate great disasters to our holy church unless its supreme guardian, our revered and pious Tsar, reforms it as soon as possible . . ." In the mouth of one of Rasputin's bishops, these words are an edifying prediction. I have heard from another source that Monsignor Vladimir; Archbishop of Penza, and Monsignor Andrew, Bishop of Ufa, two prelates who would not consent to throw in their lot with Rasputin and are among the most distinguished members of the Russian clergy, have expressed exactly the same opinions as Monsignor Theophanes.
Tuesday, March 6, 1917. Petrograd is short of bread and wood, and the public is suffering want. At a bakery on the Liteny this morning I was struck by the sinister expression on the faces of
the poor folk who were lined up in a queue, most of whom had spent the whole night there. Pokrovski, to whom I mentioned the matter, did not conceal his anxiety. But what can be done! The transport crisis is certainly worse. The extreme cold (43) which has all Russia in its grip has put more than twelve hundred engines out of action, owing to boiler tubes bursting, and there is a shortage of spare tubes as a result of strikes. Moreover, the snowfall of the last few weeks has been exceptionally heavy and there is also a shortage of labour in the villages to clear the permanent way. The result is that at the present moment fifty-seven thousand railway wagons cannot be moved.
Thursday, March 8, 1917. There has been great agitation in Petrograd all day. Processions have been parading the main streets. At several points the mob shouted for "Bread and peace!" At others it sang the Working Man's Marseillaise. In the Nevsky Prospekt there have been slight disorders. I had Trepov, Count Tolsto, Director of the Hermitage, my Spanish colleague, Villasinda, and a score of my regular guests to dinner this evening. The occurrences in the streets were responsible for a shade of anxiety which marked our faces and our conversation. I asked Trepov what steps the Government was taking to bring food supplies to Petrograd, as unless they are taken the situation will probably soon get worse. His replies were anything but reassuring. When I returned to my other guests, I found all traces of anxiety had vanished from their features and their talk. The main object of conversation was an evening party which Princess Leon Radziwill is giving on Sunday: it will be a large and brilliant party, and everyone was hoping that there will be music and dancing. Trepov and I stared at each other. The same words came to our lips: "What a curious time to arrange a party!" In one group, various opinions were being passed on the dancers of the Marie Theatre and whether the palm for excellence should be awarded to Pavlova, Kchechinskaa or Karsavina, etc. In spite of the fact that revolution is in the air in his capital, the Emperor, who has spent the last two months at Tsarskoe-Selo, left for General Headquarters this evening.
This morning the excitement in industrial circles took a violent form. Many bakeries were looted, especially in the Viborg Quarter and Vassili-Ostrov. At several points the Cossacks charged the crowd and killed a number of workmen. Pokrovski has been confiding his anxieties to me: "I should regard these disorders as of minor importance if my dear colleague at the Interior still retained a shred of common sense. But what can you do with a man who has lost all idea of reality for weeks, and confers with the shade of Rasputin every night? This very evening he's been spending hours in conjuring up the ghost of the staretz!"
Saturday, March 10, 1917. The hair-raising problem of food supplies has been investigated to-night by an "Extraordinary Council," which was attended by all the ministers (except the Minister of the Interior), the President of the Council of Empire, the President of the Duma and the Mayor of Petrograd. Protopopov did not condescend to take part in the conference; he was no doubt communing with the ghost of Rasputin. Gendarmes, Cossacks and troops have been much in evidence all over the city. Until four o'clock in the afternoon the demonstrations gave rise to no untoward event. But the public soon began to get excited. The Marseillaise was sung, and red flags were paraded on which was written Down with the Government! . . . Down with Protopopov. . . Down with the war! . . . Down with Germany! . . Shortly after five disorders began in the Nevsky Prospekt. Three demonstrators and three police officers were killed and about a hundred persons wounded. Order was restored by the evening. I took advantage of the situation to take the Vicomtesse du Halgout, my secretary's wife, to hear a little music at the Liloty concert. We passed Cossack patrols the whole way there. The hall of the Marie Theatre was almost empty; not more than fifty persons were present and there were many gaps even in the orchestra itself. We heard, or rather sat through, the first symphony of the young composer Saminsky, an unequal work which is quite powerful in places though its effects are wasted in a certain straining after startling dissonances and complicated harmonic formul. At any other time these subtleties of technique would have interested me: tonight they simply exasperated me. Very fortunately, the violinist Enesco came next. After glancing round the deserted hall with eyes that were almost in tears, he came close up to our seats at the corner of the orchestra, as if he meant to play for us alone. This splendid virtuoso, worthy rival to Ysaye and Kreisler, never moved me so deeply before with his broad and unaffected playing which is capable of the most delicate modulations and the most impassioned transports. A Fantasia of Saint-Sans with which he ended, was a miracle of fervid romanticism. When this was over, we came away.
The square of the Marie Theatre, usually so gay, looked utterly desolate; my car was the only vehicle there. The Moka bridge was guarded by a picket of gendarmes and troops were massed in front of the Lithuania Prison. Madame du Halgout shared my astonishment at the sight and remarked: "Are we witnessing the last night of the rgime?"
Sunday, March 11, 1917. The ministers sat in council until five o'clock this morning. Protopopov condescended to join his colleagues and reported to them the strong measures he had prescribed to preserve order "at any cost." The result is that General Khabalov, Military Governor of Petrograd, has had the city placarded with the following warning this morning: All meetings or gatherings are forbidden. I notify the civil population that I have given the troops fresh authority to use their arms and stop at nothing to maintain order. As I was returning from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs this morning, I met one of the leaders of the Cadet Party, Basil Maklakov. "We're in the presence of a great political movement now," he said. "Everyone has finished with the present system. If the Emperor does not grant the country prompt and far-reaching reforms, the agitation will develop into riots. And there is only a step between riot and revolution." "I entirely agree with you, but I'm very much afraid that the Romanovs have found their Polignac in Protopopov. But if a crisis is precipitated you will certainly be called upon to play a part. In that case, let me beg of you not to forget the fundamental obligations the war has laid on Russia." "You can count on me." In spite of the warning of the Military Governor, the mob is becoming increasingly disorderly and aggressive; in the Nevsky Prospekt it is getting larger every hour. Four or five times the troops have been compelled to fire to escape being brushed aside. There are scores of dead. Towards the end of the day, two of my secret informers whom I had sent into the industrial quarters returned with the report that the ruthless measures of repression adopted have taken the heart out of the workmen, who were saying that they had "had enough of going to the Nevsky Prospekt to be killed!" But another informer tells me that the Volhynian Regiment of the Guard refused to fire. This is a fresh factor in the situation and reminds me of the sinister warning of October 31. As I needed a rest after all the work and worry of to-day (I have been literally besieged by anxious members of the French colony) I turned out after dinner for an evening call on Countess
P----- who lives in Glinka Street. When I left her about eleven o'clock I heard that demonstrations were continuing in the neighbourhood of Our Lady of Kazan and the Gostiny-Dvor. I thought it as well to return to the embassy by the roundabout way along the Fontarska. My car had just reached the quay when I noticed a house which was a blaze of lights; opposite it was a long line of cars and carriages. Princess Leon Radziwill's party was in full swing; I caught a glimpse of the car of the Grand Duke Boris as we passed. Snac de Meilhan tells us that there was plenty of gaiety in Paris on the night of the 5th October, 1789.
Volume III, Chapter Nine Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER IX MARCH 12-22, 1917. From riot to revolution.---Barricades, looting and fires; street fighting.---The army fraternizes with the insurgents.---The Government thrown into confusion.---The ministers appeal to the Emperor.---The Winter Palace and the Fortress are occupied.---The Duma organizes an executive committee.---Further fighting in the streets. General Ivanov's mission. The last chance of saving tsarism. Rapid progress of the revolution.---The socialists form a "Council of Working-Men and Soldier Deputies," theSoviet, in opposition to the Duma. The vital part of the army in the revolutionary drama. Shameful behaviour of the Grand Duke Cyril and the Imperial Guard.---The Emperor, after a futile attempt to return to Petrograd, stops at Pskov where two envoys from the Duma beg him to abdicate in favour of his son. A provisional government formed.---Nicholas II will not consent to be separated from his son and abdicates in favour of his brother, Michael-Alexandrovitch. Rage of the Soviet, which demands and secures the renunciation of the throne by the Grand Duke Michael.----News from Tsarskoe-Selo; the Grand Duke Paul informs the Empress of the Emperor's abdication.---The Provisional Government's weakness in dealing with theSoviet: the Petrograd garrison extorts a promise not to be sent to the front.---Miliukov is appointed Foreign Minister; our first talk: I demand that Russia's new rulers shall proclaim their determination to continue the war to the bitter end.---A general summary of recent happenings. Inaction of the clergy in the revolution. Supplementary details of the abdication of the Emperor.---Manifesto issued by the Provisional Government., it contains only a vague allusion to the prosecution of the war: I protest to Miliukov.---The Soviet compels the Provisional Government to arrest the fallen monarchs, Miliukov asks the British Government to
give them a place of refuge in England. Eloquent farewell of the Emperor to the army. Monday, March 12, 1917. At half-past eight this morning, just as I finished dressing, I heard a strange and prolonged din which seemed to come from the Alexander Bridge. I looked out: there was no one on the bridge, which usually presents such a busy scene. But, almost immediately, a disorderly mob carrying red flags appeared at the end which is on the right bank of the Neva, and a regiment came towards it from the opposite side. It looked as if there would be a violent collision, but on the contrary the two bodies coalesced. The army was fraternizing with revolt. Shortly afterwards, someone came to tell me that the Volhynian regiment of the Guard had mutinied during the night, killed its officers and was parading the city, calling on the people to take part in the revolution and trying to win over the troops who still remain loyal. At ten o'clock there was a sharp burst of firing and flames could be seen rising somewhere on the Liteny Prospekt which is quite close to the embassy. Then silence. Accompanied by my military attach, Lieutenant-Colonel Lavergne, I went out to see what was happening. Frightened inhabitants were scattering through the streets. There was indescribable confusion at the corner of the Liteny. Soldiers were helping civilians to erect a barricade. Flames mounted from the Law Courts. The gates of the arsenal burst open with a crash. Suddenly the crack of machine-gun fire split the air: it was the regulars who had just taken up position near the Nevsky Prospekt. The revolutionaries replied. I had seen enough to have no doubt as to what was coming. Under a hail of bullets I returned to the embassy with Lavergne who had walked calmly and slowly to the hottest corner out of sheer bravado. About half-past eleven I went to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, picking up Buchanan on the way. I told Pokrovski everything I had just witnessed. "So it's even more serious than I thought," he said. But he preserved unruffled composure, flavoured with a touch of scepticism, when he told me of the steps on which the ministers had decided during the night: "The sitting of the Duma has been prorogued to April and we have sent a telegram to the Emperor, begging him to return at once. With the exception of M. Protopopov, my colleagues and I all thought that a dictatorship should be established without delay; it would be conferred upon some general whose prestige with the army is pretty high, General Russky for example." I argued that, judging by what I saw this morning, the loyalty of the army was already too heavily shaken for our hopes of salvation to be based on the use of the "strong hand," and that the immediate appointment of a ministry inspiring confidence in the Duma seemed to me more essential than ever, as there is not a moment to lose. I reminded Pokrovski that in 1789, 1830 and 1848, three French dynasties were overthrown because they were too late in realizing the significance and strength of the movement against them. I added that in such a grave crisis the representative of allied France had a right to give the Imperial Government advice on a matter of
internal politics. Buchanan endorsed my opinion. Pokrovski replied that he personally shared our views, but that the presence of Protopopov in the Council of Ministers paralyzed action of any kind. I asked him: "Is there no one who can open the Emperor's eyes to the real situation?" He heaved a despairing sigh. "The Emperor is blind!" Deep grief was writ large on the face of the honest man and good citizen whose uprightness, patriotism and disinterestedness I can never sufficiently extol. He asked us to call in again at the end of the day. When I returned to the embassy the situation had become much worse. One piece of bad news followed another. The Law Courts had become nothing but an enormous furnace; the Arsenal on the Liteny, the Ministry of the Interior, the Military Government building, the Minister of the Courts' offices, the headquarters of the Detective Force, the too, too famous Okhrana,and a score of police-stations were in flames; the prisons were open and all the prisoners had been liberated; the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul was undergoing a siege and the Winter Palace was occupied. Fighting was in progress in every part of the city. At half-past six I returned with Buchanan to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Pokrovski told us that in view of the gravity of the situation the Council of Ministers had decided to remove Pokrovski from the Ministry of the Interior and appoint General Makarenko "provisional director." The Council at once reported accordingly to the Emperor and also begged him to confer extraordinary powers immediately on some general, authorizing him to take all the exceptional measures the situation requires, and particularly to appoint other ministers. He also informed us that in spite of the ukase of prorogation, the Duma met at the Tauris Palace this afternoon. It has set up a permanent committee with the object of serving as intermediary between the Government and the mutinous troops. Rodzianko, who is president of this committee, has telegraphed to the Emperor that the dynasty is in the greatest danger and the slightest hesitation will be fatal to it. It was pitch dark when Buchanan and I left the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; not a lamp was lit. Just as my car was emerging from the Millionaa, opposite the Marble Palace, we were stopped by a military mob. Something was happening in the barracks of the Pavlovski Regiment. Infuriated soldiers were shouting, yelling and fighting on the square. My car was surrounded. There was a violent demonstration against us. It was in vain that my chasseur and chauffeur tried to explain that we were the ambassadors of France and England. The doors were opened and our position was on the point of becoming dangerous when a non-commissioned officer, perched on a horse, recognized us and in a voice of thunder proposed a " cheer for France and
England!" We came out of this unpleasant predicament to the accompaniment of a storm of cheering. I spent the evening trying to obtain information as to what the Duma was doing. It was a very difficult matter as shooting and burning were in progress in all quarters. At length certain reports came in which substantially agreed. The Duma, I was told, was doing everything in its power to organize a Provisional Government, restore order to some extent and secure the food supplies of the capital. The swift and complete defection of the army has been a great surprise to the leaders of the liberal parties and even the working-class party. As a matter of fact, it faces the moderate deputies, who are trying to direct and control the popular movement (Rodzianko, Miliukov, Shingarev, Maklakov, etc.) with the question whether it is not too late to save the dynastic rgime. It is a formidable problem, as the republican idea, which is favoured in labour circles in Petrograd and Moscow, is foreign to the spirit of the country and it is impossible to foretell how the armies at the front will receive the occurrences in the capital.
Tuesday, March 13, 1917. The firing, which had died down by this morning, began again about ten o'clock; it seemed to be pretty vigorous in the region of the Admiralty. Armoured cars, with machine-guns and displaying red flags, were continually passing the embassy at top speed. More fires were blazing at several points in the capital. With a view to avoiding another incident such as yesterday's, I preferred not to use my car in going to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; I walked there, accompanied by my chasseur, the faithful Lonide, who was wearing civilian clothes. Close to the Summer Garden I met one of the Ethiopians who used to mount guard at the Emperor's door and had often ushered me into the imperial study. The honest negro was also wearing civilian clothes and looked very dejected. We walked together for a short distance there were tears in his eyes. I tried to comfort him a little and shook his hand. While he was walking away I watched him with amused eyes. In this collapse of a whole political and social system he stands for the monarchical splendours of other days, the picturesque and sumptuous ceremonial introduced by Elizabeth and Catherine the Great (long ago) and all that magic atmosphere which was conjured up by the words which will henceforth mean nothing: "The Court of Russia." I met Buchanan in the vestibule of the Ministry. Pokrovski said to us: "The Council of Ministers has been sitting continuously all night in the Marie Palace. The Emperor has no illusions about the gravity of the situation, as he has given General Ivanov extraordinary powers to restore order; he also seems determined to reconquer his capital by force and will not hear of making terms with troops who have killed their officers and raised the
red flag. But I doubt whether General Ivanov, who was at Mohilev yesterday, will ever reach Petrograd: the insurgents are in control of all the railways. And even if he succeeded in getting here, what could he do? All the regiments have gone over to the revolution. Only certain isolated detachments and a few bodies of police are still offering resistance. Of my colleagues in the ministry the majority are in flight and several have been arrested. I personally had the greatest difficulty in getting away from the Marie Palace to-night. Why, I'm awaiting my fate at this moment." He spoke very calmly, in a simple, dignified, courageous and firm tone which gave a look of nobility to his pleasant face. To realize how meritorious his serenity is, it must be remembered that, though he was Comptroller-General of the finances of the Empire for a long time, he has no capital at all and is blessed with a large family. "As you've just crossed the city," he said, " tell me if you think the Emperor can still save his crown?" "He has a chance, because there is appalling confusion in all quarters. But the Emperor must at once accept what has happened by appointing the provisional committee of the Duma as ministers and pardoning the rebels. I also think that if he appeared. in person to his army and people, and solemnly announced on the steps of Our Lady of Kazan that a new era is beginning for Russia, he would have a splendid reception. But if he waits a day it will be too late.--- There is a fine remark of Lucan's which can be applied to the opening stages of all revolutions: Ruit irrevocabile vulgus.. I have been saying it over to myself to-night. In the stormy circumstances through which we are passing, the irrevocable soon becomes a fact!" "We don't even know where the Emperor is. He must have left Mohilev yesterday evening or at dawn this morning. I have no news whatever of the Empress. It's impossible to communicate with Tsarskoe-Selo." As we came out of the ministry, Sir George Buchanan said to me: "Let's go by the Court Quay instead of going through the Millionaa. We shall avoid the Guard's barracks that way." But as we entered the quay we were recognized by a body of students who cheered us and provided an escort. Opposite the Marble Palace the crowd got much larger and noisily enthusiastic. Cries of "Long live the Internationale! Long live peace!" blended unpleasantly with shouts of Long live France! Long live England!" At the corner of Suvorov Square, Buchanan left me after advising me to take shelter in his embassy from the mob, which was getting somewhat too excited. But as it was late and I wanted to wire to Paris before lunch, I went on my way. Opposite the Summer Garden I was entirely surrounded by the crowd which stopped a passing motor machine-gun and insisted on my getting in and being conveyed to the Tauride Palace. A huge and boisterous student, waving a red flag, bawled in my face in excellent French: "Pay your respects to the Russian Revolution! The red flag is Russia's flag now; do homage to it in the name of France!"
He translated his words into Russian and they were greeted with frantic cheers. I replied: "I cannot pay a finer tribute to Russian liberty than to invite you to join me in saying: 'Long live the war!'" He was very careful not to translate my reply. At length we reached the embassy. Not without considerable trouble and the strenuous efforts of my chasseur did I succeed in getting clear of the crowd and within my own doors. During the whole of this afternoon the revolution has been pursuing its logical and inevitable course. Ruit irrevocabile vulgus.. I have successively learned that Prince Golitizin, (President of the Council) the Metropolitan Pitirim, Sturmer, Dobrovolsky, Protopopov, etc., have been arrested. The livid glow of fresh fires can be seen at various points. The Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul has become the headquarters of the revolt. Fierce fighting is taking place around the Admiralty, where the War Minister, the Naval Minister and several high officials have taken refuge. In all other parts of the city the insurgents are ruthlessly tracking down "traitors," police officials and gendarmes. The shooting has sometimes been so brisk in the streets round the embassy that my dvorniks have refused to take my telegrams to the General Post Office, the only one which is still working; I have had to rely on a petty officer of the French Navy who is on leave in Petrograd and is not afraid of bullets. About five o'clock, a high official,. K-----, came to tell me that the executive committee of the Duma is trying to form a "provisional government," but that President Rodzianko, Gutchkov, Shulgin and Maklakov are utterly taken aback by the anarchical behaviour of the army. "They never imagined a revolution like this," my informer added; "they hoped to direct it and keep it within bounds through the army. The troops recognize no leader now and are spreading terror throughout the city." He then told me abruptly that he had been asked to see me by President Rodzianko, and asked me if I had no advice, no suggestion to send him. "As French Ambassador," I said, "the war is my main concern of course, so I want the effects of the revolution to be kept down as much as possible and order to be restored at the earliest moment. Don't forget that the French army is making preparations for a great offensive and that the Russian army is bound in honour to do its share." "So you think it necessary to retain the imperial system?" "Yes, but in. a constitutional as opposed to an autocratic form." "Nicholas II cannot be allowed to reign any more; no one has any confidence left in him and he has lost all authority. In any case, he would never consent to sacrifice the Empress." "You may change the Tsar, but you should stick to tsarism." And I endeavoured to explain to him how tsarism is the very framework of Russia, the essential and irreplaceable buttress of Russian society and the sole link which unites all the heterogeneous
nations of the Empire: "If tsarism collapsed, you may be certain that it would bring down the whole edifice of Russia with it." He assured me that Rodzianko, Gutchkov and Miliukov thought exactly the same and were hard at work on that footing, but that the socialist and anarchist elements were gaining ground every hour. "That's another reason for losing no time," I said. At nightfall, I ventured out with my secretary Chambrun to cheer up some women friends who lived near and whom I knew to be extremely anxious. After a call on Princess. Stanislas Radziwill and the Countess de Robien, we decided to return, as in spite of the darkness there was constant firing and, as we crossed the Serguievskaa, we heard the bullets whistling past. . During a day which has been prolific in grave events and may perhaps have determined the future of Russia for a century to come, I have made a note of one episode which seems trivial at first sight, but in reality is highly significant. The town house of Kchechinskaa, at the end of the Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt and opposite Alexander Park, was occupied by the insurgents today and sacked from top to bottom. I remember a detail which makes it easy to see why the residence of the famous dancer has been singled out by mob fury. It was last winter; the cold was intense and the thermometer had fallen to-35. Sir George Buchanan, whose embassy is centrally heated, had been unable to procure coal, which is the essential fuel for that system. He had appealed to the Russian Admiralty, but in vain. That very morning Sazonov had definitely told him it was impossible to find coal in any public depot. In the afternoon we went for a walk together on the Islands, as the sky was clear and there was no wind. Just as we were entering Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt, Buchanan burst out: "Well, if that isn't a bit too thick!" He pointed to four military lorries opposite the dancer's house; they were laden with sacks of coal which a squad of soldiers was engaged in removing. "Don't worry, Sir George," I said. "You haven't the same claim as Madame Kchechinskaa to the attentions of the imperial authorities." It is probable that for years past many thousands of Russians have made similar remarks about the favours heaped upon Kchechinskaa. The ballerina, once the beloved of the Tsarevitch and subsequently courted by two Grand Dukes at once, has become as it were a symbol of the imperial order. It is that symbol which has been attacked by the plebs to-day. A revolution is always more or less a summary and a sanction.
