M. Millerand gave a banquet at the War Office in honour of us

delegates, at which we met M. Viviani, the Prime Minister, together

with other members of the French Cabinet. I enjoyed the good fortune

of sitting next to M. Delcassé, and so of making the acquaintance of

one of the great Foreign Ministers of our time. Paris is at its best

in spring, and had it not been war-time and had one not been in a

fidget to get back to Whitehall, a few days of comparative idleness

spent in _la ville lumière_ after nine months of incessant office

work, while the international sailor-men settled their differences,

would have been not unwelcome. The pause, however, provided an

opportunity for motoring down to St. Omer and spending a couple of

days in the war zone--my first visit to the Front. Two points

especially struck me on this trip. One was the wonderful way that the

women and children of France (for scarcely an adult male was to be

seen about in the rural districts) were keeping their end up in the

fields. The other was the smart and soldier-like bearing of the

rank-and-file amongst our troops, in striking contrast to the

go-as-you-please methods which prevailed in South Africa, and to

which, indirectly, some of the "regrettable incidents" which occurred

on the veldt were traceable. It gave one confidence. Sir J. French and

some of G.H.Q. were at advanced headquarters at Hazebrouck as

offensive operations were impending, and Sir John, on the afternoon

that I saw him, was greatly pleased at a most successful retirement of

our line in a portion of the Ypres salient which General Plumer had

brought off on the previous night. On getting back to Paris it

transpired that the naval trouble was not yet settled.

One morning, sitting with Admiral Gamble who was over to help Sir H.

Jackson, in the long alley-way of the Ritz where one enjoys early

breakfast if that meal be not partaken of in private apartments,

Commodore Bartolomé, the First Lord's "Personal Naval Assistant," was

of a sudden descried in the offing and beating up for the Bureau.

"Good God!" exclaimed the Admiral, horror-stricken. "Winston's come!"

He had, so we learnt from Bartolomé; but what he had come for nobody

could make out. Telegraphic communication exists between Paris and

London, and Sir H. Jackson was in constant touch with our Admiralty.

However, to whatever cause the visit was to be attributed, there was

Mr. Churchill as large as life and most anxious to get busy; and I

personally was glad to see him, because he told me all about what had

been going on in the Gallipoli Peninsula since the landing of a few

days before. One did not gather that the French were any more

delighted at his jack-in-the-box arrival, and at his interventions in

the Conference discussions, than were our naval representatives who

had been officially accredited for the purpose. A satisfactory

agreement was, however, at last arrived at over the Adriatic, the

conventions were signed with due pomp and circumstance, and our party

returned to England. While in Paris I had paid one or two visits to

General Graziani, who was the Chief of the General Staff at the French

War Office; but we in Whitehall never could make out exactly what were

the relations between the military authorities in Paris and those at

Chantilly. The very fact that General Joffre's Chief of Staff had been

French military representative at our Conference, and not General

Graziani or his nominee, seemed odd.

Some six months later, early in November, I again went over to France,

this time with Sir A. Murray, to attend a discussion with General

Joffre at Chantilly concerning Salonika. Admiralty representatives,

including Admiral Gamble and Mr. Graeme Thomson, Director of Naval

Transport, were of the party. Sir J. French with Sir W. Robertson, his

Chief of the General Staff, and Sir H. Wilson came up from St. Omer.

It was by no means a satisfactory meeting. We from the War Office in

London desired to circumscribe British participation in this new

side-show to the utmost, and to keep the whole business as far as

possible within limits; but we got uncommonly little support from

G.H.Q. Sir W. Robertson expressed no opinion, nor was he called upon

to do so; he would have found it awkward to dissent from his

commander-in-chief. But the result was that when a much more important

conference over the same subject took place a few days later, this

time between the two Governments, Sir J. French was not present while

Sir W. Robertson was. These things do arrange themselves somehow.

As the discussion took place at Chantilly late in the afternoon,

G.H.Q. and we put up at Amiens for the night. On our discovering that

General Joffre contemplated crossing the Channel next day to have a

chat with our Government, the C.I.G.S. prevailed upon Admiral Gamble

to hurry on in his motor to Boulogne next morning so as to catch the

packet there, to cross to Folkestone, and to get up to London in time

to warn our people of the somewhat expansive Salonika programme which

"Grandpère" had up his sleeve. The Silent Navy, it is hardly necessary

to say, fairly rose to the occasion, for the Admiral was off under

forced draught in the dog-watch. Chancing things, however, when

weathering a promontory off Montreuil, he contrived to pile up his

craft on a shoal in a bad position, and he would have missed

trans-shipment at Boulogne altogether had he not got himself taken off

in a passing craft which was under charge of soldier-officers who were

likewise making for the packet. So he got across all right in the end

and he flashed up to town, only to find that old man Joffre had not

played the game. "Grandpère" had slept peacefully in the train, had

boarded a destroyer at some unearthly hour of the morning, and was

already in Whitehall before our staunch, precipitate emissary had cast

off from Boulogne.

On the occasion of that next pow-wow mentioned [p.228] above, Messrs.

Asquith, Balfour (now First Lord), Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey

crossed over as our representatives. Sir H. Jackson (now First Sea

Lord), Sir W. Robertson, who had been summoned over to London, and I

accompanied them, as well as Colonel Hankey and some others. We

travelled by specials and a destroyer and took the Boulogne route. Our

warship tied up to the _East Anglia_, hospital ship, at Boulogne, and

as we passed across her some of us had a few words with nurses and

wounded on board, little anticipating that she would be mined next day

on the passage over to England, with most unfortunate loss of life.

Eventually we arrived at the Gare du Nord about midnight, to be

welcomed by a swarm of French Ministers and Lord Bertie, and to find

all arrangements made for us with typical French hospitality.

The Conference took place at the Foreign Office on the Quai d'Orsay,

M. Briand presiding. Several members of the French Government were

present, besides Generals Joffre, Gallieni and Graziani; and with our

party, as well as interpreters, secretaries and others, there was

quite a gathering. After M. Briand had welcomed us cordially and in

felicitous terms, Mr. Asquith got a charming little speech in French

off his chest; it may perhaps have had a whiff of the lamp about it

and had probably been learnt by heart, but the P. M. undoubtedly

managed to serve up a savoury _appétitif_, and we felt that in the

matter of courtesy and the amenities our man had held his own. In the

course of the discussion that followed, Sir E. Grey's minute-gun

process of turning our host's delightful language to account afforded

all present ample time to take in the drift of his cogent, weighty

arguments and to appraise them at their proper worth. Had it been any

one else, Mr. Lloyd George would have been voted an unmitigated

nuisance on all hands. As a result of prolonged residence in the Gay

City at a somewhat later date, the Right Honourable Gentleman is now,

it is understood, in the habit of bandying badinage with the

_midinettes_ in the _argot_ of the Quartier Latin. But at the time

that I speak of his acquaintance with the Gallic tongue was strictly

limited (although he did put forward claims to be able to understand

"Grey's French"), and he kept from time to time insisting upon the

proceedings being brought to a halt while a translation of something

that had been said was furnished for his benefit, generally selecting

some particularly unprofitable platitude which had been uttered by one

of those present for the purpose of gaining time.

The French took up a strong line over Salonika. In a sense they drove

our side into a corner, and the responsibility for hundreds of

thousands of French and British troops being interned in Macedonia for

years rests with them, and it was in great measure the outcome of that

day's debate. Sir W. Robertson was called upon to state his views. He

knows French perfectly well, but he absolutely refused to speak

anything but English, and his remarks were translated, sentence after

sentence, by a young French officer with a perfect command of the

latter tongue. After each successive sentence had been rendered into

French, Sir William, who was sitting beside me, would murmur,

"Infernal fellow, that's not what I said," as though repeating the

responses, the poor interpreter having in reality done his duty like a

man. The gist of his remarks was what might have been expected, viz.

that the Germans were the real enemy and that the proper course for

the Allies to pursue was to concentrate force against them and not to

be hunting about for trouble in the uttermost parts of the earth.

Views of that kind, enunciated bluntly and with considerable emphasis,

were very likely not wholly palatable to M. Briand; but it seemed to

me that they were not regarded with disfavour by General Joffre, nor

yet by General Gallieni, although those distinguished soldiers when

invited to give expression to their views contrived merely to say

nothing at considerable length. The end of it all was that we were

committed to dumping down three more divisions at Salonika in

addition to the two already there or disembarking, and that we were,

moreover, committed to sending them thither without delay. When they

got there it took ages to get their impedimenta ashore owing to lack

of landing facilities--as we had fully foreseen. The amateur

strategist imagines that you can discharge an army out of a fleet of

transports and freight-ships just anywhere and as easily as you can

empty a slop-pail.

We dined with the President and Mme. Poincaré at the Élysée that

night, and most of the French Cabinet, as well as Generals Joffre and

Gallieni, were likewise invited. Our Big Four were in some doubt as to

what garb to appear in, seeing that it was not to be a full-dress

function, sporting trinkets; and they eventually hit upon

dinner-jackets with black ties. So Sir W. Robertson and I decided to

doff breeches, boots and spurs, and to don what military tailors refer

to as "slacks" but what in non-sartorial circles are commonly called

trousers. The French civilians all wore frock-coats, so that there was

an agreeable lack of uniformity and formality when we assembled. I sat

next to M. Dumergue, the Colonial Minister, and between us we disposed

of the German Colonies in a spirit of give and take--or rather take,

because there was none of that opera-bouffe "mandate" which has since

then been wafted across from the Western Hemisphere, included in our

arrangements. In the course of the evening I managed to obtain General

Joffre's views concerning the feasibility of withdrawing from the

Gallipoli Peninsula without encountering heavy loss, a subject that

one had constantly in mind at that time. Père Joffre's opinion was

that, subject to favourable weather and to the retreat taking place at

night, the thing could be managed, and he emphasized the fact that the

conditions of trench warfare rather lent themselves to secret

withdrawals of that nature.

We made our way back to London on the following day, leaving Paris in

the forenoon, and were to embark at Calais; but owing to some

misunderstanding our special ran into Boulogne and out on to the

jetty, where numbers of troops were assembled as a leave-boat was

shortly to cross. This afforded me an opportunity of experiencing how

very engaging Mr. Lloyd George can make himself when dealing with a

somewhat critical audience. For the whole party got out, glad to

stretch their legs, and I wandered about with the Munitions Minister.

We got into conversation with some of the men, he was recognised, and

a crowd speedily gathered round us. He questioned them, and it is

hardly necessary to say that, being British soldiers, they did not

forget to grumble; they were particularly eloquent on the subject of

the quality and the quantity of hand-grenades. But Mr. Lloyd George

handled them most skilfully, got a great deal of useful information

out of them, delighted them with his cheery manner and apt chaff, and

when we had to hurry off as our train was about to move on, the men

cheered him to the echo. "Sure he's a great little man intoirely," I

heard a huge lump of an Irish sergeant remark to a taciturn

Highlander, who removed his pipe from his mouth to spit in unqualified

acquiescence.

They say that a destroyer represents an invaluable form of

fighting-ship, and no doubt she does; but it is ridiculous to pretend

that she makes an agreeable pleasure-boat--at all events not at night

and with all lights out. In the first place there is nothing whatever

to prevent your falling out of the vessel altogether, and as the

gangways which pretend to be the deck are littered with anchors,

chains, torpedoes, funnels, ventilators, and what not, you dare not,

if you have been so ill-advised as to remain up top, roam about in

pitch darkness even in harbour, let alone when the craft is jumping

and wriggling and straining out in the open. Having tried the high-up

portion of the ship at the front end, where the cold was perishing and

the spray amounted to a positive outrage, on the way over, I selected

the wardroom aft on the way back and found this much more inhabitable.

