RAND REVOLUTION
IN RUSSIA
JOHN POLLOCK
I— I
Pi o
& —
WAR AND REVOLUTION
IN RUSSIA
SKETCHES AND STUDIES
BY
JOHN POLLOCK
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
AUTHOR OF
"THE POPISH PLOT," ETC.
LONDON
CONSTABLE W CO. LTD.
1918
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tit
y
TO
C. F. KEARY
IN FRIENDSHIP AND ADMIRATION
384885
EXPLANATORY LETTER
My Dear Keary, —
To one coming from the north, the bazaar at Ekateri-
nodar, where I have been marketing, is a dream of
indescribable gorgeousness. Here are no shimmering
silks, or many-patterned Persian carpets, or stalls
stacked with priceless gems ; this is not the East, nor
is the land of the Don Cossacks stored with ancient
treasure. But such riches of the soil brought together,
heaped upon the cobbles, spreading over carts and
booths and streets in endless waves of colour the eye
could hardly see elsewhere but here. Row upon row of
melons, cantelupes and water melons, melons ribbed
and melons smooth skinned, back in the sunshine, fill
the hot air with their luscious scent ; from end to end
of two hundred yards loops of onions swing lazily,
while under them a fortune of cabbages display their
mild charms, their tender virgin green unviolated by
hand of grocer ; and here is a riot of tomatoes that
smile at you in outrageous profusion, and there waggons
brimming with potatoes ; eggs enough to make a score
of snowmen, and again young mountains of small
cucumbers, such as are not known in England, beloved
of Russians, clamouring to be eaten. And flour, fine
rice from Turkestan, and fat egg plants scarcely con-
tained in their purple skins, the drowsy sunflower with
a 2 vii
viii War and Revolution in Russia
whose seed Russia drugs herself, and grapes and maize
and coffee, and cream and honey, until eye and nostril
are drunk with the wealth spread before them, and you
wonder that there can be want in a world where such
bounty is flung by nature into the lap of man.
At night when the bazaar is closed and a faery cloak
enfolds the town, carpeting it with music, turning the
poplars to cypresses and the wooden church half hidden
by them to a Roman shrine of marble, I wonder indeed
if the world can be at war when this end of Russia seems
so remote from it. Yet when I tried to buy a tin-kettle,
there was none in the town ; nor is any tea to be had ;
and I know that those same melons which in Ekateri-
nodar cost at their largest thirty kopeks sell in Petro-
grad for twenty roubles and more. The potatoes that
in the bazaar are ten kopeks a pound are unobtainable
at eight times the price in the capital. For want of the
corn that here bursts from the ground the armies on
two of the Russian fronts are in danger of starving.
This is Russia, a land of plenty and a land of want, a
land of high ideals and of many shortcomings, of nobility
and of shamelessness, a land where Socialists bawl that
the State must control everything, and where soldiers
crippled in the defence of their country are reduced to
beg their bread in the streets.
For an enemy of Russia to write about her now
would be easy. For a friend it is hard. Russia is sick,
smitten with a dangerous disease, and it behoves her
friends to think and speak of her as they would of one
they love, whose mind is under a cloud. The simile is
not exact ; for the greater part of Russia's best minds,
almost the whole indeed of those formerly known as the
Explanatory Letter ix
" intelligentsia," members of the learned professions,
civil servants, men of letters, officers, all in fact who
have had education and are now miscalled in a lump
the " bourgeoisie," are under no delusion, but are
keenly aware of the nature and causes of their country's
complaint.
One who wished for a type of Russia's best intellect
might take as his choice the late Professor Maxim
Kovalevsky. Like all men, he had weaknesses : per-
haps a shade too much cynicism in his appreciation of
the world, a slightly too ready welcome for every plan
that on the whole recommended itself without a thorough
examination of its details, but a man of mark, a large
man in every sense, as even his opponents said. As a
reward for liberal views he was driven in youth from
Russia by the autocracy and thus learnt to know many
languages and peoples ; was possessed till the end of
his life of wits so lively that his talk was a perpetual
delight ; and, indeed, would find a point of irony to
season any subject however solemn. His gift of brilliant
generalisation was never used without revealing a basis
of solid thought beneath ; but he used it so easily and
so freely that it did not seem, as with some good talkers,
a performance, but a natural flow of the man's ideas.
But the most characteristic was his spacious geniality,
an expansion and concentration, if the two may exist
together, of a quality peculiarly Russian, which nothing
to my taste describes so well as the slightly old-fashioned
word, affability. Above all else, the Russian of the
educated class is affable. Should you wish, you need
never be for five minutes without company when
travelling or in a public place ; and the company is
x War and Revolution in Russia
almost always pleasant and often interesting. Yet
there is a delicacy and an inborn restraint towards
strangers. Do you desire silence, everyone will respect
your wish, and you may journey from end to end of
Russia many times without once witnessing the dreadful
intrusions upon privacy that awaited the traveller in
the first train he entered in Germany. In this respect
Russians are neither frigid nor fulsome ; nor are they
aggressive or haughty, as we are apt to be ; and it
would be hard to find pleasanter companions than the
three you may meet any day in a Russian second-class
carriage, who have never met before and do not expect
to meet again, and part without inquiring so much as
one another's names. Qualities that are indeed much
needed in times when, as now, the regulation four in a
carriage becomes six, or sometimes eight, or ten ; yet,
for all the Russians' usual excitability, it is the rarest
thing to see bad temper or churlishness even in these
trying conditions. You can see more during five
minutes on a tramcar in Petrograd or Moscow, and it
is noticeable that the row is nearly always started by
someone of the lower class.
When "The School for Scandal " was about to be pro-
duced in Petrograd, Kovalevsky said : " It will not have
success. My countrymen have not lived through the
eighteenth century." I have found this pregnant
saying a key to many puzzles. Talent and wide interests
are so common among Russians that we are apt to
forget that the nation is without many of the large
experiences that go to make the Western world. Russia,
for instance, has not known the Reformation and the
Renaissance, the wars of religion, the Risorgimento,
Explanatory Letter xi
and the French Revolution only by its backwash. Until
sixty years ago Russia was a country of slaves whose
persons could be sold with or apart from the land
of their owners, spurred to progress by the devoted
efforts of an infinitesimal educated class, that, without
inheriting the traditions of the West, imbibed its teach-
ings with the eagerness of men long denied the light.
The children of those who saw the emancipation did not
allow for the slowness of upward growth, and many
believed until the events of the last few months that the
system of government only needed to be changed
for the nation to spring at a bound into the level path
of unchecked achievement. One of their best repre-
sentatives recently said to a patriotic lady who had
worked in the revolution of 1905 that the ." intelli-
gentsia " were themselves to blame for the baleful in-
fluence at the present crisis of the extreme Socialists,
for they had before refused to be satisfied with moderate
gains from the autocracy, but had wished for complete
triumph at a stroke. It is not a reproach to say that
Russians lack experience in constructive statesmanship :
with the madness that characterises weak despotisms
their rulers took infinite pains to prevent them from
acquiring it, and efforts that might have left an in-
valuable legacy of political wisdom ended m exile,
Siberia, or death. The formula of a French economist :
" Tout se paye, rien n'est gratuit" is equally true in
politics. The absence of healthy organisation of opinion
was the logical result of the brutal prohibition of its
expression during many years, and the cause of an
uncertainty of aim and of a welter of ideals spawned by
the revolution, reminiscent of the outburst of experi*
xii War and Revolution in Rwsia
ments in political thought caused by the Civil War in
England. The men of that age, said Lord Acton in one of
his aphorisms that illumined whole epochs, had not
mastered the art of understanding their opponents'
ideas ; then it took a man all his time and the help of
his friends to understand his own. Similarly, the revolu-
tion here came about so suddenly that Russians after
the first days hardly knew what they would be at, and
their idealistic conceptions have had to suffer much
disillusion. A member of the First Duma said to me :
" I lived for twenty years among the Russian peasants
and thought I knew them. But two months' experience
since the revolution showed me I had been mistaken ;
they are only good for anything ' under the stick.' "
This phrase, " under the stick," attributed to Peter
the Great, has been of late increasingly in men's mouths.
It expresses the belief of many, not only educated
Russians of the north, but also Armenians, Cossacks,
Georgians, Little Russians, and Jews, that the typical
man of Great Russia, who is a peasant, is incapable of
pursuing a way for himself, and if he is not driven will
fall into a slough of sluggish anarchism. It would be rash
in a foreigner to differ from a view so widely held among
the mere vivid elements of the Russian empire, but I
venture to hope that it is too pessimistic. It is un-
doubtedly true that the soldier of old, that is, the
peasant under discipline, was cheery, prompt, to all
appearances affectionate towards his superiors, and
happy ; now he has become sulky, careless, hangdog,
and by every outward sign miserable. Nevertheless, a
few cases with which I have come into close contact
give me faith in the Russian peasant's potentialities.
Explanatory Letter xiii
For instance, I know an able seaman, a peasant from
the government of Moscow, typical in feature, in his slow
quiet speech, in his great strength. He can read and
write, and in the navy learned to type -write, so
that he was detailed for office work. In his spare
time he is attending classes in history, mathematics
and physics. He is of the most modest and kindly dis-
position, and gifted with a gentlemanly nature that is
wholly free from vulgarity or silliness — one, indeed,
of " les coeurs nobles qui se trouvent dans tons les rcmgs de
Varmee russe" as Cherbuliez well says. Before the
revolution he can hardly have seen a drawing-room ;
yet I have watched him take tea with a party of ladies
and gentlemen, mostly strangers to him, with complete
unembarrassment, and Join in the conversation un-
affectedly and with good sense. He thinks inde-
pendently, for without any prompting he one day in-
scribed himself as a member of the party of National
Freedom. Once, the opinion being expressed that the
evils of the time were due to the decay of religion, which
has in fact a far shallower hold in Russia than is com-
monly supposed abroad, he dissented, and added in a
very simple and reverent manner, " For myself, I do
not believe." Vasily Simeonovich may be an exception,
but if the soil that produced him is given a chance,
such qualities must be brought forth in more general
measure. They seem to me, with my limited chances of
observation, to be fruits of a strong and generous nature
that runs through the breadth of the Russian nation
and must lead it finally to a true conception of patriotism
and to be a power for good in the world. But not until
the age has passed in which it can confidently be be-
xiv War and Revolution in Russia
lieved, on the one hand, that Lord Milner came to
Russia to organise the revolution, and on the other,
that the English have seized Archangel and will descend
on Petrograd to suppress it by force. This will probably
be not before twenty or thirty years of national educa-
tion. And should the qualities of imagination and truth-
fulness that have powerfully impressed the world in her
writers, painters, musicians, and men of science come
in a more distant future to fruition in the mass of
Russia's people, now sorely burdened by the legacy of
stagnation inherited through three centuries of des-
potism from the Tartar invasion which for nearly three
more made progress impossible, not we but our descen-
dants may see an age of human achievement more
glorious than any yet known to us in modern history.
That at least is my faith in Russia.
Nearly fifteen years ago you urged me to go to Russia,
and I hope you will accept this little book as a tokea
that I am not unmindful. The papers brought together
in it were written under widely differing conditions and
must be read according to their respective dates.