Wednesday, March 14, 1917. There has been much fighting and burning again in Petrograd this morning. The soldiers are hunting down officers and gendarmes---a ruthless and savage chase which betrays all the
barbarous instincts still latent in the moujik nature. . In the general anarchy which is raging in Petrograd, three directing bodies are in process of formation: (1) The "Executive Committee of the Duma," with Rodzianko as its president and comprising twelve members, including Miliukov, Shulgin, Konovalov, Kerensky and Cheidze. It is thus representative of all parties of the progressive group and the Extreme Left. It is trying to secure the necessary reforms immediately in order to maintain the existing political system, at the cost of proclaiming another emperor, if need be. But the Tauris Palace is occupied by the insurgents so that the committee has to confer amidst general uproar, and is exposed to the bullying of the mob; (2) The "Council of Working-Men and Soldier Deputies," the Soviet. It holds its sittings at the Finland station. Its password and battlecry is "Proclaim the social Republic and put an end to the war." Its leaders are already denouncing the members of the Duma as traitors to the revolution, and openly adopting the same attitude towards the legal representative body as the Commune of Paris adopted towards the Legislative Assembly in 1792; (3) The "Headquarters of the Troops." This body sits in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. It is composed of a few junior officers who have gone over to the revolution and several N.C.O.'s or soldiers who have been promoted to officer rank. It is endeavouring to introduce a little system into the business of supplying the combatants and is sending them food and ammunition. In particular it is keeping the Duma in a state of subjection. Through it the soldiery is all-powerful at the present moment. A few battalions, quartered in and around the Fortress, are the only organized force in Petrograd; they are the prtorians of the revolution and as determined, ignorant and fanatical as the famous battalions of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel in that same year 1792. Since the Russian revolution, memories of the French revolution have often passed through my mind. But the spirit of the two movements is quite dissimilar. By its origins, principles and social, rather than political character, the present upheaval has a much stronger resemblance to the Revolution of 1848. . The Emperor left Mohilev this morning. His train proceeded towards Bologoe, which is halfway between Moscow and Petrograd. It is presumed that the Emperor intends to return to Tsarskoe-Selo but some people are wondering whether he is not thinking of going to Moscow to organize resistance to the revolution. . The fact that the army has monopolized the lead in the revolutionary drama has just been confirmed before my own eyes by the spectacle of three regiments marching past the embassy on their way to the Tauride Palace. They marched in perfect order, with their band at the head. A few officers came first, wearing a large red cockade in their caps, a knot of red ribbon on their shoulders and red stripes on their sleeves. The old regimental standard, covered with ikons, was surrounded by red flags. .
The Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch has come out openly in favour of the revolution. He has gone even further. Forgetting the oath of fealty, and the office of aide-de-camp which bind him to the Emperor, he went off about one o'clock this afternoon to make obeisance to popular rule. In his naval captain's uniform he was seen leading the marines of the Guard, whose commander he is, and placing their services at the disposal of the rebels! Shortly afterwards the Potemkin Palace was the scene of another and equally melancholy spectacle. A body of officers and men, who had been sent by the garrison of Tsarskoe-Selo, signified its adherence to the revolution. At the head were the Cossacks of the Escort, those magnificent horsemen who are the flower of the Kasatchesvo, the proud and privileged lite of the Imperial Guard. Then came the Regiment of His Majesty, the legion sacre which is recruited by selection from all the units of the Guard and whose special function it is to secure the personal safety of their sovereigns. Next came His Majesty's Railway Regiment which has the duty of conducting the imperial trains and watching over the safety of Their Majesties when travelling. At the end of the procession marched the Police of the Imperial Palaces, chosen satellites who have to guard the imperial residences from within and thus participate daily in the intimate, private life of their masters. All of these men, officers and privates alike, have vowed their devotion to the new authority---whose very name they do not know----as if they could not embrace the chains of a new servitude too soon. While this shameful piece of news was being told him, my mind went back to the brave Swiss who let themselves be cut to pieces on the steps of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792, though Louis XVI was not their sovereign and when they greeted him they did not call him: Tsary batiushka, "Our Little Father the Tsar!" In the course of the evening Count S----- called on me to ask for information about the situation. I told him incidentally of the humiliating submission of the Tsarskoe-Selo garrison at the Tauride Palace. At first he would not believe me. After long and mournful reflection he continued: " What a horrible, horrible thing. The Guard troops who took part in that demonstration have disgraced themselves for ever. But perhaps the fault is not entirely theirs. In their continual attendance on Their Majesties they've seen too many things they ought not to have seen they know too much about Rasputin . . ." As I wrote yesterday when on the subject of Kchechinskaa, a revolution is always more or less a summary and a sanction. . Just before midnight I was told that the leaders of the liberal parties held a secret conference this evening---in the absence of the socialists and without their knowledge---with a view to arriving at an agreement about the future form of government. They were of one accord that the monarchy must be retained, but Nicholas II, who is responsible for the present disasters, must be sacrificed to the salvation of Russia. The former president of the Duma, Alexander Ivanov Gutchkov, who is now sitting in the Council of Empire then expressed the following opinion: "It is of vital importance that Nicholas II should not be
overthrown by violence. The only thing which can secure the permanent establishment of a new order, without too great a shock, is his voluntary abdication. The spontaneous renunciation of Nicholas II is the only means of saving the imperial system and the dynasty of the Romanovs." This view, which seems to me very sound, was unanimously adopted. The liberal leaders closed their conference by deciding that Gutchkov and Shulgin, the deputy from the Nationalist Right, shall go straight to the Emperor and beg him to abdicate in favour of his son.
Thursday, March 15, 1917. Gutchkov and Shulgin left Petrograd at nine o'clock this morning. Thanks to the aid of an engineer attached to the railway service, they were able to get a special train without arousing the suspicions of the socialist committees. Discipline is gradually being re-established among the troops. Order has been restored in the city and the shops are cautiously opening their doors again. The Executive Committee of the Duma and the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies have come to an agreement on the following points: (1) Abdication of the Emperor; (2) Accession of the Tsarevitch; (3) The Grand Duke Michael (the Emperor's brother) to be regent; (4) Formation of a responsible ministry; (5) Election of a constituent assembly by universal suffrage; (6) All races to be proclaimed equal before the law. The young deputy Kerensky, who has gained a reputation as an advocate in political trials, is coming out as one of the most active and strong-minded organizers of the new order. His influence with the Soviet is great. He is a man we must try to win over to our cause. He alone is capable of making theSoviet realize the necessity of continuing the war and maintaining the alliance. I have therefore telegraphed to Paris, suggesting to Briand that an appeal from the French socialists to the patriotism of the Russian socialists should be sent through Kerensky. But the whole of the interest of the day has been concentrated on the little town of Pskov, halfway between Petrograd and Dvinsk. It was there that the imperial train, which failed to reach Tsarskoe-Selo, stopped at eight o'clock yesterday evening. The Emperor, who left Mohilev on March 13 at 4.30 a.m., decided to go to Tsarskoe-Selo, the Empress having begged him to return there at once. The news he had received from Moscow did not alarm him unduly. Of course it may be that General Voyekov kept part of the truth from him. About three o'clock in the morning of March 14, as the engine of the imperial train was taking in water at the station of Malaa-Vichera, General Zabel, commander of His Majesty's Railway Regiment, took it upon himself to awaken the Emperor to tell him that the line to Petrograd had been closed and that Tsarskoe-Selo was in the hands of the revolutionary forces. After giving vent to his surprise and irritation at not having been better informed, the Emperor is
said to have replied: "Moscow will remain faithful to me. We will go to Moscow!" Then he is reported to have added, with his usual apathy: "If the revolution succeeds, I shall abdicate voluntarily. I'll go and live at Livadia; I love flowers." But at the station of Dno it was learned that the whole populace of Moscow had adhered to the revolution. Then the Emperor decided to seek a haven of refuge among his troops and selected the headquarters of the armies of the North, commanded by General Russky, at Pskov. The imperial train arrived at Pskov at eight o'clock yesterday evening. General Russky came to confer with the Emperor at once and had no difficulty in demonstrating that his duty was to abdicate. He also invoked the unanimous opinion of General Alexeev and the army commanders, whom he had consulted by telegraph. The Emperor instructed General Russky to report to Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, his intention to renounce the throne. This morning Pokrovski resigned his office as Foreign Minister; he did so with that calm and unaffected dignity which makes him so lovable. "My work is over," he said to me. "The President of the Council and all my colleagues have been arrested or are in flight. It is three days since the Emperor showed any sign of life and, to crown everything, General Ivanov, who was to bring us His Majesty's orders, has not arrived. In the circumstances it is impossible for me to carry out my duties; I am leaving my post and handing over its duties to my administrative deputy. In this way I avoid breaking my oath to the Emperor, as I have not entered into any sort of communication with the revolutionaries." During the evening, the leaders of the Duma have at last succeeded in forming a Provisional Government with Prince Lvov as president; he is taking the Ministry of the Interior. The other ministers are Gutchkov (War), Miliukov (Foreign Affairs), Terestchenko (Finance), Kerensky (Justice), etc. The first cabinet of the new rgime was only formed after interminable wrangling and haggling with the Soviet. The socialists have certainly realized that the Russian proletariat is still too inorganic and ignorant to shoulder the practical responsibilities of power; but they are anxious to be the power behind the scenes, so they have insisted on the appointment of Kerensky as Minister for Justice in order to keep an eye on the Provisional Government.
Nicholas II abdicated yesterday, shortly before mid-night. When the emissaries of the Duma, Gutchkov and Shulgin, arrived at Pskov about nine o'clock in the evening, the Emperor gave them his usual simple and kindly reception. In very dignified language and a voice which trembled somewhat, Gutchkov told the Emperor the object of his mission and ended with these words: "Nothing but the abdication of Your Majesty in favour of your son can still save the Russian Fatherland and preserve the dynasty." The Emperor replied very quickly, as if referring to some perfectly commonplace matter: "I decided to abdicate yesterday. But I cannot be separated from my son; that is more than I could bear; his health is too delicate you must realize what I feel . . . I shall therefore abdicate in favour of my brother, Michael Alexandrovitch." Gutchkov at once bowed to the argument of fatherly affection to which the Tsar appealed and Shulgin also acquiesced. The Emperor then went into his study with the Minister of the Court; he came out ten minutes later with the act of abdication signed. Count Fredericks handed it to Gutchkov. This memorable document is worded as follows: By the grace of God, we, Nicholas II, Emperor of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., to all our faithful subjects make known: In these days of terrible struggle against the foreign enemy who has been trying for three years to impose his will upon Our Fatherland, God has willed that Russia should be faced with a new and formidable trial. Troubles at home threaten to have a fatal effect on the ultimate course of this hard-fought war. The destinies of Russia, the honour of Our heroic army, the welfare of the nation and the whole future of our dear country require that the war shall be continued, cost what it may, to a victorious end. Our cruel enemy is making his final effort and the day is at hand when our brave army, with the help of our glorious allies, will overthrow him once and for all. At this moment, a moment so decisive for the existence of Russia, Our conscience bids Us to facilitate the closest union of Our subjects and the organization of all their forces for the speedy attainment of victory. For that reason We think it right---and the Imperial Duma shares Our view---to abdicate the crown of the Russian State and resign the supreme power. As We do not desire to be separated from Our beloved son, We bequeath Our inheritance to Our brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, and give him Our blessing on his accession to the throne. We ask him to govern in the closest concert with the representatives of the nation who sit in the legislative assemblies and to pledge them his inviolable oath in the name of the beloved country.
We appeal to all the loyal sons of Russia and ask them to do their patriotic and sacred duty by obeying their Tsar at this moment of painful national crisis and to help him and the representatives of the nation to guide the Russian State into the path of prosperity and glory. May God help Russia! NICHOLAS. On reading this declaration, which was typed on an ordinary sheet of paper, the emissaries of the Duma were deeply stirred and could hardly speak as they took their leave of Nicholas II who was as unmoved as ever as he give them a kindly handshake. As soon as they left the carriage the imperial train started off for Dvinsk with a view to returning to Mohilev. History can show few events so momentous, or so pregnant with possibilities and far-reaching in their effects. Yet of all those of which it has left any record, is there a single one which has taken place in such casual, commonplace and prosaic fashion, and above all with such indifference and self-effacement on the part of the principal hero? Is it simply lack of interest in the Emperor's case? I think not. His abdication decree, over which he has pondered long if he did not actually word it himself, is inspired by the loftiest sentiments, and its general tone is nobility itself. But his moral attitude at this supreme crisis appears perfectly logical if it is admitted as I have often remarked, that for many months past the unhappy sovereign has felt himself lost and that he long ago made his sacrifice and accepted his fate. . The accession of the Grand Duke Michael to the throne has aroused the fury of the Soviet: "No more Romanovs!" is the cry in all quarters: "We want a republic!" For one moment the harmony was shattered which was established with such difficulty between the Executive Committee of the Duma and the Soviet yesterday evening. But fear of the gaolbirds who are in command at the Finland Station and the Fortress has compelled the representatives of the Duma to give way. A delegation from the Executive Committee went to see the Grand Duke Michael who made no sort of objection and consented to accept the crown only if it should be offered to him by the constituent assembly. Perhaps he would have submitted less tamely if his wife, the clever and ambitious Countess Brassov, had been at his side and not at Gatchina. The Soviet is now master. Disturbances in the city are also beginning again. In the course of the afternoon I have been told of many demonstrations against the war. Certain regiments have suggested making a protest outside the French and English Embassies. At seven o'clock this evening the Executive Committee decided it was better to post soldiers in the two embassies. Thirty-two cadets of the Corps of Pages have just taken up their station in my house.
Saturday, March 17, 1917. The weather is very dismal this morning. From dark and heavy clouds the snow is falling in dense flakes, and so slowly that I cannot even make out the granite wall which lines the icy bed of the Neva twenty paces from my windows. We might be in the very depths of winter. The gloom of the landscape and. the enmity of nature harmonize only too well with the sinister course events are taking. One of those who were present gives me the following detailed account of the meeting at the conclusion of which the Grand Duke Michael signed his provisional abdication yesterday. It took place at ten o'clock in the morning at Prince Paul Putiatin's house, No. 12, Millionaa. In addition to the Grand Duke and his secretary, Matveev, there were present Prince Lvov, Rodzianko, Militikov, Nekrassov, Kerensky, Nabokov, Shingarev and Baron Nolde; about halfpast ten they were joined by Gutchkov and Shulgin, who had come straight from Pskov. As soon as the discussion. began, Gutchkov and Miliukov boldly asserted that Michael Alexandrovitch had no right to evade the responsibility of supreme power. Rodzianko, Nekrassov and Kerensky argued contra that the accession of a new Tsar would release a torrent of revolutionary passion and bring Russia face to face with a frightful crisis; their conclusion was that the monarchical question should be reserved until the meeting of the constituent assembly which would make its sovereign will known. The argument was pressed with such force and stubbornness, particularly by Kerensky, that all those present came round to it with the exception of Gutchkov and Miliukov. With complete disinterestedness the Grand Duke himself agreed. Gutchkov then made a final effort. Addressing the Grand Duke in person and appealing to his patriotism and courage he pointed out how necessary it was that the Russian people should be presented at once with the living embodiment of a national leader: "If you are afraid to take up the burden of the imperial crown now, Monseigneur, you should at least agree to exercise supreme authority as 'Regent of the Empire during the vacancy of the throne,' or, to take a much finer title, 'Protector of the Nation,' as Cromwell styled himself. At the same time you would give a solemn undertaking to the nation to surrender your power to a constituent assembly as soon as the war ends." This ingenious idea, which might have saved the whole situation, made Kerensky almost beside himself with passion and provoked him to a torrent of invective and threats which terrified everyone there. In the general confusion the Grand Duke rose with the remark that he would like to think things over by himself for a minute or two. He was making for the next room when Kerensky leaped in front of him as if to keep him back: "Promise us not to consult your wife, Monseigneur!"
His thoughts had at once gone to the ambitious Countess Brassov whose empire over her husband's mind was complete. With a smile the Grand Duke replied: "Don't worry, Alexander Feodorovitch, my wife isn't here at the moment; she stayed behind at Gatchina!" Five minutes later the Grand Duke returned. In very calm tones he declared: "I have decided to abdicate." The triumphant Kerensky called out: "Monseigneur, you are the noblest of men!" The rest of the company, however, was wrapped in a .gloomy silence; even those who had been the strongest advocates of abdication---Prince Lvov and Rodzianko, for instance---seemed overwhelmed by the irreparable occurrence that had just taken place. Gutchkov relieved his conscience by a final protest: "Gentlemen, you are leading Russia to her ruin; I am not going to follow you in that baneful path." A provisional and conditional abdication was then drawn up by Nekrassov, Nabokov and Baron Nolde. Michael Alexandrovitch interrupted them several times in their task to make it quite clear that his refusal of the imperial crown remained subject to the ultimate decision of the Russian nation as represented by a constituent assembly. At the conclusion he took the pen and signed. Throughout this long and painful discussion the Grand Duke's composure and dignity never once deserted him. Hitherto his compatriots have had but a poor opinion of him; he was considered to be of weak character and lacking in brains. But on this historic occasion his patriotism, nobility and self-sacrifice were very touching. When the final formalities had been concluded, the delegates of the Executive Committee could not help showing him that the impression he made upon them won their sympathy and respect. Kerensky tried to interpret the emotion they all felt in a lapidary phrase which fell from his lips in a theatrical outburst. "Monseigneur! You have generously entrusted to us the sacred cup of your power. I promise you we will hand it on to the constituent assembly without spilling a single drop." General Efimovitch, who called on me this morning, has brought me some news of TsarskoeSelo. It was through the Grand Duke Paul that the Empress learned yesterday evening of the Emperor's abdication; she had heard nothing of him for two days. She burst out: "It's quite impossible! It isn't true! It's another newspaper lie! I believe in God and trust the army. Neither could have deserted us at so critical a moment!" The Grand Duke read her the abdication which had just been published. Then everything came
home to her and she burst into tears. . The Provisional Government has not been long in capitulating to the demands of the socialists. At the Soviet's command it has actually come to the following humiliating decision: The troops which have taken part in the revolutionary movement will not be disarmed but will remain in Petrograd. Thus the first act of the revolutionary army is to extract a promise that it shall not be sent to the front but shall fight no more! What a badge of shame for the Russian Revolution! How can one help thinking of the contrast afforded by the Volunteers of 1792! Besides, the soldiers in the streets seem lost to all decency and are giving a disgusting exhibition of effrontery and licence. By its infamous insistence the Soviet has created for itself a formidable militia, for the garrisons of Petrograd and the suburbs (Tsarskoe-Selo, Peterhof, Krasnoe-Selo and Gatchina) comprise no less than 170,000 men. . This afternoon Miliukov took over the portfolio of foreign affairs. He made a point of seeing me at once, as well as my English and Italian colleagues. We answered his summons at once. I found him very much changed, extremely weary and looking ten years older. The days and nights of fierce controversy through which he has just passed have worn him out. I asked him: "Before you take to official phraseology tell me frankly and honestly what you think of the situation." In an outburst of sincerity he replied: "Within the last twenty-four hours I have passed from utter despair to all but perfect confidence." Then we talked officially: "I'm not yet in a position," I said, "to tell you that the Government of the Republic recognizes the government you have set up; but I'm certain I'm only anticipating my instructions in promising you active and sympathetic assistance on my part." He thanked me warmly, and continued: "We didn't want this revolution to come during hostilities; I didn't even anticipate it; but it has taken place, as the result of other agencies, and through the mistakes and crimes of the imperial regime. Our business now is to save Russia by ruthlessly prosecuting the war to victory. But the passions of the people have been so exasperated and the difficulties of the situation are so frightful that we must at once make great concessions to the national conscience."
Among these immediate concessions he mentioned the arrest of several ministers, generals, officials, and so on, the proclamation of a general amnesty---from which the servants of the old government will of course be excluded---the destruction of all the imperial emblems, the convocation of. a constituent assembly in the near future; in a word every measure calculated to rob the Russian nation of all fear of a counter-revolution. "So the Romanov dynasty has fallen I said." "Yes, in fact; no, in law. The constituent assembly alone will be qualified to change the political status of Russia." "But how will you secure the election of this constituent assembly? Will the men at the front be content to forego their votes?" With considerable confusion he admitted: "We shall be obliged to grant the men at the front the right to vote." "What, you're going to give the men at the front a vote! Most of them are fighting thousands of versts from their villages and can't read or write!" Miliukov as good as told me that in his heart of hearts he shared my views and confided that he is doing his utmost to give no definite promise as to the date of the general election. "But the socialists are insisting on an election at once," he added. "They are extremely strong, and the situation is very, very critical!" As I pressed him to explain these words, he told me that though order has been restored to some extent in Petrograd, the Baltic Fleet and Kronstadt garrison are in open revolt. I asked Miliukov about the official nomenclature of the new government. " The title hasn't been decided upon yet," he said. "At the moment we are calling ourselves the Provisional Government. But in that name we are getting all executive authority, including the imperial prerogative, into our hands; so we are not responsible to the Duma." "In a word, you derive all your power from the revolution?" '"No, we have received it., by inheritance, from the Grand Duke Michael, who transferred it to us by his abdication decree." This legal sensitiveness showed me that the "moderates" of the new order, Rodzianko, Prince Lvov, Gutchkov and Miliukov himself, are extremely worried and uneasy in their conscience at the idea of violating monarchical rights. At bottom---and it is only, the normal course of revolutions---they feel that they are already being thrust aside, and are fearfully wondering where they will be to-morrow. Miliukov looked so exhausted, and the loss of voice he has suffered in the last few days made talking so painful for him, that I had to cut short our interview. But before leaving him I urged very strongly that the Provisional Government should delay no longer in solemnly proclaiming its fidelity to the alliances and its determination to continue the war at any cost.