There was a nice open stove to sit before, a pleasant book to read,

and there was really nothing to complain about except the rattle and

whirr of the propellers. Sir W. Robertson is a very fine soldier, but

he does not cut much ice as a sailor; although it was as settled as

the narrow seas can fairly be expected to be in late autumn, he lay

perfectly flat on his back on a bunk with his hands folded across his

chest like the effigies of departed sovereigns in Westminster Abbey,

and he never moved an eyelid till we were inside the Dover

breakwaters. All the same, he stayed the course, and that is more, I

fear, than the First Lord of the Admiralty did. For the Ruler of the

King's Navy made a bee-line for the Lieutenant-Commander's own private

dug-out the moment he came aboard at Calais, and he remained in

ambuscade during the voyage.

There used to be a ditty sung at a pantomime or some such

entertainment when I was at Haileybury--music-halls were less numerous

and less aristocratic in those days than they are now--of which the

refrain was to the effect that one must meet with the most unheard-of

experiences ere one would "cease to love." We used to spend an

appreciable portion of our time in form composing appropriate verses,

as effective a mental exercise perhaps as the labours we were supposed

to be engaged on. Mr. Goschen had recently been appointed First Lord

of the Admiralty, and one distich in the official version ran: "May

Goschen have a notion of the motion of the ocean, if ever I cease to

love." It is to be apprehended that Mr. Balfour acquired a better

notion of the motion of the ocean than he cared for, on these

destroyer trips in which he was in the habit of indulging; for when we

fetched up on this side of the Channel and made our way to the

attendant dining-car, where the trained eye instantly detected the

presence of glasses on the tables of that peculiar shape that denotes

the advent of bubbly wine (none of your peasant drinks when the

taxpayer is standing treat), the First Lord rolled up swathed in a

shawl, a lamentable bundle, and disappeared like a transient and

embarrassed phantom into a corner, to be seen no more until we

steamed into Charing Cross.

The run up to town from Dover by special was edifying and was not

uninstructive, for it threw some light upon the mystery that is

connected with the frequent leaking-out of matters which upon the

whole had better be kept secret. A train composed of only a couple of

cars makes less noise than the more usual sort, and our dining-car

happened to be a particularly smooth-running one. The consequence was

that almost every word that was said in the car could be heard by

anybody who chose to listen. The Big Three (Mr. Balfour had deserted

as we have seen) sat together at one table, whilst we lesser fry

congregated close at hand at others. The natural resilience following

upon the conclusion of the Conference and the happy termination of

cross-Channel buffetings may perhaps have been somewhat stimulated by

draughts of sparkling vintage; but, be that as it may, the Prime

Minister and the Minister of Munitions were in their most expansive

mood, and after a time their conversation was followed by the rest of

us with considerable interest. To the sailors present, as also to one

or two of the junior soldier-officers, it was probably news--and it

must surely have been news to the waiters--to learn that Sir J. French

was shortly to vacate command of the B.E.F. in France. Nor could we be

other than gratified at the discussions concerning Sir D. Haig's

qualifications as a successor; I was expecting every moment to hear

Sir W. Robertson's suitability for the post freely canvassed; he was

sitting back-to-back with the Munitions Minister, but with the

half-partition usual in our English dining-cars intervening. Cabinet

Ministers certainly are quaint people.

I attended more than one Conference with the Allies on the subject of

munitions and supplies at a later stage of the war. They had a rather

inconvenient habit, some of them, of springing brand-new proposals

upon one without any warning, and they would without turning a hair

raise questions the discussion of which was wholly unforeseen and

had not been prepared for. A good deal of trouble was, for instance,

caused on a certain occasion owing to the question of armament for

Russia being brought up at one of the Chantilly Conferences which used

to take place from time to time, without our having a delegate present

who was posted up in the actual situation with regard to this

particular problem. The Russians had, shortly before, put forward

requests that we should furnish them with a very big consignment

indeed of heavy guns and howitzers--somewhere about 600 pieces of

sorts. We had no intention of falling in with this somewhat

extravagant demand; but we had more or less promised about 150.

However, at a meeting of a Sub-Committee on munitions delegated by

this particular Chantilly Conference, only General Maurice, who was

not concerned in munitions details nor aware of the actual facts,

represented us; and at this meeting the Russians and French mentioned

in the course of the discussion that we had promised 600 pieces. Not

fully acquainted with the position, General Maurice did not contradict

the assertion. This caused some difficulty, because on later occasions

the French and Russians would say, "But you agreed to furnish 600 at

Chantilly," and would produce the protocol of the meeting. Similarly,

we were regularly rushed into a Conference at Paris over Greek

supplies in the autumn of 1917--the subject has already been mentioned

on p. 216, and it will be referred to again farther on in this

volume--without knowing what the business was about. Greek supplies

and our connection with them were consequently in a shocking tangle

for months to come.

There was one of these international gatherings, one that was held in

Mr. Lloyd George's room in the War Office about November 1916 when he

was Secretary of State for War, of which I have a vivid recollection.

M. Albert Thomas and General Dall' Olio, the respective Munitions

Ministers in France and Italy, had come over, accompanied by several

assistants; and the Russian Military Attaché from Paris with several

representatives of the special Russian Commission in England were

present, as well as the Head of the Roumanian Military Mission in

France. The Russians, Roumanians and Italians all, needless to say,

wanted to get as much as they could out of us, and the French were

quite ready to back the Russians and Roumanians up. Mr. Lloyd George

made a tip-top chairman, conciliatory and, thanks to ignorance of

French, always unable to understand what was said when it happened to

be inconvenient to grasp the purport. At one juncture M. Thomas and

General Dall' Olio came rather to loggerheads over something or other,

steel I think. Had they been Britishers, one would have been preparing

to slip under the table so as to be out of harm's way; but Latin

nations are more gesticulatory than we are, and this sort of

effervescence does not mean quite so much with them as it does when it

shows a head amongst us frigid islanders. Just when the illustrious

pair of Ministers were inclined to get a little out of temper, arguing

of course in French, Mr. Lloyd George burst out laughing, threw

himself back in his chair and ejaculated, "Now will some kind friend

tell me what all that's about!" He had touched exactly the right note.

Everybody beamed. The disputants burst out laughing too, harmony was

completely restored, and the discussion was conducted thenceforward in

friendliest fashion.

By far the most interesting feature, however, about this pow-wow, and

several others, was provided by the interventions of M. Mantoux, the

gifted interpreter who used to come over from Paris, and of whom I

believe great use was made at Conferences at various times at

Versailles. His performance on such occasions was a veritable _tour de

force_. He never took a note. He waited till the speaker had finished

all that he wanted to say--and your statesman generally has an

interminable lot to say--whether it was in French or in English. He

then translated what had been said into the other language--English or

French as the case might be--practically word for word. His memory,

quite apart from his abnormal linguistic aptitudes, was amazing. Nor

was that all. He somehow contrived, almost automatically it seemed, to

imitate the very gestures and the elocution of the speakers. M. Thomas

is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets

wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his

eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust of the hand

accompanied by a muttered exclamation, presumably a curse. Rendering

M. Thomas into English, M. Mantoux would sweep back an imaginary wisp

of hair with an imprecation which I am confident was a "damn!" Then

again, no man can turn on a more irresistibly ingratiating smile when

he is getting the better of the other fellow than Mr. Lloyd George,

and he has mastered a dodge of at such moments sinking his voice to a

wheedling pitch calculated to coax the most suspicious and

recalcitrant of listeners into reluctant concurrence. M. Mantoux would

reproduce that smile to admiration, and his tones when translating Mr.

Lloyd George's seductive blandishments into French were enough to

cajole a crocodile.

CHAPTER XIII

A FIRST MISSION TO RUSSIA

Reasons for Mission -- An effectual staff officer -- Our

distinguished representatives in Scandinavia -- The journey --

Stockholm -- Lapps -- Crossing the frontier at Haparanda --

Arrival at Petrograd -- Sir G. Buchanan -- Interviews with

General Polivanoff, Admiral Grigorovitch and M. Sazonoff --

Imperial vehicles -- Petrograd -- We proceed to the Stavka --

Improper use of the title "Tsar" -- The Imperial headquarters --

Meeting with the Emperor -- Two disconcerting incidents --

Nicholas II. -- His charm -- His admiration for Lord Kitchener's

work -- Conference with General Alexeieff -- Mohileff -- Service

in the church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's birthday

-- Return to Petrograd -- A rencontre with an archbishop -- The

nuisance of swords -- Return home.

In spite of the _débâcle_ which had taken place in the early summer of

1915, the information coming to hand from Russia in the War Office

later in the year was not wholly discouraging. It became apparent that

a strenuous effort was being made to repair the mischief. Marked

energy was being displayed locally in developing the output of

munitions and war material of all kinds. This, coupled with the

unequivocal confidence that was manifestly being displayed in Lord

Kitchener by the Emperor, the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the leading

statesmen of our great eastern Ally whether they belonged to the

Government or not, gave promise that the vast empire, with its

swarming population and its boundless internal resources, might yet in

the course of time prove a tremendous asset on the side of the

Entente.

We had, however, never established a very satisfactory understanding

with the Russian General Staff. A number of British officers of high

rank had gone out to pay more or less complimentary visits, but

rather more than that appeared to be needed. I had been thinking in

the latter part of 1915 that some steps ought to be taken in this

direction, and so, when it became known that Sir W. Robertson was

shortly coming over to become C.I.G.S. at the War Office, which would

assuredly mean other important changes of personnel, I wrote to him

suggesting that I should go out and talk things over with General

Alexeieff, the Russian Chief of the General Staff. After Sir William

had taken over charge and had considered the matter, he agreed, and he

gave me practically a free hand as regards making known our views,

only stipulating that I should return promptly and report to him.

One of the many active and capable members on its rolls, Captain R. F.

Wigram, was picked out from the Director of Military Operations' staff

to perform the functions of Staff Officer and A.D.C. He possessed the

merit amongst many others of being young and of looking younger, and

he lost no time in exhibiting his remarkable fitness for the post. For

without one moment's hesitation he bereft his club in Pall Mall of the

services of a youth of seventeen, who by some mysterious process

became eighteen then and there, whom he converted into a private of

Foot, whom he fitted out with a trousseau extracted from the Ordnance

Department that a Prince of the Blood proceeding to the North Pole

might have coveted, and who thus, as by the stroke of a magician's

wand, became transformed into an ideal soldier-servant. We made our

way north-eastwards via Newcastle, Bergen and Stockholm, round the

north of the Gulf of Bothnia, and thence on through Finland to

Petrograd. Traversing the chilly northern waters between the Tyne and

the Norse fiords, it became possible to appreciate to some very small

degree what months of watching for a foe who could not be induced to

leave port on the surface must have meant to the sister service and to

its wonderful auxiliaries drawn from the Mercantile Marine. For if

there is a more dismal, odious, undisciplined stretch of ocean on

the face of the globe than the North Sea, it has not been my

ill-fortune to have had to traverse it.

Our Foreign Office has served as a butt for a good deal of criticism

of late years, some of which has perhaps not been wholly undeserved.

But whether it was by design or was the result of some happy accident,

Downing Street managed to be most efficiently represented at the

courts of northern Europe during the epoch of the Great War. Sir G.

Buchanan's outstanding services in Russia are now recognized on all

hands--even apparently by H.M. Government. But the country also owes

much to Sir E. Howard and to Sir M. Findlay, who represented us so

worthily in Sweden and Norway during periods of exceptional stress and

difficulty. It was a real pleasure when passing backwards and forwards

through Scandinavia to meet these two strong men who were so

successfully keeping the flag flying, to discuss with them the course

of events, to be made acquainted with the peculiar problems that were

constantly confronting them, to note the marked respect in which they

were held on all hands, and to enjoy the hospitality of two typical

English homes planted down in a foreign land. On one occasion Sir E.

