_We Land in Odessa on the Day Set by the Revolutionists
for a General Massacre, but Because of Effective
Martial Law, Secure Only a “General Situation” Story_
Odessa, as we viewed it from our ice encrusted bridge that freezing
December morning, was a distinct disappointment. Behind the breakwater
that stands between the pounding seas of the Euxine and the anchorage
and wharves, the city lay, gray, cold, gloomy and forbidding. From the
dirty streets of the shipping district the town scrambles up steeply
and spreads itself out over the bleak landscape that lies beyond. Long
lines of what the Europeans call “goods wagons,” and what we term
freight cars, were strung along both pier and water front. A half
dozen or more stranded cargo steamers chained up to the wharves, and
a few dreary looking tugboats combined to make the setting of one of
the most desolate scenes that I recall. An occasional figure slinking
about among the cars, and a single miserable Russian sentinel that
stood near one of the gray stone warehouses served only to intensify
the utter loneliness of the place. Over a year before I had been in
Dalny, pressing close on the heels of the invading army of Japan.
Big ten-inch shells from naval turrets miles away at sea, reinforced
by brigades of bristling infantry that closed in from the north, had
forced the Muscovites to evacuate. The retreating columns had straggled
out by the light of blazing warehouses tuned to the crash of falling
timber—this destruction their own handiwork to keep Dalny out of the
Japanese hands. But even that far finger of the Russian reach, obtained
in crazy frenzy of expansion and abandoned in smoke and confusion, was
cheerful compared to Odessa. There at least one saw the new life of the
Oriental armies that poured in by brigades, divisions and army corps in
the place of the retreating Russians, but here in the great commercial
city of southern Russia there was a gloom, silence and abandon that
spelled revolution, disorder and economic disaster, more loudly than
the smoking embers of deserted Dalny. Morris, who did not indulge much
in sad reflections, brought me back to the business in hand by the
true, if somewhat ungrammatical observation—
“There sure ain’t nothing doing ashore or afloat in these diggings, and
that’s a cinch.”
I agreed with the spirit if not with the construction of this comment.
A careful survey of the situation, as visible through my binoculars,
from the bridge of the _France_ suggested the possibility that the
irresponsible population had all gone into the interior to have an
agrarian riot or celebrate in some other simple way dear to the
Russian heart. Nevertheless, we had not come all this distance and
spent three cheerless soaking nights at sea to give up the game at
the first sign of discouragement. Here was where the dispatches of
his Britannic Majesty came to the rescue. After an elaborate search
through the International Signal Code I found a combination of flags
which exactly filled our needs, and promptly hoisted to our single
halyard the colored bunting of the code which stood for the letters “J.
& S.” This means “I am carrying government dispatches,” and implies
that everything in sight should co-operate at once. The effect was
even better than I had anticipated. A few minutes after our flags
had been snapping in the icy wind that blew in from the Black Sea I
saw the launch of the quarantine doctor come puffing out from behind
some tugboats, where it had been lying in ambush. The doctor himself
was standing in the bow. He was a portly man, and willing hands were
necessary to assist him up the side of the _France_. He was one of
those foreigners who cherish that most regrettable of ideas, namely,
that he could speak English. The result was that he flatly declined
to be addressed in any other language. This made it embarrassing and
occasioned no end of delay as his English was of the purely school book
brand. It contained such pertinent phrases as “How is your wife’s
brother? Will you go for a walk in the park to-day? Has your sister’s
husband a good pen?” and so on. This was all right, as far as it went,
but did not assist me much in the business in hand. He seemed to be
wholly unprepared in his vocabulary to take care of such a commonplace
and uninteresting subject as a health examination. He held me on deck
in the cold while he ran through his available list of sentences, which
really gave him an excellent insight into the status of my family,
the number of my brothers and sisters and their respective ages. He
followed this with a few irrelevant questions about the weather, and
ended up with “Do you find Russia a pleasant country?” This seemed
to be the last sentence which had stuck in his head. After that he
paused for breath, and before he could commence again I got him down
