PREFACE 13
fidently hoping that Geneva would enable the good work to
become a reality. This hope was not so much the result of an
overestimate of the task and achievements of the new Geneva
organization as of a belief that I might be able to interest a
man of unique qualities, who was attending the session, in
the work of relief. This man, whose beneficent activities had
been known to the entire world for decades, was Fritjof
Nansen. It was he whom I wished to interest. A few days
before Christmas I had an opportunity of talking to Nansen at
the Hotel Metropole, where he was staying at the time. He
immediately approved of the idea of relief for Petrograd; but
he did not conceal the difficulties. What distressed him most
was that the public conscience had become dulled in the post-
war period and did not favour fresh relief action. He considered
success possible only if the International Red Cross Committee
and an influential official of it, competent to deal with the
question, were to support my endeavours.
I went to the Committee without delay. But the conversation
with the official, whom Nansen recommended to me, was one
of the greatest disappointments of my life. He argued that
the public interest ought not be distracted by new relief
activities from those which had already been taken in hand.
I must confess that the argument that the setting up of any
relief organization would represent a kind of competition with
relief action already being undertaken made the most profound
impression on me. The Red Cross official raised other objec-
tions, and allowed me to understand that despite Nansen's
interest the International Committee could not participate in
the work This sealed the fate of our endeavours. The Petrograd
catastrophe took its course unhindered
A year passed. The Baltic States had concluded peace treaties
with Russia and the time had come to implement them—among
other things by securing the return of any nationals interned
in Russian prisons. In March 1921 I went to Moscow as the
representative of the Estonian Red Cross, my object being to