Howard was good enough to make special arrangements for me to meet the

Russian and French Ministers at Stockholm and the French Military

Attaché at luncheon at the Legation, thereby enabling us to examine

into a number of points of common interest.

Bergen was reputed to be a regular hotbed of German spydom, and

apparently with justice. A party of Russian officers coming over on a

mission to this country and France some months later were taken off

the Bergen-Newcastle packet by a U-boat. The commander of the U-boat

had a list of their names, with ranks and everything in order, and he

knew all about his prisoners. One officer was overlooked, and he

brought news of the _contretemps_ to this country; he had, as it

happened, only joined the party at the very last moment as an

afterthought, and the Boche agents at Stockholm and Bergen had

evidently overlooked him on the way through. An idea prevailed over

here that the Swedes in general were decidedly hostile to the Entente;

Stockholm, a cold spot in winter--almost as cold as, but without the

blistering rawness of, Petrograd--was undoubtedly full of Germans, and

the red, white and black colours were freely displayed. But partiality

for the Central Powers seemed in the main to be confined to the upper

classes and to the officers, and, even so, the Swedish officials were

always civility itself. It was indeed much easier to get through the

formalities at Haparanda on the Swedish side of the frontier, going

and coming, than it was at Tornea on the Finnish side, although there

we were honoured guests of the country with special arrangements made

on our behalf. One could not but be impressed by the unmistakable

signs of wealth in Stockholm, where hospitality was being exercised on

the most lavish scale at the leading restaurants and at the palatial

Grand Hotel--no bad place to stop at when you are travelling on

Government service and can send in the bill. The good Swedes (who,

like most other people, have an eye for the main chance) were making

money freely out of both sides in the great contest, although they

were always protesting against our blockading measures.

Travelling is particularly comfortable alike in Norway and in Sweden,

for the sleeping-cars are beyond reproach; owing to snowfalls, the

time-table is, however, a little uncertain during the winter months.

With their eternal pine-woods, Sweden and Finland are dismal enough

regions to traverse in the cold season of the year, although on the

Swedish side the line crosses a succession of uplands divided by deep

valleys, which are probably very picturesque after the melting of the

snows. It was noticeable that all the important viaducts in Sweden

were protected by elaborate zeribas of wire entanglement although the

country was neutral, a form of defensive measure which was much less

noticeable in England and Russia although they were belligerents.

Haparanda is close to the Arctic circle, and there the Lapps were very

much _en evidence_, forming apparently the bulk of the population--the

children astonishingly sturdy creatures, maybe owing to the amount of

clothes that they had on. Lapps did all the heavy work in the way of

sleigh-driving, porterage at the station, and so on; nor did they

manifest much disposition to depreciate the value of their services

when it came to the paying stage.

To the traveller without special credentials, the short journey from

Haparanda to the railway-car at Tornea which is to bear him onwards

must have been almost a foretaste of the Valley of the Shadow of

Death. Even for the members of a military mission with "red

passports," whose advent had been announced, it was one prolonged

agony; and it would probably have been even worse when the intervening

estuaries were not frozen over and when one had to take the ferry. All

the formalities had to be gone through twice over because there was an

island, although the Russian officials were the very pink of courtesy.

One learns a great deal of geography on journeys of this kind; we had

not realized the extent to which Finland, with its special money, its

special language, and its special frontier worries, was distinct from

Russia. The train took three days and nights between Stockholm and

Petrograd, and one was supposed to fetch up at the terminus somewhere

about midnight; but it always took two or three hours to get through

the frontier station between Finland and Russia at the last moment,

with the result that one might arrive at the capital at any hour of

the early morning. When we at last steamed into our destination we

found awaiting us on the platform Count Zamoyski, a great Polish

landowner and A.D.C. to the Emperor, who had been appointed to attend

me, with Colonel Knox, our Military Attaché, and we were driven off in

Imperial carriages to the Hotel d'Europe.

Our object was to reach Mohileff, where Russian General Headquarters,

known as the "Stavka," were stationed. But the Emperor happened to be

away from there just at the moment, so that we were obliged to wait in

Petrograd for two or three days until His Majesty should have

returned. Still, there was plenty to be done and seen in the capital.

In the first place there were the official calls on the Imperial

family to pay; that, however, was merely a case of writing names in

the books for the purpose. Then there was the Embassy to be visited,

to enable me to make the acquaintance of Sir G. Buchanan and the

Embassy staff. Sir George was not in the best of health, and he

obviously stood in need of a rest and change of air--the climate of

Petrograd is trying, making it an undesirable place for prolonged

residence--but the unique position that he held in the eyes of the

Russians of all shades of opinion made it almost impossible for him to

leave the capital. Diplomats as a class are not generally popular in

military circles abroad, and that was perhaps more marked in Russia

than in most countries, but our ambassador was held in extraordinary

esteem even amongst soldiers who only knew him by name. Properly

supported from home, he would have proved a priceless asset when

things were going from bad to worse in the latter part of 1916 and the

early days of 1917.

I had interviews with General Polivanoff, the War Minister, Admiral

Grigorovitch, the Minister of Marine, and M. Sazonoff, the Foreign

Minister. General Polivanoff told me his plans, what he had already

effected and what he still hoped to effect, confirming the favourable

reports that we had received from General Hanbury-Williams and our

Military Attachés as to the efforts that were being made to set the

Russian army on its legs again; he also explained that his friendly

relations with a number of the leading Liberal men of affairs in the

Duma were proving of great assistance in connection with, his

extending the manufacture of war material throughout the country, in

which the "zemstvos" were lending willing aid. With M. Sazonoff I had

a very long and interesting conversation, all the pleasanter owing to

his complete command of English. Like General Polivanoff, he was

sanguine that, given time, Russia would yet play a great rôle in the

war.

In the meantime we were being royally entertained and looked after.

One had heard a great deal about Russia having "gone dry" by ukase;

but the drought was not permitted to cast its blight over guests of

the nation, and our presence ensured that those at the feast would be

enabled to abandon rigid temperance for the moment, an opportunity

which was not missed. Who, after all, ever heard of a pleasant party

round a pump? Imperial carriages, with the servants in gorgeous yellow

livery, all over eagles, were always at our disposal, and traffic was

held up as we passed. This was all very well when you were heading for

a Grand Duke's residence to leave cards, or proceeding to the Embassy;

but you felt rather the beggar on horseback when the object of the

drive was merely to procure a razor-strop at a big store in

replacement of one mislaid on the journey. Your desire was to purchase

the cheapest one that was to be had; but _noblesse oblige_, you simply

had to buy the most expensive one there was, and it was a mercy that

they had not got one set in brilliants. Zamoyski, most lighthearted

and unconventional of companions, was quite happy to remain in

Petrograd in preference to rushing off hot-foot to Mohileff, and he

made everything extremely pleasant for us. Dining at the Yacht Club

one night we met Admiral Phillimore, who had recently arrived on a

naval mission; having commanded the _Inflexible_ at the Falkland

Islands fight and afterwards in the Dardanelles (where he had spent

some anxious hours after his ship had been holed by a drifting mine

during the big fight of the 18th of March), few naval officers of his

rank had enjoyed a more varied experience since the beginning of the

war.

Petrograd is, or was then, in many respects a fine city, adorned by

numbers of imposing buildings and churches; while the view across the

half-mile-wide Neva, with its stately bridges and the famous fortress

of Peter and Paul on the far side, is very impressive. But its winter

climate seemed detestable, cold and tempestuous, accompanied by

intervals of thaw which converted even the most important streets into

unspeakable slush, while the drip from the roofs was moistening and

unpleasant. It has to be confessed that the exhibition of extravagance

apparent on all hands in the capital of an empire large portions of

which were in the hands of a foreign foe, was not altogether edifying;

the atmosphere was so different from that of Paris. Still, there were

not wanting encouraging signs. The soldiers in the streets were smart,

well-set-up, stalwart fellows garbed in excellent uniforms, and the

training carried on on the Marsova Polye (Champ de Mars) near the

Embassy struck one as carried out on excellent lines, particularly the

bayonet work.

After three days' stay we proceeded to Mohileff, leaving at night and

arriving on the following afternoon, to be put up at the hotel where

Hanbury-Williams and the other foreign missions were housed. We dined

and had luncheon at the Emperor's mess while at the Stavka, as always

did the heads of the various foreign missions. Now that the glories of

the House of Romanoff have suffered eclipse consequent upon the

terrible end of Nicholas II. and his family, interest in it has no

doubt to a great extent evaporated. But it may perhaps be mentioned

here that our practice of referring to the Autocrat of All the Russias

as the "Tsar" is incorrect, and the custom indeed seems to have been

almost peculiar to this country. You never heard the terms "Tsar" and

"Tsaritza" employed in Russia, not, at all events, in French; they

were always spoken of as "L'Empereur" and "L'Impératrice," and in the

churches it was always "Imperator." On the other hand, one did hear of

the "Tsarevitch," although he was generally spoken of in French as "Le

Prince Héritier"--rather a mouthful. How we arrived at that

extraordinary misspelling, "Czar" (which is unpronounceable in

English), goodness only knows.

The Emperor and his personal staff occupied a couple of fine

provincial government buildings, which Davoust had made his

headquarters at the time of the battle of Mohileff in 1812, standing

in an enclosure which shut them off from the rather unattractive town

and overlooking the Dneiper. The practice at meals was for the party

to assemble in the antechamber; the Emperor would then come in from

his private apartments, would go round the circle speaking a few words

to some of those present, and would then lead the way into the

dining-room. There, after we had partaken of the national "zakuska"

preceded by a nip of vodka, he presided, sitting in the centre of the

long table with General Pau, the senior foreign officer, generally on

his right, and one of the other foreign officers taken by rote, or

else a visitor, on his left. I understood that General Alexeieff had

excused himself from these somewhat protracted repasts, on the ground

that he really had not the time to devote to them; but one or two

others of the Headquarters Staff were generally present, besides the

Household. After the meal the Emperor would talk for a short time to

some of those present in the antechamber, and would then retire to his

own apartments while we of the foreign missions made our way back to

our hotel.

I was presented to him while he was making his round before dinner on

the first night. That clicking of heels business is highly effective

on such occasions, but it is a perilous practice when you are adorned

with hunting spurs; they have protuberances which have a way of

catching. There is no getting over it--to find, when conversing with

an Emperor, that your feet have become locked together and that if you

stir you will topple forward into his arms, does place you at a

disadvantage. An even worse experience once befell me when on the

staff at Devonport a good many years ago. Our general liked a certain

amount of ceremonial to take place before the troops marched back to

barracks of a Sunday after the parade service at the garrison church;

a staff officer collected the reports and reported to another staff

officer, who reported to a bigger staff officer, and so on; there was

any amount of saluting and of reassuring prattle before the general

was at last made aware that everything was all right. One Sunday it

was my turn to collect the reports and to report to the D.A.A.G. In

those days cocked hats had (and they probably still have) a ridiculous

scrap of ribbed gold-wire lace of prehensile tendencies at their

fore-end--at their prow, so to speak. While exchanging intimate

confidences with the D.A.A.G., the prows of our cocked hats became

interlocked; so there we were, almost nose to nose, afraid to move

lest one or both of us should part with our headgear. But he never

lost his presence of mind. "Hold your infernal hat on with your hand,

man," he hissed, and did the same. We backed away from each other

gingerly, came asunder, and there was no irretrievable disaster; but

the troops (who ought all to have been looking straight to their

front) had apparently been watching our performance with eager

interest, because there was a fatuous grin on the face of every one of

them, officers and all. The colonel of the Rifle Brigade said to me

afterwards that he trusted the staff did not mean to make a hobby of

these knock-about-turns on parade, because if they did it would

undermine the discipline of his battalion.