They do not, those at least that deal with public events,
pretend to historical accuracy, and there are points that
now might be corrected or amplified. But I have pre-
ferred to leave them as they were written (save with the
amendment in the paper on Rasputin of a prudent
pretence, necessary at the time to protect an informant
from possible persecution), believing that if they have
any interest it will be as a record of contemporary
events seen by one who had no motive to distort them,
and compiled from the best sources available to ordin-
arily observant persons. Since I have expressed opinions
Explanatory Letter xv
concerning the present state of Russia that would seem
opposed to those held by our Liberal Press, perhaps I
should add that I am in politics a Liberal and, by con-
viction, a republican. Professor F. W. Maitland, one
of the most level as well as brilliant minds of his age,
said that " he had no use for modern kings,' ' and the
sense of their needlessness that I imbibed from or felt
confirmed by his wisdom has been greatly deepened
by a consideration of the deeds of Nicolas, Constantine,
and Ferdinand of Bulgaria. But I refuse on that
account to be prejudiced in favour of everything that
has replaced Nicolas. For a patriotic citizen of one of
the nations allied in arms against German domination,
cupidity, and arrogance I can conceive no other rule
than that the cause for which we do battle must come
before all else. This gives us the right not to shut our
mouths on matters touching the vital point in Russia
as well as at home, and it might not a little have im-
proved matters here since the revolution, had there
been more plain speaking before. The Socialists' allega-
tion that England and France favoured tyranny in
Russia did much to create an atmosphere helpful to the
policy of moral sabotage they have pursued. Before
you receive these lines, surely before they are in print,
much may happen to show how the balance of fate in
the war will swing for Russia. Events move fast, and
even while I write news has come of the fall of Riga and
the repetition on the northern front of those symptoms
that disgraced the army of the south-west. One thing
at least is certain, that when this war is over, it will take
an almost incredible combination of causes again to
force the Russian peasantry, who are over 90 per cent
xvi War and Revolution in Russia
of the nation, to fight against a foreign foe. And when
we have conquered the German Goliath, that can only
be for the ultimate good of the world.
Yours ever,
JOHN POLLOCK.
September , 1917.
Note. — Most of the papers in this volume have ap-
peared in the Standard, Manchester Guardian, Fort-
nightly Review, New Europe, and Nineteenth Century,
to the editors of which I beg to express my thanks for
consent to republication. In my absence from England
on service in Russia, the book has most kindly been seen
through the press by my father, Sir Frederick Pollock.
J. P.
[Section headings are inserted in the text to assist the
reader in keeping count of the dates, not always exactly
specified, to which the papers refer. Considering that
Slavonic scholars are not yet fully agreed on the details
of transliteration, I have not attempted to reduce the
spelling of Russian names to strict uniformity.
Mr. C. F. Keary, my son's friend and mine for many
years, whose diffidence alone prevented his distinguished
qualities from being more widely known, died suddenly
on the 25th of October. He had received and enjoyed
my son's dedication in MS. ; it therefore stands as it
was addressed to him in his lifetime. — F. P.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTEE PAGB
Explanatory Letter . . . . vii
I. Bergen to the Arctic .... 1
II. Russia's Klondyke— Karungi (I) .5
III. The Port of Snows— Karungi (II) . . 9
IV. Towards the Furnace . . . .16
V. Life in Warsaw . . . .20
VI. Perimyshl .... 24
VII. In the Russian Trenches . . .35
VIII. Lemberg— (I) Loyal Lwow . . .41
IX. Lemberg— (II) Out of the Beleaguered City 46
X. Warsaw in Lilac Time . . .56
XI. With the Army . . . .62
XII. A Visit to General Alexeiev. . . 70
XIII. The Retreat . . . . .75
XIV. Polish Distress . . . . .86
XV. Lutsk 93
XVI. The Galician View . . . .101
XVII. The Refugees at Kiev . . .106
XVIII. Winter in Petrograd . . . .114
XV111
Contents
CHAPTER
XIX.
Rasputin ....
PAOB
120
XX.
Before the Revolution
145
XXI.
The Russian Revolution
150
XXII.
The Duma op the Revolution
180
XXIII.
The Danger in Russia
186
XXIV.
Soldiers and Workmen
193
XXV.
Thoughts on the Polish Question .
200
XXVI.
''Peace without Annexations or Indem
NITIES" ....
215
XXVII.
The Dog Days, 1917 .
260
/
war and revolution
in Russia"
SECTION I
THE FIRST YEAR
I
BERGEN TO THE ARCTIC
YOU have not been in Bergen five minutes
before you recognise the country of Ibsen.
Indeed, without foot yet set on shore, the shape of
the hills soaring heavenwards and the cosy way the
town snuggles down at their feet reveal on the one
hand the mysterious aspirations, hardly of this
world, with which the poet of Brand points the path
to greatness, and on the other the latent possibilities
of snobbery and jobbery against which Dr. Stock-
man directs his noble scorn. An hour and a half
is the total allowance before the train starts for
Christiania, and the mind turns to practical con-
siderations, which would be overwhelming but for
the kindness of the British Consul and his friends,
who are nobly waiting in the teeth of the north wind
2 TJ '•'(j:r and RewTution in Russia
with cabs, a truck, and a cart, and get our luggage
registered with the minimum of delay. There is
nearly a ton to be weighed, and the modest sum of
£32 to pay on it as far as the Finnish frontier.
The station at Bergen, like the hills, is gaunt, but
inspiring, huge granite blocks supporting the arched
glass roof in fine proportion. The railway here was
only opened in 1906, and everything is clean and
good, and the guards hardly seem to have got over
their pleasure as at a new toy. Railway stations,
indeed, seem to fulfil an important function in the
social life of the northern peoples. Just as Ameri-
cans — not, of course, in the great cities, but in such
as Providence, Rhode Island — frequent the cemetery
as a meeting-place in this life also, so in Norway,
Sweden, and Finland the populace makes of the
station a promenade, and, indeed, on Sundays and
holidays throngs it so much as to deprive the timid
traveller altogether of his already slender chance of
snatching a cup of coffee in two and a half minutes.
Scandinavia is a region of cold meat meals, else-
where only to be found at a Dutch breakfast table.
Breakfast, dinner (3 p.m.), and supper (nine to ten
o'clock), the meal does not varyfgreatly, and on the
railways it is a highly convenient system for
travellers that you help yourself, take what and as
much as you like, and pay a fixed price, including
every thing^but beer. Plates of sliced meat and fish
Bergen to the Arctic 3
of every description lie on the table, with probably
one hot dish and potatoes. Salt meat and fish are
popular, in the belief that they are specially warm-
ing ; but there is a complete absence of sweet things,
except stewed prunes, unless goats' milk cheese is to
be counted. Large brown biscuits almost replace
bread, pervaded by the flavour of carraway seed.
To the shame of British railways, excellent second-
class sleeping berths are provided at a most moderate
charge, and there is about twice the amount of air
and leg-room allotted to the miserable passenger in
our native isles. These practical details will perhaps
be excused by reason of the extreme uncommuni-
cativeness of travellers in Scandinavia, who number
some hundreds every year, but, unfortunately, can
only talk about fishing.
Christiania, where the morning frost bit sharply,
was emptying out its population by rail and road
for the great Easter ski competition ; and a strange
thing it is to see a stream of vehicles at half-past
seven o'clock each with one or two pairs of skis
projecting into the air, a leafless and polished
Birnam. The only other person prominent in the
streets was Regina's wicked old reputed father, from
" Ghosts," who, bibulous already, lurched round a
corner.
Modest, provincial, and the people on its streets
speaking nothing but Norwegian, Christiania had
4 War and Revolution in Russia
nevertheless a welcoming air absent from its neigh-
bour capital ; for Stockholm, with all its beauty and
signs of prosperity and an astonishing proportion of
passers-by full of politeness and fluent English for
the inquiring stranger, has nowadays a sense of chill
for us. The dreamy and poetic Norwegian likes and
is interested in us — he is for the Allies ; the Swede,
hard, practical, accomplished, is full of distrust.
Seventy per cent., it is reported, are vehemently
pro-German, and these contain all the upper classes.
Only the Radicals or Socialists are on our side. Mis-
lay your ticket for an instant and a gendarme is
promptly hailed, and at the frontiers real regret is
observable in the official if you bear a missive
exempting your luggage from search. Withal, per-
fect politeness and correctness are met with, and
even many unnecessary courtesies.
From Stockholm to the Swedish-Finnish frontier
is a day and two nights' journey, very comfortable,
though the train is not quite so well appointed as
the Norwegian train, and is fuller. We are going
due north now to a destination a thousand miles
north of Stockholm ; at every stopping-place the
snow is crisper and the air colder.
II
RUSSIA'S KLONDYKE
SO they call Karungi. The chief difference is
that in Alaska gold is got — it was there that
Burning Daylight had his " hunch " — whereas at
Karungi it is left by the traveller urging across the
frontier. The frontier itself lies midway in the river
Tornea, half Karungi one side and half the other.
But they lump the two together and call it the
Russian Klondyke.
In August, 1914, Karungi was a settlement of a
hundred and twenty souls gathered round a posting-
house and a miniature station on an infinitesimal
line that indolently served the summer farms farther
north and carried occasional trucks of iron ore from
the mountains. Then an eddy in the world-tide
caught it and swept it athwart the stream of Euro-
pean traffic. It did not come to its own, indeed, till
later in the year, when the sea route from Gefle to
Rauno, not far north of the Aland Islands at the
mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia, was closed to pas-
sengers by the danger of German mines. Goods
continued to go that way till December, and can, it
5
6 War and Revolution in Russia
is said, still go — only no one can tell you what ship
will risk the voyage, or when. Everybody and
practically everything goes by Karungi.
And now Karungi knows the sweets of success.
In three months its population increased to two
thousand. There are three hotels and a "privat-
hotel, ,, a telephone system, and a telegraph office
where you write your message in the parlour with-
out at all disturbing the family dance around you ;
a kinema, with " London Bioscope and Englisch
Krigsjournal " ; several cafes, each with its gramo-
phone ; a branch of the Stockholm Handelabank, a
Eussian diplomatic agent, and a German consulate ;
this last, however, a mere empty boast, since consul
there is none, but only the announcement nicely
painted on a shield above a shanty window. The
railway station, magnified to ten times its former
size, has stuck out arms and taken in big yards,
where the trucks lie ready for lading. A competent
station master and his assistants speak some German
and English. He has two passenger expresses to
handle every day, besides the post trains and the
goods. The greatest rush was in October and
November, before the connection here was opened
and traffic went by boat from Lulea c to Salmiss, and
thence by road to the town of Tornea.
Some five hundred people travelled each way
daily. Since then on an average eighty pass into
Russia's Klondyke 7
Sweden, a hundred and fifty into Russia every day,
with an occasional jump up to three or four hundred
when men come back from Canada to join the
colours ; and until February 15, when the last miles
of the Finnish railway were built, all these, their
.luggage, and goods had to go from Karungi in
sledges, twenty-seven kilometres, to Kaparanda,
and there cross the river to Tornea. Now the sledge
drive is only down to the river, and the two kilo-
metres across it are on the ice. When the ice melts
lighters will ply across the stream.