into my saloon where we had just been having breakfast. When he saw
the table he forgot all about his English aspirations and burst into
French, and, with tears in his eyes and a wealth of exclamation, told
us how hungry he was. We offered the remnants of the breakfast and he
fell on the food with an avidity which was appalling. The remnants
went fast and we had to send a rush order to Stomati in the galley for
reinforcements. He ate fast and well. Between gulps he told us that
in spite of his fine uniform and steam launch, he only drew $40.00 a
month for his services. I endeavored to be politely interested, until
I found that he had troubles which would fill a book, and so gently
but firmly cut him off. When he had finished the last scrap he turned
to business with evident regret. It isn’t really business, of course,
but it is what passes under that name in Russia. First he took off
his coat, then he undid his sword and took off his belt and placed
it on the table. He then looked all around the room and asked for a
cigar. He got out his penknife and carefully cut off the end, and
then lighted it. Great folios of paper were then produced, and sheet
upon sheet of printed forms were piled upon the table, and the real
work begun. Detailed information as to my lineage, aye, even unto the
second generation previous, were called for, until I was ashamed to
confess that I did not know my grandmother’s maiden name. Then I had
to give all the names of the crew, and these had to be copied in three
different blank forms to comply with Russian law. As my staff were
Greeks and Turks, with impossible names, we spent perhaps half an hour
in making these entries, discussing the correct spelling of each as it
was entered in the forms. Hoping to facilitate business, I gave the
inspector three fingers of good old Irish whiskey, but I never made a
worse mistake. He at once became genial and wanted to take a recess
and tell me the story of his life in his school book English. Finally,
with the co-operation of the entire staff and the testimony of most
of them, under cross-examination, we convinced him and saw him duly
enter in triplicate first, that we had no sickness aboard, second,
that we had no mysterious corpse packed away below the deck. (Just why
anyone wanted to smuggle a corpse into Odessa when the supply there was
greatly in excess of the demand, has never been clear to me.) Third,
that we were not bringing in any large quantity of fresh water (which
might be full of Turkish germs), and a lot of other equally immaterial
and ridiculous information. When all was said and done he politely
informed me that I could not land until he had made his report and some
other official had made some other sort of examination. This seemed to
me to be about the limit. With all the dignity at my command I ordered
Morris to bring out the dispatches. This he did with a great show
of importance. I showed the wretched official the red seals and the
official stamps and then said:
“These are the dispatches of his Britannic Majesty, Edward VII. If you
choose to take the responsibility of detaining here a moment longer
the bearer of such important papers, of course you can do so. I have
no means of forcing you. For your own information, however, I will
tell you that such action on your part will be reported to the British
foreign office and your case will be most vigorously investigated. But
you must do as you think best.”
He wilted on the spot, and took us ashore in his launch, where he
led us before some dignified gentlemen in gorgeous uniforms who all
talked at once in Russian. I waited and tried to look important. My
“red sealing waxed” dispatches were again laid out for inspection, and
my friend, the medical examiner, evidently repeated my remarks to him,
for an orderly was sent on the run for another launch, and I was rushed
across the harbor before another and higher official, who was covered
with gold lace, where there was another interminable discussion,
which finally ended in our being turned over to a burly ruffian in
uniform, whom I learned was assigned to act as my chief of staff while
I remained in town. Fortunately he spoke a little German, and two
minutes after I had him alone I convinced him that his services were
unnecessary. His conscience troubled him for disobeying his superior
officer, but five roubles fixed that, so, four hours after we dropped
anchor, I found myself free to pursue my way unhampered.
The situation in Odessa at this time was intolerable, as I found within
an hour after I had delivered the dispatches to the British consul,
and had an opportunity of getting down to work. That day, as I then
learned, was the Czar’s birthday. For weeks previous there had been
talk of another grand demonstration on the part of the revolutionists.