After dinner the Emperor summoned me into his room and we had a long

conversation. He spoke English perfectly, almost without trace of

foreign accent, and was most cordial, being evidently pleased at the

possibility of a closer understanding being arrived at between his

General Staff and ours. He expressed the hope that I would speak quite

openly to General Alexeieff at the conference which we were to have on

the following day. I sat next to him at dinner that next day after the

conference and he was most anxious to hear my report of it, having

previously seen General Alexeieff and heard what he had to say. The

Emperor had the gift of putting one completely at one's ease on such

occasions, and, being an admirable conversationalist, interested in

everything and ready to talk on any subject, it was a pleasure to be

with him. He spoke most affectionately of our Royal Family--His

Majesty the King had been pleased to entrust me with a private letter

to him--and, referring to the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert, he

remarked what a fine thing it was that they were old enough to take

their share in the Great War, whereas his boy was too young. The

little Tsarevitch had been staying at the Stavka shortly before, and

the foreign officers agreed that he was a bright, intelligent,

mischievous youngster; but the Emperor told me the boy was momentarily

in disgrace. It appeared that they had on a recent occasion been going

to some big parade at the front. At these ceremonials the Emperor, or

whoever is carrying out the inspection, salutes the troops on reaching

the ground by calling out "Good day, brothers"; but the Tsarevitch had

managed to get off before the flag fell and, slipping on in front, had

appeared first and called out, "Good day, brothers," to which the

troops had lustily responded. It had upset the whole business. "The

young monkey!" said the Emperor.

He expressed the utmost detestation of the Germans in consequence of

their shameless conduct in Belgium and France, and he referred in

indignant terms to their treatment of Russian prisoners. If I inquired

of the Austro-Hungarian captives, of whom a number were employed on

road-mending and similar useful labours in Mohileff, I would find, he

said, that they were perfectly contented and were as well looked after

in respect to accommodation and to food as were his own troops. Of

Lord Kitchener and his work he spoke with admiration, and he asked me

many questions about the New Armies, their equipment, their training,

their numbers and so on. He talked with wonder of what our great War

Minister had accomplished in the direction of transforming the United

Kingdom into a first-class military Power in less than a year. In this

respect he, however, merely reflected the opinion held in military

circles right throughout Russia; one heard on all hands eulogy of the

miracles that had been accomplished in this direction. His Imperial

Majesty was also most appreciative of what our War Office was doing

towards assisting the Russians in the all-important matter of war

material, and he asked me to convey his thanks to all concerned for

their loyalty and good offices.

General Alexeieff had likewise pronounced himself most cordially with

regard to Lord Kitchener, his achievements and his aid to Russia, at

the conference which Hanbury-Williams and I had had with him that

afternoon. The general was not a scion of the aristocracy, as were so

many of the superior officers in the Emperor Nicholas's hosts; he

could not talk French although he evidently could follow what was said

in that language. He said he did not know German, so we had to work

through an interpreter, an officer of the General Staff, employing

French. Alexeieff was very pleasant to deal with, as he expressed

himself freely, straightforwardly and even bluntly with regard to the

various points that we touched upon. Our meeting was taking place late

in January 1916, and at a moment when active operations on both the

Western and the Eastern Front were virtually at a standstill; but he

was anxious to know when we should be in a position to assume the

offensive on a great scale, and he seemed disappointed when I said

that, merely expressing my own personal opinion, I doubted whether we

should be ready to do much before the summer, as so many of our New

Army divisions were short of training and as we were still in arrear

to some extent in the matter of munitions. As a matter of fact, the

great German offensive against Verdun was rather to settle this

question for us; for it kept the French on the defensive and General

Joffre was not obliged to call upon Sir D. Haig for aid, which allowed

our troops just that comparative leisure (apart from holding the line)

that enabled them to prepare for the Battle of the Somme.

Mohileff was reputed to be about the most Jewish township in Russia,

and, judging by the appearance of the inhabitants, that reputation was

not undeserved. One had heard a lot about pogroms in the past, but

they would not appear to be of the really thoroughgoing sort. It is an

unattractive spot in the winter-time in spite of its effective

position, emplaced on a plateau with the Dneiper winding round two

sides of it in a deep trough. Hanbury-Williams was a great walker,

always anxious for exercise, and each afternoon we wandered out

somewhere in the snow for a constitutional; the Emperor used to do the

same, but he always motored a good way out into the country before

starting on his tramp. The only exercise that the other foreign

officers ever seemed to take consisted in motoring backwards and

forwards between the hotel and the Imperial headquarters for meals. It

is wonderful how any of them survived.

The last forenoon that we spent there, a special service took place in

the principal church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's

birthday; and the foreign missions received a hint to go, it being

understood that the Emperor proposed to be present in person. This,

however, proved to be a false alarm. The service began at 10 A.M., and

we went at 11.30 A.M. and stayed till noon; it was still going on at

that time, and we understood that they were only in the middle of it.

Even half an hour of this was something of an ordeal, seeing that the

church was overheated (as Russian interiors always are), that we had

our furs on, and that we had to choose between standing or else

kneeling down on the stone floor. Services of the Orthodox Church are

not unimpressive even when one cannot follow them; the Chief Priest at

Mohileff had a real organ voice and made the very most of it; he was

almost deafening indeed at times. The prayers appeared to be devoted

entirely to the welfare of the Imperial family; at all events the

names of the Emperor, of the Empress, of the Empress Marie, of the

Tsarevitch and of the Grand Duchess herself were thundered out every

minute or two--they were the only words that I could understand

Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through

the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two

years' time the winsome princess--her photograph was to be seen

everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially

popular--whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been

foully done to death by miscreants in some remote eastern spot of

Russia.

We left for Petrograd in the evening, and shortly after the train got

under way a message came to hand to say that the Archbishop of

Petrograd was on board and hoped that I would pay him a visit in his

compartment. At the first hint of this, Wigram, being a man of

resource, went to sleep in self-protection; so only Zamoyski and I

proceeded to His Grace's lair. It turned out that the Archbishop could

not speak French, so that conversation had to be carried on through

Zamoyski. Our host, as is usual, sent for tea, and we spent about half

an hour talking about the war, the Emperor, Lord Kitchener and other

matters. His Grace, however, intimated that he was particularly

interested in the possibility of a union being effected between the

Orthodox and the Anglican Churches, and he expressed himself as most

anxious to have my opinion on the subject. Now this was not a matter

that I should have felt myself especially competent to debate at a

moment's notice even in English; but, seeing that the discussion was

being conducted in French, with a Pole as intermediary who happened to

be a Roman Catholic, the perplexities of the situation were

appreciably aggravated. A safe line to take, however, was to declare

that a union such as was proposed would be all to the good, and the

Archbishop pronounced himself as much gratified to find that I was

entirely in accord with him. He said something to his secretary, who

disappeared and turned up again presently with a beautiful little gold

pectoral cross and chain which His Grace presented me with, Zamoyski

receiving a smaller replica. When we got back to our own carriage and

the Staff Officer saw what we had carried off, he intimated his

intention of keeping awake in future when high dignitaries of the

Church were about.

Swords, it may here be mentioned, were a regular nuisance to British

officers visiting the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas during all the

earlier months of the war. The Russians had not, like the French,

Belgians and Italians, copied our practice, acquired during the South

African War, of putting away these symbols of commissioned authority

for the time being. They were not worn actually at the front; but

officers were supposed to appear in them elsewhere just as used to be

the invariable practice on the Continent in pre-war days. That our

airmen should not possess swords took the Russians quite aback, a

sabre being about as appropriate in an aeroplane as are spurs on a

destroyer. Transporting a sword through Sweden was apt to stamp you as

a belligerent officer, so that all sorts of dodges had to be contrived

to camouflage an article of baggage that, owing to its dimensions,

refuses to lend itself to operations of concealment. Wigram's absurd

weapon gave us away as a matter of course, although no harm befell. I

was all right on the journey, because General Wolfe-Murray, who had

recently been out on a visit to present decorations, had left his at

the Embassy at Petrograd for the use of any other general who might

come along later. It, however, was one of the full-dress,

scimitar-shaped variety that has been affected by our general officers

ever since one of them brought back a richly jewelled sample, the gift

of Soliman the Magnificent or some other Grand Turk for a service at

Belgrade. It is not a pattern of sabre designed to fit readily into

the frog of a Sam Brown belt, and it used to be a regular business

getting my borrowed one off and on when one went to a meal in a club

or a restaurant in Petrograd.

Most cordial invitations had been extended to us to visit the front.

But this must have involved several days' delay. It was not always

easy to get a move on in Russia, and no great value was set upon the

element of time; so that, although such a trip would assuredly have

been interesting and it might have been instructive, we were obliged

to decline. Instructions ran that I was to return to London as soon as

possible after visiting the Stavka. We consequently spent only

twenty-four hours in Petrograd before taking the train back for

Tornea, and thence via Stockholm and Christiania to Bergen; we,

however, stayed for a few hours in each of the Scandinavian capitals.

Since quitting Bergen about three weeks earlier a sore misfortune had

befallen the place, for a great part of the best quarter of the town

had been destroyed in a disastrous conflagration which had obliterated

whole streets. But the flames fortunately had not reached the railway

station, nor yet the quays on the side of the harbour where the

steamers berthed, so that transit was not appreciably interfered with.

We were back at the War Office within four weeks of setting out,

having only passed ten days actually within the Russian Empire.

CHAPTER XIV

A SECOND MISSION TO RUSSIA

Object of this second mission -- The general military situation

-- Verdun and Kut -- Baron Meyendorff -- We partially adopt

Russian uniform -- Stay in Petrograd -- Sir Mark Sykes --

Presentation of decorations at the Admiralty -- Mohileff --

Conference with General Alexeieff -- He raises the question of an

expedition to Alexandretta -- Asks for heavy artillery -- The

Emperor -- A conversation with him -- The dismissal of Polivanoff

-- Disquieting political conditions in Russia -- Nicholas II.'s

attitude -- The journey to Tiflis -- We emerge from the snow near

the Sea of Azov -- Caucasia -- Tiflis -- General Yanushkhevitch

-- Conference with the Grand Duke Nicholas -- Proposes that we

should smash Turkey -- Constantinople? -- Major Marsh -- The

Grand Duke -- Presenting the G.C.M.G. to General Yudenitch -- Our

stay at Tiflis -- Proceed to Batoum -- A day at Batoum -- Visit

to the hospital ship _Portugal_ -- Proceed by destroyer to Off --

Sinking of the _Portugal_ -- Off -- General Liakoff -- A ride to

the scene of a very recent fight -- A fine view -- The field

force dependent upon maritime communications -- Landing

difficulties -- Return to Tiflis -- A gala dinner at the palace

-- Journey to Sarikamish -- Russian pronunciation of names --

Kars -- Greeting the troops -- One of the forts -- Welcome at

Sarikamish -- General Savitzky -- Russian hospitality -- The myth

about Russians being good linguists -- A drive in a blizzard --

Colonel Maslianikoff describes his victory over the Turks in

December 1914, on the site of his command post -- Our visit to

this part of the world much appreciated -- A final interview with

the Grand Duke -- Proceed to Moscow -- The Kremlin -- View of

Moscow from the Sparrow Hills -- Visit to a hospital --

Observations on such visits -- A talk with our acting

Consul-General -- Back to Petrograd -- Conclusions drawn from

this journey through Russia -- Visit to Lady Sybil Grey's

hospital -- A youthful swashbuckler -- Return home -- We

encounter a battle-cruiser squadron on the move.