On the ice and the snow Karungi and its life are
built. The older buildings — that shed, for instance,
glorified now into the post office — are conspicuous
by the drifts against their sides, but the majority
stand neatly on snow, a yard or more deep. To dig
it away would be impossible, and the new railway-
lines also are, perforce, laid on top.
So far as eye can reach everything is under snow.
Moustaches turn into icicles. A window left a
chink open sticks solid with the ice formed as the
moisture in the warm air freezes, and the unwary
citizen who leaves water in his bucket must have
recourse to the exhaust steam-pipe of the railway
engine to melt it quickly. A southerly breeze warms
the air to-day, and there are only 15° of frost C. ;
yesterday there were 32°. The lowest temperature
during the winter has been 39° below freezing-point
8 War and Revolution in Russia
C.j which is just on 50° below zero Fahrenheit.
Dress at Karungi consequently approximates to one
pattern — heavy skin coat, mountain goat being the
favourite, but also sheep and other varieties, fur or
lamb's wool cap pulled well down over the ears, and
gloves of fur or heavy leather lined with wool.
In footgear there is a greater choice. Some favour
the simple golosh, others stout boots with anklets,
while every kind of high boot is to be seen, from
huge felt-lined cylinders like sewermen's waders to
the product of some smart Eskimo cobbler, with fur
on the outside, gaudy tassels dangling in front, and
pointed toes turned up as on a fifteenth-century
monument. The " nuts " of Karungi match the
colour of the tassels with bright woollen belts six
or eight inches wide round their furry waists.
It is Easter Monday, and daylight lasts from
4 a.m. to 8 p.m., while at midnight a pallid glow still
streams from the northern sky. Who would have
believed when last the leaves were young that the
new British Minister from the Court of St. James's
to Persia, Anno Domini 1915, would be transported
virtually through Lapland reclining under sheep-
skin rugs in a country sledge of gondola design with
Eskimo dogs leaping and barking at his side ?
Had he wished for elegance he might without any
difficulty have had a reindeer to draw him.
Ill
THE PORT OF SNOWS
MUSHROOM-LIKE in its growth, when the
war is over Karungi will wither like a mush-
room.
Meanwhile it makes the most of its luck. Even at
the present rate some £50 goes daily into the pockets
of the sledge owners for the passenger traffic alone.
But far more important are the goods and the mails.
On the Finnish side a huge shed has been run up,
differing only in size from the Central Hotel, the
bank, and the cafes opposite ; for everything here is
of raw, unpaiilted pinewood, and but for the fact
that the Central Hotel, with its seven bedrooms,
could be put inside the shed you might well mistake
the one for the other. The shed has an off-loading
capacity of ninety trucks, and thanks to the Easter
holidays and a strike among the workmen, now
settled (thus does fashion affect Karungi), is pretty
full. The yard outside and at the Swedish terminus
is littered with huge bales of English cotton and of
Russian flax and linen ; inside crates upon crates
of tea, coffee, dates, merchandise of every sort, are
9
10 War and Revolution in Russia
piled in immensely orderly heaps. Three hundred
spades from a Sheffield firm glitter from one corner ;
close by a pinnacle of tin pails seems to invite a
Japanese juggler to knock them over and catch
them ere they come to ground.
Much doubt appears to prevail in London as to
the forwarding of goods by this route, and two
regular agents were unable to give any information.
It is therefore worth noting that 25,000 tons of
goods have passed through Karungi since mid-
December. The principal forwarding agents are the
firm of Nyman and Shulz on the Swedish side ; on
the Finnish, Karl Boostrom, who is also the agent
in London for the former firm, except for butter,
which goes to Jan Good and Sons in Newcastle.
Single articles up to the weight of five tons can be
and have been handled ; greater weights are im-
practicable, as the sledges, even two clamped to-
gether, cannot take them. As to the post, parcels
of considerable dimensions are accepted, and the
business done may be judged by the fact that a
separate yard and some thirty yards of platform are
reserved on either side for the mails. Here hundreds
of packages, many from Siberia with valuable skins,
are being put into the vans, and lie waiting some-
times to a depth of four feet. And parcels and
letters for prisoners of war travel free over the
whole line.
The Port of Snows 11
So all day long, from six to six, when the frontier
gates are shut, two endless snakes slither across
the frozen river, giving convulsive jerks as the
sledges of which they are made strike hummocks
in the ice, the drivers shouting lustily and a pleasant
tinkle rising from the bells to that marvellous pale
blue sky only to be seen under the northern sun.
But there is another less bright side to Karungi's
bustling life. Among the thousands travelling thus
with a queerly complacent interest through one of
the most wintry of habitable places have been many
refugees — Germans packed off from Petrograd,
Russians ejected from Germany or escaped from
most barbarous treatment. Wholly without money,
often almost in rags, what can they have expected
when they stepped from the train on to the bitter
snow ? Not what they found, one could swear.
For the Russian Government has established at
Karungi a branch of its Legation in Stockholm, with
one of its secretaries made Consul and Red Cross
officer for the purpose. This admirable man has
since December devoted himself wholly to relieving
misery and succouring the distressed. Other means
have not been neglected, and the Russian Govern-
ment has sent an agent of the Nordisk Reise-
bureau no fewer than seventeen times to Berlin to
fetch away private luggage detained there. But the
personal touch is worth more than many journeys
12 War and Revolution in Rwsia
of couriers, and the work done by M. V in help-
ing the needy and sick is inestimable. He has
organised a restaurant under a brisk Swedish
hostess twenty yards from the platform, where
every Russian can find a hot meal, a good coat, and
a copy of the Gospels to cheer him on his way home-
wards. And English and French are welcomed and
fed there too ; nor even are Germans turned away.
Every train is met, every inquirer is answered
kindly, every wayfarer sent away with his heart
warmed by simple, unaffected love. " God still
works wonders in the world," M. V said of
something else. He is indeed one of them himself.
In and around Swedish Karungi are many soldiers.
A detachment of the XXth are quartered there, very
picturesque in their sheepskins, and on skis, and
more workmanlike in appearance than the military
one sees in Stockholm in the eighteenth-century
tricorne that is still worn. But in Finnish Karungi,
besides the few gendarmes busy with passports, one
sentry only is to be seen.
There is no Russian but laughs at the idea of
Sweden as a possible object of attack. Though that
fear seems still to afflict the Swedish mind, it has
never any foundation in fact.
The trains on the Warsaw line are crowded —
crowded with troops, crowded with officers, crowded
with nurses, crowded with civilians, crowded even
The Port of Snows 13
with babies. There were forty-two in the second-
class carriage, including at the start the only drunken
man — a civilian — I have seen in Russia. How he
got drunk was a mystery, for liquor can only be
obtained by the ordinary person on presentation of
a doctor's prescription, and under the eye of a
police sergeant. But drunk he was, and he was
forthwith bundled out of the train, and another
took his place, and there were again forty-two.
This is a large allowance, since two nights and a day
and a half in a completely full coach must entail
some discomfort, but everyone was so cheerful and
full of brotherly feeling that it did not matter. It
is worth far more than the money you save — some
ten shillings — not to take a bed in the wagon-lits
company's coach, but to occupy your bunk in the
State railway carriage, a good wide bunk where you
can sleep comfortably but not undress much. No
doubt undressing and washing have their points,
but pleasant company has its own too.
In our crowded compartment we all talk and are
jolly ; food is obtainable at frequent stopping-
places, for part of the way there is a restaurant car,
and an almost endless stream of tea gushes from
our fellow passengers' tin kettles, replenished from
the heater-stove that lives in a cupboard at the end
of the car, or from a refreshment stall organised for
the soldiers by the wayside. My immediate com-
14 War and Revolution in Russia
panions are the wife of an army doctor, who has
written to her to join him if she is not afraid of the
cannonading, and she, as befits the daughter of a
Cossack colonel, scorns the idea ; and a captain of
the 16th Siberian Regiment on his way to the front.
His men have been there since September, and he
has been eating his heart out, detained far away on
peaceful service. He is a splendid specimen of man-
hood, trim, vigorous, immensely alert in speech and
movement, with imperturbable clear eyes and a
bristling reddish moustache. These Siberians are
a wonderful race — the Canadians of Russia, the race
of the future.
The officers all wear khaki jackets, but the usual
blue breeches ; this, he explains, is only for travel ;
in action officers, as well as men, are all khaki.
Swords, of course, are left behind, and his fighting
equipment will consist of rifle and three revolvers.
He will carry a thousand revolver cartridges, weigh-
ing alone ten pounds.
An atmosphere of the front pervades everything.
It is a curious sensation when you realise for the first
moment that some forty miles off lies the German
Army, no longer divided from you by that comfort-
ing silver streak of water, with the British Fleet in
being, but only these miles of flat land, and that you
depend on the stout Russian hearts between you
and them to prevent their being on you in two days,
The Port of Snows 15
burning and slaughtering. After Wilna each car is
given a sentry, who scrutinises every passenger
wishing to pass from one car to another. Going to
have dinner I am stopped, and only allowed to pass
on the restaurant waiter vouching for my being in
the company of an officer. On the second morning
the sentry forbids tea to be brought into the cars,
only yielding to the insistence of an artillery officer
who wears the aide-de-camp's aiguillettes.
The Red Cross nurses are delightful to watch.
The " little sisters," as they are called by everyone,
evidently take the greatest delight in their calling.
They wear every possible kind of costume — velvet,
silk, leather, cotton — but all wear the linen head-
dress typical of the Sister of Charity in the Orthodox
Church. These, of course, are not " sisters " in the
religious sense, but the tradition of the headdress
remains.
Poland when we wake is warm and bright. There
is no longer any snow, and, bathed in a treacherous
sun, the pine woods with the intermingled fields
smile gladly as if the world were at peace. It might
be the country, to all appearance, anywhere between
Weybridge and Witley. Half an hour in front of us,
at Warsaw, the German aeroplanes dropped twelve
bombs yesterday.
IV
TOWARDS THE FURNACE
FAR down in the south, over a thousand miles
away, the guns are speaking — Poland is lit by
the flames, and resounds to the crash of her ruined
homes. Here life is still snowbound ; deep, heavy
snow, no longer with the crisp sparkle of hard frost,
but damp and nasty, already half thawed. By
Viborg it has begun to rain, and we know that spring
is upon us. The winter in Finland has been terribly
long, and the Finns look, if possible, a shade
gloomier than usual. They are a dour race, and,
though there are springs of sweetness underneath,
the surface is hard and untractable, even repelling.
They have their reasons for gloom, and the chief
is the effect on their country of the war. Nine-
tenths of Finnish trade is in the exportation of wood,
which goes down the Baltic in heavy barges to
nourish the industries of other lands. This trade
is at a standstill, for the barges are locked up by the
German Fleet, and millions of pounds' worth of wood
lie stacked all along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia.