"You must realize that what is wanted is a plain and unambiguous proclamation. Of course I haven't a doubt about your own feelings. But the direction of Russian affairs is now at the mercy of new forces; they must be given a lead at once. I have another reason for insisting that the ruthless prosecution of the war and the maintenance of the alliances shall be proclaimed openly. I must tell you that in the old days I more than once caught germanophile circles at Court---the Sturmer and Protopopov gang---dropping a hint which worried me very much; it was admitted that the Emperor Nicholas would not be able to make peace with Germany so long as Russian soil had not been entirely cleared of the enemy, for he had taken an oath on the Gospel and the ikon of Our Lady of Kazan; but it was whispered that if the Emperor could be induced to abdicate in favour of the Tsarevitch under the regency of the Empress, his disastrous oath would not be binding on his heir. You can see that I should like to be sure that the new Russia considers herself bound by the oath of her former Tsar." "You'll receive every guarantee on that head." . The food problem is still so difficult in Petrograd that my supplies and the skill of my chef are very valuable to my friends. I had seven or eight of them to dinner to-night, the party including the Gortchakovs and Benckendorffs. Everyone was very depressed; they could see extremist proletarian doctrines already sweeping over Russia, disintegrating the national unity, spreading anarchy, famine and ruin everywhere. My forebodings are equally gloomy, alas! None of the men in power at this moment possesses the political vision, faculty of swift decision, courage and boldness which so formidable a situation calls for. They are "Octobrists," "Cadets," advocates of constitutional monarchy, levelheaded, honest, moderate and disinterested. They remind me of Mol, Odilon, Barrot, etc. in July, 1830. Yet the least that is required now is a Danton! I am told, however, that they have one man of action among them, the young Minister of Justice, Kerensky, who represents the "Labour" group in the Duma and has been forced on the Provisional Government by the Soviet. There is no question that the men of initiative, energy and courage, must be sought for in the Soviet. The multifarious sections of the Social-Revolutionary and social-Democratic parties, "People's Party," "Labour Men," "Terrorists," "Maximalists," "Minimalists," "Defeatists," etc., are not lacking in men who have given proof of resolution and audacity in plots, penal servitude and exile; I need only mention Tcheidze, Tseretelli, Zinoviev and Axelrod. These are the true protagonists of the drama on which the curtain is now rising
Sunday, March 18, 1917. As yet I know nothing of the effect the Russian revolution has had in France; but I am afraid of the illusions it may create there and it is only too easy for me to guess all the examples with which it is likely to present the socialist jargon-mongers. I have therefore thought it advisable to
give my government a word of warning and I am cabling as follows to Briand: When I said good-bye to M. Doumergue and General de Castelnau last month, I asked them to advise the President of the Republic and yourself of my increasing concern at the internal situation of the Empire; I added that it would be a serious mistake to think that time is working for us, at any rate in Russia; I came to the conclusion that we should expedite our military operations as much as possible. I am more convinced of that than ever. A few days before the Revolution I advised you that the decisions of the recent conference were already a dead letter, that the confusion in the munitions production establishments and transport services was beginning again on an even more formidable scale, and so forth. The question is whether the new Government is capable of promptly carrying out the necessary reforms. It says, and quite sincerely, that it can but I don't believe a word of it. For it is not merely confusion, but wholesale disorganization and anarchy from which the military and civil departments are suffering. Taking the most hopeful view I can, what can we expect? A terrible load would be off my mind if I could be certain that the fighting armies will not be contaminated by demagogic agitation and discipline soon restored among the garrisons behind the front. I have not yet abandoned that hope. I can still bring myself to think that the social-democrats will not translate their desire to end the war into irreparable acts. I can also admit the possibility of a revival of patriotic fervour in some parts of the country. But for all that there must be a weakening of the national effort which was only too anaemic and spasmodic already. And the process of recovery is likely to be a long one with a race whose ideas of method and forethought are so rudimentary. After sending this cable, I went out to see some of the churches: I was curious to know how the faithful would behave at the Sunday mass now that the name of the Emperor has been deleted from public prayers. In the orthodox liturgy divine protection was continually being invoked for the Emperor, Empress, Tsarevitch, and all the imperial family, it was a kind of recurring chorus. By order of the Holy Synod, the prayer for the Sovereigns has been abolished and nothing has taken its place. The churches I visited were the Preobrajensky Cathedral, Saint Simeon and Saint Panteleimon. The same scene met me everywhere; a grave and silent congregation exchanging amazed and melancholy glances. Some of the moujiks looked bewildered and horrified and several had tears in their eyes. Yet even among those who seemed the most moved I could not find one who did not sport a red cockade or armband. They had all been working for the Revolution; all of them were with it, body and soul. But that did not prevent them from shedding tears for their little Father, the Tsar, Tsary batinshka! Then I called at the Foreign Office. Miliukov told me that yesterday evening he discussed with his colleagues the formula to be inserted in the coming manifesto of the Provisional Government on the subject of the prosecution of the war and the maintenance of the alliance; he added in a tone of embarrassment: "I hope to secure the adoption of a form of words which will satisfy you." "You mean to say you only hope? A hope's no good to me: I want a certainty." "You may be certain I shall do everything in my power . . . . But you've no idea how difficult our
socialists are to handle! And we've got to avoid a rupture with them at any cost. Otherwise, it means civil war!" "Whatever reasons you may have for going slowly with the hotheads of the Soviet, you must realize that I cannot tolerate any doubt about your determination to continue the alliance and carry on the war." "Please trust me!" Miliukov struck me as less optimistic than he was yesterday. The news from Kronstadt, the Baltic Fleet and Sebastopol is bad. To crown all, disorder is spreading at the front; officers have been massacred. . This afternoon I went for a walk on the Islands, which are more deserted than ever and still snow-bound. Thinking of my visit to the churches this morning, I mused on the strange inaction of the clergy during the revolution; it has taken no part; is never seen anywhere and has given absolutely no sign of life. This abstention and self-effacement are all the more surprising because there was not one celebration, ceremony or public occasion in which the Church did not occupy the foreground with the splendours of its rites, apparel and singing. The matter is self-explanatory, and to put that explanation into words I have only to search the pages of this Diary. In the first place the Russian people are not as religious as they appear to be: they are primarily mystics. Their habit of continually crossing themselves, their genuflections, their taste for ritual and processions and craze for ikons and relics are simply an outlet for the demands of their lively imagination. Pierce but a little way into their minds and all one finds is a faith which is vague and hazy, sentimental and dreamy, almost destitute of intellectual and theological elements and always on the verge of sinking into sectarian anarchy. One must also bear in mind the confined and humiliating servitude tsarism has always imposed on the Church, a servitude which made the clergy a kind of spiritual police, to reinforce the military, police. Often enough, during the sumptuous services in the cathedrals of St. Alexander Nevsky or Kazan, I have called to mind Napoleon's remark that "an archbishop is simply a second Prefect of Police!" Nor must one forget the opprobrium brought on the Holy Synod and the episcopal hierarchy in the last few years by Rasputin. The Hermogenes, Varnava, Basily and Pitirim scandals, and many others, had greatly shocked all true believers. When the nation rose in revolt the clergy could do nothing but keep silence. But when the time for reaction arrives, perhaps the country priests, who have remained in touch with the rural masses, will make their voice heard again. . I was told yesterday that the form of the Emperor's abdication decree was settled by Nicholas Alexandrovitch Basily, formerly Deputy-Director of Sazonov's department and now in charge of the diplomatic section of General Headquarters; the decree is said to have been communicated by telegraph from Pskov to Mohilev on March 15, even before the delegates of the Duma, Gutchkov and Shulgin, had seen the Emperor. It is a point which would be interesting to clear
up. Curiously enough, late this afternoon I had a visit from Basily whom General Alexeev has sent to the Provisional Government on some mission. "Hallo!" I said: "I understand it's you who drafted the Emperor's abdication decree?" He started,, and protested vigorously: "I absolutely deny the paternity of the document the Emperor signed. The draft I prepared on General Alexeev's orders was very different." What he told me was this: "In the morning of the 14th March General Alexeev received from President. Rodzianko, a telegram informing him that the machinery of government had ceased to function in Petrograd and the only means of averting anarchy was to secure the Emperor's abdication in favour of his son. The Chief of Staff of the Imperial Armies was thus faced with a dreadful problem. Would not the Tsar's abdication threaten the army with divisions, if not disruption? The only thing to do was to get all the military heads to agree at once on one course. General Russky, commanding the northern armies, had already pronounced strongly in favour of immediate abdication. General Alexeev personally inclined to that view; but the matter was so serious that he thought it his duty to consult all the other Army Group commanders by telegraph, Generals Evert, Brussilov, and Sakharov and the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevitch. They all replied that the Emperor should abdicate at the earliest possible moment." "On which day did all these replies come into General Alexeev?" "During the morning of March 15th. It was then that General Alexeev instructed me to report to him on the circumstances in which the fundamental status of the Empire authorized the Tsar to lay down his sceptre. I was not long in furnishing him with a memorandum explaining and proving that if the Emperor abdicated he was obliged to hand over his powers to his legitimate heir, the Tsarevitch Alexis. 'That's exactly what I thought,' the General said to me. 'Will you draft me a proclamation on those lines at once?' I soon produced a draft in which I expounded the theory of my memorandum to the best of my ability while endeavouring to keep the necessity of prosecuting the war to victory persistently in the foreground. The Chief of Staff had with him his principal colleague and loyal Quartermaster, General Lukomsky. I handed him my document. He read it aloud and agreed with every word. Lukomsky also approved of it. The document was immediately telegraphed to Pskov to be laid before the Emperor. A little before midnight on the same day, General Danilov, Quartermaster-General of the northern armies called his colleague at G.H.Q. to the tapemachine to tell him of His Majesty's decision. I happened at that moment to be in Lukorusky's room, with the Grand Duke Sergei Michailovitch. We all rushed to the telegraph office and the machine began to work before our eyes. I immediately recognized my draft on the tape as it came out. . . . To all Our faithful subjects We make known. . . in these days of fierce conflict with the foreign foe, etc. But you can just imagine the amazement of all three of us when we observed that the name of the Grand Duke Michael had been substituted for that of the Tsarevitch Alexis! We looked at each other in blank consternation for the same idea entered all our heads. The immediate accession of the Tsarevitch was the only means of stopping the revolution in its career, or at any rate keeping it within the limits of a great constitutional reform. In the first
place, the young Alexis Nicholaevitch would have had the law on his side. He would also have benefited by the sympathetic feeling of the nation and army towards him. Lastly---and this was the vital point---the imperial office would not have been vacant even for a moment. If the Tsarevitch had been proclaimed, no one would have had the authority to make him abdicate. What has happened to the Grand Duke Michael would not have been possible in the case of this boy. There might have been some wrangling over the appointment of the regent, but that's all. Russia would have a national head . . . But where are we now?" "I'm sorry to say that I fear events will prove you right before very long . . . When the Emperor deleted his son's name from the proclamation you drafted for him he launched Russia on a terrible adventure." After discussing this topic for some considerable time, I asked Basily: "Have you seen the Emperor since his abdication?" "Yes. On the 16th March, when the Emperor was returning from Pskov to Mohilev, General Alexeev sent me to tell him how the situation was developing. I met his train at Orcha and went straight to his coach. He was absolutely calm, but it shocked me to see him. with a haggard look and hollow eyes. After telling him of the latest happenings in Petrograd, I took the liberty of saying that we at the Stavka were greatly distressed because he had not transferred his crown to the Tsarevitch. He answered quietly: 'I cannot be separated from my son.' I learned afterwards from his escort that before the Emperor came to his decision he had consulted his physician Professor Feodorov: 'I order you to give me a frank answer,' he had said. 'Do you think it possible that Alexis can ever get better?' 'No, Your Majesty, his disease is incurable.' 'That's what the Empress thought long ago, though I myself still had hopes. As God has willed it thus I shall not separate myself from my poor boy!' A few minutes later dinner was served. It was a melancholy meal. All of us felt our hearts bursting; we couldn't cat or drink. Yet the Emperor retained wonderful self-control and asked me several questions about the men who form the Provisional Government; but as he was wearing a rather low collar I could see that he was continually choking down his emotion. I left him yesterday morning at Mohilev." . This evening I dined quietly with Madame P-----, the other guests being Count Nicholas Muraviev, a former Governor of Moscow, and Count Kutusov. Madame P------ said: "As long as Russia is governed from Petrograd things will go from bad to worse . . . Petrograd can only destroy; Moscow alone is capable of reconstruction." Muraviev replied: "Don't build on Moscow too much! The civil population is almost as rotten as that of Petrograd." Kutusov interrupted: "We have very much further to fall yet; in fact we shall touch the bottom of the abyss . . . But within three months the Empire will be restored. Never forget that Russia has 178,000,000
inhabitants, of which 160,000,000 are peasants, 12,1000,000 Cossacks, 3,000,000 commercial folk and civil servants, 1,800,000 aristocrats and 1,200,000---at most---working-men. Those 1,200,000 rabotchiks will not be our masters for ever!" "So -you think that Dubrovin and Purishkevitch's famous 'Black Bands' have still their part to play?" I said. "Certainly . . . . and before very long!"
Monday, March 19, 1917. Nicholas Romanov, as the Emperor is now styled in official documents and the papers, has asked the Provisional Government for--(1) A free pass from Mohilev to Tsarskoe-Selo; (2) Permission to reside at the Alexander Palace until his children have recovered from the measles; (3) a free pass from Tsarskoe-Selo to Port Romanov on the Murman coast. The government has granted his requests. Miliukov, who is my authority for this information, presumes that the Emperor intends to ask the King of England for a place of refuge. "He should lose no time in getting away," I said. "Otherwise, the Soviet extremists might quote some awkward precedents against him." Miliukov, who is rather of the Rousseau school and, being the soul of kindness himself only too prone to believe in the innate goodness of the human race, does not think that the lives of the sovereigns are in danger. If he wants to see them go it is mainly in order to spare them the sorrows of imprisonment and trial, which would greatly increase the difficulties of the Government. He lays great emphasis on the extraordinary restraint and forbearance displayed by the people during this revolution, the small number of victims, the way in which violence has been quickly followed by moderation, and so forth. "That's all right," I said; " the mob has soon returned to its natural kindness of heart, because it is not in any great distress and is overwhelmed with the pleasant sensation of freedom. But if there is a famine violence will rage at once." I quoted Roederer's highly expressive remark in 1792: "Orators have only to appeal to hunger to conjure up cruelty."
Tuesday, March 20, 1917. The Provisional Government's manifesto was published this morning. It is a long, verbose and strongly-worded document which fiercely castigates the ancien regime and promises the nation all the benefits of equality and liberty. The war is barely mentioned: The Provisional Government will loyally maintain all its alliances and do everything in its power to provide the army with all its needs with a view to carrying on the war to a victorious conclusion. Nothing more! I went straight to Miliukov this is exactly what I said: "After my recent talks with you I was not surprised at the language adopted by the manifesto published this morning on the subject of the war; but it doesn't make me any less angry. A determination to prosecute the war at any cost and until full and final victory isn't even mentioned! The name of Germany does not occur! There isn't the slightest allusion to Prussian militarism: No reference whatever to our war aims! France too has had her revolutions with the enemy at the gates; but Danton in 1792 and Gambetta in 1870 used very different language . . . And yet in those days France had no ally who was in deadly peril on her behalf." Miliukov looked very pale and abashed as he heard me out. Choosing his words carefully, he argued that the manifesto was intended specifically for the Russian nation and, anyhow, political eloquence to-day employs a more temperate vocabulary than in 1792 and 1870. I then read him the appeal which our socialists, Guesde, Sembat and Albert Thomas, have just made---at my suggestion---to the socialists of Russia, and I had no difficulty in bringing home to him the warmth of tone, fierce resolution and determination to conquer which inspires every line of this appeal.(1) Miliukov, who seemed painfully moved to the very depths, did his best in urging extenuating circumstances, the difficulties of the internal situation, and so forth. He, wound up with: "Give me time!" "Time has never been more precious! Swift action has never been so necessary! Please don't think it isn't very painful for me to talk to you like this. But the moment is far too serious for us to treat each other to diplomatic euphemisms. The question with which we are faced---or perhaps I should say the question that forces itself upon us is this: yes or no, will Russia go on fighting at the side of her Allies until full and final victory, without faltering and without ulterior motives? Your ability and your patriotic and honourable past are my guarantee that you will soon give me the answer I expect." Miliukov promised to take an early opportunity to set our minds entirely at rest. . This afternoon I went for a walk round the centre of the city and Vassili-Ostrov. Order has been almost restored. There are fewer drunken soldiers, yelling mobs and armoured cars laden with evil-looking maniacs. But I found "meetings" in progress everywhere, held in the open air, or
perhaps I should say open gale. The groups were small: twenty or thirty people at the outside, and comprising soldiers, peasants, working-men and students. One of the company mounts a stone, or a bench, or a heap of snow and talks his head off, gesticulating wildly. The audience gazes fixedly at the orator and listens in a kind of rapt absorption. As soon as he stops another takes his place and immediately gets the same fervent, silent and concentrated attention. What an artless and affecting sight it is when one remembers that the Russian nation has been waiting centuries for the right of speech! On my way home I dropped in on Princess R----- on the Serguievskaa for tea. The beautiful Madame D-----, the "Houdon Diana " or Tauride Diana," was there in a tailormade and skunk toque, smoking cigarettes with the lady of the house. Prince B-----, General S----- and a number of familiars came in one after the other. The stories told and impressions exchanged revealed the darkest pessimism. But there was one anxiety greater than all the others, a haunting fear in every mind---the partition of the land. "We shall not get out of it this time! What will become of us without our rent-rolls?" To the Russian nobility, the rent-roll is of course the main, and often the only, source of income. The company's forebodings comprised not only legal partition of the land, i.e. formal expropriation, but confiscation by the high hand, wholesale looting and jacquerie. I am certain that the same sort of conversation can be heard in every corner of Russia at the present time. A fresh caller, a lieutenant in the Chevaliers-Gardes, entered the room, wearing the red favour on his tunic. He soothed the company's anxieties a little by telling them (supporting his argument with figures) that the agrarian question is not as terrifying as it seems at first sight. "There's no need to have immediate recourse to our estates to take the edge off the peasants' hunger," he said. " With the crown lands, perhaps ninety-four million desiatins, (2) the church and monastic lands, let's say three million desiatins, there's enough to keep the moujiks from gnawing-pains for quite a long time to come." His entire audience agreed with this argument; everyone consoled himself or herself with the thought that obviously the Russian nobility will not suffer too severely if the Emperor, Empress, Grand Dukes, Grand Duchesses, the Church and the monasteries are ruthlessly robbed and plundered. As Rochefoucauld said, "We can always find strength to bear the misfortunes of others." I may remark in passing that one person present possesses an estate of 300,000 hectares in Volhynia! When I returned to the embassy, I heard that there had been a ministerial crisis in France and Briand's place is being taken by Ribot.
Tuesday, March 21, 1917. During the last few days a rumour has spread among the mob that "Citizen Romanov" and his wife, "Alexandra the German," are working secretly for a restoration of autocracy, with the connivance of the "moderate" ministers, Lvov, Miliukov, Gutchkov, etc. The Soviet accordingly demanded the immediate arrest of the sovereigns yesterday evening. The Provisional Government yielded to its desires. The same evening four deputies of the Duma, Bublikov, Gribunin, Kalinin and Verschinin, left for G.H.Q. at Mohilev, with instructions to bring the Emperor back with them. As regards the Empress, General Kornilov went to Tsarskoe-Selo this morning with an escort. On his arrival at the Alexander Palace he was immediately received by the Tsarina who heard the decision of the Provisional Government without remark; all she asked was that she should be left all the servants who are looking after her invalid children---a request which has been granted. The Alexander Palace is now cut off from all communication with outside. Miliukov is very much upset over the arrest of the Emperor and Empress; he wants the King of England to offer them the hospitality of British territory and even to guarantee their safety; he has therefore begged. Buchanan to wire to London at once and insist on having an answer without a moment's delay. "It's the last chance of securing these poor unfortunates freedom, and perhaps of saving their lives!" he told us. Buchanan returned at once to the Embassy to convey Miliukov's suggestion to his Government. As I was walking along the Millionaa this afternoon, I saw the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch. In civilian dress---the get-up of an old tchinoonik---he was prowling round his palace. He has openly sided with the revolution and is full of optimistic talk. I know him well enough to have no doubt that he is sincere when he says that the collapse of autocracy will now mean the salvation and greatness of Russia; but I do not know whether he will keep his illusions for long and hope he will not lose them as Philippe-Egalit lost his. In any case he has honestly done his best to open the Emperor's eyes to the approaching catastrophe, he actually had the courage some time back to send him the following letter, which was shown to me this morning: You have often mentioned your determination to continue the war to victory! But do you really think victory is possible in the present state of affairs? Do you know the situation within the Empire? Are you told the truth? Has anyone pointed out where the root of the evil lies? You have frequently told me that men were always deceiving you and that the only thing you believed in was the views of your wife. I tell you that the words she utters are the result of clever intrigues and not in accordance with the truth. If you are impotent to rid her of those influences, the least you can do is to be always on your guard against the schemers who use her as their tool. Clear these dark forces out, and you will immediately recover the confidence of your
people which you have already half lost. I have hesitated long before telling you the truth, but I have made up my mind to do so, with encouragement from your mother and two sisters. You are about to witness fresh disturbances, nay, an attempt on your life. I speak as I do in the interests of your own safety and that of your throne and country.
Thursday, March 22, 1917. The Emperor reached Tsarskoe-Selo this morning. His arrest at Mohilev produced no incident; his farewell to the officers about him (many of whom shed tears) was disconcertingly banal in its simplicity. But the Order of the Day in which he takes leave of the army has a certain ring of nobility about it: I address you for the last time, you soldiers who are so dear to my heart. Since I renounced the throne of Russia for myself and my son, power has been transferred to the Provisional Government which has been set up on the initiative of the Imperial Duma. May God help that Government to lead Russia to glory and prosperity! And may God also help you, my brave soldiers, to defend your country against a cruel foe! For more than two years and a half you have continuously borne the hardships of an arduous service; much blood has been spilt, enormous efforts have been made and already the hour is at hand in which Russia and her glorious allies will break down the enemy's last desperate resistance in one mighty common effort. This unprecedented war must be carried through to final victory. He who thinks of peace at the present moment is a traitor to Russia. I am firmly convinced that the boundless love you bear our beautiful Fatherland is not dead in your hearts. May God bless you and Saint George, the great martyr, lead you to victory! NICHOLAS. Returning from a visit to the Admiralty Canal I came through Glinka Street where the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch lives. I saw something waving over his palace---a red flag!
Chapter Footnotes 1. Text of the telegram from Mm. Jules Guesde, Sembat and Thomas to M. Kerensky, Minister
of justice in the Provisional Government. Paris, March 18, 1917. We send the Socialist Minister of a Russia reborn our congratulations and fraternal greetings. We hail the acquisition of a free Government for their country by the working classes and Russian socialism with the deepest emotion. Once again, like our ancestors of the great Revolution, you have to put forth the same effort to secure the independence of the nation and the defence of the country. By a war waged to the last extremity, and by the heroic discipline of citizen soldiers who would lay down their lives for liberty, we must work together in destroying the last and most formidable citadel of absolutism, Prussian militarism. Everyone here looks with serene confidence for a fresh effort on the part of a Russian nation all of whose energies shall be bent upon the war. It is the victory we are about to win by our fervour which, by bringing the world peace, will secure its welfare and liberty for ever. JULES GUESDE, MARCEL SEMBAT. ALBERT THOMAS. 2. A desiatin is approximately one hectare.