We made a fresh start for Russia by the same route about three weeks

later, the party swelled by Captain Guy MacCaw, Hanbury-Williams'

staff officer, who had been home on leave. Sir W. Robertson wished me

to see General Alexeieff again, and then to proceed to Tiflis to

discuss the position of affairs with the Grand Duke Nicholas and his

staff. H.M. the King desired that this opportunity should also be

taken to present the G.C.M.G. to General Yudenitch, who a short time

before had achieved a brilliant success in Armenia in the capture of

Erzerum almost in midwinter, and also to the Minister of Marine in

Petrograd.

The general military situation was not at this time wholly reassuring.

It was known that a great German attack upon Verdun was imminent. We

had our own special anxieties in Asia owing to the unfortunate turn

taken by affairs in Mesopotamia. News had come of the failure of the

attempt to relieve Kut by an advance on the right bank of the Tigris,

and this, following upon a similar failure some weeks earlier on the

left bank, rendered the conditions decidedly ominous. A study of the

large-scale maps and of the available reports at the War Office, had

served to indicate that the prospects of saving the beleaguered

garrison were none too hopeful, even allowing for the fact that

General Maude's division, fresh from Egypt and the Dardanelles, was

bringing welcome reinforcements to Sir P. Lake. Whatever plan should

be adopted for the final effort, this must inevitably partake of the

character of attacking formidable entrenchments with but limited

artillery support, and of having to carry out a difficult operation of

war against time. The Grand Duke Nicholas had expressed a readiness to

help from the side of Persia, but little consideration was needed to

establish the fact that effective aid from that quarter was virtually

out of the question. Situated as the Russian forces were in the Shah's

territories, they would be in the position of having either to advance

in considerable strength and to be starved, or to move forward as a

weak column and to meet with disaster at the hands of the Turks on the

plains of Irak.

One read at Stockholm on the way through of the early successes gained

by the Germans at Verdun, the news sounding by no means encouraging;

so that it was a great relief on arriving in Petrograd to find that

the heroic French resistance before the fortress had brought the

enemy's vigorous thrust practically to a standstill. We met Sir A.

Paget at Tornea on his way back from handing, to the Emperor his baton

of British Field-Marshal. There we also found Colonel Baron Meyendorff

awaiting us, who had been deputed to accompany me during my travels.

The Emperor was absent from the Stavka when we arrived at the capital,

with the consequence that we were detained there for several days. As

we were to make a somewhat prolonged stay in the country this time we

fitted ourselves out with the Russian cap and flat silver-lace

shoulder-straps; the Grand Duke Nicholas had indeed insisted, when he

was Commander-in-Chief, upon foreign officers when at the front

wearing these distinctive articles of Russian uniform as a protection.

Cossacks are fine fellows, but they were apt to be hasty; their plan,

when they came across somebody whose identity they felt doubtful

about, was to shoot first and to make inquiries afterwards.

Meyendorff, who was married to an English lady and who spoke our

language fairly well, looked after us assiduously and provided us with

occupation and amusement during the stay at the capital. One day he

took us to see trotting matches, a very popular form of sport in

Petrograd although it struck me as rather dull. We dined at different

clubs, went to the Ballet one night, and another night were taken to

the Opera where we occupied the Imperial box in the middle of the

house. In those days Russian society thoroughly understood the art of

welcoming a guest of the country, for the different national anthems

of the Allied Powers were played through before the Second Act,

everybody standing up, and when it came to the turn of "God save the

King," the entire audience wheeled round to face the Imperial box, our

national anthem was played twice over, and I received a regular

ovation although all that those present can have known, or cared, was

that here was a British general turned up on some official business.

One result of wearing what amounted to a very good imitation of

Russian uniform was that officers and rank and file all saluted,

instead of staring at one in some surprise; it was the rule for

non-commissioned officers and private soldiers when they met a general

to pull up and front before saluting; this looked smart, but it was

rather a business when one promenaded along the Nevski Prospekt which

always swarmed with the military. It was, moreover, the custom in

restaurants, railway dining-cars, etc., for officers who were present

when a general came in, not only to rise to their feet (if anywhere

near where the great man settled down), but also to crave permission

to proceed with their meal. This was a little embarrassing until one

realized that a gracious wave of the hand to indicate that they might

carry on was all that was called for.

The late Sir Mark Sykes had worked under me in Whitehall since an

early date in the war; his knowledge of the Near East was so valuable

that I had been obliged to detain him and to prevent his going to

France in command of his Territorial battalion, much to his

disappointment. Latterly, however, he had been acting for the Foreign

Office, although under the aegis of the War Office as this plan was

found convenient. He was now in Petrograd in connection with certain

negotiations dealing with the future of Turkey in Asia, and as it was

desirable that he should visit the Stavka and also Transcaucasia, he

attached himself to me for the time being.

One forenoon before leaving for Mohileff I proceeded, accompanied by

our Naval Attaché, Meyendorff and Wigram, to the Admiralty to present

the G.C.M.G. to the Minister of Marine and the K.C.M.G. to the Chief

of the Naval Staff. It seemed desirable to make as much of a ceremony

of the business as possible--British decorations were, indeed, very

highly prized in Russia; warning had therefore been sent that we were

coming, and why. On arriving we were met at the gates by several

naval officers, and were conducted to outside the door of the

Minister's room where the presentation was to take place. One then

assumed the simper of the diplomatist, Wigram (who always managed to

turn pink on dramatic occasions, which had a particularly good effect)

bore the cases containing the insignia, the door was flung open, and

we marched solemnly in. I addressed the recipients in my best French,

saying that His Majesty had entrusted me with the pleasant duty, and

so on, finishing up with my personal congratulations and by handing

over the cases. The recipients replied in suitable terms, expressing

their gratification and their thanks; we had a few minutes'

conversation, and were introduced to the other officers present--there

were quite a lot--and we then cleared out, escorted to our gorgeous

Imperial carriages by some of the junior officers. The Naval Attaché

spoilt the whole thing by remarking afterwards, "You know, general,

those Johnnies know English just as well as you do." It was most

inconsiderate of him, and he may not have been right; Russian naval

officers down Black Sea way did not seem to know English or even

French.

On this second occasion we only spent twenty-four hours at Mohileff;

the interview with General Alexeieff was successfully brought off on

the first afternoon, MacCaw accompanying me as he understood Russian

thoroughly, although a General Staff Officer interpreted. I told

Alexeieff that our chances of relieving Kut appeared to be slender,

and that he ought to be prepared for its fall although there was still

hope. He thereupon raised the question of our sending a force to near

Alexandretta, so as to aid the contemplated Russian campaign in

Armenia. Such a project was totally opposed to the views of Sir W.

Robertson and our General Staff, and it had at the moment--late in

March--nothing to recommend it at all, apart from the point of view of

the Armenian operations. Although Lord Kitchener and Sir J. Maxwell

had been a little nervous about Egypt during the winter, the General

Staff at the War Office had felt perfectly happy on the subject in

view of the garrison assembled there after the evacuation of the

Gallipoli Peninsula. Now that spring was at hand, any prospect of

serious Turkish attempts across the Sinai Desert was practically at an

end as the dry months were approaching. Troops sent to the Gulf of

Iskanderun at this stage--to get them there must take some

weeks--could not possibly aid Kut, even indirectly. Such side-shows

were totally at variance with our General Staff's views concerning the

proper conduct of the Great War. We wished the Russians well, of

course, in their Armenian operations, and as they held the Black Sea

there appeared to be every prospect of their achieving a considerable

measure of success. But nothing that happened in that part of the

world would be likely to exercise any paramount influence over the

decision of the conflict as a whole.

Alexeieff suggested our transferring troops from Salonika to

Alexandretta. I do not think that he fully realized what that kind of

thing meant in time, shipping, and so on; but it was pointed out to

him that the French would disapprove of such a move owing to the

importance they attached to the Macedonian affair, while, as for us,

if we took away part of our forces from Salonika we would want to send

them to France to fight the Germans, not to dissipate them on

non-essentials. It was also pointed out that there were very serious

naval objections to starting a brand-new campaign based on the Gulf of

Iskanderun, that the tonnage question was beginning to arouse anxiety,

and that Phillimore (who was at the Stavka at the time) would

certainly endorse this contention. The Russian C.G.S. was not quite

convinced, I am afraid. In the course of the discussion he made a

remark, which was not translated by the interpreter but which MacCaw

told me was to the effect that we could do what he asked perfectly

easily if we liked. That was true enough. We could have deposited an

army at Ayas Bay, no doubt, and could have secured its maritime

communications while it was ashore; but we would have been playing

entirely the wrong game, wasting military resources, and throwing a

strain upon the Allies' sea-power without any adequate justification.

Still, our conference was throughout most amicable. Alexeieff

expressed confidence as regards effecting a powerful diversion on the

Eastern Front during the summer; but he begged me to try to extract

some of our heavy howitzers for him out of our War Office, as he was

terribly handicapped, he said, for want of that type of artillery. It

was the last that I was to see of this eminent soldier and patriot,

who died some time in 1918, broken down under the exertion and anxiety

of trying to save his country from the horrors of Bolshevik

ascendancy.

The Emperor, as I sat next to him at dinner in the evening, referred

to Alexandretta; he had evidently seen Alexeieff in the meantime. He

also begged me to press the question of heavy howitzers for Russia at

home. He asked a good deal about Sir W. Robertson, and he commented on

the fact that two soldiers who had enjoyed no special advantages such

as are not uncommon in the commissioned ranks of most armies,

Robertson and Alexeieff, should have been forced to the front under

the stern pressure of war and should now be simultaneously Chiefs of

the General Staff in England and Russia. He spoke of the possibility

of Lord Kitchener visiting Russia now that his labours at our War

Office were somewhat lightened. He told me that Sykes, who had had a

long discussion with the General Staff about Armenia and Kurdistan,

had enormously impressed those who had heard him by his knowledge of

the geography and the people of those regions, and he asked why, when

Wigram and I were wearing the Russian shoulder-straps, Sykes was not;

he evidently liked our doing so. The Grand Duke Serge, who was

Inspector-General of the Artillery, was staying with the Emperor; he

also spoke about the urgent need of heavy howitzers, saying that he

hoped within a few months to be on velvet as regards field-guns and

ammunition, but that aid with the heavier natures of ordnance must

come from outside.

In conversations that we had at Mohileff, Hanbury-Williams expressed

himself as somewhat anxious about the internal situation in Russia.

General Polivanoff had recently been dismissed from his post as War

Minister in spite of the good that he had effected within a very few

months, and this was simply the result of a Court intrigue against an

official who was known to have Liberal tendencies and was a _persona

grata_ with leading spirits in the Duma. That kind of attitude was

calculated to arouse dissatisfaction, not merely amongst the educated

portion of the community in general, but also in the ranks of the

army; for in military circles the extent to which the troops had been

sacrificed as a result of gross misconduct in connection with the

provision of war material was bitterly resented. The losses suffered

by the nation in the war already amounted to a huge figure, and

although at this time the people at large probably held no very

pronounced views on the subject of abandoning the contest, there

undoubtedly was discontent. Under such circumstances, statesmanship

imperatively demanded that mutual confidence should be maintained

between the Court and Government on the one side, and the leaders of

popular opinion on the other side. The removal of Polivanoff, who was

doing so well, was just the kind of act to antagonize the educated

classes and the military. Suspicion, moreover, existed that some of

those in high places were not uncontaminated by German influence and

were pro-German at heart.