If the war lasts over the summer Finland, never
j6
Towards the Furnace 17
rich, will be almost ruined. The Finns have, too,
the example of Scarborough and Libau, and fear for
the coast towns. They cannot fight in the war, for
now they have no army of their own, nor do they
serve in the Russian Army, but have thrown them-
selves into Red Cross work with such resources as
they can. Theirs is a position to inspire sympathy
and respect.
To the Allies Finland has become a corridor lead-
ing to the door of Russia, and as you near the gate-
way you are surrounded by evidences of a changed
life. Russians joining the train regard the foreigner
with considerable interest — when they wake to the
fact that you are English, with pleasure. Here it is
a retired general, who introduces himself and tells
you how his daughter has gone to be a hospital
nurse in England ; will she get across the North Sea
in safety ? You reassure him, having come yourself
a week ago.
She has gone to join an Australian doctor who
came to Russia by the Trans-Siberian and worked for
several months with the army ; not a word of
Russian did he speak, but he got on perfectly, and
his skill was the admiration of all. Now he has gone
on duty in England, and has invited the Russian
general's daughter to his hospital. A pretty instance
of the ever-growing interchange of life between the
two countries. There it is a young officer who
c
18 War and Revolution in Russia
jumps up, unable to express himself in words,
" pumphandles " you, all smiles, and as suddenly
sits down again.
You discover that you are undergoing a change
too. You thought you were plain Mr. So-and-so,
travelling for your own purposes as you have often
done before. Not at all. You are an Englishman,
an ally. Even the gendarme officer at the frontier,
properly strict in carrying out his duty, regards you
with less suspicion once your identity as a " soyuz-
nik " is established. For anyone but a Briton or
a Frenchman it is, in fact, very difficult to travel in
Russia now. But you say the Russians are as our-
selves.
Petrograd ! Rain, heavy rain, glistening mac-
kintoshes, and every man, woman, and child in
goloshes, for the streets are half an inch deep in
water from the melting snow, now being dug up and
dumped from hundreds of carts on to the surface
of the milky slush that covers the frozen Neva. In
such an atmosphere a deputation of distinguished
professors, men of letters, and economists had been
waiting over two hours at the dismal Finland
station to greet the delegates of the " Great Britain
to Poland and Galicia " Fund Committee. If there
had been any doubt before, there can be none now
as to the strength and sincerity of the pleasure with
which the existence of the fund has been hailed in
Towards the Furnace 19
Russia, or how serious a token of good will the
advent of the deputation of its committee seems to
Russian eyes.
Professors Lutugin and Chaikovsky are the
spokesmen, and express in heartfelt tones the sense
of Russian interest in the object of the fund, and of
Russian joy at the movement of sympathy in Great
Britain. Their words are repeated next day by the
entire Press of the capital, and in substance by the
numerous deputations of Poles, Jews, and others
interested who come to call on the delegates.
SECTION II
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE, 1915
V
LIFE IN WARSAW
BOMBS are not dropped on Warsaw every day
— onlyloccasionally. Nor do they do great
damage. The principal objective of the Germans
has been the new bridge over the Vistula, but so far
they have not succeeded in hitting it, and their
repeated want of success has induced them to
abandon their efforts — except occasionally. Now
they prefer to send out six or eight aeroplanes
together on raids against country towns and drop a
hundred or so bombs in rapid succession. By this
means they must kill or wound some people, and in
fact do : of course, almost exclusively non-com-
batants. On three nights during the week we have
been here they are believed to have nibbled at War-
saw ; the lights of the town were suddenly put out,
and some shooting was afterwards reported, but if
there was an attack it must have been easily scared
away.
ao
Life in Warsaw 21
Warsaw, except when an attack is expected, has
about a third of its lamps lit, and now, besides the
desire to be inconspicuous to the Germans, there is
an added reason for economy — want of coal. The
great coal mines on the Silesian frontier being in
German hands, the whole of the coal for Russia has
to come from one district, and the output is not
enough to satisfy all the big cities, which have
therefore been running short. Warsaw factories
normally consume one hundred trucks of coal a day ;
they are lucky now if they get a supply of twenty.
Worse still : Petrograd woke one morning to the
fact that it was threatened with a coal famine, and
instantly took measures that the capital should
have the first claim on coal ; the second should
belong to Moscow, and the third only to Warsaw.
Warsaw, therefore, expects in a few weeks to be
without coal altogether. Fortunately the weather
will be turning warmer, but especially in view of the
high price of wood the lack of coal will be a serious
factor.
Gentlemen who write skittishly about the brilliant
social life of Warsaw are, not to put too fine a point
on it, talking through their hats. True, the theatres
are open and well attended, but this is due to the
presence in the city of a great number of officers
waiting to be sent on duty, and meanwhile kicking
their heels. The entire life of Warsaw has, in fact,
22 War and Revolution in Russia
been hitched to the chariot of war, and consists of
the military, of those supplying their needs, and of
others struggling not to be suffocated by the dust of
the world war. On the north and south fronts
together are fourteen armies ; the fifteenth, they
say, is quartered at the Hotel Bristol, Warsaw.
There, and at the two other principal hotels, is a
kaleidoscopic bustle and chatter of officers, Cossack
colonels, generals, aide-de-camps all day long, and
orderlies in the hall and passages. Large grey Red
Cross motors stand at the door, ready at a moment's
notice to start on a hundred mile journey. And
spies, or so it is said, spies everywhere, so that when
two armoured cars came from England and were
sent up to the front not long since, it was known at
once where they were to break their journey,
although not arranged beforehand, and half a dozen
bombs were dropped in the night, fortunately with-
out effect, except on the garden. The greater part
of the furniture in the hall of the hotel has been
removed to prevent eavesdropping. Warsaw still
remains the focus of military interest.
The fear of the Germans has vanished. No one
believes it now possible that they can ever take
Warsaw. In October was the terrible time, and you
can see a post put up in a wood not eight versts, less
than six miles, from the city with the inscription
scrawled on it : " Kaiserliche Deutsche Grenze."
Life in Warsaiv 23
Three things saved Warsaw then. The prohibition
of alcohol, the bad roads, and the fact that the
Germans thought the absence of defences a trap.
While they were hesitating, and before they could
get up the guns, two Siberian regiments were rushed
into the town. They tore straight from the train,
deployed into line, and charged with such ferocity
that the Germans broke or fled. But almost every
one of their officers fell. The colonel of one, mortally
wounded, cried : " I die for my own country." He
was a Pole, for in these two Siberian regiments were
forty per cent, of Poles, who had been sent into the
army in that far-off land, full, as it is, of golden
promise.
There is another Governor-General of Warsaw
now. He who was here at the beginning of the war,
thinking it impossible to defend the city, summoned
some of the principal citizens and told them that
perhaps the troops would be withdrawn : " You
need not be afraid, however, we are fighting with a
civilised adversary, who will respect non-com-
batants." Three days afterwards came the news of
Kalish, of which the Germans made a second
Louvain.
VI
PERIMYSHL
THAT is what the Russians have always called
it, and that will be its official name ; and as
it is so much easier for us than the Polish Przemysl
(pronounce, Pshemysh'l, and drop the final "1"),
why should not we use it too ? There was a time
when part of Galicia was Russian, before it became
Polish, and about half the population consists of
Russini or Ruthenians who are first cousins of the
Little Russians of Kiev, who claim to be the first
and purest of all the Russians.
Perimyshl, yesterday and to-day bathed in sun-
shine, lies nestling in its ring of hills, green with the
fresh bloom of a still cold northern spring, like some
lesser Florence, save that it lies on two small rivers
instead of the one great Arno. A month ago Peri-
myshl fell and the sense of a captured city is strong
upon it. In Lwow an effort can be made not to
speak German ; here, unless Polish is one of your
accomplishments, it is impossible not to. Not that
there are many native German-speaking inhabi-
tants, these being mostly Poles and Jews, but Ger-
24
Perimyshl 25
man and Polish were the two official languages only
a month ago, and Russian is as yet seldom to be
found. That coquettish Austrian cap, too, is to be
seen everywhere : students wear it, porters wear it,
Austrian Red Cross officers retained here on their
errand of mercy wear it. Whiskers cut a la Franz
Josef have not had time to change. Austrian goods
still fill the shops. And every pair of eyes in the
street asks you the same unspoken question, What
is to be our future ? The eyes do not mostly look
very sad or desperate, only questioning.
It must be said that the Russian military authori-
ties have given the populace every reason for con-
fidence. The change inevitably means a great
break, and the search that had to be made for ten
thousand Austrian soldiers who changed into
civilian clothes, hoping thus to escape, must have
caused some distress ; but, to mention only two
points, wives of Austrian officers taken in the town
receive support from the Russian Government
through the commandant of the fortress, while
goods formerly the property of the Austrian Govern-
ment which can be proved to have been honestly
bought by civilians are exempted from the procla-
mation requisitioning all such articles, and reason-
able time is allowed for claims to be substantiated.
Practically no damage has been done to the town,
which was not bombarded, and the occasional
26 War and Revolution in Russia
aeroplanes were careful in their choice of a target.
Further proclamations issued on a variety of sub-
jects enjoin no one to take arms, motor-cars, furni-
ture, or domestic utensils from the town without
leave ; prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquor ; com-
mand inhabitants to be within doors after ten
o'clock ; forbid coming or going from the town
without permits, prohibit the hoarding of money,
the depreciation of the rouble below the value of
3^ kronen ; instruct the populace not to buy from
soldiers (thus discouraging theft) food, clothes,
horses, cows, gold or jewellery, not to talk to
prisoners, spread false news, or sell goods at higher
prices than those fixed by authority ; enumerate
the conditions on which schools or clubs may be
opened ; and fix a temporary scale of wages as
follows : —
For 1 man and a 2-horse cart
a carpenter
a workman with tools
ditto without tools
a woman worker
an overseer
Another sadder " bill "
2 roubles a day.
1.20
1.0
. . 0.80
. . 0.60
. . 2.00
announces that since the
brutal conduct of the Austrian officers in cutting out
the tongue of a captured Russian telephonist no
Austrian officer, being captured, shall be allowed to
keep his sword.
Perimyshl 27
The mystery of the fall of Perimyshl is not hard to
solve. True, mystery always attaches to the fall of
an important fortress, and rumour is busier over the
taking of bricks and mortar than over the defeat of
an army in the field, but this mystery was surely a
shade vamped up. As f or a " scandal," it is hard to
discover where anyone can have spied it, unless
indeed things have a different proportion for
American eyes.
The reasons for the fall of Perimyshl, then, were
mainly these : —
(1) The extravagant size of the garrison and
population combined.
(2) The fact that large stores had been corruptly
sold by officers of the Austrian " intendanz " to
speculators.
(3) The fact that the fortress was not very
heroically defended.
(4) The severe bombardment of the forts, which
made the Austrians believe in the presence of a
besieging army three times the size of that which
actually took the city.
Perimyshl was a first-class fortress designed by a
brilliant Polish engineer. Defended by thirty thou-
sand men and with half its civil population, even
with all its unwieldy numbers, had they been
possessed of even greater stomach for a fight it must
have held out much longer. Unfortunately for
28 War and Revolution in Russia
Austria neither of these two conditions was satisfied.