It had been pleasantly rumored that there was to be a promiscuous
killing to be conducted under the auspices of the revolutionary
committee. These prearranged events rarely materialize in Russia,
as the gentlemen supposed to be in charge of such proceedings are
generally dug out of their cellars and are well on their way to Siberia
on the date set for their entertainments. My experience in five
visits to Russia during the period of convulsion was that the average
Muscovite revolutionist has no equal (off the stage) for simplicity
and ineffective activity. The moment you set eyes on him you know he
is a revolutionist. His hair stands on end, his eyes are wild and his
dress is in disorder. In fact, nothing is lacking to complete the
make-up of the part. Every time he has an opportunity he climbs on a
barrel or some other conspicuous spot in a public place and proceeds
to air his ideas. He will point out at the top of his lungs the
advantages of bombs and miscellaneous assassinations. He has a well
developed programme as to what ought to be done with the Czar, and as
for the grand dukes, he simply tears out his hair in handfuls when he
talks about them. When he isn’t engaged in talking he goes off and
buries himself in a garret and writes inflammatory and compromising
letters and articles, which he leaves about just as a stage hero does
important family papers. The police (whom you know to be police, just
as quickly as you recognize a revolutionist to be a revolutionist)
stand around and look wise and make notes. The moment any trouble is
brewing they go out and make a big bag of assorted anarchists, bombists
and inoffensive but loquacious students, who have been airing their
undigested views on sociology and politics. When people get together
for the glorious riot which has been planned for months in advance,
lo and behold! All of the leading spirits are kicking their heels in
the nearest fortress or packing up their belongings for a trip into
Siberia. So it was at this time in Odessa. The revolutionists had
been talking so long about what they were going to do on the Czar’s
birthday that everybody in town knew of their plans, which, among other
variations, included a massacre of all foreigners. I never learned just
why the foreigners were to be massacred, but it seemed to be admitted
in revolutionary circles that this was the proper thing to be done.
General Kaulbars of Manchurian war fame had been made military governor
of South Russia. He had rushed in two regiments of barbarous looking
Cossacks, who had been instructed to “fire with ball” at the first sign
of trouble, and they certainly looked as though they were prepared to
do it. The order was published and everybody knew what to expect.
In spite of these precautions nearly everybody in Odessa was living
in a state of nerves as to what might happen. The erratic behavior
of the mutinous fleet the summer before, headed by the battleship
_Knias Potempkin_, had aroused general apprehension as to what extent
irresponsibility might carry the situation. The people distrusted
the army and the army the people. The soldiers hated their officers
and the officers feared their own soldiers, and both officers and
soldiers distrusted the population of the town, while the foreigners
had no confidence in anybody. The so-called Jewish massacre a few
months before did not tend to quiet the minds of the peaceful residents.
At that time the town had been given over for three days into a
free-for-all fight and general riot, where everybody killed anybody
they had it in for, and a few Jews thrown in for luck. All of the
foreign consulates had made detailed preparations for trouble.
Rendezvous had been agreed upon for the mustering of the various
flocks. A company of soldiers was to be allotted to each consulate to
act as an escort to the water front, where ships were held in readiness
for immediate departure to places of safety. The residents had been
out of touch with the outer world for weeks, owing to the postal and
telegraph strike and railroad tie-up. All seemed to think that their
respective governments were trying to do something to relieve them and
that the international fleet that at last accounts had been making its
silly demonstration off the Dardanelles, was going to be allowed to
pass through into the Black Sea. No one thought that the Sultan would
make any objection to allowing a few cruisers to pass the Bosphorus
to protect the trembling subjects of the European governments at the
various ports, but while the foreigners at every port where Russian
supremacy still held were sitting up nights waiting to be murdered,
and praying for the protection of the blue jackets, six inch rifles
and machine gun batteries, those very warships were sitting peacefully
outside Macedonia, conducting their childish and ineffective bluff.