No reasonable doubt has ever existed amongst those behind the scenes

that the Emperor personally was heart and soul with the Allies: but

that did not hold good, there is every ground for believing, amongst

some of those with whom he was closely associated. No stranger brought

into contact with Nicholas II. could help being attracted by his

personal charm; but he was a reactionary surrounded by ultra-reactionaries

and evil counsellors, who played upon his superstitions and his

belief in the Divine Right of Kings and who brought him to his ruin

together with his country. One had heard much in the past of the

veneration in which Russians of all ranks and classes held their

Sovereign as a matter of course. But, when brought into contact with

Russian officers in 1916, one speedily realized that the Emperor

Nicholas had lost his hold upon the affections of the army. Not that

they spoke slightingly of him--they merely appeared to take no

interest in him, which was perhaps worse. As for the Empress, there

was little concealment in respect to her extreme unpopularity.

Rasputin I never heard mentioned by a Russian in Russia; but one knew

all about that sinister figure from our own people.

Owing to a telegram that he received in connection with his special

negotiations, Sykes left hurriedly that night, making straight for

Tiflis, and I did not see him again in Russia. We, on the other hand,

returned to Petrograd for a day or two. There were special entrances,

with rooms attached, for the Imperial family at all the Petrograd

stations and also at stations in important cities like Moscow and

Rostoff; we were always conducted to and from the trains through

these, which was much pleasanter than struggling along with the crowd.

For the journey to Transcaucasia we were provided with a special car

of our own. In this we lived except when actually at Tiflis--a much

more comfortable arrangement than going to hotels at places like

Batoum and Kars; we each had a double compartment to ourselves, and

another was shared by our soldier-servant with one of the Imperial

household, who accompanied us in the capacity of courier, interpreter

and additional servant. There is no getting away from it, travelling

under these somewhat artificial conditions has its points. As far as

the Don we used the ordinary dining-cars; but beyond that point

dining-cars did not run, and meals were supposed to be taken at the

station restaurants. For us, however, cook, meal and all used to come

aboard our car and travel along to some station farther on, where the

cook would be shot out with the debris; it was admirably managed,

however it was done, and was more the kind of thing one expects in

India than in Europe. Although our soldier-servant had never been on

parade in his life (I had taught him to salute when at Petrograd by

making him salute himself in front of the big glass in my room, a plan

worth any amount of raucous patter from the drill-sergeant), the very

fact of his being in khaki seemed to turn him into a Russian scholar

by that mysterious process adopted by British soldiers in foreign

lands. Wigram had a grammar, and I had known a little Russian in the

past; but in the absence of Meyendorff and the courier neither Wigram

nor I could get what we wanted, while the soldier-servant could.

Having seen nothing but everlasting dreary white expanses since

quitting the immediate environs of Petrograd, except where the railway

occasionally passed through some township, it was pleasant to find the

snow gradually disappearing as one approached the Sea of Azov near

Taganrog. Then, after crossing the Don at Rostoff, where extensive

railway works were in progress and a fine new bridge over the great

river was in course of construction, we found ourselves in a balmy

spring atmosphere, although it was only the end of March. From there

on to the Caspian the railway almost continuously traversed vast

tracts of corn-land, the young crop just beginning to show above

ground; at dawn the huge range of the Caucasus, its glistening summits

clear of clouds, made a glorious spectacle. In this part of the

country oil-fuel was entirely used on the locomotives, and at Baku,

where the petroleum oozes out of the sides of the railway cuttings,

and beyond that city, the whole place reeked of the stuff. If you fell

into the error of touching anything on the outside of the car, a

doorhandle or railing, you could not get your hand clean again any

more than Lady Macbeth. We arrived at Tiflis late one afternoon,

having taken within three or four hours of five complete days on the

run from Petrograd. There we were met by a crowd of officers, and were

conducted to a hotel.

Next morning we paid a number of formal visits. General

Yanushkhevitch, Chief of the Staff, had held that same position when

the Grand Duke Nicholas had been commander-in-chief at the Stavka.

Tall, handsome and debonair, he was a man whom it was a pleasure to

meet, although he may not perhaps intellectually have been quite equal

to the great responsibilities placed on his shoulders in the early

days of the war. This distinguished soldier of very attractive

personality was murdered by revolutionaries while travelling by

railway somewhere near Petrograd in 1917. General Yudenitch, we found,

happened to be in Tiflis, and at the call that we paid him I arranged

to present him with his order on the following morning.

I had a prolonged interview with the Grand Duke at the palace during

the course of the day. He was not only Commander-in-Chief in

Transcaucasia but was also Governor-General, and he told me that civil

duties took up more of his time than military duties. Like Alexeieff,

and probably by arrangement with the Stavka, he raised the question of

our sending a force to near Alexandretta, and he put in a new plea for

which I was not quite prepared. As he spoke at considerable length it,

however, gave one time to think. He maintained that the right policy

for the Allies to adopt was to knock the Turks out for good and to

have done with them, expressing the opinion that it would not be

difficult to induce them to make peace once they had undergone a good

hammering. I replied that there appeared to be political problems

involved in this which were quite outside my province, but that

certain obvious factors came into the question. The prospects of

prevailing upon the Sublime Porte to come to terms hinged upon what

those terms were to be, and Constantinople seemed likely to prove a

stumbling-block to an understanding. The Ottoman Government might be

prepared to part with Erzerum and Trebizond and Basrah, and even

possibly Syria and Palestine, but Stamboul and the Straits were quite

a different pair of shoes. H.I.H. gripped my hand and pressed it till

I all but squealed. It was delightful to talk to a soldier who went

straight to the point, said he, but he dashed off on another tack,

asking what were our military objections to the Alexandretta plan; so

I went over much the same ground as had already been gone over at

Mohileff, promising to let him have a memorandum on the subject.

He pronounced himself as most anxious to aid us in Mesopotamia, did

not seem satisfied with what his troops in Persia had accomplished,

and was concerned at my rather pessimistic views with regard to Kut.

Kut actually held out for ten days longer than I had been given to

understand was possible at the War Office. He also conveyed to me a

pretty clear hint that in his view Major Marsh, our Military Attaché

with him, ought to have his status improved. There I was entirely with

him, but did not say so; there had been a misunderstanding with regard

to rank in Russia, for which I, when D.M.O., had been in a measure

responsible. The fact that there is no equivalent to our grade of

major in Russia had been overlooked. The Military Secretary's

department had all along been ready enough to give subalterns the

temporary rank of captain, or to improve captains into majors; but

they had invariably humped their backs against converting a major into

a lieutenant-colonel for the time being. The consequence was that

there were a lot of newly caught British subalterns doing special jobs

who had been given the rank of captain, and there were a certain

number of captains whom we called temporary majors but who were merely

captains in Russia. Marsh was a real live major of some standing in

the Indian army, with two or three campaigns to his credit and a Staff

College man, and yet at Tiflis he was simply regarded as a captain.

This was put right by the War Office on representation being made.

The Grand Duke spoke confidently as to the forthcoming capture of

Trebizond, for which the plans were nearly ready. Good progress, he

said, was being made by the force which was working forward along the

coast, and he promised that the necessary arrangements should be made

for us to visit the front in that quarter. He was most cordial, and he

made many enquiries about Lord Kitchener for whom he expressed the

highest regard. The interview was an extremely pleasant one, for the

Grand Duke's manner, while dignified and impressive, was at the same

time very winning, and he made it a strong point that I should discuss

everything with him direct although also approving of my holding

consultations with his staff. Sykes' visit, he assured me, was highly

appreciated both by himself and by his experts, who had been

astonished at the knowledge of the country and the people which Sir

Mark had displayed.

Next day the presentation of the G.C.M.G. to General Yudenitch was

successfully brought off; that brilliant soldier was more at home in

the field than in French, and he would probably have dispensed with

all ceremony gladly enough. Scarcely had we got back to the hotel

after the performance when he turned up to call, arrayed in all the

insignia except the collar. He hoped that he had not done wrong in

omitting this, and he was anxious to know when it was supposed to be

put on. He rather had me there, because I did not know; but it was

easy to say that the collar was only worn on very great occasions.

Inside the case containing the Russian order which the Emperor had

handed me at my farewell visit to him before returning home a few

weeks earlier, there had been instructions in French with regard to

the wearing of the different classes of the decoration, a similar plan

might prove useful in these days when British orders are freely

conferred upon foreign officers.

The city of Tiflis and the country around are worth seeing, and as we

had a car at our disposal we made one or two short trips to points of

interest. The Grand Ducal entourage and the staff did all they could

to make our stay pleasant. No Allied general had visited Transcaucasia

since the outbreak of hostilities, so that we were made doubly

welcome. At luncheon at the palace we made the acquaintance of the

Grand Duchess and of several young Grand Duchess nieces of the Grand

Duke's, with whom Wigram proved an unqualified success; in

conversation with these charming young ladies it was only necessary to

mention the name of the Staff Officer and they thereupon did the rest

of the talking. But after three or four days of comparative leisure,

Meyendorff announced that all was ready for us to go on to Batoum, so

we took up our residence in our railway-car again one evening after

dinner and found ourselves by the Black Sea shore next morning.

We were most hospitably entertained at Batoum by the general in

command and his staff, our railway-car being run away into a quiet

siding. We were driven out first to a low-lying coast battery in which

a couple of 10-inch guns had very recently been mounted, and where we

saw detachments at drill; it appeared that the _Breslau_ had paid a

call some four or five months before, had fired a few projectiles into

the harbour and the town, and had then made off; it was hoped to give

her a warm welcome should she repeat her tricks. The emplacement

between the two filled by the 10-inch was occupied by a huge

range-finder, apparently on the Barr and Stroud principle, with very

powerful lenses. We afterwards drove up to one of the forts guarding

the town on the land side, from which a fine view was obtained over

the surrounding country. Then we went on board the hospital ship

_Portugal_. A Baroness Meyendorff, cousin of our Meyendorff, was found

to be matron-in-chief, and she took us all over the vessel, which was

to proceed during the night to pick up wounded at Off, the advanced

base of the force which was moving on Trebizond and which we were to

visit next day. In the afternoon we had a fine run along an

excellently engineered road up the Tchorok valley, a deep trough in

the mountains. The air in this part of the world seemed delightfully

genial after the rigours of Scandinavia, Petrograd and Mohileff,

reminding one of Algiers in spring; the vegetation was everywhere

luxuriant on the hillsides, the ground was carpeted with wildflowers,

and oranges abounded in the groves around the town.

Up about 3 the next morning, we boarded a destroyer to make the run to

Off, which was eighty-five miles away along the coast, and put off out

of the harbour through the gap in the torpedo-net about dawn. It was a

lovely morning without a breath of air; this was as well perhaps,

because the interior of the vessel, an old-type craft making a

tremendous fuss over going, say, 18 knots, was not particularly

attractive. The officers on board could not speak English or French,

which struck one as odd, but apparently the personnel of the Black Sea

fleet rarely proceeded to other waters--to the Baltic, for instance,

or the Far East. All went smoothly until we were within about a dozen

miles of our destination when a wireless message was picked up

announcing that the _Portugal_ had just been torpedoed and was sinking

close to Off, and asking for help. We cracked on all speed, the craft

straining and creaking as if she would tumble to pieces, and I doubt

if we were making much more than 25 knots then; but by the time that

we reached the scene of the disaster any of the personnel who could be

saved were already on board other vessels and being landed. We learnt

that several of the male personnel and two or three of the nurses,

including the Baroness Meyendorff, had, unhappily, been drowned.