Faulty strategy led to General Kusmanek being
shut up in a small town with 150,000 men plus a
civil population of 56,000, and neither he nor any-
one else had the genius to give cohesion and fighting
grit to this preposterous mass of humanity. The
Austrian officers lounged at the cafes, we are told,
powdered themselves, scented themselves, amused
themselves with ladies whom Horace Walpole would
have described as " virgins of the Strand." But
what conceivable work or real interest was there for
them, cooped up for months, and all day long hear-
ing the distant roar of the Russian artillery ? A few
thousand men only were required to man the forts :
the rest useless. Save under an exceptional com-
mander, any troops must have undergone a gradual
demoralisation. The Austrians, as we are never
tired of reminding each other, hold the record for
being always beaten, and the individual behaviour
within Perimyshl was on a low level, but had it been
of the highest order on the part of the regimental
officers, a study of the situation does not justify the
belief that this would have materially affected the
result of the siege. There were fifty-three forts ;
only three of the smaller were captured, and this at a
cost to the Russians of 20,000 men. This does not
suggest actual cowardice on the part of the defence.
The Austrian officers, besides other pets (vide
Periymshl 29
supra), had their rooms well stocked with butter,
sweets, and preserves. Very likely, but there were
only some 3000 officers, and what might have served
for them, even had they eaten thir horses, would
not have sufficed the 180,000 odd other mouths in
the town at the time of its surrender for more than
a day. Nor do specimens of bread found at Perim-
yshl carry greater conviction as to the abundance
alleged by some. Large stores were found after the
capture, but that was due to the fact that the
speculators who bought corruptly from the Austrian
quartermasters held over too long and lost the
golden moment for which they had waited ; the
surrender took them by surprise and they were
unable to disgorge. The point of exhaustion was
not reached, but hunger was in the town. During
the siege a cat fetched 10 kronen, a goose 40, and
although the tale that the poor were reduced to
gnaw wood is probably an exaggeration, still it is
clear that if cats are openly bought for human food
a considerable shortage must exist. Had General
Kusmanek had a garrison of reasonable size, and
had he been able to get rid of a portion of " les
bouches inutiles," the stores that he believed to
make up the total at his disposition would have
lasted for months longer.
" Mais oui," said a distinguished Russian officer
with a deprecatory shrug of his shoulders, " il n'y a
30 Wctfr and Revolution in Russia
pas a dire — ils etaient poltrons." The Austrian
officers are far less staunch than the Germans. Take
them apart, and with a little flattery they can be
induced to impart much information ; whereas the
German will reply; " For whom do you take me ?
I am an officer " in such a tone that further attempts
are obviously hopeless. But as to the specific
charge of cowardice, Colonel immediately went
on to correct himself. How, indeed, was it possible
for any officers efficiently to command such troops
as the Austrian ? He had himself seen an officer and
seven men, the remains of his platoon, captured ; of
the seven men one was a Czech, one a Jew, one a
Slovak, one a Pole, one a Croatian, one an Italian,
and only to one of the seven, a German-Austrian,
could the officer make himself understood with ease.
Not only were there constant quarrels in the garri-
son, especially between the Magyars, who in this
district as well as elsewhere earned a vile reputation
among the population, and the Slav troops, but
when the big sortie was made in the hope of break-
ing through towards the Carpathians, the Czech
battalions refused to move. What wonder that in
such circumstances the defence was not conducted to
the last limit of heroic self-devotion ? That musty
injunction, divide et impera, by which the Haps-
burgs once ruled, has become a sword against them,
and should be rewritten in memory of an old and
Perimyshl 31
frivolous Emperor who had a greater chance than
any man of our time — divide et perde.
Up on the forts is ample evidence of the severity
of the Russian bombardment. Here were only 3- or
4-inch guns to support the mitrailleuses and rifle-
fire should an attack be contemplated. The big
guns, wisely, were kept behind, concealed in the
woods. But life in the forts must have been a dread-
ful thing. In front, above, behind, the thick earth
beaten down on its substratum of solid concrete is
pitted and rent with the Russian fire. Far below in
the bomb-proof shelters where the defenders lived
like moles, the earth must have rocked and the air
hummed to their tortured ears with the hail of
bursting steel. Here an 11 -inch shell has struck one
of the gun cupolas and glanced off into the oak
glades beyond. But that glancing blow scooped a
hole inches deep in the steel, tore cupola and gun
from their foundations, and sent the whole work of
cement and earth crashing over on its back in utter
desolation. There you can see where an 8-inch shell
exploded on the roadway leading to the fort, and the
road for the time being ceased to exist. If the
evidence of a Polish telephone engineer, employed
to keep the wires in the fortress in order, is to be
trusted, the Austrian shooting was far from being so
good : " Vier hundert Meter nach Links ! Drei
hundert Meter zu weit ! " were the comments con-
32 War and Revohdio7i in Russia
stantly heard from the observation posts. The
Russians had the range to a nicety. Yet such was
the strength of the works, supported by the Austrian
heavy artillery, guns that now stand in a forlorn
row, their breech-blocks blown out and mutely
pointing to the sky, dogs that can no longer bay
the moon — that far less damage was done by the
bombardment than by the subsequent destruction
of the forts by the Austrians themselves.
On March 8th-23rd the Austrians fired 10,300
rounds at the Russian lines, killing forty persons
and wounding some two hundred, mostly non-com-
batants. It was the swan-song of Perimyshl. The
next morning a Russian officer was dressing at
5 a.m. when he was suddenly flung across his room
and his dog was hurled from the floor to the ceiling
by a violent explosion in the big Siedlitz fort,
8 versts away. This was the prelude to a series of
explosions that lasted for four hours, destroying, so
far as was possible, the forts, railway bridge, electri-
cal and other works. Presently an Austrian colonel
in a motor-car with a white flag drove out to the
Russian lines and asked to see the Divisional General
in command. To his surprise he was told that he
could see the General of the investing army : it was
contrary to Austrian practice that G.H.Q. should
come so near the field of active operations. Taken
before General Selivanov, he presented a sealed
Perimyshl 33
letter which began by saying that no food was left
in the fortress, a confession which enabled the
Russians, hitherto unaware of the extent to which
the food supply of the defence had been depleted,
to insist on unconditional surrender. " In the first
place these explosions must stop " — Boom ! "No
more damage must be done " — Boom ! Boom !
" But, General, it is impossible ; they began after
I left, and there is no means now of — " Boom !
And in fact it did prove impossible. Nor was this
the only damage done ; for on hearing the first
explosions, many of the Russians, thinking an
accident had befallen the defence, went forward to
attack, and were caught in the mine areas. All who
were so caught, even though slightly wounded, lost
their sight. Even now mines, undiscovered, explode
from time to time.
At noon Colonel Pnevsky advanced into the
fortress with an escort of a battalion of infantry and
a battery of artillery. But the bridge over the
river Wiar was blown up, and they could not pass.
Then Colonel Pnevsky declared that he needed no
escort, and advancing alone, swam the river, and
entered the captured town alone and, dripping from
every stitch, rode through the streets to General
Kusmanek's quarters. His deed was an inspiration,
a moment of greatness, a symbol of the dash and
high spirit with which Russia wages this war for
34 War and Revolution in Russia
freedom and for right. The pourparlers lasted till
next morning, and at 4 a.m. Colonel Pnevsky rode
back into the Russian lines carrying with him the
complete terms of the capitulation. The Russian
troops immediately advanced and entered Perimyshl
oyer a bridge of boats. It was then that a still
greater surprise awaited the Austrians. The army
that took Perimyshl and 130,000 prisoners amounted
to but 60,000 men. %
From the point of view of the Russians, it was a
model siege and a great feat of arms ; and the
civilians in the town were practically untouched by
the military operations. Had the position been
reversed and the Austrians or Germans conducted
such a siege, it is easy to imagine how much would
have been left of the town. As it is, the villages in
the Russian fire zone remained intact : those within
range of the Austrian guns were wiped out.
VII
IN THE RUSSIAN TRENCHES
THE noise is not terrific, but continuous, and
most varied. If music could be completely
expressed in colour, as it has partially been ex-
pressed in curves on sensitised plates, this sym-
phony would look like nothing so much as the
patchwork quilt on which Mark Twain's chameleon
burst in the effort to turn all colours at once. The
necessity is not to talk loud but to " look lively,"
and looking lively here means keeping constant
watch lest one shows the tip of a stray hair above
the parapet. Russian soldiers run to solidity
rather than height, but in the 4 J foot deep com-
munication trench even they must stoop a good
deal ; for a six foot man half a mile of fast going
doubled up is painful, and our first impression in
trench No. 1 is of immense relief at being able to sit
down and stretch. The — th Siberian Rifles hold
the line here, and the Germans are trying to give
them a warm time to-day. " Not an attack, no,"
says Captain Vladimir Vladimirovich Burkovsky,
who receives us. " Perhaps they want to make ua
35
36 War and Revolution in Russia
think that one is coming ; or perhaps it is that a
fresh battalion has come into the trench and is
being specially energetic." He only knows what is
happening in his trench, but in fact there has been
fighting this morning all along this part of the line.
Quite early the big guns began to boom, and when
we got out of the Decauville light railway, which
links up the positions on the Northern Front, we
were told that we could not go anywhere. In the
end we went somewhere else, a spot to which the
friendly prohibition did not formally apply, but at
several points it required the presence of the Briga-
dier-General, whose guests we were, to get us past
the sentries. So we came ultimately to a wood.
A very pleasant pine wood, interspersed with birch ;
so it looked from a distance. Come up to it, and you
find a veritable fortress, compared to which Spott-
sylvania would be a joke. Chevaux-de-f rises and a
wilderness of wire entanglements, some with a new
and special contrivance, front, flank, and almost
surround the redoubts, which melt into the sandy
carpet below the pines so as to be invisible more
than a few feet off. The pines spring gracefully
towards the laughing heavens ; only a few here and
there have been felled to give the riflemen a clear
view ; and Heaven help those who try to storm this
wood. It is Tarak-Balimovski, round which have
been fights that in earlier days would have ranked
In the Russian Trenches 37
as fearful battles. Here the Germans contested the
ground with desperation as they retired, but the
Russians were too quick on them, and they could
not entrench. Nothing short of a cataclysm would
dislodge the Russians now. Into the wood we
plunge and presently emerge at another point where
the Siberians have their quarters. Many are
occupied in making those wire entanglements with
the new contrivance ; others water the horses
tethered behind a leafy screen. Behind, to the
right, to the left, the Russian big guns boom,
quite close some of them, while the Germans try in
vain to get the range for their 8-inch howitzers.
The large field in front is pockmarked with the
explosions. Monster holes like inverted mush-
rooms sunk into the ground, measuring thirty-four
yards round, show the efforts of their 12-inch
cannon, and hard by they have reduced what was a
village to dust and a few walls, standing in gaunt
unconsciousness of the caricature scrawled on them
by retreating Germans and advancing Russians.