The economic conditions could scarcely reach a worse stage than those
existing at that time in all South Russia. Business was absolutely
at a standstill, credit had collapsed and thousands of men had been
thrown out of employment. The demand for most of the products of
local manufacture had fallen off to almost nothing. The directors
of enterprise dared not accumulate a surplus of their product for
fear their warehouses would be destroyed at the next spasm of riot,
so factories had closed up and the employés were in the streets,
destitute and in the middle of winter. Most of the better class had
left town, closed their residences, and dismissed their servants, who
were also out of town. The railroad, telegraph and postal men were all
on a strike, the end of which was not in sight. Most of them had no
funds, and were begging on the streets. Everybody who had any money
was sitting on it with a gun in each hand. With ten thousand beggars
on the streets and the coldest weather of the winter biting through
bone and marrow, and a ravenous hunger turning the ordinary docile
man into little better than a brute, and with thousands of such at
large, there is small wonder that people felt apprehensive. The bakers
dared not bake for a day ahead for fear their shops would be broken
open and looted, which indeed was happening every day. The Jews, who
comprise nearly a quarter of the population, were “squeezing” everybody
that came into their clutches and constantly fomenting trouble on the
outside. It was probable that any day a mere street brawl might in
a moment turn into a massacre, and these Russian massacres mean the
unleashing of every element of evil which the town contains. The news
that came in from the agrarian districts was increasingly serious, and
everyone was guessing as to what the outcome would be. The reports
that came in indicated that all over Russia, sometimes peaceably
and sometimes with violence, the peasants were taking the land into
their own hands. Stories of burning estates and fleeing land owners
circulated in every quarter. The question that everyone was asking was
if the peasants ever take the land, who will ever take it away from
them. Surely the army, that was manifestly sullen and discontented
and trusted by no one, could not be looked to for performing such a
task. As a matter of fact, people generally felt that the soldiers in
time of trouble are more to be feared than any other element in the
community. The Czar had just issued his latest manifesto increasing the
pay and the standard of living of his army, but the effect was about
the same as that of turning up the wick of a lamp when the oil is
gone. There was a momentary flare and then less light than ever before.
The soldiers and everyone else viewed it at best as a confession
of weakness wrung from the sovereign by his realization of his own
desperate plight. Anyway, not even the most optimistic soldier believed
that he would ever get the promised raise of pay. Patrols of the
forbidding looking Cossacks were riding about the streets from morning
until night. The plodding of their horses’ hoofs in the snow and the
metallic jingle of sabers, were almost the only sound one heard in the
streets. All else was quiet as the grave, and save for the shivering
and destitute begging from house to house, there was almost no one else
abroad in this bitter cold.
Considering our high hopes for a general uprising the day passed
quietly enough. Only a bomb episode along in the afternoon testified
that the spirit of anarchy and revolution still smoldered beneath
the surface. Not much of an event it was, even at that. Only an
unsuccessful attempt to assassinate one of the local tyrants of the
detective force. It would make a scare head for a local police story
perhaps, but out here for the man who had the only access to the
world’s cable, it was only a “significant incident.” The immediate
scene is dramatic, terrible. A cold gray court-yard rises beyond a
gate, at which stood a half frozen sentinel, gloomy, imperturbable,
silent. Across the court was the office of the victim sought. Within
the compound a half dozen bodies, now torn and mangled, masses of
clothing and human flesh, lie steaming in the cold, while pools of
blood freeze in little lakes of red stained snow. The frost-bitten
earth crunches dryly under the feet of the clumsy officers, who,
note-books in hand, are compiling their reports of the incident. One
of them turns over with his heavy boot the stiffening carcass of the
perpetrator of the outrage, himself torn to shreds by the explosion of
his own bomb. With white teeth clinched, and glassy eyes glaring up to
the gloomy December sky, he lies, soaked in his own blood, amidst the
wreckage he has created, a grim evidence that no tyrant is safe in a
country where there are dozens willing and eager to sacrifice their own
lives to remove even one of the cogs of the vast engine of despotism,
the machine that has been grinding them smaller and smaller during
these many centuries. No wonder the prefect of police turns his heavy
visage from the scene in which he was cast to play such an important
role. He is putty colored beneath his beard as he passes to his
carriage, saber dragging in the snow and spurs ringing sharply on the
threshold of the great gate. The dull sentry hears the sound and comes
to a present. The police officers salute. The prefect climbs into his
sleigh, weighted down with rich furs, the driver cracks his whip, and
they are off up the street at a gallop. He has escaped this bomb, but
how about the next, and yet again the one to follow that? Perhaps he is
thinking what will be the ultimate end, as he is driven away through
the softly falling snow.
The uninitiated, no doubt, view with skepticism the accuracy of quickly
gathered news, and perhaps think that a few days on the situation
is a ridiculously short time in which a man can gather any definite
information. This is in a measure true. There are times where weeks
of study are essential, but these are not the stories a special war
correspondent is after. Where he is in demand is on the spot where
there is a “visible” situation. When things quiet down he usually
withdraws, and the political and economic correspondents send the more
analytical and perhaps profounder stuff. But these men in a riot,
disaster or “emergency” are often lost in the shuffle, and here it is
where the war correspondent can often cut in and beat by days the men
who have been on the spot gathering routine political news for years.