The _Portugal_ was the second hospital ship that I had set foot on

since the beginning of the war, and, like the _East Anglia_ mentioned

on p. 228, she had gone to the bottom within twenty-four hours of my

visit. I determined to give hospital ships a wide berth in future if

possible--I did not bring them luck. With her Red Cross markings she

was perfectly unmistakable; she had been attacked in broad daylight on

an almost glassy sea, and the U-boat commander must have been

perfectly well aware of her identity when he sank her. The tragic

occurrence naturally cast a gloom over Off, where we landed on the

open beach and were met by General Liakoff, commanding the Field

Force, with a numerous staff.

There had been a sharp combat by night some thirty-six hours before,

when the Turks had delivered a most determined onset upon a portion of

the Russian position; it had, indeed, been touch-and-go for a time.

General Liakoff proposed to take us up to the scene of the fight; so

the whole party mounted on wiry Cossack horses and cobs, and the

cavalcade after crossing the little river near Off proceeded to breast

the heights, our animals scrambling up the rugged hill-tracks like

cats, till we reached the summit of a detached spur where the affray

had been the most violent. The enemy had almost surrounded this spur,

and the numerous bodies of dead Turks lying about on the slopes and in

the gullies testified to the severity of the fight; Wigram, whose

experiences of the battlefield had hitherto been limited to a visit to

the Western Front on a special job, was as delighted with these grim

relics as a dog is who has found some abomination in the road.

Quantities of used and unused cartridges, Turkish and Russian, were

strewed about, and it was evident that the defenders had only managed

to hold on by the skin of their teeth. General Liakoff told me that

his troops were especially pleased at their success, as it had

transpired that the assailants were Turks belonging to picked corps

recently arrived from the Gallipoli Peninsula.

The Russian outposts were now on the next ridge, beyond a narrow

valley, and all was quiet at the moment. The views from the spur were

very fine, commanding the coast-line in both directions. Trebizond,

some fifteen miles off but looking to be nearer, glistened white in

the midday sunshine; each patch of level was bright green with growing

corn, the higher hills were still crowned with snow, and the littoral

as a whole in its colouring and its features was the Riviera faced

about and looking north. The general gave me to understand that he

would be unable to advance for some days, as he had to make up his

reserves of supplies; but the Grand Duke had let me know that

considerable reinforcements were to be brought across the Black Sea

before the final attack upon Trebizond took place.

We spent the afternoon down at Off. With recollections of Afghan and

South African accumulations of war material and condiments, one was

struck with the very limited amount of impedimenta and stores which

this Field Force carried with it. The advanced base of a little army

comprising a couple of divisions, with odds and ends, scarcely

exhibited the amount of transport and food dumps that one of our

1901-2 mobile columns on the veldt would display when it was taking a

rest. The weather had been particularly favourable for landing

operations for some days, we were told, and that afternoon a small

freight ship, with a queer elongated prow that enabled her to run her

nose right up on to the beach, was discharging her cargo straight on

to the foreshore. But it was obvious that, with anything like a breeze

blowing home, landing operations at Off would be brought to a

standstill, and that the progress of the campaign was very dependent

upon the moods of the Black Sea. A road was, it is true, being

constructed along the shore from Batoum, and a railway was talked of;

but for the time being the Field Force had to rely almost entirely

upon maritime communications. A different destroyer from the one we

had come in took us back, several of the nurses saved from the

_Portugal_ also being on board, and we got ashore at Batoum after 9

P.M., to find the general and staff anxiously awaiting our arrival in

anticipation of dinner which we travellers were more than ready for.

We returned to Tiflis next day.

We had hoped to make a trip to Erzerum, so famous in the chequered

annals of Russo-Turkish conflicts in Asia; but the thaw had set in on

the uplands of Armenia, the staff at Tiflis said it would be almost

impossible to get a car through the slush for the hundred miles from

the railhead at Sarikamish, and we had no excuse for going other than

curiosity; so the idea was abandoned. It was arranged, however, that

we should proceed to Kars and Sarikamish. A short time elapsed before

we could start, and during this delay we were bidden to a gala dinner

at the palace given in our honour, at which Marsh also was present.

The palace is not a specially imposing building, but it has a fine

broad staircase, and the effect of the Cossacks of the Guard lining

this in their dark red cloaks was very striking. In his speech the

Grand Duke expressed great satisfaction at our visit to Transcaucasia,

as indicating that Russian efforts in this region were appreciated in

England.

From Tiflis up to Kars means a rise of over 4000 feet, and the

locomotives on the line were specially constructed for this climbing

work, having funnels at either end. Whatever may be the case at other

times, Armenia when the snows are melting is a singularly dreary

region, almost treeless and seemingly destitute of vegetation; some of

the scenery along the line was grand enough in a rugged way, however,

and near Alexandropol the railway traversed plateau land with outlook

over a wide expanse of country. Studying the large-scale map, it

looked as if one ought to be able to see Mount Ararat, eighty miles

away to the south, but there was a tiresome hill in the way

obstructing the view in the required direction.

Mention of Alexandropol suggests a reference to the pronunciation of

Russian names, which we always manage to get wrong in this country.

Slavs throw the accent nearer the end of words than we are inclined to

do. Thus in Alexandropol they put the accent on the "dro," not on the

"and" as we should. We always put the accent on the "bas" in

Sebastopol, but the accent properly is on the "to." In Alexeieff the

accent is on the second "e," and in Korniloff it is on the "i." You

will not generally go far wrong if you throw the accent one syllable

farther from the beginning of the word than you naturally would when

speaking English.

Twenty-four hours were spent at Kars, a filthy, but on account of its

associations and of the works being carried on, extremely interesting

place; unfortunately, I was not familiar with the story of Sir Fenwick

Williams' great defence of the stronghold during the Crimean War, for

the old battlements and outworks still existed, if in a ruinous

condition. We were taken all round the place by car, were shown the

elaborate magazines being excavated in the heart of a mountain, and

fetched up at one of the outlying forts in which a large garrison

resided. By this time I was getting quite accustomed to the ceremony

gone through when one met troops on parade or in barracks. You called

out, "Starova bradzye?" which being interpreted apparently means "How

are you, brothers?" There followed an agonizing little pause during

which you had time to think that you had got the thing wrong, had made

an ass of yourself, and were disgraced for evermore. Then they all

sang out in unison, "Wow wow wow-wow wow"--that, at all events, is

what it sounded like. Goodness knows what it meant. One had too much

sense to ask, because one might have got the two sentences mixed,

which would have meant irretrievable disaster. The effect, however,

when there were a lot of troops on the ground was excellent, as they

always performed their share with rare gusto. The rank and file

particularly appreciated a foreign officer giving them the customary

greeting.

The size of the garrison of this outlying fort afforded evidence of

the Russian wealth in man-power. There were a good many guns mounted,

of no great value, and some machine-guns flanked the ditches; but the

amount of personnel seemed out of all proportion to the importance of

the work or the nature of its armament. The men were packed pretty

tight in the casemates, arranged in a double tier, the sojourners on

the upper tier only having the bare boards to lie on. Afterwards we

went out to an entirely new fort which was not yet quite completed,

situated on the plain some six miles from the town. The Russians were

making Kars into a great place of arms on modern lines, and one rather

wondered why.

Continuing the journey in the afternoon, we were met at Sarikamish

station by General Savitzky, commanding the Sixty-sixth Division and

the garrison, with his staff and a swarm of officers. The place had

been the frontier station before the war and was well laid out as an

up-to-date cantonment, although owing to the thaw the mud was

indescribable. The environs constituted almost an oasis in the bleak

Armenian uplands owing to the hills being clothed in pine-woods, and

Sarikamish had the reputation of making a pleasant summer resort,

people coming out from Tiflis to spend a few weeks so as to escape the

heat. We were treated with almost effusive cordiality, dined at the

staff mess that night, and Cossacks gave an exhibition of their

spirited dancing afterwards and sang songs. Of the large number of

officers acting as hosts, only one, unfortunately, could speak French,

so that Meyendorff was kept busy acting as an intermediary.

The idea prevalent in this country that Russians in general are good

linguists, it may here be observed, is a delusion. The aristocracy, no

doubt, all speak French perfectly. In the Yacht Club in Petrograd most

of the members appeared to be quite at home in either French or

English, and no doubt could have chattered away in German if put to

it; but away from the capital and Moscow it was not easy to get on

without a knowledge of Russian. The staff at Sarikamish were anxious

that I should meet the Turkish officer prisoners interned there, as

they believed that a couple of them were Boches and nobody able to

speak German had come along for months; but as it turned out, there

was no time for a meeting.

Next morning we started off in a blizzard to proceed by car some way

in the direction of Erzerum along the high-road over the col which

marked the frontier; the pass would be about 7600 feet above

sea-level; as the elevation of Sarikamish was given as 6700. This

high-road constituted the main line of communications of the Russian

forces in the field beyond railhead, and the traffic along it was

unceasing. With a long, stiff upward incline, there were the usual

sights of broken-down vehicles and of dead animals on all hands; but

the organization appeared to be good, if rough and ready, and the

transport was serviceable enough. Getting the cars along past the

strings of vehicles and animals was no easy job, and it proved a

chilly drive. But the weather brightened, and on the way back we got

out and proceeded on foot to a hill-top of historic interest known as

the "Crow's Nest," above Sarikamish. For it had been the site of

headquarters on the occasion of those very critical conflicts in

December 1914, when the Ottoman commanders had made a determined

effort to break through into Russian Transcaucasia, and when their

plans had only been brought to nought by a most signal combination of

war on the part of the defenders.

There, on the scene of his triumph, Colonel Maslianikov of the 16th

Caucasian Rifle Regiment described to a gathering of us fur-clad

figures how, with his regiment and some other troops hastily scraped

together, he had brought the leading Turkish divisions to a

standstill, largely by pure bluff and by audacious handling of an

inferior force, and so had prepared the way for the dramatic overthrow

of three Osmanli army corps which transformed a situation that had

been full of menace into one which became rich in promise. News of

this dramatic feat of arms reached the War Office at the time, but

without particulars. That the victor of this field, a field won by a

masterpiece of soldiership, should remain a simple colonel, suggested

a singular indifference on the part of authorities at the heart of the

empire to what wardens of the marches accomplished in peace and war.

That pow-wow in an icy blast amid the snow recalled the Grand Duke

Nicholas's appeal to Lord Kitchener that we should make some effort

to take pressure off his inadequate and hard-pressed forces in

Armenia, an appeal which landed us in the Dardanelles Campaign; and it

further recalled the fact that the colonel's feat near Sarikamish had

put an end to all need for British intervention almost before the

Grand Duke made his appeal. The Russian victory, the details of which

were explained to us that day by its creator, was gained on a date

preceding by some weeks the Allies' naval attempt to conquer the

Straits single-handed.

After a belated luncheon at the staff mess, following on this long

programme, we had to hurry off accompanied by Savitzky and his staff

to our railway-car. All the officers and a goodly number of the rank

and file in Sarikamish seemed to have collected at the station to give

us a rousing send-off, making it evident that our visit had been much

appreciated. This was not unnatural. Here were Allies fighting in a

region far removed from the principal theatres of war in which the

armies of the Entente were engaged, and they were with justice

desirous that their efforts should not remain wholly unknown. Like

Off, Sarikamish conveyed a very favourable impression of the working

of the Transcaucasian legions under the supreme leadership of the

Grand Duke Nicholas, of whom officers all spoke with enthusiasm, and

whose personality undoubtedly counted for much amongst the

impressionable moujik soldiery. What one had seen in these forward

situations inspired confidence in the future. Nor was that confidence

misplaced, for the Russian forces in Armenia were to achieve great

triumphs ere 1916 was out.