Across the field is another wood of hazel or young
birch. As we pass through, one of the two officers
with us says : " You can hardly go along this path
at night. The Germans have the range splendidly
here, and keep dropping shells on to it. One night
some brushwood caught fire, and the Germans,
thinking that our fellows were coming, fired over
38 War and Revolution in Russia
two hundred shells at the spot. Ah, here we must
get down. ,, Get down we do into the communica-
tion trench, and go forward in single file crouching
and only turning aside to let others, with big pots
of soup, pass us. The bass instruments behind still
keep up the music, while here the trebles begin to
chime in too. Gentle purrs, long whines, screeches,
whistles, and moans fill the air ; we realise that but
three feet perhaps over our heads death is flying.
Another sound joins the chorus, multiplies, and
almost dominates it, a sound singularly unpleasant
and perturbing, like the detonation of a schoolboy's
squib, but sharper and with a touch of viciousness.
It is caused by the German explosive bullets hitting
the trees and bursting. The officers, who wrongly
call them dum-dums, say that the Germans always
use them. I can at all events vouch for the fact that
during my brief experience their use was liberal
and continuous.
Swinging round the corner, two more gnomes
carry a bag on a pole, and from that bag hang two
boots, swaying and knocking one against the other.
Our senior officer stops to inquire. " A grenade . . .
burst right on top of him." The officer asks crouch-
ing, and crouching the soldier salutes and makes
answer ; for did either stand upright the chances
are that he would join the one who has gone. So
we pass on, crouching. >
In the Russian Trenches 39
In the second trench, guarded only by one sentry,
we find respite from the zip-zip and the horrid
crack of the bursting explosives ; another minute,
and we are in No. 1.
" Send for a periscope, Vladimir Vladimirovich.
I want to show the Englishman what we see of the
Germans." The Captain expresses his regret. He
had four periscopes this morning, but three have
been shot to pieces, and the fourth is in use further
along. " That sounds like good shooting. Are the
Germans so close ? " we ask. " It varies. Here
their trenches are about 100 yards away ; but in
some places not more than twenty-five. This
trench forms an angle ; we have the Germans not
only in front but on our right." The word is hardly
spoken when we hear the soft sound we know too
close at hand. Everyone makes for cover. The
trench of course is built zigzag and the firing
positions fully protected, but in the middle of the
trench, which at this point is some four feet wide,
it is possible to be enfiladed. Another new song in
the air like the tune of a bushman's whip when
it refuses to crack. " Ah, yes," says the Captain,
" that is a hand-machine gun. Here is one of ours.
You see one man can use it." If it were not in the
corner of a twenty-century battlefield, you would
take this queer looking instrument for one of the
more elaborate blunderbusses of a hundred and
40 War and Revolution in Russia
fifty years ago. For some twenty seconds its tune
fills the air, then stops and gives way again to the
hiss and crack, the smash of our shells bursting in
the German lines and the dull roar of the artillery
far away. " And how long do you stop in the
trenches ? " " Three days in and three days out is
the rule," we are told, " but of course when there is
much pressure it may be longer. We were once in
the trenches for twelve days without being relieved !
Well, good-bye. It's so good of you to come and
see us ; the monotony is the worst part, you know."
With a hearty handshake we go off, still crouching,
gnome-like. In the communication trench we pass
the other gnomes coming back, their pots brimming
with savoury soup, vegetables and meat boiled up
together and served in the soup, their arms hugging
generous brown loaves. The Germans are said to
get only 2 lbs. of bread a day between every three
men. As we cross the large field again we note
where fresh shell has fallen. The German gun-
layers are still short by some hundred yards. In
the colonel's bombproof shelter tea and oranges
await us for lunch.
VIII
LOYAL LWOW
TEN years ago, in the ancient city of Lwow,
Lvoof, Leopol, or Lemberg, for by these
names it has been variously known, the Polish
National Democratic party, which represents the
heart and soul of Poland's hopes, resolved within
itself that, should war come about between Austria
and Russia, Austrian-Poland, otherwise called
Galicia, should plump for Russia. Not that the
Poles loved Russia more, nor yet that they loved
Austria less. The Austrian rule indeed was not
melodramatically oppressive. It was not, certainly,
all that the surface seemed, which would have made
Galicia appear a favoured child, with her own
Parliament, her own Polish Stadthalter, her own
University, her own banks, and her Uniate Bishops
for such of her sons as belonged to that peculiar
Church, chiefly known in England from a case
brought from Canada before the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council. There was a certain quiet but
none the less effective opposition to the economic
progress of the country, which, however mild com-
41
42 War and Revolution in Russia
pared to the ruthless oppression of the Poles in
Prussia, kept alive a sufficient distrust in Galician
minds. But it is indubitable that of all the Polands,
Austrian-Poland was in many respects the most
free. No, the Poles within the stretch of Austria's
sceptre plumped for Russia because they knew that
only under Russia could Poland hope to attain
reunion and free national life.
The moment you cross the frontier at Brody you
recognise the handiwork of Austria. What good
roads ! What neat towns ! What fine stations !
The station of Lwow is a capital instance of Austrian
architecture : bold, simple, convenient, finished
with delicate ornament and fine sculpture, and
marked by that taste which never deserts the
Austrian craftsman and never visits the German.
A very wide boulevard leads from it towards the
centre of the town, paved with the same perfect
setts that are the delight of Vienna. This town itself
is a delight, exactly what a provincial capital ought
to be. Spacious streets, welcoming parks, excellent
statues seen to great advantage, dainty shops filled
with appetising Viennese goods, and all of that
quiet, pretty style which is nothing so much as
" gemuthlich," with just enough seventeenth and
eighteenth century buildings demurely peeping
out to give it the gently mellow baroque flavour
that suggests the presence of ancient aristocracy.
Loyal Lwow 43
Lwow reminds you of Salzburg, of Graz ; it is a
Vienna in little with nice shades of local meaning
and character.
In such a setting could anything conceivable
under the heading " free national life " be achieved ?
Austria, with her genius for polished external civili-
sation, has never even grasped the existence of the
fact expressed by those words, and when Venice or
Bohemia or Bosnia revolts from her soulless admin-
istration, or Serbia refuses to come under it, to
Austrian eyes such conduct bears only the mark of
that Prince who made the first revolt of all. In her
pride and victory Austria refused to learn the
lesson hardly taught to many proud empires that no
rule can be lasting, no power great which treats the
component parts of empire as private possessions to be
exploited, petted, protected, abused ; and in her sorrow
and defeat she will still refuse to learn the lesson.
But the Poles, looking up from below, saw clearly
and took their measures accordingly. Through all
the petty intrigues conducted from Vienna to
weaken their solidarity, in spite of attempts to
prejudice them against Russia and make them
quarrel with the Russian Poles, in spite of the
insidious encouragement of German Socialism, they
held firmly to their idea and their hope. And so
when the thunder crashed and they found them-
selves in the heart of the storm, they were cool and
44 War and Revolution in Russia
steadfast. Galicia was justly proud of its " sokols,"
gymnastic and semi-military societies, much en-
couraged by the Austrian Government in the hope
that they would prove a prolific recruiting ground.
On the outbreak of war the sokols of Eastern
Galicia were mustered at Lwow, and a strong effort
was made by the Austrian representative to obtain
from them a declaration of loyalty and the oath of
service. The leaders of the sokols prevaricated :
their numbers were not complete, their kit had not
arrived ; in any case there was no need to be pre-
cipitate. Their numbers swelled until they became,
with ingenious intention, an embarrassment to the
life of the city. Sixty thousand strong, the flower
of young Galician manhood, they marched forth to
camp nearer the frontier, but — oh, strange ! as they
proceeded their columns waned and pined away,
until on reaching their destination there were not
more than a remnant of less than five thousand.
To them the leaders put the question fairly, Do
you want to fight for Austria ? If you do, we will
will not put difficulties in your way. Of the 5000,
300 answered Yes, and joined the Austrian ranks.
Out of 60,000, 300. In Western Galicia, where the
sokols were mobilised at Cracow, the Government
was in a position to exercise more effective pressure,
and got 10,000, but chiefly Socialists and other non-
national elements of the nation.
Loyal Lwow 45
Immediately following the Russian occupation
the Polish National party produced a review,
edited at Lwow. It was called Unification. They
did not believe it would sell in the troublous times
of war, and allowed for a sale of three hundred
copies. The first number sold over three thousand.
Unification is their motto — it was their dream ; its
realisation has been promised them, and in the
fulfilment of that promise their national destiny
will be achieved.
»
IX
OUT OF THE BELEAGUERED CITY
" ALL through ! Oh, but ye-es ! The whole
JL"\. siege ! You see, I was — what you call it ? — oh,
it is so long since I talk English. Lots and lots of my
parents are English, and my cousin is an officer, a
marine officer, you know, in the English Navy, but
all the war I haven't spoken one word, so I begin all
to forget. I was in a hospital in Germany when the
war broke out — yes, that's right, isn't it ? — studying
to be a doctor. Then I went to Vienna. Why ?
Oh well, I am Austrian by nationality. Of course I
had to go and be a nurse, and I wanted rather to be
with the Austrians.
" When the siege was over I wanted to go back
to Germany to finish my studies, but they won't
let me. You see, my mother was German. It's
such a funny long Danish name, ours, and so,
you see, I'm a — what you call it ? — a sort of
confusion."
It was strange to think that this bright girl had
been, as she said, " all through."
" I and another young lady were left all alone at
46
Out of the Beleaguered City 47
the Klinik in Vienna for a time — all the doctors had
gone off to the army. Vienna was then rather, how
to say, ach, normale, only there were lots of wounded,
60,000 you know, and everyone was getting a little
sad. We both did everything in our ambulanz, the
room for the lightly wounded, you know, things we
knew nothing about, ordering receipts [Anglice :
writing prescriptions] — everything. At the front,
of course, the nurses have to do operations too —
little ones — that's what I like, the chirurgie, though
it's not my fach — I was working at Irrenkrankheit —
you know, mad people. Some of the doctors here
were awful — the ones who weren't Austrians — you
know. So, so lazy, and didn't do anything for the
poor wounded. And the chief dentist knew simply
nothing, he was a Jew — the under one, who was a
surgeon, did all the dental work. The head of one
hospital was put in prison. And weren't we all glad !
I was under a splendid doctor — he's one of the finest
' operateurs ' in Perimyshl — at the Garrisonspital.
He's a Russian, by the way, though somehow he's
an Austrian subject, but he speaks Russian per-
fectly and understands all their ways : indeed he is
Russian. Vous viendrez, n'est-ce pas, le voir ?
Excusez-moi, que je parle anglais, mais c'est un
si grand plaisir ! " This by way of parenthesis, to
" sestritsa," the " little sister," who sits with us
smiling her beautiful Russian smile of golden-hearted
48 War and Revolution in Russia
kindness, though understanding but one word in
every five.
:t Yes, yes, she'll excuse you. Go on. How did
you come to be in Perimyshl ? "
" With the 3rd Army — the Austrian, of course,
I mean. I marched all the way with them and slept
in the ambulance waggons. Oh, I never saw our
army, really. The Sanitaries come at the end, with
the train, and ours was a very long, long train. I
got here about the middle of October, and then we
marched out again to Nizankowice and founded our
hospital there."