Volume III, Chapter Ten Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER X MARCH 23-APRIL 6, 1917. The British Government offers the Tsar and Tsarina an asylum on British soil.---A forecast of the development of the revolution.---Rasputin's body is exhumed by night and burned in the forest of Pargolovo: a scene from Dante.---The Soviet opposes the departure of the sovereign.--Official recognition of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, Minister of Justice, comes to the front.---A reflection of the opinions prevailing in informed circles: ---"We cannot continue the war."---Indiscipline spreading in the fighting armies: Prihaz No. 1.---Agitation among the subject nationalities: symptoms of national disintegration.---The new Military Governor of Petrograd tries to regain control of the garrison.---French opinion goes astray on the subject of the Russian revolution. Vital differences between the psychology of the Latin and Slav
revolutionary.---The Government of the Republic sends Albert Thomas on a mission to Petrograd.---The sovereigns in captivity at Tsarskoe Selo.---Funeral service for the victims of the fighting; the interment on the Champ de Mars; the clergy absent. The moral of this day.---On the frontiers of Kurdistan; a last exploit of the Russian army. Friday, March 23, 1917. This morning Buchanan has announced that King George, with the advice and approval of his ministers, offers the Emperor and Empress the hospitality of British territory; but he refuses to guarantee their safety and confines himself to a hope that they will remain in England until the end of the war. Miliukov is obviously greatly touched by this announcement, but he added sadly: "But I fear it comes too late!" It is certainly true that from day to day---I could almost say from hour to hour---the tyranny of the Soviet, the despotism of the extreme parties and the domination of Utopians and anarchists are becoming increasingly evident. And so., as the latest press telegrams show me that people in Paris are cherishing curious illusions about the Russian revolution, I have telegraphed to Ribot in the following terms: Notwithstanding the importance of all that has happened in the last twelve days, it is my opinion that the events we are witnessing are only a prelude. The forces which are destined to be the determining factor in the final result of the revolution (I mean the rural masses, the priests, the Jews, the subject nationalities, the bankruptcy of the State, the economic dbcle, etc.), have not even entered the field. So at the moment it is impossible to give any logical and practical forecast of the future of Russia. The best proof of this lies in the hopelessly contradictory prophecies offered me by people in whose judgment and open-mindedness I have the greatest confidence. Some regard the proclamation of a republic as a certainty. Others think the restoration of the Empire, under constitutional forms, is inevitable. But if your Excellency will be good enough to rest content for the time being with my impressions, which are wholly dominated by the thought of the war, I see the course of events in the following light: 1. When will the forces to which I have just referred begin to make themselves felt?---Hitherto, the Russian nation has attacked the dynasty and the administrative caste, nothing else. We shall now be faced with economic, social, religious and ethnical problems. These problems are very formidable, from the point of view of the war; for the Slav imagination, far from being constructive like that of the Latin or Anglo-Saxon, is essentially anarchical and dispersive. Until these problems are solved the public mind will be wholly taken up with them. Yet we cannot want the solution to be precipitate, for it cannot be realized without severe upheavals. We must therefore expect that for a considerable time to come Russia's effort will be weakened and uncertain. 2. Is the Russian nation determined to continue the war to final victory? Russia implies so many different races, and ethnical antagonisms are so acute in certain regions, that the national idea is far from being universal. The conflict of social classes has a similar effect on patriotism. The
working masses, the Jews and the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces, for instance, merely regard the war as senseless butchery. On the other hand,, the fighting armies and the genuinely Russian populations have in no way abandoned their hope of m victory and their determination to achieve it. If I wanted to express my idea somewhat extravagantly to make it more intelligible, I should be tempted to say that "In the present phase of the revolution Russia cannot make peace or war." In yesterday's Petrograd Gazette the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch has had a long interview published in which he attacks the fallen sovereigns: I have often wondered, he says, whether the ex-Empress were not in league with William II; but each time I have forced myself to dismiss so horrible a suspicion. Who can tell whether this treacherous insinuation will not before long provide the foundation for a terrible charge against the unfortunate Tsarina? The Grand Duke Cyril should know or be reminded that the most infamous calumnies which Marie Antoinette had to meet when she faced the Revolutionary Tribunal first took wing at the elegant suppers of the Comte d'Artois. About five o'clock I went to call on Sazonov at the Htel de l'Europe where he has been suffering from a stubborn attack of bronchitis for the last three weeks. I found him in a very melancholy frame of mind, though not despairing. As I expected, he sees the hand of Providence in the present misfortunes of Russia: "We deserved chastisement. I did not think it would be so severe . . . But God cannot mean Russia to perish . . . . A purified Russia will emerge from this trial." Then he spoke in strong terms of the conduct of the Emperor: "I needn't tell you of my love for the Emperor, and with what devotion I have served him. But as long as I live I shall never forgive him for abdicating for his son. He had no shadow of right to do so! . . . Is there a body of law in the world which allows the rights of a minor to be abandoned? And what's to be said when those rights are the most sacred and august on earth? Fancy destroying a three-hundred-year-old dynasty and the stupendous work of Peter the Great , Catherine II and Alexander I! What a tragedy! What a disaster!" His eyes were full of tears. I asked him if his health would allow him to leave for London in the near future as I had no doubt that he would consider it his duty to take up his ambassadorial post. "I'm horribly perplexed," he said. "What line of policy can I follow in London? I shall certainly not refuse my help to honest men like Lvov and Miliukov. But will they stay in power? . . . In any case, my doctor doesn't think I shall be fit to travel for at least three weeks." I was certainly struck by his deathly pallor, his haggard features and all the signs of physical and mental suffering he betrayed. Last night Rasputin's coffin was secretly exhumed from its resting-place in the chapel at Tsarskoe-Selo and taken away to the Forest of Pargolovo, fifteen versts north of Petrograd. In the midst of a clearing there, a number of soldiers, commanded by an engineer officer, had
piled up a large quantity of pine logs. After forcing off the coffin lid they drew the corpse out with sticks; 'they dare not touch it with their hands, owing to its putrefying condition, and they hoisted it, not without difficulty, on to the heap of logs. Then they drenched it in petrol and set it on fire. The process of cremation lasted until dawn, more than six hours. In spite of the icy wind, the appalling length of the operation and the clouds of pungent and fetid smoke which rose from the pyre, several hundred moujiks crowded round the fire all night; silent and motionless, they gazed in horror-stricken stupor at the sacrilegious holocaust which was slowly devouring the martyred staretz, friend of the Tsar and Tsarina, the Bojy tchelloviek, "Man of God." When the flames had done their work, the soldiers collected the ashes of the corpse and buried them under the snow. The authors of this gruesome epilogue were anticipated by Italy in the Middle Ages; the human imagination cannot go on indefinitely renewing the forms in which its passions and visions find expression. In the year 1266 Manfred (bastard of the Emperor Frederick II, usurper-King of the Two Sicilies) murderer, perjurer, simoniac, heretic, with every crime on his soul and excommunicated by the Church, perished while warring with Charles of Anjou on the banks of the Calore, near Beneventum. His captains and soldiers, who worshipped him for his youth, beauty, open-heartedness and charm, buried him with touching affection on the very spot where he fell. But a year later, Pope Clement IV decreed that the pontifical process of execration and excommunication should be continued against a monster unworthy to rest in consecrated ground. On his orders,, the Archbishop of Cosenza had the body exhumed and over the unrecognizable remains pronounced the pitiless sentences which consign the outcast to Hell: In ignem turnum judicamus. . . . The ceremony took place at night, by the light of torches which were extinguished one by one until darkness was complete, when what was left of Manfred was cut in pieces and scattered far and wide. This tragic and picturesque scene deeply moved contemporary Italy and in fact gave Dante the inspiration for one of the finest passages in the Divina Commedia. Ascending the steep mountain of. Purgatory, the poet sees the phantom of the young prince approaching him. It calls to him and says: "I am Manfred. My sins were horrible. But the infinite goodness of God has arms long enough to clasp all who turn towards it. If the spiritual father of Cosenza who was sent by Clement to scatter my bones had seen God's face of pity, my bones would be still at the end of the bridge near Beneventum, guarded by a heavy stone. And now the rains soak them and the winds play with them on the banks of the river where the Archbishop and his priests had them tossed after the torches were extinguished. But their denunciations make no man so lost that the divine love cannot restore him, so long as hope retains a single green branch within him." I should like to offer that quotation to the poor captive Tsarina.
Saturday, March 24, 1917. The Soviet has heard that the King of England is offering the Emperor and Empress the hospitality of British territory. At the bidding of the "Maximalists" the Provisional Government has had to pledge its word to keep the fallen sovereigns in Russia. The Soviet has gone further and appointed a commissary to "supervise the detention of the imperial family." Yesterday evening, the Central Committee of the Soviet adopted the following motions: 1. Negotiations with the working-men of the enemy countries to be opened at once; 2. "Systematic fraternization" between Russian and enemy soldiers at the front; 3. Democratization of the army 4. All schemes of conquest to be abandoned. What a fine time we are in for! . At six o'clock I went to the Marie Palace with my colleagues Buchanan and Carlotti to go through the official recognition of the Provisional Government. The appearance of the beautiful building which was once presented by Nicholas I to his favourite daughter, the Duchess of Leuchtenburg, and subsequently became the seat of the Council of Empire, has already changed. In the vestibule, where the lackeys, resplendent in their Court livery, used to lounge, unkempt, unwashed soldiers were sprawling over the seats, smoking with an insolent leer. The great marble stair-cases have never been swept since the revolution. Here and there a broken window or the mark of a bullet on a panel showed that there had been hot work on Saint Isaac Square. No one was there to receive us, though what we were about to do was an act of state. Then and there I could not help thinking of a ceremony "in the august presence of His Majesty the Emperor." How perfect the arrangements! What pomp and pageantry! What a turn-out of the official hierarchy! If Baron Korff, Grand Master of the Ceremonies, or his acolytes, Tolstoy, Evrenov and Kurakin, could have seen us at that moment, they would have fainted with shame. Miliukov came forward; he took us to a room, then another, then a third, not knowing where to stop and groping, for the switch to turn on the light. "Here we are at last. . . I think this will suit us all right." He went off to find his colleagues, who came at once. They were all in working dress, carrying their portfolios under their arms.
Following Buchanan and Carlotti, who are senior to me, I made the sacramental declaration: "I have the honour to tell you, gentlemen, that the Government of the French Republic recognizes in you the Provisional Government of Russia." I then followed the example of my English and Italian colleagues by addressing a few heartfelt words to the new ministers; I emphasized the necessity of continuing the war to the bitter end. Miliukov replied with a most reassuring declaration. His speech was long enough to give me an opportunity of studying these improvised masters of Russia on whose shoulders rests such a terrible burden of responsibility. Patriotism, intelligence and honesty could be read on every face; but they seemed utterly worn out with physical fatigue and anxiety. The task they have undertaken is patently beyond their powers. Heaven grant that they do not collapse under it too soon! One alone among them appeared to be a man of action--the Minister of Justice, Kerensky. He is thirty-five, thin, of medium height, clean shaven; with his bristling hair, waxen complexion and half-closed eyes (through which he darted sharp and uneasy glances) he struck me all the more because he kept apart, standing behind all his colleagues. He is obviously the most original figure of the Provisional Government and seems bound to become its main spring. . One of the most characteristic features of the revolution which has just overthrown tsarism is the immediate and total void created around the threatened sovereigns. The moment collisions with the mob took place, all the regiments of the Guard, including the magnificent Cossacks of the Escort, betrayed their oath of fealty. Nor has a single Grand Duke risen to defend the sacred person of the monarchs: one of them actually placed his unit at the service of the rebels even before the Emperor's abdication. In fact, with a few exceptions which are all the more creditable, there has been wholesale desertion on the part of the court crowd and all those pridvorny, high officers and dignitaries who, amidst the pomp and pageantry of ceremonies and processions, seemed to be the natural guardians of the throne and the appointed defenders of imperial majesty. Yet many of them were under not only a moral but a military obligation of the strictest sort to rally round their threatened sovereigns at once, devote their lives to their safety and at least to stand by them in their hour of adversity. This was all brought home to me again when I was dining privately with Madame R----- this evening. By birth or employment all the guests, a dozen or so, held high positions under the vanished regime. At table the conversations deux very quickly petered out and a general discussion on the subject of Nicholas II began. In spite of his present misery and the terrifying prospects of his immediate future, the company passed the severest judgments upon all the acts of his reign; he was overwhelmed with a torrent of reproach, for old and recent grievances. And when I expressed regret at seeing him so speedily abandoned by his family, guard and court, Madame R----- fired up: "But it's he who has abandoned us! He has betrayed us; he has failed in all his obligations, and he alone has made it impossible for us to defend him! Neither his family, nor his guard nor his
court has failed him: it is he who has failed all his people!" The French migrs talked in exactly the same strain in 1791; they too considered that Louis XVI, having betrayed the royal cause, had only himself to blame for his misfortunes. His arrest, after the flight to Varennes, affected them hardly at all. To one of the exceptions, who was much upset by the occurrence, a Brussels inn keeper made the following remark: "Don't worry, Sir; this arrest is not such a great misfortune after all. Monsieur le Comte d'Artois certainly looked rather unhappy this morning, but the other gentlemen in his carriage seemed quite pleased."
Sunday, March 25, 1917. I had recently been thinking of giving a luncheon to the Provisional Government, with an idea of getting into more personal touch with its members and giving public proof of our approval. But before issuing my invitations I thought it prudent to have some of the ministers discreetly sounded on the subject. How thankful I am that I did! P-----, who was commissioned to do the reconnoitring, told me to-day that ministers were much touched by my kindly intentions but they feared they might be misinterpreted in extremist quarters and begged me to leave the matter over for the present. This detail will suffice to show how timid the Provisional Government is in dealing with the Soviet and how reluctant to commit itself in favour of the Alliance and the war! I must add that to the glowing and patriotic appeal which the French socialists addressed to their Russian comrades on the 18th March, Kerensky has just replied with a telegram which I hope will cure the "French democracy " of any illusion whatever as to the "Russian democracy's" ideas on the subject of the Alliance and the war.(1) The Provisional Government have informed the Soviet that, with the approval of Buchanan, they have not given the Emperor the telegram in which King George offers the imperial family the hospitality of British territory. But the executive committee of the Soviet still has its doubts and has posted "revolutionary" guards at Tsarskoe-Selo and on the roads leading from it, to prevent any surreptitious abduction of the sovereigns.
Monday, March 26, 1917.
Alexander Nicolaevitch Benois, the painter and historian of art and a friend of whom I see quite a good deal, has given me an unexpected call. Descended from a French family which settled in Russia somewhere about 1820, he is the most cultivated man whom I know here. and one of the most distinguished. I have spent many a delightful hour in his. Vassili-Ostrov studio, talking with him de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis. Even from a political point of view, his conversation has often been valuable to me, as he is on terms of close friendship not only with the lite of the artists, men of letters and university professors but also with the chief leaders of the liberal opposition and the "Cadet" party. Many a time have I obtained from him interesting information about those circles the entre to which was formerly very difficult,. and in fact almost closed to me. His personal opinions, which are always judicious and far-sighted, are all the more valuable in my eyes because he is eminently representative of that active and well-informed class of professors, savants, doctors, artists, men of letters and publicists which is styled the intelligentzia. He came to see me about three o'clock, just as I was preparing to go out. He looked grave and sat down with a weary sigh: "Forgive me if I inconvenience you, but yesterday evening some of my friends and I were indulging in such gloomy reflections that I couldn't help coming to tell you about them." Then he gave me a vivid and, alas, only too accurate picture of the effects of anarchy on the people, the prevailing apathy of the governing classes and the loss of discipline in the army. He ended with the observation: "However painful such an admission must be to me, I feel I'm only doing my duty in coming to tell you that the war cannot go on. Peace must be made at the earliest possible moment. Of course, I realize that the honour of Russia is involved in her alliances, and you know me well enough to allow that I appreciate the full meaning of that aspect. But necessity is the law of history. No one is compelled to do the impossible!" My answer was as follows: "This is a very serious statement you are making. In disproving it I will adopt a strictly practical point of view---as any impartial and disinterested third party might do---and leave out of account the moral judgment France would have the right to pass on Russia. In the first place, you should know that, whatever. may happen, France and England will carry on the war to complete victory. Defection on the part of Russia would probably prolong the struggle, but would not change the result. However rapid the dissolution of your army might be, Germany would not dare to strip your front at once; she would also require a substantial force to secure further pledges on your territory. The twenty or thirty divisions she might be in a position to withdraw from the eastern front to reinforce her western front would not be sufficient to save her from defeat. Secondly, you may be quite sure that the moment Russia betrays her allies, they will repudiate her. Germany will thus have full license to seek compensation at your expense for the sacrifices imposed on her elsewhere. I certainly do not imagine that you are founding any hopes on the magnanimity of William II. . . . You will therefore lose-as a minimum---Courland, Lithuania, Poland, Galicia and Bessarabia, to say nothing of your prestige in the East and your designs on Constantinople. And don't forget that France and England have in hand some tremendous
"pledges" for bargaining purposes with Germany: the mastery of the seas, the German colonies, Mesopotamia and Salonica. Your allies also have the power of the purse which is about to be doubled, if not tripled by the help of the United States. We shall thus be in a position to continue the war for as long as is necessary. So, whatever the difficulties that face you at the moment, summon up all your energy and think of nothing but the war. What is at stake is not only the honour of Russia but her prosperity, her greatness and possibly her national existence itself." He continued: "There's no reply to you, alas! Yet we simply cannot continue the war! Honestly, we simply cannot!" And with those words he left me, the tears standing in his eyes. I have met with the same pessimism on all sides during the last few days.
Tuesday, March 27, 1917. As early as the 14th March, i.e., even before the abdication of the Emperor and the formation of the Provisional Government, the Soviet issued under the form of a prikaz an Order of the Day to the army, inviting the troops to proceed at once to the election of representatives to the Council of Deputies and Soldiers. This prikaz further decreed that in each regiment a committee should be elected to seize and supervise the use of all arms, rifles, guns, machine guns, armoured cars, etc. . . .; in any case, the use of these arms was no longer to depend upon the will of the officers. The prikaz wound up by abolishing all outward signs of rank and prescribing that "any difference of opinion between officers and men" should henceforth be settled by the company committees. This fine document, which bore the signatures of Sokolov, Nachamkitz and Skobelev, was telegraphed the same evening to all the armies at the front. As a matter of fact, it would not have been possible to send it had not the mutineers seized the military telegraph offices at the very outset. The moment Gutchkov was installed at the War Ministry, he tried to persuade the Soviet to withdraw the extraordinary prikaz which involved nothing less than the destruction of all discipline in the army. After prolonged negotiations, the Soviet has consented to declare that for the time being the prikaz shall not apply to the fighting armies. But the moral effect of its publication still remains, and judging by the latest telegrams from General Alexeev indiscipline is spreading to an alarming degree among the troops at the front. How grievous to think that the Germans are only eighty kilometres from Paris
Wednesday, March 28, 1917. There is a fresh manifesto from the Soviet, addressed this time "to the peoples of the universe." It is a long rigmarole of emphatic statements, one long messianic dithyramb: We, the workmen and soldiers of Russia, announce to you the great event of the Russian revolution, and we send you greetings of fire. . . Our victory is a great victory of universal freedom and democracy. . . . And we address ourselves first to you, proletarian brothers of the Germanic coalition. Follow our example and shake off the yoke of your semi-autocratic power; refuse to be any longer an instrument of conquest in the hands of your kings, landlords, bankers, etc. I await the reply of the Teutonic proletariat.
Thursday, March 29, 1917. Since the wreck of tsarism. all the metropolitans, archbishops, archimandrites, abbots, archpriests. and hieromonachs of whom Rasputin had formed his ecclesiastical clientle have been having a very uncomfortable time. They have everywhere seen not only the revolutionary gang but their own flocks, and often enough even their subordinates, rise up against them. Most of them have resigned their offices, more or less spontaneously: many are in flight or in prison. After being under arrest for a short time, the Metropolitan of Petrograd, Monsignor Pitirim, has obtained leave to go and expiate his offences in a Siberian monastery. The same fate has befallen the Metropolitan of Moscow, Monsignor Macarius; the Archbishop of Kharkov, Monsignor Antoine; the Archbishop of Tobolsk, Monsignor Varnava; the Bishop of Tchernigov, Monsignor Basil, and others.
Friday, March 30, 1917. The most dangerous germ involved in the revolution has been developing during the last few days with the most alarming rapidity. Finland. Livonia, Esthonia, Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Georgia and Siberia, are demanding their independence, or, failing that, complete autonomy. That Russia is doomed to federalism is highly probable.
She is predestined to that development by the enormous size of her territories, the diversity of her races and the increasing complexity of her interests. But the present movement is separatist much more than particularist; secessionist rather than federalist; it tends to nothing less than national disintegration. So the Soviet gives it its full blessing. As if the visionaries and lunatics of the Tauride Palace would not be tempted to destroy in a few weeks the historic work of ten centuries 1 The French Revolution began by proclaiming the Republic one and indivisible. To that principle it sacrificed thousands of heads, and French unity was saved. The Russian revolution has taken for its motto Russia dissolved and dismembered.
Saturday, March 31, 1917. Anarchist propaganda has already contaminated the larger part of the front. From all quarters I am receiving re ports of scenes of mutiny, the murder of officers and wholesale desertion. Even in the front line bands of private soldiers are leaving their units to go and see what is happening in Petrograd or at home in their villages.