Unimpeded by long association the special man sees at a glance the most
picturesque and prominent features. Trained as he must be to quick
action, and methods of getting out his copy, his reports are often days
ahead of the resident correspondent.
The first thing for a “story” is a general view of the situation. Two
hours divided among the consulates and embassies of America, Great
Britain, France and Germany give the general official idea, which is
always conservative. Next a round of the newspaper offices and one
gets the (sensational) radical impressions. If there is anything big
one can always find a half dozen war correspondents in the bar of the
biggest and best hotel in town. From them one gets the sensational and
spectacular elements and an unlimited amount of exaggeration. Three
hours’ driving about town with an interpreter interviewing and talking
with everybody available, from the man loafing on the corner to the
prefect of police, gives the local color and atmosphere for your cable.
Late in the afternoon a man has in his head a mass of material ranging
from the most lurid stories of the correspondents to the “official
protests” that “all is well and no further trouble anticipated.” The
rest is merely a matter of perspective. As he writes, the correspondent
must weigh the sources of his information and estimate their probable
accuracy. Experience and many previous failures, and a sort of sixth
sense, acquired perhaps in work on a local paper, render quick and
almost subconscious judgments on news values more accurate than the
uninitiated might imagine. It is at this point that a man’s work ruins
him with his office, or he makes good. The editor is not asking for
literature, but for a quick survey of the situation. So it is that the
man who can talk with the most people in the shortest time, and from
such evidence make a connected and truthful story, is the man that is
wanted. From the combined conversations of perhaps forty informants,
ranging through all classes in the community, he must pick and choose
the salient features and the most reliable evidence on which to base
his story. In ten hours a good newspaper man can get the material for a
column cable on almost any “visible situation.” This in the main will
be accurate and correct. The moment he has gotten his message off, he
begins to sketch out his campaign for the coming days or weeks which he
expects the trouble to last. He picks out a half dozen reliable agents
and sends them all over town, interviewing, observing, collecting data
and local color in all quarters. If he knows his business he has a
small but efficient staff in forty-eight hours, which keep him posted
as to the general trend of affairs all over the city. If the wires
are working, he can probably pick up local informants in neighboring
towns to reinforce his story with ideas and viewpoints. If there is
fighting going on he tries to see it without too much risk, so as to
get the “local color,” which only presence on the scene can give. The
dull days are filled in by interviews with as many prominent people as
can be induced to talk. Thus, what seems to an outsider as a difficult
proposition and one involving guesswork and inaccuracy, becomes a very
simple matter.
It was in much this way that I gathered material for my Odessa
cable. I had not time to collect a local staff, for I only remained
thirty-six hours, but I made out fairly well on the collection of
local information by turning Morris and three or four members of my
crew loose for the day to talk with everyone possible. My dispatches to
the consulate gave me quick and easy access to the official view, while
a number of stranded war correspondents at the hotel regaled me with
information, which they could not get out themselves on account of the
telegraph and postal tie-up all over Russia. One rarely drops on a good
situation without meeting a handful of old friends on similar business
bent. In Odessa almost the first man I met ashore was Lionel James of
the London _Times_, in my opinion the best of all the English cable
correspondents. He had been in command of the _Times_ dispatch boat
_Haimun_ in the Russo-Japanese war, and for months had been competing
in the news zone against the dispatch boat I was operating for the
Chicago _Daily News_. I first met him in Chefoo Harbor and again in
Ping Yang Inlet in Korea. He joined the second army and scored a beat
on the cable from Lioa Yang, which broke the Japanese securities in
the London money market. I lost track of him and did not see him again
until Red Sunday days in Petersburg. I was hurried up from a little
investigation of a war scare in the Balkans and almost the first man I
met in the hotel in Petersburg was James. For a few weeks I saw him
daily, and again we parted. He had been on half a dozen assignments
and I around the world when we met on the street in Odessa that cold
December day.
By six that night I had my evidence all in and was aboard the _France_
ready for the run to the uncensored cable in Roumania.