" Then what happened to the 3rd Army ? "
" It got off, I suppose. I don't really know,
because I didn't ever see it, but I suppose it did,
somewhere to the Carpathians, for one day the Red
Cross delegate with the 3rd Army, who was a friend
of mine, drove out from Perimyshl in an automobile
and fetched me in. He said the Russians were
coming. Just think, they only knew two days
before that their army was anywhere near ! I
wanted to get away, to Cracau, but it was too late —
the auto was broken, and the roads and the trains
were all so crowded you couldn't move, and I was
shut up in this dreadful town. That was about
November 5th.
" Then I worked in the Spital till I fell ill. Oh yes,
lung complaint, and I used to cough up lots of blood.
Out of the Beleaguered City 49
But I'm all right now — only not strong enough to
work. I went just now to ask one of the Russian
doctors for some extra food, but he said he only
could if I came on to nurse the typhus cases. But
I'm not strong enough to nurse epidemics. I want
to go back to the chirurgie — and my doctor wants
me too, so I hope they'll let me.
" No one knows what I am, you see, that's always
the difficulty. I was arrested six times during the
war for being a spy. In Germany once, and three
times in Austria, and then twice here during the
siege. Once was when one of the doctors took me
into the Siedliska fort, the famous one, you know,
the most famous of all. Of course it was wrong of
him, and they took me off to prison. Why, not even
the officers were allowed near the fort ! But I knew
officers on the staff, and they came and got me out.
Now I suppose the Russians think I should like to
be a spy. But it's ridiculous. What I should like
would be to go now and finish my studies in Sweden."
" Were you all hopeful at first — at the beginning
of the siege, I mean ? "
"The others were, but I wasn't. Somehow I
always thought it would end so. It was partly the
fault of the 3rd Army. The general took lots of food
from the fortress, more than they could spare, for
the army. General Kusmanek didn't want to give
it, but the other one was above him. Then Kus-
E
50 War and Revolution in Russia
manek telegraphed to Vienna, but they said he must
give the army what it wanted, so he had to. It was
too late then to get rid of the civiles — you know, the
population. Kusmanek ordered them all to go, but
they hid underground and everywhere, and then
the Russians were all round, so that it was no good.
" I don't think they suffered very much, they
always seemed to have to eat. But the poor
soldiers ! It was dreadful to see them. You see, it
was calculated that the food would last only till
January 20th, and it lasted till . . . March 22nd !
At the end they were so weak they could hardly
walk. The men in Siedliska, the village near the
fort, where General Webe's brigade was, couldn't
even walk to their baths. And when they made the
last — what you call it in English, une sortie ? — ach,
sortie, I could hardly bear to see them. All they had
to eat was that red cabbage, you know, and sort of —
ugh ! — bread. The bread was made from trees —
the bark, mixed with meal and I don't know what
else. They couldn't march at all, and Tomasi's
division — the Hungarians — got there two hours late.
" And then there was no soap, or sugar, or matches,
and no sponges either. In the cafes there was
nothing to be had but just tea and coffee — just that
and nothing else ! One of the engineer officers was
such a clever fellow — he had been a captain in the
Boer War, for the Boers, you know ; he was one of
Out of the Beleaguered City 51
those men who have an enthusiasm for war, and
he came back to fight from Africa or America or
somewhere, although he was about forty-five and
didn't have to. He was a Hungarian. Well, he
made lots of things. Soap, out of horse fat and
nitre — but it was very difficult to wash with, especi-
ally linen. And then matches — you see, here's a
box, ' K. und K., Genie-division, Przemysl, Kriegs-
zunder.' And look here, this tells you not to waste
the striking part, that was awfully dear to make ;
and here's another notice, telling you to look out
when you strike one. You see, you never knew
whether it wouldn't suddenly blaze up into your
face ! "
" But when the Russians got in they found
supplies. It's true then that the intendant sold the
stores corruptly ? "
The grimace was more expressive than the words.
" I don't know about all that. But there were
three intendants : the first went off before the
siege, the second died — people said he poisoned
himself. The last one was a Hungarian, quite good.
And there were several of the officers under the
intendant who were put in prison.
" All that time I was ill, from January to March.
I was given the status of an officer. In the hotel
where I was it was all full with Hungarian officers,
very noisy, but not bad fellows. My friends at the
52 War and Revolution in Russia
staff sent me over food — oh no ! no milk, except
that dry powder stuff. I had part once of General
Kusmanek's horse ; he had his killed first as an
example, and it was very good, really.
" People said that Kusmanek was always being
uberweigert — yes, overruled, by the Obercommando,
and lots of things were done he didn't want. That
was one thing. And then the Hungarians and the
Polands, oh, they hated each other !
" But it wasn't till March, when the snow fell,
that hope was given up. Then my friends on the
staff told me it was hopeless, so, oh no, it wasn't a
surprise at the end. You see, the whole time we
thought that the Russians had an army of nearly
400,000.
" The last day, when the bridges and everything
were blown up, it was wonderful. I went with an
officer to see the railway bridge, and we looked on
quite close. A great bit of iron came right over my
head, as close as that, behind me. But the powder
magazine — it was the most beautiful thing I ever
saw, huge pink and white — oh — Wolken, you know,
des nuages, c'etait si joli ! Oh, no, it didn't frighten
me at all ! Shells used to come into the town some-
times, you see. I don't mind shrapnel, but I don't
like bombs. One day, while I was dressing, they
began to come right over the hotel — like that,
o-o-o-o — and I didn't like that, because it would be
Out of the Beleaguered City 53
•o horrid to die half undressed, wouldn't it ? An
officer came over to say that I'd better not come
to the hospital, it was too dangerous — just think,
eighteen shells fell right round it, and one through
the roof, into the middle of the room for the lightly-
wounded officers, only no one was hurt ! — but I
didn't mind at all, because I was dressed by then.
"The aviators tried to get off the last day, but
everything was in such a — what is it ? — a mess that
they burnt two aeroplanes by mistake. All the
aviators who went were caught but one, who was a
splendid flyer, and the commander of the flying
corps went up in a balloon and was carried . . . into
Russia ! That same day an aeroplane came in —
driven by an awfully brave boy — with letters and
maps for the officers — and in the — what t — muddle
a lot of letters were burnt.
" Of course it was an awfully interesting time,
and we tried to do things. There wasn't any theatre,
not regularly, though there was a Jewish one and a
Poland one sometimes, but a friend of mine who was
a kapellmeister at Vienna, got up a serie of concerts.
The last one was on March 7th : it was to have been
on the 14th, but he said he was afraid we shouldn't
be in Perimyshl then ! People were always asking
him, ' Well, where will the next one be ? Will it be
in Kiev ? or Petersburgh ? ' — ach yes, of course I
mustn't say that now — Petrograd ! We had an
54 War and Revolution in Russia
orchestra, and oh, such fun with the poor instru-
ments that were all, you know, crashed — no,
smashed, especially the brass, because the men had
to keep their fingers over the holes ! And singing
too. There was one quite good singer from the opera
at Vienna — not a chorist, but not one of the well
known. We did Wagner and Schubert and — but
I'll give you a programme. Some of the pieces
could only be partly done ; you see, we had to take
the music there was, and some had got lost or
spoiled. There was so much good music because
the 5th Honved Regiment was at Perimyshl before,
and that's supposed to be the most musical of all
the Hungarian regiments — no, the second, the 17th
is the very best."
" We've heard stories about officers who always
got themselves up smart, and powdered."
" Oh, no ! — at least, perhaps there may have been
some. I don't see how they could have been smart
after all that time, but you see there's a great
difference between the officers who were always
here, very lazy fellows, and those who came in, the
working ones.
" Of course we tried to be, you know, fidel —
merry. Even in the hospital you must joke, to keep
up, you see. The bandages ran out and had to be
washed, and remade, and then it was such fun, they
had to use a lot of the Ruthencs' colours — red,
Out of the Beleaguered City 55
yellow and blue. But the yellow was all washed
out and it looked just like the tricolore ! And the
insects ! But we made fun of them too. We
called the fleas Cossacks, because they jumped
so ; the Lause — how you call them ? — lice, were the
artillery, and the bugs they were the big guns !
" There's no good in being sad, is there ? If
you've given up hope, it's better to, well, faire bonne
mine a mauvais jeu. And then it's in the Austrian
character, you see, to look at things by the bright
side. Being gloomy only makes it worse, oh, ever
so much."
That, as faithfully as I can render it, is Fraulein
's description of howithey lived in the beleaguered
city. I have no reason not to think it substantially
correct. It is not contradicted by my other informa-
tion. But, if trustworthy, it shows that my former
account underestimated two points : (1) the number
of troops which the Austrians believed to be sur-
rounding them ; (2) the extent of the privation in the
fortress. As to the latter, so many independent-
witnesses have since told me that a preparation of
bark, or bread partially made of wood or of bark,
was eaten that, although I hesitated at first to
believe it, it is hardly possible it should be untrue.
X
IN LILAC TIME
FOR my second visit Warsaw put on its summer
dress. No city can make a finer show of trees,
which line the well-kept streets, and seen from an
upper window break the grey surface of housetops,
springing up from innumerable gardens. The trees
are in the full, young leaf, and in the Jardin de
Saxe and the lovely Lazenki Park that surrounds
what was the summer palace of the Polish kings, the
air is rich with lilac and acacia and pink and white
chestnut. Overcoats have disappeared ; the gen-
darmes parade the streets in holland blouses, the
officials in white linen tunics and caps ; young
ladies astonish or delight in the shortest of muslins
or dresses that look as if they came from a Glasgow
Art School, and trip up and down, fully conscious of
their charms, on high heels made still more rickety
by the addition of circular rubber pads that never
quite fit. The Gilberts of Poland, with equally
agreeable mien, disport themselves in decolletes
silk shirts with wide collars turned back over the
coat, as it might be Fauntleroys of sweet and
twenty years.
56
In Lilac Time 57
What the Russians have not been able to do for
their own cities they have done for Warsaw. The
Polish capital, which after the last revolution of
1863 threatened to sink into a state of complete
delapidation, was changed from a slovenly, ill-kept
city into one of the finest in Europe, a transforma-
tion due to the late General Starankevich, President
of Warsaw, who induced Sir William (then Mr.)
Lindley to undertake the construction of sanitary,
street, and water-works for the town. The main
streets are laid with neat wood pavement after the
London pattern, instead of the heavy hexagonal
blocks of Petrograd, at one time also used in Chicago
and San Francisco ; the latter both wear worse
and, being much less easy to take up, are allowed
to go without being mended until the street is
nearly impassable. Moreover, a larger proportion
of the streets are wood-paved, those that are not
being laid with good setts that compare favourably
with the atrocious cobbles of the Imperial capital.