Sunday, April 1, 1917. General Kornilov, the new Military Governor of Petrograd, is endeavouring gradually to resume control of the troops of the garrison. The task is all the more arduous because most of the officers have been killed, degraded or forced to fly. He has ordered a review on the Winter Palace Square for this morning and, very judiciously, has selected only the best elements, those units in which discipline has suffered least. Since the fall of the imperial regime, it is the first time that a substantial force has been assembled in regular formation. From the windows of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs I saw the review with Buchanan and Neratov. The troops---ten thousand men or so---had a tolerable soldierly bearing and marched past in good order. There were very few officers. All the bands played the Marseillaise, but at a slow pace which made it sound sinister. In each company and squadron I noticed several red banners bearing inscriptionsLand and Liberty! . . The Land for the People! . Long live the Social Republic! . . . On a very small number I read: The War until Victory! Above the Winter Palace floated an enormous red flag. The spectacle was singularly instructive. From the military point of view, I could condense my ideas thus: a force in which the spirit of. discipline has not wholly disappeared but which is
thinking less of its military duties than of its hopes of political and social reform. From the historical and picturesque aspect, I was obsessed by a vivid contrast. I reminded Buchanan and Neratov of the afternoon of the 2nd August, 1914, and that majestic scene when the Emperor appeared on the balcony of this same palace after swearing on the gospel and the holy ikons that he would not sign peace so long as a single enemy soldier stood on Russian soil. In that solemn hour I was at his side: he was grave but smiling. The great square was packed with people---even more so than this morning---soldiers, bourgeois, workmen, moujiks, women, children: and the whole crowd on its knees to receive the blessing of its father the Tsar, sang the hymn, Boj tsaria krani. O temps vanouis, splendeurs clipses, O soleils descendus derrire l'horizon! A consignment of newspapers, the latest of which is eleven days old, has reached me from Paris and strengthens me in a view I took on reading the daily rsums transmitted by telegraph. The French public is enthusiastic for the Russian revolution! Once again our press will have been found wanting in moderation and judgment. I admit of course that as the disappearance of Tsarism is an accomplished fact, we were unquestionably obliged to adapt ourselves to the new state of affairs and to "put a good face on a bad business." It was therefore right and proper that French opinion should appear to receive the Russian revolution with confidence and sympathy. But for Heaven's sake no hosannahs! The Soviet is quite puffed up enough already. These pons of praise and admiration will turn its head completely. The main fault is evidently that of the censorship which ought to have moderated the zeal of the sycophants. From a personal letter which the same messenger has brought me I also learn that in the corridors of the Chamber and newspaper offices---and among polite society ---the honour of having brought about the revolution is attributed to Sir George Buchanan his purpose being to put an end to German intrigues. The suggestion is false. Criticisms of myself are appended, as might be expected; men recall that in the old days French diplomacy did not hesitate to resort to great methods on great occasions and did not allow itself to be checked by any vain respect for the principle of legitimacy. My behaviour is being contrasted with the example of my famous predecessor the Marquis de la Chtardie, who in 1741 had no hesitation in associating himself boldly with the national party in destroying German influence and placing Elizabeth Petrovna on the imperial throne. Before long it will be realized that the revolution is the most damaging blow that could have been inflicted on Russian nationalism. . This evening, one of my guests at dinner was Prince Scipio Borghese, formerly a radical deputy at the Monte-Citorio, who has just arrived in Petrograd with his daughter, pretty Princess Santa; both are very open-minded and of many-sided intellect and they are anxious to see a revolution---and what a revolution!---at close quarters. My other guests were M. and Madame Polovtsov, Princess Sophie Dolgorouki, Count Sergei Kutusov, Count Nani Mocenigo, Poklevski, etc. . . . I spoke of the favourable impression made upon me by this morning's review. On the other side
of the scale, Polovtsov and Poklevski told me of the deplorable news they have received from the front. Prince Borghese, with whom I had a long talk after dinner, asked me what characteristics had struck me most in the Russian revolutions, meaning the characteristics which in my opinion distinguish it most forcibly from Western revolutions. I replied: "First of all you must realize that the Russian revolution has barely begun and that certain forces which are destined to play a tremendous part in it, forces such as land hunger, ethnical antagonisms, social disintegration, the economic dbcle and anti-Jewish passion, are so far at work only in theory. With that reservation, what strikes me most is this": And I illustrated the following points with various examples: (1) The fundamental psychological difference between the Latin or Anglo-Saxon revolution and the Slav revolution. The imagination of either of the former is logical and constructive; he destroys to build a new edifice, every part of which he has contemplated and thought out. The imagination of the latter is simply destructive and dispersive; his visions are the very essence of the indefinite. (2) Eight-tenths of the Russian population cannot read or write, a fact which makes the audiences at public meetings and gatherings particularly responsive to the power of eloquence and the action of the leaders. (3) Weakness of will is endemic in Russia; all Russian literature goes to prove it. Russians are incapable of persevering in any one course. The war of 1812 was comparatively short. The present war, with its length and its horrors, is too much for the staying power of the national temperament. (4) Anarchy, with all that it implies in the way of extravagance, sloth and vacillation, is an inebriating passion to a Russian. It also gives him an excuse for endless public demonstrations, in which he satisfies his craving for spectacular and emotional display and his keen instinct for poetry and beauty. (5) Lastly, the enormous area of the country makes each province a centre of separatism and each town a nucleus of anarchy; the slight authority still possessed by the Provisional Government is thereby totally paralysed. "But What is the remedy?" Borghese asked. "The socialists of the allied countries must show their comrades of the Soviet that the political and social conquests of the revolution are lost unless Russia is first saved."
Monday. April 2, 1917.
A telegram from Paris informs me that Albert Thomas, the Minister of Munitions, is about to be sent to Petrograd on a special mission. His patriotism, brains, application, sense of practical reality and instinct of orderliness, combined with his socialist convictions, seem to me to make him better fitted than anyone else to impress certain home truths on the Provisional Government and the Soviet. He will also see the Russian revolution at close quarters and will damp down the strange chorus of flattery and praise it has called forth in France. This evening I dined quite quietly with Princess Gortchakov. Low spirits prevailed. The conversation halted. We were all absorbed in our own thoughts which were depressing enough. B----- alone was talkative, and as usual he translated his pessimism into sarcasm. "What joy and pride is mine when I go for a stroll in town in these times," he burst out. "I'm always murmuring: henceforth all these dvorniks, izvochtchiks and rabotchiks are my brothers! This morning I passed a gang of drunken soldiers: I wanted to clasp them to my bosom!" Turning to Prince Gortchakov, he continued: "Don't lose any time in renouncing your wealth, Michael Constantinovitch! Enter honestly and wholeheartedly into the holy state of poverty! Give your estates to the nation and give them quickly, before it takes them from you! Look to poverty and liberty for your happiness henceforth!" This caustic irony was little to the taste of his audience. Talking more soberly, B----- discussed with me the general situation in Russia, the broad currents which can gradually be distinguished and the formidable prospects opening on all sides. We passed in review the political, social,, economic, religious and ethnical problems with which the Russian nation is now faced, including of course the terrifying problem of the war which involves the very existence of Russia: "I foresee a long period of anarchy," I said. "And after that a dictatorship." "Yes ," replied B-----. "A new era has just begun in the history of Russia, the SpanishAmerican . . . . Sorfirio Diaz, when may we expect you?" I told him incidentally that since Sunday, the 25th March, the Domine, salvum fac imperatorem nostrum Nicolaum had ceased to be sung in Notre Dame de France. We ended with the Domine, salvam fac Rempublicam and were waiting for the new form of prayer for the Government sprung from the revolution. "The form is easy enough to draft," B----- replied: "Domine, salvam fac crapulam nostra ruthenam!"
Tuesday, April 3, 1917. Miliukov is greatly concerned at what is happening at Cronstadt, the great naval fortress which commands the approach to Petrograd from the Gulf of Finland. The town (its population is about 55,000) refuses to recognize the authority either of the Provisional Government or the Soviet. The troops of the garrison, which consists of not less than 20,000 men, are in open revolt. After massacring half their officers, they are keeping two hundred of them as hostages and forcing them to do the most degrading tasks, such as sweeping the streets and heavy navvy work. Anarchy also reigns at Helsingfors. At Schlusselburg the town is in the hands of a commune in full revolt, whose first act has been to make friends with a gang of German prisoners of war. At the request of this gang, sixty Alsace-Lorraine prisoners, for whom I had secured special treatment, have been kept in close confinement. At five o'clock I went to see the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch in his palace, which is full of Napoleonic relics. It is the first time I have had the chance of a talk with him since the revolution. He affected an optimism to which silence was my only reply. But he certainly carried it no further than the occasion warranted and, to prevent me thinking that he was entirely hoodwinked by the course of events, he concluded with this cautious reservation "As long as sensible and patriotic men like Prince Lvov, Miliukov and Gutchkov are at the head of the government, I shall be hopeful enough. If they fall, we are in for a leap into the unknown." "In the first chapter of Genesis that 'unknown' is given a specific name." "Really! What?" "The Johu-bohu, which means 'chaos.'"
Wednesday, April 4, 1917. The Minister of justice, Kerensky, yesterday paid a visit to Tsarkoe-Selo to see for himself the arrangements made for guarding the ex-sovereigns. He found everything in order. Count Benckendorff, Grand Marshal of the Court; Prince Dolgorukov, Marshal of the Court; Madame Naryschkin, Mistress of the Robes; Mlles. de Buxhoevden and Hendrikov, Maids of Honour, and the Tsarevitch's tutor, Gilliard, are sharing their monarchs' captivity. Madame
Virubova. who was also residing in the Alexander Palace, has been forcibly removed and confined in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul---in the famous Trubetzko bastion. Kerensky had a talk with the Emperor. In particular he asked him whether it were true, as the German papers have reported, that William II had frequently advised him to adopt a more liberal policy. "Quite the reverse!" the Emperor protested. The conversation continued for some time and was marked by greatest courtesy. In fact, Kerensky ultimately succumbed to the affability which is Nicholas II's natural charm and several times caught himself addressing him as Cosoudar (Sire)! But the Empress was as frigid as she could be. Madame Virubova's departure has not affected her, at any rate in the way that might have been expected. After all her passionate and jealous attachment to her, she has suddenly made her responsible for all the evils which have overtaken the Russian imperial family: La dtestable none a conduit tout le reste!
Thursday, April 5, 1917. I have sent Ribot the following telegram: Some of the Petrograd papers have reproduced an article in the Radical pointing out the necessity of changing the representative of the Republic in Russia. It is not for me to take the initiative in expressing my desires in this matter. Your Excellency knows me well enough to be sure that in circumstances such as these personal considerations do not count with me at all. But the article in the Radical makes it incumbent upon me to tell you that, having had the signal honour of representing Petrograd in France for more than three years and being conscious that I have spared no effort in that service, I should feel it no hardship to be relieved of my heavy task, and should the Government of the Republic think it desirable to appoint a successor, I should do everything in my power to make the change a simple matter. The telegram has been inspired by several considerations. In the first place, there may be an official advantage in my being relieved of my post: I enjoyed the confidence of the old regime and I simply do not believe in the new one. And then, even from here I can guess what a campaign the advanced parties in the Chamber must be carrying on against me. If I am to be recalled, I should at least prefer to take the initiative: I have always seen the force of Sainte-Beuve's aphorism that "You want to leave things just a little before they leave you." To-day there has been a great ceremony on the Champ-de-Mars, where the victims of the revolutionary rising, the "nation's heroes " and "martyrs to liberty," have been given a state
burial. A long grave has been dug in the transverse axis of the parade-ground. In the centre a platform, draped in red, was raised to serve as vantage-point for the members of the Government. Since early morning, huge and interminable processions, headed by military bands and carrying black banners, threaded their way through the streets of the city to collect from the hospitals the two hundred and ten coffins destined for revolutionary apotheosis. On the most modest estimate, the number of demonstrators exceeded nine hundred thousand. Yet there was neither confusion nor delay at any point on the route. In their formation, marching, stops and singing all the processions kept perfect order. In spite of the icy wind, I was curious to see them manuvre across the Champ-de-Mars. Under a snow-laden and wind-lashed sky, these endless crowds, which filed slowly past with their red coffins, presented an amazingly impressive spectacle, and to heighten the tragic effect the guns of the Fortress boomed at oneminute intervals. The art of mise en scene is native to the Russians. But what struck me most was the absence of one element from the ceremony---the clergy. No priests, no ikons, no prayers, no crosses. The only anthem was The Workmen's Marseillaise. Since the archaic age of Saint Olga and Saint Vladimir, and indeed since the Russian people first appeared in the light of history, it is the first time that a great national act has been performed without the help of the Church. It is but a short while since religion was still guiding and controlling all public and private life; it intervened incessantly with its pomp and pageantry, its dazzling ascendancy, its unchallenged domination of imagination and heart, if not of reason and soul. Only a few days ago, all the thousands of soldiers and workmen whom I saw marching past me could not see the smallest ikon in the street without stopping, lifting their caps and crossing themselves fervently. What a contrast was presented to-day! But why should one be surprised? In the field of ideas, the Russian always rushes to the extreme and the absolute. Slowly the Champ-de-Mars emptied itself. The light waned; a dismal and icy mist rose from the Neva. The square, deserted once more, became desolate and sinister. As I returned to the Embassy by the solitary paths of the Summer Garden, I reflected that I had perhaps witnessed one of the most considerable events in modern history. For what has been buried in the red coffins is the Byzantine and Muscovite tradition of the Russian people, nay the whole past of orthodox Holy Russia.
Friday, April 6, 1917. While: the troops at the front are melting away at an increasing rate, as the result of socialist propaganda, the little army which is fighting under the orders of General Baratov on the borders of Kurdistan is valiantly persevering in its stiff task. After occupying Kirmanshal and Kizilraba, it has just entered Mesopotamia and effected its
junction with the English to the north-east of Bagdad. In the general schemes of the war, this brilliant operation is obviously but an episode; but quite possibly it is the last exploit which historians will have to record in the military annals of Russia.
Chapter Footnote 1. Telegram from the Russian Minister of justice, sent to Jules Guesde, member of the French Chamber of Deputies, Paris: I am deeply moved by the fraternal greetings which you, and comrades Marcel Sembat and Albert Thomas, have just sent me. We have never doubted that in our struggle we should have the whole-hearted sympathy and moral support of French socialism. The Russian people is free. Thanks to the sacrifices made by the working classes and the revolutionary army, an end has been made of that Russian tsarism which throughout the ages was the bulwark of universal reaction. Thenceforth the nation itself will shape its own destinies. The Russian socialists. who warmly greet the heroic efforts of republican and democratic France to defend her native soil, and being as one man in their determination to continue the war to a conclusion worthy of democracy, have faith in the power of the international solidarity of the working classes to triumph over violent and reactionary imperialism and to bring in its train that peace which is so necessary to the development of human personality. A. KERENSKY, Minister of Justice, Vice-President of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
Volume III, Chapter Eleven Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER XI
APRIL 7-21, 1917. The United States of America declares war on Germany.---A concert at the Marie Theatre on behalf of the victims of the revolution; Siberian exiles in the imperial box.---Public feeling revolts against the recent ceremony in the Champ-de-Mars: funeral orations pronounced over the graves of the victims.---Russian patriotism vanishes: "The war is dead."---Acrimonious disputes between the Provisional Government and the Soviet on the subject of "war aims."---Life of the fallen sovereigns at Tsarskoe-Selo; a closer guard kept: the Emperor is imperturbable, the Empress resigned.---Three French socialist deputies, Montet, Cachin and Lafont arrive in Petrograd.---Easter Sunday: curious appearance of the churches.---The French socialist deputies get such a frigid reception from the Soviet that their hearts fail them and they dare not assert France's right to the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine.---Arrival of the "maximalist." Lenin, in Petrograd.---Illusions of the French socialist deputies about the natural tendencies and guiding forces of the Russian revolutions: our discussions of the subject.---Lenin's growing ascendancy; his antecedents, character and ideas. Saturday, April 7, 1917. Yesterday the United States of America declared war on Germany. Miliukov and I congratulated each other on this event which deprives the Teutonic powers of their last chance of salvation. I impressed upon him that the Provisional Government should spread far and wide the splendid message which President Wilson has just addressed to Congress and which ends thus It is not possible to remain neutral when the peace of the world and the liberty of the nations are at stake. We are thus compelled to join battle with the natural enemy of peace and liberty. To that we will sacrifice our lives, our fortunes, all that we possess, with the pride of knowing that the day has come in which America can give her blood for the nobler principles from which she has sprung. . While the American democracy is speaking in this lofty strain, the Russian revolution is about to complete the destruction of the instinct of patriotic duty and national honour. . This afternoon, the Volhynian regiment, formerly a regiment of the Guard, which was the first to revolt on the 12th March and carried the rest of the garrison with it by its example, organized a concert at the Marie Theatre for the benefit of the victims of the revolution. An extremely polite invitation was sent to the ambassadors of France, England and Italy. We decided to turn up, to avoid the appearance of slighting the new regime; the Provisional Government was also present at the ceremony. What an extraordinary change at the Marie Theatre! Would its clever stage-hands have succeeded in producing such an amazing transformation? All the imperial coats of arms and all the golden eagles have been removed. The box attendants had exchanged their sumptuous court liveries for miserable, dirty grey jackets.
The theatre was filled with an audience of bourgeois, students and soldiers. A military orchestra occupied the stage; the men of the Volhynian regiment stood in groups behind. We were ushered into the box on the left which was formerly the box of the imperial family, and in which I have so often seen the Grand Duke Boris, the Grand Duke Dimitri and the Grand Duke Andrew applauding Kchechinskaa, Karsavina, Spesivtsiava or Smirnova. Opposite us, in the Minister of the Court's box, all the ministers were gathered, wearing nothing more impressive than frock-coats. I could not help thinking of old Count Fredericks, with his blaze of orders and his exquisite courtesy, who is now kept a prisoner in a hospital, sorely stricken with a disease of the bladder and obliged to submit to the most humiliating attentions in the presence of two gaolers. My thoughts went also to his wife, the worthy Countess Hedwig-Alosovna, who sought refuge in my embassy and is on her deathbed in an isolation hospital; to General Voyekov, Commandant of the Imperial Palaces, who is a prisoner in the Fortress, and to all the brilliant aides-de-camp, gardes--cheval and knight-guards, who are now for in captivity or flight. But the real interest of the audience was concentrated on the great imperial box in the centre, the gala box. It was occupied by some thirty persons, old gentlemen and several old ladies, with grave, worn, curiously expressive and unforgettable faces, who turned wondering eyes on the assembly. These were the heroes and heroines of terrorism who, scarcely three weeks ago, were living in exile in Siberia, or in the cells of Schlusselburg and the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. Morozov, Lopatin, Vera Figner, Catherine Ismalovitch, etc., were there. I shivered to think of all that the little party stood for in the way of physical suffering and moral torment, borne in silence and buried in oblivion. What an epilogue for Krapotkin's Memoirs, or Dostoevsky's Memories of the House of the Dead! The concert began with the Marseillaise, which is now the Russian national anthem. The theatre almost collapsed under the cheers and shouts of "Long live the Revolution!" and "Long live France!" was occasionally sent in my direction. Then we had a long speech from the Minister of Justice, Kerensky; it was a clever speech in which the subject of the war was wrapped up in socialist phraseology. The orator's style was incisive and jerky; his gestures were few, impatient and imperious. He had a succs fou which made his pale, drawn features seem to light up with satisfaction. In the interval which followed, Buchanan said to me: "Let's pay our respects to the Government box! It will look well." At the end of the interval we returned to our box. A murmur of sympathy and something like concentration passed through the theatre; it was a sort of silent ovation. Vera Figner had appeared on the stage, in the conductor's place. She was utterly unaffected, her grey hair coiled round her head, dressed in a black woollen gown, with a white fichu, and looking like a very distinguished old lady. Nothing about her betrayed the fearsome nihilist she used to be in the days of her youth. She was of course of good family, connected with the nobility.
In calm, level tones, unaccompanied by any kind of gesture, and without a single outburst or the slightest trace of violence or emphasis, the acid note of vengeance or the pealing cry of victory, she reminded us of the countless army of obscure victims who have bought the present triumph of the revolution with their lives, all those nameless ones who have succumbed in state prisons or the penal settlements of Siberia. The list of martyrs came forth like a litany or a piece of recitative. The concluding phrases, uttered more slowly, struck an indescribable note of sadness, resignation and pity. Perhaps the Slav soul alone is capable of that intensity. A funeral march which the orchestra at once began seemed a continuation of the speech, the pathetic effect of which thus culminated in religious emotion. Most of those present were reduced to tears. We took advantage of this general emotion to withdraw, as we were told that Chedze, the orator of the "Labour" group, was about to speak against the war and that heated disputes, etc. might be anticipated. It was time to go. Besides, the ceremony had made a peculiarly poignant impression upon us: we did not want to spoil it. In the empty passages through which I hastened I seemed to see the ghosts of my smart women friends who had so often been here to lull their restless minds with the novelties of the ballet, and who were the last charm of a social system which has vanished for ever.
Sunday, April 8, 1917. The number of persons present last Thursday at the funeral ceremonies in the Champ-de-Mars has been calculated at nearly a million. The civil character of the obsequies has aroused no popular protest. The Cossacks alone had announced that their conscience did not allow them to take any part in a funeral at which the figure of Christ was not displayed and they stayed at home in their barracks. But next morning the humblest classes, especially the soldiers, began to experience an uneasy feeling, a feeling compounded of disapproval, remorse, vague alarm and superstitious forebodings. There could be no doubt now, they thought, that these obsequies, unhallowed by priest or ikon, were an act of sacrilege. God would be avenged! Those Cossacks had known it all along! They had refused to be involved in such a sinful enterprise. How cunning they are! Besides, was it not doubly impious to have painted the coffins red? There are only two Christian colours for coffins---white and yellow; it is so well known that the catechism does not even mention it. So the dead have been profaned by that devilish novelty of painting the coffins red! That was the last straw! The entire ceremonial at the Champ-de-Mars must have been arranged by the Jews! This revulsion of public feeling has become so general and outspoken that the Provisional Government has seen itself compelled to mollify it. Acting on its orders, a number of priests proceeded to the Champ-de-Mars yesterday and said prayers over the graves. .
I dined this evening with Madame P-----. There were about a dozen guests, all the closest of friends, and among them an aide-de-camp of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevitch, Prince Sergei B-----, who has just come from the Caucasus. Throughout the evening there was a general and highly animated conversation, in which all of us freely spoke our minds about the course of events. Of this frank and spontaneous exchange of ideas this is what I remember: "The situation has become much worse in the last few days. The country, taken as a whole, would not agree to a peace of dishonour, such as a separate peace would be. But it has lost all interest in the war and thinks of nothing now but domestic questions and, first and foremost, the agrarian question. . . . It must frankly be admitted that henceforth there is no object in the war, from the point of view of the Russian people. What about Constantinople, Santa Sophia and the Golden Horn? But who gives that fantastic notion a thought nowadays, except Miliukov, and he solely because he's an historian. What about Poland? Poland has ceased to be any concern of the Russian State since the Provisional Government proclaimed her independence. It's her business now to secure her territorial unity; in future she'll have to take Polonia far da se for her motto. As for Lithuania, Courland and even Livonia, their future destinies are regarded with the most complete unconcern, on the pretext that they are not Russian territories. . . . The same note can be heard everywhere, in Moscow as in Petrograd, Kiev no less than Odessa; despondency and the effacement of all national and patriotic feeling is universal. Impressions of the army are equally discouraging. Among the garrisons in the interior there is nothing but hopeless indiscipline, idleness, absenteeism and desertion. Until quite lately the troops at the front had preserved an excellent spirit. The recent reverse on the Stochod has shown that even the troops in the front line have lost their moral, for there can be no doubt that one regiment refused to fight. And what is to be said of all the turmoil raging in the administrative departments, the transport, supply and munitions services?" As I was endeavouring to argue against some of these pessimistic statements, Madame P----replied: "Don't make any mistake. The war is dead, for all the fine phraseology of official speeches. A miracle alone can galvanize it back to life!" "May not that miracle come from Moscow?" "Moscow's no better than Petrograd!"