We had hoped to cross the Caucasus from Tiflis to Vladikavkas by the

great military road over the Dariel Pass, but the staff would not hear

of it, as there was still some risk from avalanches and as the route

was not properly open. We had a farewell luncheon at the palace, and I

had a long talk on military questions with the Grand Duke beforehand,

at which he entrusted me with special messages to Lord Kitchener and

Sir W. Robertson, and expressed an earnest desire for close

co-ordination between his forces in Persia and ours in Mesopotamia.

News had arrived of the repulse of the Kut Relief Force at Sannaiyat

after its having made a promising beginning at Hannah, so that there

was no disguising the fact that little hope remained of saving

Townshend's force. I did not know what course might be adopted by our

Government in this discouraging theatre of war, assuming that Kut

fell; but there could be no doubt that co-ordination was desirable, as

we were bound to hold on to the Shatt-el-Arab and the oil-fields,

whatever happened; it was therefore quite safe to promise that we

would do our best. Having made our farewells, our little party

proceeded straight from Tiflis to Moscow.

In that famous city we were put up in the palace within the Kremlin,

and we passed a couple of days mainly devoted to sight-seeing. What

has become of all the marvels gathered together within the grim

fortress walls in the heart of the ancient Russian capital? Of the

jewelled ikons, of the priceless sacerdotal vestments, of the gorgeous

semi-barbaric Byzantine temples, of the galleries of historic

paintings, of the raiment, the boots and the camp-bed of Peter the

Great? One wearied of wandering from basilica to basilica, from

edifice to edifice and from room to room. Only the globe-trotting

American keeping a diary can suffer an intensity of this sort of

thing. But then we were taken out one of the afternoons by car to the

Sparrow Hills ridge above the Moskva, about three miles outside the

city and not far from where one morning in 1812 the Grand Army topped

a rise and of a sudden beheld the goal which it had travelled so far

to seek. From there we viewed the spectacle of a riot of gilded

cupolas gleaming in the sun, a sight incomparably more striking in its

majesty than that of the interiors and memorials of the past we had

been reconnoitring at close quarters.

Another afternoon we drove out to a palace in the outskirts, which

had been converted into a military hospital and was being maintained

by the Emperor out of his private purse. There are some writers of war

experiences on the Western Front who have revelled in pouring ridicule

upon the inspections that are ever proceeding at our hospitals in the

field, although these functions furnish the humorist with just that

opportunity which his soul craves for. My experience, however, is that

in the military world doctors and nurses simply love to have their

tilt-yard visited by people who have no business there. You could not

meet with a Russian hospital-train on its journey, drawn up at some

railway station, but you were gently, if firmly, coerced into

traversing its corridors from end to end. When following the course of

the Turko-Greek conflict in 1897 on the side of the Hellenes, where

almost every known European nation had its Red Cross hospital, I was

dragged round these establishments one and all. To have strangers

tramping about staring at them must be an intolerable nuisance to

wounded men who are badly in need of peace and quiet. One went through

the "starova bradzye" game in each hospital ward visited in Russia,

and the din of the "wow wow wow-wow wow-ings" reverberating through

these halls seemed strangely out of place amidst surroundings of gloom

and suffering, where many a poor fellow was nearing his end. Our

acting Consul-General came to pay me a visit at the palace, and we had

a long talk about the internal conditions of Russia, of which he took

none too rosy a view; distrust and discontent were growing apace, he

implied, for the Court was entirely out of touch with the people, and

the Government seemed to be going the way of the Court. On the night

that we were leaving we were taken to the ballet at the Opera House,

and we went straight from the theatre to board the train, which left

about midnight for Petrograd.

There we found Hanbury-Williams putting up at the Astoria, and I was

able to have several conversations with him and also with Sir G.

Buchanan and Colonel Blair, our Assistant Military Attaché. From what

I gathered from them and observations during the trip, it would be

safe to report to the War Office that from the military point of view

the outlook in Russia was distinctly promising. Even if there was

little prospect of anything of real importance being effected on the

Eastern Front this year, we might reasonably reckon upon the immense

forces of the empire, adequately fitted out with rifles, machine-guns,

field-artillery and ammunition, and with some heavy guns and howitzers

to help, performing a dominant rôle in the campaign of 1917. And yet

all was not well. The political conditions, if not exactly ominous,

gave grounds for anxiety. The dim shadow of coming events was already

being cast before. The internal situation required watching, and it

was on the cards that the influence of the Allies might have to be

thrown into the scale in order to prevent a dire upheaval.

While at the capital on this occasion we paid a visit to the British

hospital, occupying a palace on the Nevski Prospekt, which was under

the management of Lady Sybil Grey. The most interesting patient in

this admirably appointed institution was a sturdy little lad of about

fourteen, who had been to the front, had got hit with a bullet, and

had been converted into a sergeant. He was evidently made much of,

accompanying us round as a sort of assistant Master of the Ceremonies,

and he seemed to be having a good time; but he complained, so we were

given to understand, that the nurses would insist on kissing him. If

that was the only inconvenience resulting from a wound, it seemed to

me to be a form of unpleasantness that one might manage to put up

with.

When the time for departure came, Meyendorff was quite unhappy at my

objecting to his accompanying us all the way to Tornea; but we meant

to travel through Finland disguised as small fry and in plain clothes.

On the occasion of our previous heading for home, our leaving had been

advertised in all the newspapers; the Embassy had drawn the attention

of the authorities to this, and the Press had been directed to make

no mention in future of foreign officers starting for Scandinavia.

Even if the enemy under-water flotilla was hardly likely to make

special endeavours to catch us on the Bergen-Newcastle trip, there was

no object in running unnecessary risks by letting them know that we

were coming along.

We enjoyed a rare stroke of luck on the voyage across the North Sea

this time. Our packet was plodding peacefully along on a hazy, grey

forenoon, about half-way to the Tyne, when the faint silhouettes of a

brace of destroyers were descried racing athwart our course a good

many miles ahead. We were watching them disappear far away on the

starboard bow, when others suddenly hove in sight looming up through

the mist, all of them going like mad in the same direction, and then

four great shadowy battle-cruisers showed themselves steaming hard

across our front, four or five miles away. The armada, a signal

manifestation of vitality and power and speed, was evidently making

for Rosyth; it had no doubt been on the prowl about the Skagerrack,

and it presumably meant to coal at high pressure and then to get busy

again. Such a spectacle would naturally be an everyday occurrence to

the Sister Service; but to a landsman this assemblage of fighting

craft going for all they were worth was tremendously impressive as a

demonstration of British maritime might--far more impressive than

interminable rows of warships, moored and at rest, such as one had

seen gathered together between Southampton Water and Spithead for a

Royal Review.

What surprised one most perhaps was the wide extent of the water-area

which this battle-cruiser squadron covered, consisting as it did of

only a quartette of capital ships after all, with their attendant ring

of mosquito-craft keeping guard ahead, astern and on the flanks. The

leading pair of destroyers cannot have been much short of twenty miles

in advance of the two scouts which came racing up at the tail of the

hunt. Our old tub had got well within the water-area by the time that

these latter sleuths approached, and their track passed astern of us;

but at the last moment one of them pivoted round, just as a Canadian

canoe will pivot round in the hands of an artist, and came tearing

along after us--it may have been to look at us or it may merely have

been to show off--passed us on the port hand not more than a cable's

length off as if we were standing still, shot across our bows, and was

off like a flash after her consort. Of those battle-cruisers that

looked so imposing as they rushed along towards the Firth of Forth

that forenoon, at least one was to meet her fate before many days had

passed. The Battle of Jutland was fought about three weeks later.

CHAPTER XV

THE RUSSIAN BUNGLE

The Russian Revolution the worst disaster which befell the

Entente during the Great War -- The political situation in Russia

before that event much less difficult to deal with than had been

the political situation in the Near East in 1915 -- The Allies'

over-estimate of Russian strength in the early months of the war

-- We hear first about the ammunition shortage from Japan --

Presumable cause of the breakdown -- The Grand Duke Nicholas's

difficulties in the early months -- Great improvement effected in

respect to munitions subsequent to the summer of 1915 -- Figures

-- Satisfactory outlook for the campaign of 1917 -- Political

situation goes from bad to worse -- Russian Mission to London; no

steps taken by our Government -- Our representatives in Russia --

Situation at the end of 1916 -- A private letter to Mr. Lloyd

George -- The Milner Mission to Russia -- Its failure to

interpret the portents -- Had Lord Kitchener got out it might

have made all the difference -- Some excuse for our blundering

subsequent to the Revolution -- The delay in respect to action in

Siberia and at Vladivostok.

Incomparably the most grievous disaster met with by the Entente during

the progress of the Great War was the Russian Revolution of March

1917. All the other mishaps, great and small, which the Allies had to

deplore--the occupation of Belgium and of wide areas of France by

German hosts at the very outset, the collapse of the Emperor

Nicholas's legions in Poland in 1915, the Dardanelles failure,

Bulgaria's accession to the ranks of our enemies and the resultant

overthrow of Serbia, the fall of Kut, Roumania's unhappy

experience--sink into insignificance compared with the downfall of the

Romanoffs and what that downfall led to.

Had the cataclysmic upheaval in Russia been averted, or at least been

delayed until hostilities were at an end, the war would have been

brought to a successful conclusion before the close of the year 1917.

Much loss of life would have been saved. The European belligerents,

one and all and whichever side they fought on during the contest,

would be in an incomparably less anxious economic position than they

actually are in to-day. The Eastern Hemisphere would have settled its

own affairs without intervention, other than naval and financial, from

the farther side of the Atlantic. Peace would in consequence have been

concluded within a very few months of the cessation of hostilities,

instead of negotiations starting on a preposterous basis and being

protracted for more than a year.

That the Revolution could have been prevented, or at all events could

have been deferred until subsequent to the end of the war, I firmly

believe. Our diplomacy has been severely criticized in connection with

Near Eastern affairs in 1915; nor will any one maintain that it was

successful, judged by results. But the situation in the Balkans was

one of extraordinary perplexity in any case, and the problem was

complicated by the fact that the Allies were not all of one mind as to

what course to pursue on almost any single occasion. The position of

affairs during the critical months leading up to March 1917 in Russia,

on the other hand, was no puzzle, and the political situation had

never been a puzzle since the outbreak of war. Our French and Italian

friends, moreover, fully realized that this country, if it chose to do

so, possessed the means of exerting a special and controlling

influence within the governing clique holding sway at the head of the

empire, and they were most anxious that that influence should be

exercised. But before touching on this question some comments on the

military conditions within the territories of our whilom eastern Ally

previous to, and at the time of, the catastrophe will not be out of

place.

The potentialities of Russia for carrying on a war of first-class

magnitude had been altogether overestimated at the outset in the

United Kingdom and in France, alike by the public and by the military

authorities--in France perhaps even more so than in this country. The

armies of our eastern Ally did, it is true, accomplish greater things

in some respects than had been anticipated, because they struck an

effective blow at an earlier date than had been believed possible, and

they thereby relieved pressure in the West at a critical juncture even

if their enterprising and loyal action in East Prussia was later to

lead them into a terrible disaster. During the first two or three

months after the outbreak of hostilities their weakness in regard to

equipment and to munitions was not, however, known, or at all events

was only partially known. There was much talk in the Press about the

"steam-roller" which was going to flatten the Central Powers out. We

at the War Office had received warnings from our very well-informed

Military Attaché, it is true; but those warnings did not convey to us

the full gravity of the position, a gravity which was probably not

recognized even in high places in Russia for some time. Moreover, as

far as we could judge, Paris had no idea that anything was seriously

amiss beyond the Vistula, in spite of the Franco-Russian alliance

having been in force for some years.