Monday, April 9, 1917. A few days ago a hot dispute began between the Provisional Government and the Soviet, and more particularly between Miliukov and Kerensky, on the subject of "war aims." The Soviet demands that the Government shall immediately join with its allies in opening peace negotiations on the following basis: "No annexations, no indemnities, and the free development
of the nations." I fortified Miliukov to the best of my ability by pointing out that the Soviet's demands amount to the defection of Russia and if that came to pass it would be an eternal disgrace to the Russian people: "You have ten million men in arms," I said; "you are supported by eight allies, most of whom have suffered more than you but are as determined as ever to fight on until complete victory. A ninth ally is about to join you, an ally who is indeed an ally! America! This terrible war was originally a fight for a Slav cause. France rushed to your assistance without a moment's haggling over the price of her help. And you're to be the first to withdraw from the contest!" "I'm so entirely in sympathy with your view," Miliukov protested, "that if the Soviet got its way I should resign my office at once!" A proclamation which the Provisional Government addresses to the Russian people and has published this morning tries to evade the difficulty by veiling its intention to continue the war in nebulous phrases. When I pointed out the inconsistency and timorousness of these phrases to Miliukov, he replied: "I think I achieved a great triumph in getting them inserted in the proclamation. We are obliged to tread very warily in dealing with the Soviet; we cannot yet rely on the garrison to defend us." Can it be that the Soviet is the master of Petrograd!
Wednesday, April 11, 1917. I had the leader of the "Cadet" party, Basil Maklakov, Princess Dolgoruky, Prince Scipio Borghese and Alexer Nicolaevitch Benois, the painter and art critic, to lunch with me to-day. Maklakov, who has seen as much of the revolution at close quarters as anyone, told us all about its beginnings. "Not one of us," he said, " foresaw the immense scale of the movement; no one expected such a cataclysm. Of course we knew that the imperial regime was rotten; but we never suspected that it was as rotten as it has proved to be. That's why nothing was ready. I was discussing it only yesterday with Maxim Gorky and Cheidze; they haven't recovered from the shock even yet." "So this combustion of all Russia has been spontaneous? " asked Borghese. "Yes, absolutely spontaneous." I remarked that the same thing happened in February., 1848, when the triumph of the Revolution surprised no one more than the leaders of the Republican Party, Ledru-Rollin, Armand Marrast
and Louis Blanc; I added: "You can never predict the day and hour of an eruption of Vesuvius. You have done pretty well when you can recognize the premonitory signs, record the first seismic waves and announce that an eruption is inevitable and imminent. So much the worse for the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum who require more than that warning!"(1) At Tsarskoe-Selo a closer watch is being kept over the fallen sovereigns. The Emperor still presents an extraordinary spectacle of indifference and imperturbability. He spends, in his calm and casual way, his day skimming the papers, smoking cigarettes, doing puzzles, playing with his children and sweeping up snow in the garden. He seems to find a kind of relief in being at length free of the burden of supreme power. Diocletian at Salona and Charles V at San Juste could not have shown greater serenity. The Empress, on the other hand, has taken to mystical exaltation; she is always saying: "It is God who has sent us this ordeal; I accept it thankfully for my eternal salvation." But she cannot refrain from outbursts of indignation when she sees how strictly those orders are carried out which deprive the Emperor of all freedom of movement, even within the confines of the palace. Sometimes a sentry refuses to allow him to pass into a gallery; sometimes the officer on duty, at the end of a meal taken in common, gives him orders to retire to his room. Nicholas II always obeys, without a word of reproach. Alexandra Feodorovna, rages and protests as if she had been insulted; but she soon recovers her self-control and calms down, murmuring: "We must submit to this too.. . .Did not Christ drink the cup to the very dregs?"
Saturday, April 14, 1917. Three French socialist deputies, Montet, Cachin and Lafont, arrived from Paris yesterday evening, travelling via Bergen and Tornea; they have come to preach wisdom and patriotism to the Soviet. They are accompanied by two members of the British Labour Party, O'Grady and Thorne. Montet is a barrister; Cachin and Lafont are professors of philosophy; O'Grady is a cabinetmaker; Thorne, a plumber. French socialism is thus represented by intellectuals with a classical education, English socialism by manual workers, "matter-of-fact men." Theory on one side, practice on the other. My three compatriots presented themselves at my office this morning. My first impressions of them left nothing to be desired. We were absolutely at one about the task that lies before them here. Their main anxiety was to know whether Russia is capable of continuing the war and if we can still rely on her for an effort which will enable us to secure our terms of peace. I told them
that if they could win the confidence of the Soviet, speak to it kindly but firmly and succeed in convincing it that the fate of the revolution is bound up with the result of the war, the Russian army would again become an important factor---a factor of mass, if not of shock, in our strategic plans. As regards our peace programme, we must obviously adapt it to the new aspects of the problem. In the West I saw no reason for abandoning our claims or modifying our hopes, as American help must necessarily more or less compensate us for the diminished value of Russia's aid. But in eastern Europe and Asia Minor we should doubtless have to sacrifice something of our ambitions; but I also thought that if we set about the matter in the right way and our diplomacy carried out the manuvre which will sooner or later be forced on us, in time that sacrifice would not cost France too much. They said they entirely agreed with me. At one o'clock they came to lunch, as a family party, at the Embassy. All that they told me about the state of public feeling in France is quite satisfactory. Seeing them thus under my roof, I could not help thinking what a strange and paradoxical spectacle their presence here presents. For the last five-and-twenty years the Socialist Party has never ceased in its attacks on the Franco-Russian alliance. And now we see three socialist deputies coming to defend it---against Russia! When they left me, they went to the Champ-de-Mars to lay a wreath on the grave of the victims of the revolution, just as in the old days the envoys of the French Republic used to go to the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul to place a wreath on the tomb of Alexander III. As Sainte-Beuve wrote: "Life is nothing but seeing everything and the reverse of everything."
Sunday, April 15, 1917. According to the orthodox calendar, to-day is Easter Sunday. Not a single incident or innovation has marked Holy Week, except that the theatres, which formerly closed their doors for the whole of the last fortnight of Lent, remained open until last Wednesday. To-night all the churches of Petrograd have celebrated the solemn office of the Resurrection with the usual splendour. In the absence of the Metropolitan Pitirim, who is now a prisoner in his Siberian monastery, the pontifical mass was said at the Lavra of Saint Alexander Nevsky by Monsignor Tikhon, Archbishop of Yaroslavl, while the two episcopal vicars, Monsignor Ghennadius and Monsignor Benjamin, officiated at Saint Isaac and Our Lady of Kazan. The crowds which thronged these great cathedrals have been as large as in former years. I paid a visit to Our Lady of Kazan and saw the same scenes as in the days of tsarism, the same majesty and magnificence, the same display of liturgical pomp. But never before had I beheld such an intense revelation of Russian piety. Nearly all the faces around me wore a positively thrilling look of fervent pleading or prostrate resignation. At the supreme moment of the office, when the clergy came through the iconostasis in a blaze of gold and the hymn of triumph, Praise to the Holy Trinity! Eternal Praise! Our Saviour Christ is risen! rang out, a wave of emotion swept over the worshippers. And while they embraced each other, in the customary fashion with
murmurs of Christ is risen! I saw that many of them were dissolved in tears. On the other hand, I am informed that in the working-class quarters of Kolomna, the Galernaa and Viborg, several churches were practically empty. The French socialist deputies and their English comrades were received by the Soviet this afternoon. Their reception was frigid, so frigid that Cachin was completely taken back and thought it his duty to make any sort of negotiation possible, to "throw out ballast." This "ballast" was nothing less than Alsace-Lorraine, the restoration of which to France was not asserted as a right but presented simply as a contingency, subject to all sorts of conditions, such as a plebiscite. If that is all the help our deputies have come to bring me, they would have been better advised to spare themselves the trouble of the journey! At the same sitting of the Soviet, Plekhanov, who arrived from Paris at the same time as the French and English delegates, reappeared before a Russian Assembly for the first time after forty years of exile. Plekhanov is a noble figure in the revolutionary party and the founder of Russian social democracy. From him the Russian proletariat heard the first appeals for union and organization. He was therefore given a triumphal reception when he arrived at the Finland Station the night before last, and the Provisional Government went to welcome him officially. He was also greeted with cheers from all sides when he entered the Tauride Palace to-day. But when he spoke of the war, when he proudly claimed the title of socialist-patriot and declared that he would not submit to the tyranny of the Hohenzollerns any more than to the despotism of the Romanovs, there was a gloomy stillness around him and then mutterings could be heard on several benches.
Monday, April 16, 1917. I asked the three socialist deputies to come and see me this morning and pointed out to them the danger of the far too conciliatory statements in which one of them indulged at the meeting of the Soviet yesterday. Cachin replied: "I said what I did because, honestly and truly, no other course was open to me. Instead of being received as friends we were put through a regular cross-examination, and in such a tone that I could see the moment coming When we should be obliged to retire." Before returning to the Tauride Palace to-day they have promised to withdraw as much as they can of yesterday's concessions. When I went to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs this morning, Miliukov immediately mentioned
these most unfortunate concessions: "How can you expect me," he said, "to resist the demands of our Maximalists when the French socialists themselves abandon the struggle?"
Tuesday, April 17, 1917. The Minister of Justice, Kerensky, came to lunch at the Embassy, with Cachin, Montet and Lafont. Kerensky accepted my invitation only on condition that he could leave the moment the meal was over, as he had to be with the Soviet at two o'clock. The essential point was that he should meet my three deputies. The conversation immediately began with the war. Kerensky told us what is the root of his dispute with. Miliukov, i.e., that the Allies must revise their peace terms in order to adapt them to the ideas of the Russian democracy. The arguments with which he supported this theme are those of the "Labour" Party he represents in the Duma, a party which is par excellence that of the peasants and takes for its motto the phrase Lemla i Fola, "Land and Liberty." Apart from this reservation, he was strong on the necessity of continuing the struggle against German militarism. We heard him out without too much protest. In any case I suspected that, at the bottom of their hearts, my socialist guests more or less agree with him. As for myself, not yet knowing what attitude Albert Thomas has been instructed to adopt towards Russian socialism, I reserved my opinion. Hardly had coffee been served before Kerensky fled back to the Soviet, where the apostle of international Marxism, the celebrated Lenin, who has come from Switzerland through Germany, was to make his political re-entry. . A disgusting scene was witnessed a few days ago in the Russian Church at Helsingfors. A funeral service was being held for Lieutenant-Commander Polivanov, who was murdered by his crew during the recent disorders. The coffin was open as the orthodox rite prescribes. Suddenly a mob of workmen and sailors burst into the church. The whole lot marched past the catafalque in single file and spat in the dead man's face. The stricken and weeping widow wiped the sullied features with her handkerchief and implored the brutes to cease their infamous behaviour. But, thrusting her roughly aside, they seized the coffin, turned it upside down, emptied out the corpse, the candles and the wreaths, and left the church bawling the Marseillaise.
Wednesday, April 18, 1917. This morning Miliukov gleefully remarked to me: "Lenin was a hopeless failure with the Soviet yesterday. He argued the pacifist cause so heatedly, and with such effrontery and lack of tact, that he was compelled to stop and leave the room amidst a storm of booing. He will never survive it.." I answered him in Russian fashion: "God grant it!" But I very much fear that once again Miliukov will prove the dupe of his own optimism. Lenin's arrival is in fact represented to me as the most dangerous ordeal the Russian revolution could have to face.
Thursday, April 19, 1917. General Brussilov has just sent Prince Lvov this strange telegram: The soldiers, officers, generals and civil officials of the South-Western Army, met in conference, have decided to acquaint the Provisional Government with their firm conviction that the place of meeting of the Constituent Assembly should in all fairness be the first capital of the Russian State. Moscow is sacred in the popular mind as the scene of the most important acts in our national history. Moscow is essentially Russian and infinitely dear to the Russian heart. To convoke the Constitutional Assembly at Petrograd, the city whose administrative and cosmopolitan character has always kept it apart from Russian life, would be an illogical and artificial proceeding, opposed to all the aspirations of the Russian people. I associate myself freely and fully with this motion, and in my capacity as a Russian citizen I say that I consider the Petersburgian period of Russian history at an end. BRUSSIL0V.
Friday, April 20,. 1917. The French socialist deputies are beginning to be less rapturous about the Russian revolution now that they have seen it at close quarters. The contemptuous reception given them by the Soviet has somewhat cooled their ardour. But they still cherish a colossal number of illusions: they still believe in the possibility of galvanizing the Russian people by a "boldly democratic
policy in the direction of internationalism." I tried to convince them of their error: "The Russian revolution is essentially anarchic and destructive. Left to itself, it can only end in terrible mob-rule by the lowest classes and the soldiery, in the rupture of all national ties and the total collapse of Russia. In view of the propensity to excess which is innate in the Russian character, it will soon go to extremes: it is doomed to sink into mere destruction and barbarism, horror and absurdity. You have no idea of the magnitude. of the forces that have just been released. Whether this catastrophe can still be averted by means such as an immediate meeting of a constituent assembly or a militarycoup d'tat I have grave doubts. Fortunately the movement has only begun, so it may be possible to master it, more or less, to put on the brake, to make it take the direction we desire and thus gain time. A respite of a few months would be of incalculable importance to the result of the war. The support you are giving the extremists will precipitate the catastrophe." But I soon realized that I was speaking to deaf ears: I do not possess the grandiloquence of a Tseretelli or a Cheidze, a Skobelev or a Kerensky.(2)
Saturday, April 21, 1917. When Miliukov assured me that Lenin had been hopelessly discredited in the eyes of the Soviet by the extravagance of his "defeatism," he was once more the victim of an optimistic illusion. On the contrary, Lenin's influence seems to have been increasing greatly in the last few days. One point of which there can be no doubt is that he has already gathered round him, or under his orders, all the hot-heads of the revolution; he is now established as a strong leader. Born on the 23rd April, 1870, at Simbirsk on the Volga, Vladimir Flitch Ulianov, known as Lenin, is a pure Russian. His father, who belonged to the provincial petite noblesse, was employed in the department of education. In 1887 his eldest brother, implicated in a plot against Alexander III, was condemned to death and hung. This tragedy determined the whole course of life of young Vladimir Flitch, who was finishing his education at Kazan University: he threw himself heart and soul into the revolutionary movement. The destruction of tsarism was thereafter an obsession with him, and the gospel of Karl Marx became his breviary. In January, 1897, the police, who were keeping an eye on him, exiled him for three years to Minuschinsk, on the Upper Jenissei, near the Mongolian frontier. On the expiration of his sentence, he was permitted to leave Russia and he made his home in Switzerland, from which he frequently visited Paris. Tireless in his activities, he soon formed an enthusiastic sect which he fired with the cult of international Marxism. During the seditious. disorders of 1905 he thought for a moment that his hour had come, and secretly returned to Russia. But the crisis passed; it was only a prelude, the first stirring of popular passions, and he went back into exile. Lenin, utopian dreamer and fanatic, prophet and metaphysician, blind to any idea of the
impossible or the absurd, a stranger to all feelings of justice or mercy, violent, machiavellian and crazy with vanity, places at the service of his messianic visions a strong unemotional will, pitiless logic and amazing powers of persuasion and command. Judging by the reports I have received of his first speeches, he is insisting on the revolutionary dictatorship of the working and rural masses; he is preaching that the proletariat has no country and proclaiming his longing for the defeat of the Russian armies. When anyone attacks his crude fancies with some argument drawn from the realm of reality, he replies with the gorgeous phrase: "So much the worse for reality!" Thus it is mere waste of time to endeavour to convince him that if the Russian armies are destroyed, Russia will become helpless prey in the claws of the German conqueror who, after gorging himself on her, will abandon her to the convulsions of anarchy. The man is all the more dangerous because he is said to be pure-minded, temperate and ascetic. Such as I see him in my mind's eye, he is a compound of Savanarola and Marat, Blanqui and Bakunin.
Chapter Footnotes 1. In 1917 the Russian socialists had the same shock as the French republicans in 1848. At a conference held in Paris on the 12th March, 1920, M. Kerensky said that his political friends had met at his house on March 10, 1917, and that they had unanimously come to the conclusion that a revolution was impossible in Russia. Two days later, tsarism was overthrown. (Cf. Le Journal du Peuple, March 14, 1920.) 2. In the newspaper, l'Heure, of the 5th June, 1918, M. Marcel Cachin gave the following summary of our conversations: When Montet and I were telling him that it was necessary to make another effort in the democratic direction to try and put Russia on her feet again, M. Palolgue answered pessimistically: "You are deluding yourselves if you think that the Slav people will rise again. On the contrary, it is now doomed to dissolution. From a military point of view you have nothing more to expect from it; it is going to its destruction; it is following in its historic path; anarchy lies in wait for it. For years no one will he able to say what will become of it." Speaking for ourselves, we were unwilling to abandon all faith in the Slav soul.
Volume III, Chapter Twelve Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III
CHAPTER XII APRIL 22-MAY 6, 1917. Albert Thomas arrives in Petrograd.---After telling me I am shortly to be recalled, he explains the object of his mission.---His confidence in the revolutionary fervour of the Russian democracy; our views conflict. He sides with Kerensky and against Miliukov in the dispute which has just begun between the Provisional Government and the Soviet.---The Grand Duke Paul and the revolution.---Particulars of the captivity of the imperial family.---Public processions: the aesthetic instincts of Russian crowds.---Anarchy makes progress in the public services and the army.---The 1st May; processions and speeches in the Champ-de-Mars.---A "concert-meeting" at the Michael Theatre; political harangues with musical interludes; memories of The House of the Dead; romantic speech by Kerensky.---Embitterment of the conflict between the Provisional Government and the Soviet; Miliukov's brave resistance; fighting in the streets; Albert Thomas supports Kerensky.---Russia's future; the inevitable consequences of present happenings; a Persian parable. Sunday, Apri1 22, 1917. At eleven o'clock to-night Albert Thomas arrived at the Finland Station with an impressive escort of officers and secretaries. From the same train stepped about a score of famous exiles, who have come from France, England and Switzerland; so the station was decorated with red flags. A dense crowd was massed at all the approaches. Numerous delegations, carrying scarlet banners, were grouped at the entrance of the hall and the "Red Guard," which has replaced the civic police, lined the platform with the finest specimens of apaches, sporting red ties and scarves, of which the municipality can boast. As soon as the train appeared, a storm of cheers burst forth. But the station was badly lit; a clammy and icy fog made the air thick; there was a chaotic accumulation of luggage and boxes all over the place and almost invading the lines, so that the return of the exiles was both triumphal and inauspicious. Miliukov, Terestchenko and Konovalov went with me to welcome the French mission. After the official salaams, I led Albert Thomas towards my car, to the accompaniment of a general ovation. This sight, a great contrast to what he had seen in May, 1916, touched him in his revolutionary fibres. His eyes sparkled as he glanced about him. More than once he said to me: "Now we see the revolution in all its grandeur and beauty!" At the Hotel de l'Europe, where a suite had been reserved for him, we had a talk. I informed him of all that has happened since he left France; I told him how much worse the situation has become in the last fortnight; I described the dispute that has arisen between Miliukov and Kerensky, and concluded by emphasizing the considerations that in my opinion compel us to support the Minister for Foreign Affairs because he stands for the policy of the Alliance.
Albert Thomas listened carefully and then countered: "We must be extremely careful not to offend the Russian democracy. The very reason for my coming is to look into all this. We'll resume the conversation to-morrow."
Monday, April 23, 1917. I had Miliukov, Terestchenko, Konovalov and Neratov, in addition to my personal staff, to luncheon to-day to meet Albert Thomas. The three Russian ministers affected to be optimistic. We discussed the formation of two parties in the Government which is becoming increasingly clear. With his usual good temper and great broad-mindedness, Miliukov gave his views about the differences of opinion that have arisen between Kerensky and himself. Albert Thomas listened, questioned and said little except to express immense confidence in the Russian revolution and pay it an eloquent and admiring tribute. When my other guests had left, Albert Thomas asked to have a talk with me privately in my own room. There he said in serious but friendly tones: "Monsieur Ribot has given me a letter for you; he left it to my discretion when I should hand it over to you. I have much too high a regard for you not to give it you at once. Here it is." It was dated the 13th April. I read it, without the slightest surprise or emotion.(1) When I had finished, I said to Albert Thomas: "There is nothing in this letter with which I do not agree and which I do not highly appreciate. Until my departure, which it will be difficult for me to fix earlier than May 10th, I'll give you all the help in my power." He shook my hand warmly and replied: "I shall never forget how dignified your attitude has been, and it will be a pleasure to pay it a tribute in the telegram I am sending to the Government of the Republic to-day." After drawing up a programme of visits and operations with me, he withdrew.
Tuesday, April 24, 1917. I asked my English and Italian colleagues to lunch with Albert Thomas to-day. Carlotti declared himself entirely in agreement with me when I maintained that we must support Miliukov against
Kerensky and that it would be a grave error of judgment not to place the political and moral authority of the Allied Governments in the scale against the Soviet. I concluded with these words: "With Miliukov and the moderates of the Provisional Government we have still a chance of arresting the progress of anarchy and keeping Russia in the war. Kerensky implies the sure and certain triumph of the Soviet, which means giving the rein to all the passions of the mob, the destruction of the army, the rupture of national ties and the end of the Russian State. And if the disintegration of Russia is now inevitable, at least let us refrain from promoting it!" Supported by Buchanan, Albert Thomas pronounced emphatically in favour of Kerensky: "The whole strength of the Russian democracy lies in its revolutionary fervour. Kerensky alone is capable of establishing, with the aid of the Soviet, a government worthy of our confidence."
Wednesday, April 25, 1917. Albert Thomas and I dined at the British Embassy this evening. But he was in my room as early as half-past seven; he had come to tell me of a long conversation he had with Kerensky this afternoon, the principal topic of which was the revision of "war aims." Kerensky had insisted strongly on the necessity of undertaking such a revision, in conformity with the resolution of the Soviet; he thinks that the Allied Governments will lose all their credit with the Russian democracy if they do not publicly abandon their programme of annexations and indemnities. "I confess," Albert Thomas said to me, "that I am very much impressed by the force of his arguments and the warmth he puts into his advocacy." Then, repeating the metaphor Cachin used a day or two ago, he summed up thus: "We shall be obliged to throw out some ballast." I argued contra that the Russian democracy was rather too inexperienced, ignorant and uneducated to start claiming to dictate to the democracies of France, England, Italy and America, and that what is attacked is the whole policy of the Alliance. He repeated: "It doesn't matter! We must throw out some ballast!" It was now nearly eight o'clock, so we left for the British Embassy. Among the other guests were Prince and Princess Sergei Bielosselsky, Princess Marie Troubetzko, M. and Madame Polovtsov. Albert Thomas was extraordinarily pleasant and kind and made himself very popular by his wit,
his animated and picturesque conversation and total lack of affectation. Yet two or three times I thought that his candour would have benefited by being more discreet and less expansive and transparent. For instance, he too obviously enjoyed expatiating on his past as a revolutionary, his part in the railway strike of 1911 and the emotional satisfaction he derives from finding himself here in an atmosphere of popular tempest. Perhaps he only talks as he does to avoid any appearance of disowning his political antecedents.
Thursday, April 26, 1917. Miliukov remarked to me this morning with a wry face: "You socialists aren't exactly making my task easier!" Then he told me that Kerensky had boasted to the Soviet of having converted everyone, not excepting Albert Thomas, to his own views, and already thinks himself sole director in matters of foreign policy. "Have you heard of the trick he's just played me?" he added. "He has got the press to announce, in the form of an official ' communiqu, that the Provisional Government is drafting a note to the Allied Powers, stating in clear and unmistakable language its views on war aims. So it was through the papers that I, the Foreign Minister, first heard of this alleged decision of the Provisional Government. That's the way I'm treated! They are obviously trying to force my hand. I shall bring the matter up before the Council of Ministers to-night!" I made the best excuses I could for the behaviour of the socialist deputies and said that they were inspired solely by the idea of smoothing away difficulties. An hour later I rejoined Albert Thomas at the Embassy and found Kokovtsov who had come for lunch. As on the previous evening, Thomas regaled us on anecdotes from the turbulent period of his political past. But his memories of the incidents he talked about were even more detailed and challenging. He not only tried to avoid the appearance of disowning his past actions but tried to demonstrate that, although he is now a minister of the Government of the Republic, it is as a representative of the Socialist Party. Kokovtsov, who is always politeness itself, took little pleasure in these stories which revolted his instinctive feeling for order and discipline and his reverence for tradition and the hierarchical constitution of society. After they left me, I thought over the new line which, it is becoming increasingly clear, Albert Thomas means his mission to take, and I decided to send Ribot the following telegram: If, as I very much fear, the Russian Government asks us to revise our previous agreements about peace terms, it is my opinion that we must not hesitate to tell them that we stand firmly by those agreements and insist once more on our determination to continue the war to full and final victory. If we do not refuse to enter into the negotiations into which the leaders of the Social Democratic
Party, and M. Kerensky himself, hope to inveigle us, the consequences may well be irreparable. The first effect would be to undermine all confidence in those members of the Provisional Government such as Prince Lvov, M. Gutchkov, M. Miliukov, M. Shingarev, etc., who are struggling so heroically to revive Russian patriotism and save the Alliance. We should also paralyse the forces in the rest of the country and the army which have not yet been contaminated by pacifist propaganda. These forces are very slow in reacting against the despotic preponderance of Petrograd because they are ill-organized and scattered, but they are none the less a reserve of national energy which may have an enormous influence on the course of the war. The determined attitude which I am taking the liberty of recommending to you admittedly involves some risk, in the last resort, of the rupture of the Alliance. But, however serious that eventuality may be, I prefer it to the consequences of the doubtful negotiations which, so I am informed, the Socialist Party is preparing to propose to us. The fact is that, even supposing we had to continue the war without Russia's help, we should be in a position to make our victory yield us a harvest of highly profitable advantages at the expense of our defaulting ally. That prospect is already very seriously agitating a large number of Russian patriots. And if we take the opposite course, I am apprehensive that the Petrograd Soviet will promptly assume control of affairs and, with the complicity of the pacifists of all nations, force a general peace upon us. Before despatching this telegram, I thought it my duty to read it to Albert Thomas, so I went to see him before dinner at the Htel de l'Europe. He listened, but without surprise as he knows what my views are; but no sooner had I begun than a hard and uncompromising look came into his eyes. When I had finished, he remarked in snappy tones: "I entirely disagree with you. Are you absolutely set on sending this telegram?" "Yes; I've thought over it very carefully." "All right! Send it! But it will be your last!" I told him that until I was officially relieved of my post it was my duty to supply the Government with information. All that I could do not to impede his mission was to refrain from any kind of action. I added: "I am sure that the course you are taking is wrong. So when we are talking as man to man, I try to convince you of the mistake and tell you everything that is in my mind. But in conversation with third parties, I assure you I always endeavour to present your views in the best possible light." "I know you do, and I'm very grateful for it." As we were separating, he pointed to some books on his table which included some volumes of poems by Alfred de Vigny: "Those books, he said, are my regular travelling companions. You see what good taste I have."
We parted with a friendly handshake.
Friday, April 27, 1917. Albert Thomas, in his anxiety to define his standpoint, has sent Ribot a long telegram: I have raised no objection to M. Palologue's sending the telegram of yesterday in which he reiterates his belief that Russia will desert us in the near future, and recommends the adoption of a firm attitude. That telegram will be his last. Henceforth I have decided, on my own responsibility, to be the Government's sole source of information and to determine with it the course to be followed. Whatever may be the difficulties---and they are exceedingly formidable---with which the Provisional Government is struggling, and however great the agitation of the anti-annexationist socialists, it seems to me that neither the result of the war nor the fate of the alliance is threatened. In my view, the actual situation is as follows: The socialists are requiring the Government, and more. particularly M. Kerensky, to draft a diplomatic note inviting the Allies to revise their war aims in concert. M. Miliukov thinks he cannot yield to this demand. The Government is hesitating between. the two courses. I think I shall be able to offer my services in finding some provisional solution which will prevent the present Government from being shaken or breaking up---a point I consider of the very first importance. Even if M. Miliukov should not get his own way and the Provisional Government were to propose that we revise the agreements, I earnestly hope that it will be taken calmly. We shall no doubt see some more incidents, and perhaps even disorders. But all who are in touch with the army assure me that a real improvement in the situation is gradually taking place. With encouragement and action on our side, revolutionary patriotism over here can and must shake itself free. We must not allow an unwise policy to alienate its sympathies from us. I saw Albert Thomas again to-day. He said to me: "I've made a point of accurately defining the issues on which our two views are at variance. In a word, what divides us is that you have no faith at all in the merits of the revolutionary forces while I place implicit trust in them." "I'm ready to admit that among the Latin and Anglo-Saxon nations, revolutionary forces sometimes have an astonishing power of organization and reconstruction. But with the Slav races they can only be disruptive and destructive: they inevitably lead to anarchy." .
This evening I dined at Tsarkoe-Selo with the Grand Duke Paul and Princess Paley. It was purely a family party, including the young Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, Vladimir Paley, and the two girls, Irene and Natalia. It was the first time I had been in the house since the revolution. The Grand Duke was wearing a general's uniform, with the St. George's Cross (though without the imperial monogram) but without the shoulder knots of an aide-de-camp. He has preserved his calm and unaffected dignity, but lines of woe are deeply etched upon his haggard face. The Princess was simply trembling with grief and exasperation. Day by day and hour by hour, we reconstructed together the tragic weeks through which we have just passed. As we traversed the rooms on our way to lunch, the same thought struck us all simultaneously. We feasted our eyes on all this splendour, the pictures, the tapestries, the profusion of furniture and treasures of art. What was the good of all that now? What would become of all these marvels and glories? With tears in her eyes, the poor Princess said to me: "Perhaps this house will be taken from us quite soon---and I've put so much of myself into it! For the remainder of the evening we were exceedingly depressed; the Grand Duke and his wife are no less pessimistic than myself. The Princess told me that as she was passing the railings of the Alexander Park yesterday she had a distant glimpse of the Emperor and his daughters. He was passing the time by breaking the ice in a fountain with an iron-shod pole. He had been amusing himself thus for more than an hour! A number of soldiers who were also watching him through the railings, called out: "What'll you be up to a few days hence, when the ice has melted?" But the Emperor was too far away to hear. The Grand Duke also told me something: "The confinement of our unhappy sovereigns has become so rigorous that we know practically nothing of what they are thinking and doing. But last week I had a talk about them with Father Vassiliev, who had just been taking the Easter services in the palace chapel. He told me that he had been left alone with the Emperor several times to carry out his religious duties, and that at first he had found him extremely melancholy and dejected: he spoke in low tones and seemed to be picking his words. But after communion on Holy Thursday, the dear Emperor suddenly recovered his spirits, and two days later his new mood inspired a very touching little scene! No doubt you know that after the Resurrection mass on Easter Eve, all true believers embrace each other to the accompaniment of the words: 'Christ is risen!' That night the officer on duty and several men of the guard had quietly followed the imperial family into the palace chapel. When mass was over, the Emperor went up to these men, who had kept to themselves, and disdaining to regard them now as anything but Christian brothers, he gave them all a reverent kiss on the mouth." I started back for Petrograd at ten o'clock.
Saturday, April 28, 1917. As Miliukov told me the day before yesterday, the French socialists, with Albert Thomas to lead them, are making a fine mess of it here! Disconcerted by the insulting frigidity of the Soviet's attitude towards them, they are under the impression that they can soothe its susceptibilities and gain its goodwill by concessions, obsequiousness and flattery. Their latest invention is to make the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine subject to a plebiscite. They are forgetting that Germany would hear nothing of a plebiscite in 1871, and they affect to be unable to see that an appeal to a popular vote which was organized by the German authorities would necessarily be fictitious, and that the condition precedent to a free vote would be the departure of the Germans across the Rhine---so that we must first win the war at any cost. They also seem to ignore the fact that France, in claiming Alsace-Lorraine, is simply asking that a wrong shall be redressed. . Russian society, by which I mean the highest society in the land, is a curious study at the present moment. I have observed three currents of opinion, or rather three attitudes of mind, towards the revolution. In principle, all the former clientle of tsarism, by which I mean all families contributing, by virtue of birth or office, to the splendour of the imperial order, have remained loyal to the fallen sovereigns. But I have also observed that I hardly ever hear that loyalty expressed unless coupled with severe, acrimonious, angry and bitter criticisms of the weakness of Nicholas II, the errors of the Empress and the baneful intrigues of their camarilla. As always happens when parties are ejected from power, infinite time is wasted over reminiscences of what has happened, the frantic search for scapegoats and the futile interchange of retrospective hypotheses and personal recrimination. In a political sense, this section, large though it is, will soon cease to count, because it lives on its memories more and more every day, and its only concern with the present is to smother it with sarcasm and invective. Yet even in these social circles I occasionally derive a different impression, and usually at the close of some evening party when the place-hunters and feather-heads have gone and the conversation takes a more intimate turn. It is then that the possibility of enlisting under the new order is examined in discreet, studied and cautious terms. Is it not making a grave mistake not to support the Provisional Government? Are we not playing the game of the anarchists by refusing the present rulers the help of the conservative forces? Usually there is but a feeble response to this language, a fact which does not make it any less creditable and courageous; for it is inspired by the loftiest patriotism and dictated solely by the realization of public necessities and recognition of the mortal perils with which Russia is menaced. But, so far as I know, not one of
those whom I have heard expressing this view has yet dared to cross the Rubicon. In the higher ranks of society I detect a third attitude towards the new order. To describe it fittingly would require nothing less than the amusing verve and acid pen of Rivard. I am alluding to the secret activities of certain salons, and the manuvres of certain pridvorny, clever and ambitious officers or officials whom one sees haunting the antechambers of the Provisional Government, offering their help, cadging for jobs, impudently emphasizing what a valuable example their political conversion would be, speculating with calm effrontery in the prestige of their name and the undeniable worth of their administrative or military talents. Some of them seem to me to have done the turncoat business with remarkable speed and agility. As Norvins said in 1814, "I had no idea that snakes could change their skins so quickly." There is nothing like a revolution to lay bare the depths of human nature, to reveal the reverse of the social facade and show up what goes on behind the scenes of the political masquerade.
Sunday, April 29, 1917. Since the revolutionary drama began, not a day has passed without its ceremonies, processions, charity performances and "triumphs." There has been an uninterrupted series of demonstrations, demonstrations of victory or protest demonstrations, inaugural, expiatory and valedictory. The Slav soul, with its vague and fervent sensibilities, its intuitive notion of the bond of humanity and its violent passion for sthetic and picturesque emotions, revels and wallows in them. All the clubs and corporations, the political, professional, religious and ethnical associations, have been here to lay their grievances and aspirations before the Soviet. On Easter Monday, the 16th April, I passed, not far from the St. Alexander Nevski Monastery, a long line of pilgrims who were marching to the Tauride Palace, reciting prayers as they went. They carried large red flags on which could be read: "Christ is Risen! Long live the free Church!" or, "A free and democratic Church for a free People!" The Tauride Gardens have thus witnessed processions of Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, working men and women, peasants of both sexes, school teachers, young apprentices, orphans, deaf mutes and midwives! There has even been a procession of prostitutes! Shades of Tolsto! What an epilogue toResurrection! To-day it was the turn of mutils of the war, who came in their thousands to protest against the pacifist theories of the war. At their head was a military band, and the front file carried scarlet banners inscribed thus: "War for liberty to our last breath!" or: "Let not our glorious dead have died in vain!" or: "Look at our wounds! They call for victory!" or: "The pacifists are disgracing Russia. Down with Lenin!" An heroic and pitiable sight! The least damaged of the victims dragged themselves slowly along, keeping line as best they could. Most of them had lost one or more limbs. The worst cases, swathed in bandages, were fixed up on lorries. The blind were led by Red Cross sisters.
This mournful troop seemed a living embodiment of all the horrors of war and to stand for all that human flesh can endure in the way of mutilation and torture. A religious silence greeted them; heads were bared as they passed and eyes filled with tears; a woman in mourning fell to her knees and sobbed as if her heart would break. At the corner of the Liteny, where the crowd was thickest and the working-class element best represented, there was loud cheering. But, alas, I very much fear that among these spectators who came to cheer there is more than one who will go to welcome Lenin to-night. The Russian nation is enthusiastic over "spectacles," whatever their purpose, so long as they affect its emotions and stir its imagination.
Monday, April 30, 1917. The forces of anarchy are swelling and raging with the uncontrollable force of an equinoctial tide. All discipline has vanished in the army. Officers are everywhere being insulted, ragged and---if they object---massacred. It is calculated that more than 1,200,000 deserters are wandering over Russia, filling the stations, storming the carriages, stopping the trains, and thus paralysing all the military and civil transport services. At junctions in particular they seem positively to swarm. A train arrives: they make its occupants get out, take their places and compel the stationmaster to switch the train off in any direction they like. Or it may be a train laden with troops for the front. The men get out at some station, arrange a meeting, confer together for an hour or two, and wind up by demanding to be taken back to their starting point. In the Civil Service there is no less disorder. The heads have lost all authority over their subordinates, who in any case spend most of their time in speechifying in the Soviets or demonstrating in the streets. Of course the food shortage shows no sign of improvement, if indeed it is not getting worse. And yet there are in the stations of Petrograd four thousand wagons loaded with flour. But the lorry drivers refuse to work. Then the Soviet publishes an eloquent appeal: "Comrade Lorry-drivers! Do not imitate the infamies of the old regime! Do not let your brothers die of hunger! Unload the wagons!" The comrade lorry-drivers answer as one man: "We will not unload the wagons, because it is not our pleasure to do so. We are free!!" Then when the day comes in which it pleases the comrade lorry-drivers to unload the wagons of flour, it is the turn of the bakers to refuse to work. Then the Soviet publishes an eloquent appeal: "Comrade Bakers
Do not imitate the infamies of the old regime! Do not let your brothers die of hunger! Make bread!" The comrade bakers answer as one man: "We will not make bread, because it is not our pleasure to do so. We are free!" In the streets many of the izvochtchiks are refusing to keep to the left, because they are free. But as they are not agreed about it, the result is continual collision. The police, which was the main, if not the only, framework of this enormous country, has simply ceased to exist, for the "Red Guard, a kind of municipal militia instituted in some of the large cities, is nothing but a hoard of outcasts and apaches. And as all the prisons have been opened, it is miraculous that more attacks on persons and property have not been reported. Yet agrarian disorder is greatly on the increase, particularly in the districts of Kursk, Voronej, Tambov and Saratov. One of the oddest signs of the general derangement is the attitude of the Soviets and their following towards the prisoners of war. At Schlusselburg the German prisoners are allowed to go about unattended in the town. Within a distance of five versts from the front one of my officers has seen bodies of Austrian prisoners walking about without let or hindrance. To crown everything, a regional conference of German, Turkish and Austro-Hungarian prisoners has demanded---and successfully---that the "eight-hour day" should be applied to them!
Tuesday, May 1, 1917. According to the orthodox calendar to-day is the 18th April; but the Soviet has decided that we shall nationally adopt the Western style so as to fall in time with the proletariats of all countries and illustrate the international solidarity of the working classes, in spite of the war and the illusions of the bourgeoisie. During the last few days preparations have been in progress for a colossal demonstration on the Champ-de-Mars. The weather has not been favourable. The sky has been livid, the wind cold and biting, and the Neva, which had begun to thaw, has piled up its floes again. From early morning all the bridges and avenues have been thronged with processions proceeding towards the centre of the city, processions of workmen, soldiers, moujiks, women, and children, ---each preceded by tall red banners which had a fierce struggle with the wind. Perfect order prevailed. The long snaky lines advanced, retreated and manuvred as easily as a troop of supers on the stage. The Russian people has a rare sense of theatrical effect. About eleven o'clock I went to the Champ-de-Mars with my secretaries, Chambrun and Dulong.
The huge square was like a human ocean in which the swaying of the crowd resembled the motion of waves. Thousands of red flags fluttered above these living billows. A dozen military orchestras, distributed at various points, made the welkin ring with the strains of the Marseillaise, alternating with operatic and dance selections. You cannot have a ceremony in Russia without music. Nor can you have a ceremony without speeches. So the Soviet had posted at fixed intervals motor lorries, hung with red cloth, to serve as platforms. Orators followed each other in endless succession, all of them men of the people, whether wearing the workman's jacket, the soldier's greatcoat, the peasant's sheepskin, the priest's cassock or the Jew's gabardine. They spoke as if they would never stop, gesticulating vigorously. The audience gave them the closest attention. There was no interruption and everyone listened with glazed eye and strained car to these naive, grave, confused and fervent outpourings, replete with illusions and dreams, which have been germinating for centuries in the inarticulate soul of the Russian people. The subject of most of the speeches was social reforms and the partition of the land. The war was only mentioned incidentally, and as an affliction which will soon end in a brotherly reconciliation of all the nations. I spent an hour walking about the Champ-de-Mars and in that time counted about thirtytwo banners bearing inscriptions such as: "Down with the War! . . . . Long Live the Internationale! . . . . We want Liberty, Land and Peace!" As I was returning to the Embassy I passed Albert Thomas, escorted by "Russian comrades"; his face fairly beamed with revolutionary enthusiasm. As we met, he burst out: "Isn't it splendid! Perfectly splendid!" It was certainly a splendid spectacle; but I should appreciate its beauty more if there were no war, France were not invaded and the Germans had not been in Lille and Saint-Quentin for the past thirty-two months. Not until evening did the processions cease to file into the Champ-de-Mars and the orators to follow each other in unbroken succession on the platforms draped in scarlet. To-day has made a very deep impression upon me; it marks the end of a social order and the collapse of a world. The Russian revolution is composed of elements too discordant, illogical, subconscious and ignorant for anyone to judge at the present time what its historical significance may be or its power of self-diffusion. But if one thinks of the world drama of which it forms part, there is a temptation to apply to it the remark which Joseph de Maistre, in this very city, made about the trench Revolution: " It is not a revolution but an epoch."
Wednesday, May 2, 1917. A "concert-meeting" took place at the Michael Theatre this evening: the proceeds are earmarked for the assistance of former political prisoners. Several ministers were present and Miliukov and Kerensky were down to speak. I accompanied Albert Thomas in the great front box which used
to be the imperial box. After a symphonic prelude of Tchaikovsky, Miliukov made a speech, a speech glowing with patriotism and energy. It was received with approving cheers from the gallery to the stalls. After him Kousnietzova appeared on the stage. Shrouded in her tragic beauty, she sang the great air from Tosca in her voluptuous and moving voice. The applause was vociferous. But even before the audience had calmed down, a hirsute, sinister and fierce-eyed figure rose from a box and yelled out angrily: "I want to speak against the war, and in favour of peace!" Uproar. Shouts from all sides: "Who are you? Where have you come from? What were you doing before the revolution?" The man hesitated in answering. Then he suddenly folded his arms and thundered out as if in defiance of his audience: "I've come from Siberia; I was in prison!" "Oh! Were you a political prisoner?" "No, I was an ordinary criminal; but I had my conscience on my side!" This answer, fully worthy of Dostoevski, aroused a tempest of cheers: "Hurrah! Hurrah! Speak! Speak!" He jumped out of the box. He was seized, raised aloft and carried to the stage over the heads of those sitting in the stalls. Albert Thomas, sitting next to me, was in the seventh heaven of delight. His face beaming, he snatched my hand and whispered: "It's absolutely glorious! Wonderfully beautiful!" The convict began by reading letters he had received from the front to the effect that all the Germans ask is to fraternize with their Russian comrades. He developed his theme, but expressed himself awkwardly and groped for his words. The audience was bored and became noisy. At that moment Kerensky turned up. He was received with cheers and asked to speak at once. The convict, whom everyone had forgotten, protested vigorously. A few hearty blows convinced him that his presence on the stage was superfluous. He shook his fist and vanished into the wings. But before Kerensky began his speech, a tenor appeared and sang some of Glazounov's popular airs. As he had a delightful voice and his diction was excellent, the audience, which was now
feeling sentimental again, had him back for three more songs. At length Kerensky occupied the stage; he was even paler than usual and seemed utterly worn out. In a few words he knocked the convict's argument to pieces. But as if another train of thought had passed through his mind, he suddenly gave utterance to the following odd conclusion: "If you will not believe in me and follow me, I shall give up power. I will never use force to secure the acceptance of my opinions . . . . When a country means to cast itself into the gulf, no human power can prevent it and those who conduct its government have only one course open to them---to retire." As he was coming down from the stage with a tired and dispirited air, I turned his strange theory over in my mind and felt like replying: "When a country means to cast itself into the gulf, the duty of its rulers is not to retire but to place themselves in its path even at the risk of their lives." There was another orchestral item and at length came the turn of Albert Thomas to speak. In a short and vehement speech, he greeted the proletariat of Russia and boasted of the patriotism of the French socialists; he again proclaimed the necessity of victory, in the very interest of the future of society, and so forth. At least nine-tenths of the audience did not understand him. But his voice was so sonorous, his eyes flashed forth such fire, and his gestures were so superb that a torrent of frantic and approving cheers greeted the conclusion of his speech.
Thursday, May 3, 1917. Yielding to the pressure of the Soviet, Kerensky and, unfortunately, Albert Thomas too, Miliukov has bowed to the necessity of informing the Allied Governments of the manifesto issued on the 9th April to enlighten the Russian nation about the views of the Government of free Russia on the subject of war aims, a manifesto which can be summarized in the famous expression: "No annexations, no indemnities." But he has added an explanatory note which, couched in intentionally vague and diffuse terms, does what is possible to counteract the arguments of the manifesto. The Soviet has been sitting all night, proclaiming its determination to have this note withdrawn and make Miliukov "harmless" in future. In fact, a fierce dispute with the Government is in progress. There has been much excitement in the streets since early morning. Groups have gathered at all points to listen to impromptu speeches. About two o'clock the character of the demonstrations became more serious. A collision between Miliukov's supporters and opponents took place in front of Our Lady of Kazan and the former gained the day. Before long the regiments of the garrison emerged from their barracks and marched through the
streets of the city, shouting: "Down with Miliukov! Down with the war!" The Government is in permanent session at the Marie Palace, having firmly decided that this time it will make no further concessions to the tyranny of the extremists. Kerensky alone has refrained from taking any part in its deliberations; he feels that his position as Vice-President of the Soviet leaves him no other course. This evening the agitation became more intense. More than 25,000 armed men and a huge mob of workmen collected round the Marie Palace. The Government's position is critical; but its resolution has not wavered. From the top of the steps which give a splendid view of the Marie and St. Isaac Squares, Miliukov, General Kornilov and Rodzianko have been bravely haranguing the crowd. At length a rumour began to spread that the Tsarskoe-Selo regiments, which have remained faithful to the Government, are marching on Petrograd. The Soviet seems to think it is true, as it hastily issued an order that the demonstrations are to cease. What will happen to-morrow? I have been thinking all day over the lamentable mistake Albert Thomas has made in supporting Kerensky against Miliukov. In view of his persistence in what may be called "the revolutionary illusion," I decided to-night to send Ribot the following telegram: The gravity of the events in progress and the sense of my responsibility compel me to ask you to confirm by direct and express order that you have instructed M. Albert Thomas I am not to communicate with you.
Friday, May 4th, 1917. About ten o'clock this morning Albert Thomas came to the Embassy as usual: I immediately told him of yesterday's telegram. He flew into a rage. Striding up and down, he treated me to a torrent of reproach and invective. But the storm was too violent to last. After a moment's silence, he crossed the room twice, frowning fiercely' his arms folded and his lips moving as if he were talking to himself. Then his face cleared up, and in a calmer tone he asked: "What is your objection to my policy?" "I don't find any difficulty in answering you," I said. "Yours is a mind formed in the socialistic and revolutionary school; you are also very emotional and possess oratorical imagination. You have arrived here in highly inflammable, stirring and
intoxicating surroundings and you've been captured by your milieu." "Can't you see I'm always keeping a tight hold on myself?" "Yes, but there are times when you let yourself go. The other night, at the Michael Theatre, for instance. . . ." Our talk continued in the same strain, incidentally leaving us both exactly where we were before. . Stormy yesterday was unquestionably a triumph for the Government over the Soviet. I have had confirmation of the report that the Tsarskoe-Selo garrison had threatened to march on Petrograd. During this afternoon there have been renewed demonstrations. Whilst I was having tea with Madame P----- on the Moka about five o'clock, we heard a great din coming from the Nevsky Prospekt, followed by the sound of rifle fire. Fighting was in progress before Our Lady of Kazan. As I was returning to the Embassy I passed some armed bands of Leninists who were yelling: "Long live the Internationale! Down with Miliukov! Down with the war!" Bloody collisions continued in the evening. But the Soviet has taken fright, as it did yesterday. It is afraid of finding itself thrust on one side and supplanted by Lenin. It is also afraid that the Tsarskoe-Selo troops will march on the city; so it has hastily issued posters with an appeal for restraint and order, "to save the revolution from the catastrophe with which it is threatened." By midnight peace had been restored.
Saturday, May 5, 1917. The city now wears its wonted appearance. But, judging from the arrogant tone of the extremist press, the Government's victory is a precarious one . the days of Miliukov, Gutchkov and Prince Lvov are numbered
Sunday, May 6, 1917. I have had a talk with the great metallurgist and financier, Pertilov; we exchanged gloomy forecasts of the inevitable consequences of present events. "A Russian revolution," I said, "can only be disruptive and destructive. because the first effect of a revolution is to liberate popular instincts, and the instincts of the Russian people are essentially anarchic. Never before have I so well understood the prayer wrung out of Pushkin by Pugatchev's adventure: May God spare us the sight of another Russian revolution, a thing of horror and absurdity!" "You're familiar with my views on the subject. I believe Russia is entering upon a very, very long period of disorder, misery and ruin." After a moment's solemn silence, he continued with a very tense expression: "Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, I'll answer your question with a Persian parable: "In the plains of Khorassan there was once a great drought, from which the cattle suffered cruelly. A shepherd, seeing his sheep on the point of death, sought out a famous sorcerer and said to him: 'Thou art clever and powerful: canst thou not make the grass of my fields grow again?' 'Nothing easier,' replied the other. 'It will cost you only two tomans.' A bargain was struck on the spot, and the magician proceeded at once to his incantations. But neither on the next day nor the days following could the smallest cloud be seen in the sky; the ground became harder and harder; the sheep continued to starve and die. In his alarm the shepherd soon returned to the sorcerer, who overwhelmed him with words of comfort and counsels of patience. But the drought still continued and the ground became utterly baked up. Then the shepherd became desperate, rushed back to the sorcerer and asked him anxiously: 'Are you quite sure you can make the grass of my fields grow again?' 'Absolutely; I've done things far more difficult hundreds of times! I'll guarantee that your fields will be green again. But I cannot guarantee that between now and then your sheep will not all be dead.'
Chapter Footnote 1. Cabinet du President du Conseil. Ministre des Affaires trangres. Paris, April 13, 1917. Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, The Government has considered it a wise step to send the Minister of Munitions of War to Petrograd on an extraordinary mission. You told me that M. Albert Thomas, in view of the pleasant memories he left behind him in Russia and the influence he may be able to exert in certain quarters, would be well received by the Provisional Government, and particularly M. Miliukov.
In order that he may have a full and fair field for his activities, I should be glad if you would be good enough to return to France on leave, after settling with him the time of your departure. You will hand over the business of the embassy to M. Doulet, who will carry it on as Charg d'Affaires until the appointment of your successor. It has seemed to the Government that your position of favour with the Emperor would make it more difficult for you to carry on your duties under the present government. You will realize that in new circumstances a new man is required, and you have told me, with a delicacy of feeling I highly appreciate, that you were ready to sacrifice yourself by laying aside all personal considerations. I take this opportunity of thanking you for this proof of your disinterestedness, which does not surprise me in a man like you, and of telling you at the same time that we will not forget the great services you have rendered our country. When you return to France, we will discuss together what sort of position we can find for you, and do everything in our power to meet your convenience and interest. With the assurance of my highest regard, Believe me, Yours sincerely, A. RIBOT
Volume III, Chapter Thirteen Table of Contents AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume III CHAPTER XIII MAY 7-17, 1917. Albert Thomas and I state our conflicting arguments about the character of the Russian revolution and submit them to the Government of the Republic.---A farewell visit to the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch: "Marked down for the gallows." . . . ---Kerensky's sway over the French socialist deputies; the magic power of his eloquence.---Lenin and the moujiks: symptoms of an agrarian crisis.---I bid farewell to Russian society. A last look at the statue of Peter the Great.---I leave Petrograd in company with the socialist deputies, Cachin and Montet.---Finland "of the thousand lakes."---A conversation with the socialist deputies on the conclusions to be drawn from the Russian revolution: they think that a peace ought to be negotiated in accordance with the principles of the Internationale.---Crossing the Tornea on the ice: a convoy of wounded
in distress.---The melancholy prophecy of the yourodivi in Boris Godunov: "Weep, my beloved Russia, weep! for thou art about to perish !" Monday, May 7, 1917. To my telegram of the 3rd May, Ribot has replied by asking Albert Thomas and myself to give him our respective opinions. "Draw up your argument," Albert Thomas said to me; I'll then draw up mine and we'll send them as they are to the Government." These are my views 1. Anarchy is spreading all over Russia and will paralyse her for a long time to come. The quarrel between the Provisional Government and the Soviet shows, by the very length of time it has lasted, that both are important. It is increasingly clear that disgust with the war, abandonment of all the national dreams and a lack of interest in everything save domestic problems are becoming uppermost in the public mind. Cities like Moscow, which a short time past were hot-beds of patriotic feeling, have been contaminated. The revolutionary democracy seems incapable of restoring order in the country and organizing it for the struggle. 2. Ought we to continue to put our trust in Russia and give her more time? No; because even under the most favourable circumstances she will not be in a condition to carry out all her obligations as an ally for many months to come. 3. Sooner or later, the more or less complete paralysis of Russia's effort will compel us to revise the decisions we had all come to on Eastern questions. The sooner the better, as the prolongation of the war involves France in terrible sacrifices of which Russia has not borne her share for a long time past. 4. We must therefore waste no further time but endeavour in all secrecy to find some means of inducing Turkey to propose peace to us. This line of thought necessarily excludes the idea of any reply to the latest note of the Provisional Government, as such a reply would to some extent confirm agreements which have become unrealizable through Russia's fault. I will now give the views of Albert Thomas: 1. I admit that the situation is difficult and uncertain, but not that it is desperate, as M. Palologue seems to think. 2. I believe that the best policy is to give the new Russia that confidence we did not refuse to the old. 3. The Government will have to decide about the Eastern policy now put forward by M. Palologue. I will content myself with the remark that this is not perhaps a well-chosen moment for great new diplomatic combinations in the East. But I have pleasure in observing that, in advising no reply to the Provisional Government's recent note, M. Palologue himself takes a step in the direction of the revision of agreements. Speaking for myself, I am not opposed to the idea of a strictly secret attempt to induce Turkey to propose peace to us. The only difference between M. Palologue and myself is that I still believe in the possibility of bringing Russia
back into the war by announcing a democratic policy; M. Palologue thinks that the last chance of attaining that end has gone. 4. Our friendly discussion will put the Government in a better position to view the situation as a whole. I remain of opinion that the policy I suggest is not only the more prudent of the two but more in accordance with things as they are. Nor does it rule out the Turkish scheme; but it strives to bring it about by agreement with the new Russia and not in opposition to her.
Tuesday, May 8, 1917. I have paid a farewell visit to the Grand Duke Nicholas Michalovitch. Not much left of the splendid optimism he affected at the dawn of the new order. He made no attempt to conceal his grief and anxiety. But he still cherishes a hope for some improvement in the near future, which he thinks would be followed by a general recovery and definite revival. But his voice trembled as he took me through the saloons to the vestibule: "When we meet again," he said, "where will Russia have got to? . . . . Shall we ever meet again?" "You're in a very gloomy mood, Monseigneur." "How can you expect me to forget that I'm marked down for the gallows?"
Wednesday, May 9, 1917. I have already said that the four representatives of French socialism, Albert Thomas, Lafont, Cachin and Montet, have had a university and classical. training, a fact which makes them peculiarly responsive to the influence of oratory and the magic of rhetoric and style. Hence Kerensky's curious ascendancy over them. I must certainly admit that the Soviet's young tribune is extraordinarily eloquent. Even his least prepared speech is notable for its wealth of vocabulary, range of ideas, rhythm of phrasing, amplitude of period, the lyrical quality of its metaphors and the dazzling flow of words. And what amazing inflections of voice! What elasticity in his attitude and expression! He is successively haughty and familiar, playful and impetuous, domineering and soothing, cordial and sarcastic, bantering and inspired, lucid and mysterious, trivial and dithyrambic. He plays on all the strings and his genius has all forces and artifices at its command. No idea of his eloquence can be gained by simply reading his speeches, for his physical
personality is perhaps the most effective element of his power to fascinate the crowd. He must be heard in one of those popular meetings in which he harangues his audience nightly as Robespierre used to harangue the Jacobins. There is nothing more impressive than to see him appear on the platform with his pallid, fevered, hysterical and contorted countenance. In his eyes is a look which is misty at one moment and in the next evasive, all but impenetrable between the half-closed lids, or piercing, challenging and flashing. The same contrasts can be observed in his voice, which is usually cavernous and raucous, with sudden explosions of marvellous stridence and sonority. And then from time to time a mysteriously prophetic or apocalyptic inspiration transfigures the orator and seems to radiate from him in magnetic waves. The fierce intensity of his features, the flow of words, alternately halting and torrential, the sudden vagaries of his train of thought, the somnambulistic deliberation of his gestures, the fixity of his gaze and his twitching lips and bristling hair make him look like a monomaniac or one possessed. At such times his audience shudders visibly. All interruptions cease; all opposition is brushed aside; individual wills melt into nothingness and the whole assembly communes together in a sort of hypnotic trance. But what is there behind this theatrical grandiloquence and these platform and stage triumphs? Nothing but Utopian fantasies, low comedy and self-infatuation.
Thursday, May 10, 1917. Countess Adam Lamoyska, who arrived here from Kiev yesterday, tells me that she dare not return to her family place at Petchara, in Podolia, which has been her refuge since the invasion of Poland; a dangerous agitation is on foot among the peasants. "Hitherto," she told me, "they have all been faithful and attached to my mother, who has certainly done everything she could for them. But since the revolution everything has changed. We see them standing about at the castle gate or in the park, pretending to divide up our lands in dumb show. One of them will affect to want the wood by the river; another puts in for the gardens and proposes to turn them into folds. They go on talking like that for hours and do not stop even when my mother, one of my. sisters or myself go up to them." The same attitude is observable in all the provinces, so it is clear that Lenin's propaganda among the peasants is beginning to bear fruit. In the eyes of the moujiks that great reform of 1861, the emancipation of the serfs, has always been regarded as a prelude to the general expropriation they have been obstinately expecting for centuries; their idea is that the partition of all land, the tcherny peredel, or "black partition," as they call it, is due to them by virtue of a natural, imprescriptible and primordial right. Lenin's apostles have an easy task in persuading them that the hour for this last act of justice is at length about to strike.
Friday, May 11, 1917. I lunched at the Italian Embassy with Miliukov, Buchanan, Bratiano (the President of, the Rumanian Council), who has just arrived in Petrograd to confer with the Provisional Government, Prince Scipio. Borghese, Count Nani Mocenigo, and others. For the first time Miliukov seemed to me shaken in his brave optimism and his confidence and pugnacity. In conversation he affects more or less his old assurance; but the dull tones of his voice and his haggard look reveal only too clearly the gnawing anxiety within. We were all struck by it. After luncheon Bratiano remarked to me in a woebegone tone: "We shall lose Miliukov before long. . . . It will be Gutchkov's turn next, then Prince Lvov, then Shingarev. . . After that the Russian revolution will sink into anarchy, and we Rumanians will be lost!" Tears stood in his eyes; but he suddenly flung up his head and recovered himself. Nor did Carlotti or Prince Borghese conceal their anxiety. The paralysis which has overtaken the Russian army must necessarily release a large number of Austrian and German divisions. Will not those divisions be transferred to the Trentino or the Isonzo to resume the terrible offensive of last May, and in even greater force?
Saturday, May 12, 1917. My company of Russian friends has already been widely scattered. Some have gone to take up residence in Moscow, hoping to find the atmosphere there less stormy. Others have retired to their estates, with the idea that their presence will have a good moral effect on the peasants. Others have emigrated to Stockholm. But for all that I managed to raise a company of a dozen or so for a last dinner this evening. Everyone seemed absorbed in his thoughts; conversation lagged, and the atmosphere was doleful. Before leaving, all my guests gave utterance to the same sentiment: "To us your departure marks the end of an order. So we shall have long and happy memories of your term of office." The news of the Russian army is bad. The practice of fraternization with the German soldiers is making headway all along the front.
Sunday, May 13, 1917. After several farewell visits at various points on the English Quay, I passed Falconet's monument of Peter the Great. It was bound to be my last chance of seeing this superb evocation of the Tsar legislator and conqueror, a masterpiece of equestrian statuary; so I had my car stopped. During the three and a half years in which I have been living on the banks of the Neva, I have never tired of admiring the imperious effigy of the proud autocrat, the haughty assurance of his features, the despotic force of his gestures, the fine fury of his prancing horse, the marvellous animation of both man and beast, the plastic beauty of the whole group and the grandeur of the architectural substructure. But to-day one thought and one alone obsessed me. If Peter Alexeevitch could come back to life for a moment, could anything describe his passionate grief on beholding the ruin, or approaching ruin, of his work, the repudiation of his inheritance, the abandonment of his dreams, the dissolution of his empire and the end of Russia's power!
Monday, May 14,1917. The War Minister, Gutchkov, has sent in his resignation on the ground that he is powerless to change the conditions under which supreme authority is held, "conditions which threaten to have consequences fatal to the liberty, safety, and indeed the very existence, of Russia." Generals Gourko and Brussilov have asked to be relieved of their commands. This means the final bankruptcy of Russian liberalism and the approaching triumph of the Soviet.
Tuesday, May 15, 1917. Miliukov gave a farewell luncheon to me, to which the Marquis Carlotti, Albert Thomas, Sazonov, Neratov, Tatischev, etc., were invited.
Gutchkov's resignation and alarmist protest have made them all very gloomy. The tone in which Miliukov thanked me for the help I have given him made me certain that he too feels that his hour has come. During the last few weeks the Provisional Government has been pressing Sazonov to take up his embassy in London. But he had evaded complying with its request, being apprehensive---only too naturally---about what he would leave behind him and the line of policy Petrograd would impose upon him. In deference to Miliukov's personal request, he has given way and agreed to go. We leave together to-morrow morning. The British Admiralty is to send a swift despatch-boat and two destroyers to convey us from Bergen to Scotland.
Between Petrograd and Bielo-Ostrov, Wednesday, May 16, 1917. When I reached the Finland Station this morning, I found Sazonov by the carriage which had been reserved for us. In grave tones he said to me: "All our plans are changed; I'm not coming with you. . . . . Read this!" He gave me a letter, dated the same night and just put in his hands, in which Prince Lvov asked him to postpone his departure as Miliukov had sent in his resignation. "I go and you stay behind," I said. "Isn't it symbolical?" "Yes, it marks the end of a political era! ... Miliukov's presence was a last guarantee of fidelity to our diplomatic tradition. What could I do in London now? I very much fear that the immediate future will show Monsieur Albert Thomas what a mistake he has made in siding so openly with the Sovietagainst Miliukov!" The arrival of friends, who had come to see me off, put an end to our conversation. The two French socialist deputies, Cachin and Montet, and the two delegates of English socialism, O'Grady and Thorne, then entered the train. They had come straight from the Tauride Palace where they had spent the whole night conferring with the Soviet. The train left at 7:40 a.m.
Haparanda, Thursday, May. 17,1917. We spent the whole of yesterday crossing Finland "of the thousand lakes." The moment the frontier was passed, how far we felt from Russia! In every town, and even the smallest village, the appearance of the houses with their clean windows, spotless shutters, shiny tiled floors and straight fences, indicated decency, order, domestic economy, a sense of comfort and home. Under the grey sky, the landscape was deliciously pretty and varied, particularly towards evening, when we were between Tavastehus and Tammerfors. The woods, gardens. and meadows wore their young spring green; the rivers tumbled along with a happy murmur, and the limpid lakes were streaked with dark shadows. Near Uleaborg, this morning, nature assumed a sterner mood. Here and there snowdrifts lay scattered over a barren heath, where scraggy birch trees fought for their lives against' a hostile climate. The rivers foamed in their beds, carrying down huge ice-floes. Cachin and Montet joined me for a talk in my compartment. Montet, who had been sullen and self-absorbed since we left Petrograd, suddenly challenged me with: "Fundamentally, the Russian revolution is right. It is not so much a political as an international revolution. The bourgeois, capitalist and imperialist classes have plunged the world into a frightful crisis they are now unable to overcome. Peace can only be brought about in accordance with the principles of the Internationale. I have come to a very clear conclusion: I've been thinking about it all night: the French socialists must go to the Stockholm Conference to summon a full assembly of the Internationale and draw up the general scheme of peace terms." Cachin protested.. "But if the German social democracy refuses the Soviet's invitation, it will be a disaster for the Russian revolution; and France will be involved in that disaster!" Montet continued: "We gave tsarism a pretty long term of credit; we mustn't be stingy with our confidence in the new regime. The Soviet has assured us that if the Entente will honestly revise its war aims and the Russian army knows that it is now fighting for a genuinely democratic peace, a splendid national revival throughout Russia will result which will be a guarantee of our victory." I endeavoured to convince him that the Soviet's assurance was quite worthless, because the Soviet can no longer control the mob passions it has released: "Look at what is happening at Kronstadt and Schlusselburg---only thirty-five versts from Petrograd. At Kronstadt, the commune is master of the town and forts; two-thirds of the officers have been massacred; a hundred and twenty officers are still under lock and key, and a hundred and fifty are compelled to sweep the streets every day. At Schlusselburg, too, the commune
reigns supreme, but with the assistance of German prisoners-of-war who have formed themselves into a trade union and impose their will on the workshops. Faced with this intolerable situation, the Soviet is utterly helpless. Admitted, for the sake of argument, that Kerensky succeeds in restoring the semblance of discipline among the troops and even galvanizing them into action, how on earth is he to cope with the administrative disorganization, the agrarian movement, the financial crisis, the economic dbcle the universal spread of strikes and the progress of separatism? . . . I tell you, even a Peter the Great would not suffice!" Montet asked me: "Is it really your opinion that the Russian army is incapable of any effort?" "I believe it is still possible to get the Russian army in hand again, and even that it could undertake certain secondary operations before long. But any intense and continuous action, such as a mighty and sustained offensive, is now out of its power owing to the anarchy in its rear. That's why I attach no importance to the sudden national revival the Soviet has promised you; it would simply be a futile demonstration. So the only effect of the pilgrimage to Stockholm would be to demoralize and divide the Allies." About half-past twelve the train stopped at some tumbledown sheds in a desolate and deserted region. We had reached Torneo. While the police and customs formalities were in progress. Cachin remarked, pointing to the red flag flying over the station---a dirty, faded, tattered flag: "Our revolutionary friends might at least afford newer flag to display at the frontier." To which Montet replied, with a smile: "Don't mention the red flag; you'll upset the Ambassador." "Upset me? Not in the least. The Russian revolution can have any flag it likes, even a black flag, provided it is an emblem of power and order. But just look at that rag, which was once purple. It's a fitting symbol of the new Russia: a dirty bit of cloth falling in pieces The Torneo, which is the frontier here, was still icebound. I crossed it on foot, behind the sledges taking my luggage to Haparanda. A lugubrious procession passed us---a convoy of Russian wounded, all serious cases, coming from Germany through Sweden. As might be expected, the transport collected to receive them was wholly inadequate, and about a hundred stretchers were laid on the ice, on which these wretched human relics shivered under a thin blanket. What a return to their native land! . . . But will they even have a native land to return to? With A final glance backward, I repeated the doleful prophecy with which a village idiot, a yourodivi, ends the revolt scene in Boris Godunov: "Weep, my holy Russia, weep! For thou art entering into darkness. Weep, my, holy Russia, weep! For thou shalt shortly die." THE END
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12/28/12

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER I JULY 20-23, 1914

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter I.

Chapter Two Table of Contents

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

AN AMBASSADOR'S MEMOIRS By Maurice Palologue Volume I CHAPTER II JULY 24-AUGUST 2, 1914

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter II.

Chapter Three Table of Contents

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter III.

Chapter Four Table of Contents

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

Maurice Palologue. An Ambassador's Memoirs. 1925. Vol. I, Chapter IV.

An Ambassador's Memories

An Ambassador's Memories