The streets themselves are wide, the buildings of a
pleasant modern character, with a strong flavour
of Italian craftsmanship in the older quarter, due
to the historical connection of Poland with the
South. Fine arc lamps would in a happier time
illuminate not only the main thoroughfare, but most
of the by-streets too. Now that the city will be
governed by an elected council which comes into
58 Wdr and Revolution in Russia
being next year, a number of citizens are applying
themselves to redeem the banks of the Vistula from
their present bedraggled condition as the home of
factories and, until recently, the receptacle of
rubbish. The Vistula, indeed, is not a stream of
beauty, with dreary shoals protruding from its grey
waters, but it will certainly be improved by the
boulevards now being planned to flank it. It was a
pretty sight when to welcome flaming June a thou-
sand children trooped from different districts to a
point chosen on the embankment, and each planted
a tree — a Polish " Arbor Day," designed as well to
plant a sense of civic pride and duty in the mind
even of the barefooted gamin. In contrast to the
excellence of its municipal government, Warsaw
rejoices in one of the worst principal hotels in
Europe. Dear and badly served under a dis-
courteous management, its success illustrates the
less lovable aspect of Polish commercialism. It is the
only hotel with telephones in the rooms and modern
accommodation, so everyone on business connected
with the war must stay at the Bristol ; in
quality it is said to have fallen off, probably with
deliberate recognition of this, about 50 per cent
since the beginning of the war. Its only redeeming
features are an American elevator and a clever
Jewish hall-porter. If you are not on war business,
stay somewhere else.
In Lilac Time 59
The Poles of Warsaw are a race of flaneurs, whose
gusto is only whetted by occasional Taubes circling
in the evening sky. The streets are always thronged,
the numerous cafes always crowded, and you soon
fall into the regular Polish habit, if you have nothing
better to do, of having a stroll in the Nowy Swiat
or the Marshalkowska. While engaged in this
occupation it is curious to notice how extremely
Polish Polish people look. Perhaps this is only
another way of saying that Polish types are not so
well known to Western Europeans as to prevent
their frequent repetition from surprising us. But
it is surprising to meet half a dozen Chopins, Stan-
islas Poniatowskis, and Kosciuszkos within the space
of thirty minutes. Among the women a frequent
type is reminiscent of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, and
you can hardly go the length of a block of houses
without finding yourself face to face with some
kitchen Gioconda. Another curiosity to be noticed
in the streets is the lack of good church architecture.
For its size and importance Warsaw must have
fewer good churches than any other great city.
The cathedral, which dates from the thirteenth
century, but was spoiled in the seventeenth, makes
a poor show within and without ; and the other
churches are devoid of interest. To supply the
deficiency, one must suppose, the Russian Govern-
ment has built an Orthodox Greek cathedral,
60 War and Revolution in Russia
finished only three years ago, which combines almost
every possible defect : conventional without being
classic, expensive without richness, massive without
grandeur, the interior plastered with pictures that
jostle and kill one another, it stands in a square too
small for it, and with a foolish inept look as if it had
been brought bodily on a truck like an American
villa and might be taken away again. If it were,
the void it left would not extend beyond the
physical.
Until the other day one of the most characteristic
features of Warsaw in war time was the bevy of
nurses — " sisters " — in their billowy white head-
dresses, charming spots of demure gaiety against
the eternal background of khaki. They were every-
where, and everywhere pleasant to look upon :
dashing up and down in motor-cars with officers,
serving tea at the cafes, applauding the perfor-
mances of the company now visiting Warsaw from
the Imperial Theatre of Petrograd. Wherever an
officer was, there also was very often a " sister."
Pray do not scent a scandal ; the great majority of
the " sisters " in Warsaw were most honestly the
wives of officers quartered there, who rather than
submit to the lonely life of war-widows enrolled
themselves as nurses and followed their spouses to
the front — even, it is said, into the trenches some-
times. But, alas ! for their innocent enjoyment,
In Lilac Time 61
there came a day when Prince Oldenburg, head of
the Russian Red Cross Society, on a flying visit to
Warsaw, bethought him that it smacked of levity,
and orders went forth that henceforward no petti-
coat should ride in a military or Red Cross car with
an officer, and no " sister " be in a cafe or theatre
after nine of the evening. As by magic restaurant
and playhouse were cleared of the dainty forms,
none more could be seen in fleet Fiat or busy
Benz ; but what was still stranger was a notable
diminution in the number of the motor-cars them-
selves. Mars, deprived of Venus (and seriously
deprived, seeing that a general's sister was asked by
a patrol to leave a car into which she was stepping
with her brother), disdained to speed alone along the
streets ; and, instead, the road was on a sudden full
of little cabs in which the war gods rambled gently
enough, the once romantic half-shrouded forms by
their sides tamed into quite simple little ladies.
The cab-drivers reaped a rich harvest, and a naughty
wit suggested that it was they had denounced the
" sisters " and spoiled the fun.
XI
WITH THE ARMY
"TOOK out!" yeUs the driver. We go with
JLi a bump into the air and come down thump
on the cushions again. For we are flying along the
road towards the advanced positions in a 60-h.p.
Austrian Mercedes, not captured, but honestly
bought before the war, and the road has been
shelled. Along the sides are piles of hard stone to
fill the holes if the process should be repeated, every
pile painted white on its inner face so as to be visible
at night. The holes have all been filled once, hence
the bumps. Beside the driver sits Purishkevich, in
the uniform of a civilian with general officer's rank
(rather complicated to the plain British mind this),
fair of hair and beard, ruddy of countenance, blue-
goggled, and tremendously important to the drivers
of passing carts. The enfant terrible of three Dumas
has turned his fierce-mouthed energy against the
Germans within and without the realm, and has
command under General Volkoff of part of the Red
Cross organisation of the northern front. He is
taking us to inspect some of his " feeding-points."
62
With the Army 63
No need for the driver to use his horn here ; the
voice of the orator shouts down the wind and clears
the road as if by magic. Gangs of men at intervals
keep the surface free from mud, for this is one of
the main arteries of the army's life ; but where we
swing off the turnpike into a lane the " fifth element "
reigns supreme. We are forced to admit the justice
of Napoleon's hackneyed description of Polish mud.
Again the car swings round almost against a railway
embankment and pulls up before a small settlement
of white tents. Smiling nurses, a doctor, and his
assistant greet us, happy to have company and to
see their chief ; but we cannot wait, and push on to
the next point, Teresin. This is a more important
spot. A few versts only from the enemy, the
canteen here has fed 60,000 men during the last
month. From the tent poles flutters the Red Cross.
In one tent for the officers, with candles for light, is
spread what appears to be an infinity of " zakusky "
and the best tinned meats and preserves. Beyond
in this little white city are the stores ; huge brown
loaves, bread of a quality never seen in England,
stacks of chocolate boxes, rations of every descrip-
tion, and a great cauldron in the ground whence the
soup is ladled in a ladle that holds a quart into the
soldiers' plates. They sit to their meal in the open,
for all the world like children at a beanfeast. They
are so well treated that when they are moved else-
64 War and Revolution in Russia
where they grumble. " Why should we go ? Let
us stay. We're so comfortable here ! " A larger
round tent completes the equipment of the point.
It is the dressing station for the wounded, empty
now.
The yellow sausage that has been hanging over-
head is momentarily growing larger ; it is the
observation balloon of our — that is, the Russian —
army, and they are winding it in to relieve the
observer, his being a most arduous service. For a
few minutes it wallows on the ground, then majesti-
cally rises again to its place in the empyrean, held
in relative stability by its aerial anchor of balloonets,
strung out from it like a covey of wild swans seen
against the sky. Some miles off floats another —
the eye, this, of our enemy. The Germans have been
shooting at our yellow friend this morning, and we
are shown the casing of an incendiary shell which
fell hard by and failed to burst. All along the road
we have seen lines of defence ready prepared
against the event of a retreat, which seems all the
more improbable now that we have watched a bit
of the Russian fighting army in its place. It is so
calm, so confidently joyous, that Teutonic hysteria
must break upon it like the wave on a rock.
The next point is Zyrardow, and we are trans-
ferred to the care of Alexander Ivanovich Guchkoff,
formerly President of the Second Duma, now head
With the Army 65
of the Red Cross section attached to the First Army.
Aeroplanes from the opposite camp visit Zyrardow
every day between twelve and two, in the hope of
wrecking the station. To-day they have already
left their visiting cards, and the outskirts of the
station yard bear witness once again to the fact that
the German shooting is not good. A capital luncheon
is served on a Red Cross train, and then — we are
" somewhere in Poland," nearer now to the enemy's
" eye " than to our own. Absolute quiet reigns,
says the General ; he has only fifty or sixty wounded
a day. Spasmodic shell fire goes on, with ever and
again a spluttering burst from the rifles and the
hoarse cackle of the machine-guns. An occasional
detonation like a heavy slap is only the engineers
experimenting with a new form of bomb. General
Zaharoff is so unmoved we can hardly believe that
at any moment these placid, wide fields between
strips of wood might be the scene of a bloody battle.
Little would he reck if it were, for he is one of the
heroes of Gumin, where the Germans attacked every
day for weeks running and counted their losses well-
nigh by the 100,000. General Zaharoff lost 36,000
men there ; his division has been remade for the
third time. His men adore him, and call him the
" trench general," because he was always with
them, dressed like one of them, fighting alongside
of them. They not only greet him, as is their duty,
66 War and Revolution in Russia
but run forward with obvious pleasure as he nears.
Everyone with a beard he calls " Daddy," those
without " My fine fellow." " Come here, you ! "
he calls. A bronzed young peasant runs out of the
group. " These are Englishmen come to visit you.
Tell them why the Germans are fighting us. This
is their political catechism," he whispers. " Be-
cause they want to take Russian soil from us."
" And what will the end of it be ? " With a grin
comes the answer : " The Germans will be worse off
at the end than they were at the beginning." " And
why are we fighting the Germans ? " " Because we
don't mean them to take any Russian soil." " Well,
then, are we going to beat them, or they us ? " At
this the whole group bursts out : " We'll beat
them ! " An older man steps forward : " May I
speak, your Excellency ? " " What is it ? " " We
want to tell the English soldiers that we are proud
to be fighting with them, and that we shall win
together." And so, for want of a better interpreter,
here is the message to the British Army from a
hundred or so of their Russian brothers, war-
worn like themselves, but stout of heart and in
good case.
No. 3 trench is behind us now, and we are within
range of shrapnel fire. Here is No. 2, with its for-
midable redoubt in the centre, and some twenty
yards in front a low wire entanglement in a sunk
With the Army 67
ditch, which, invisible to an attacking force, would
catch them unawares and pen them inextricably in
the shambles. A Cossack guard picks us up, and
we go forward through fresh entanglements across
a meadow-like plain, beyond which a pretty wood
hides the distant view. We have to come within a
few feet before we see that the wood hides something
else besides — No. 2 battery of the Field Artillery.
Less than half a mile in front is our first trench, then
two hundred yards and the Germans. " A nice
wood, isn't it ? " says the General. We agree.
" It's mine," he adds, with a twinkle in his eye. The
fact suddenly dawns on us that it is not a natural
wood, but one planted ad hoc. " This was the
ideal spot for the guns," he explains, " so I said
' Make a wood.' My soldiers made it in two days."
Never surely was Nature better imitated. The
copse is complete with larches and pines, hazel and
the profuse undergrowth of an English hedgerow.
And it is real. Not made of lifeless sticks thrust
into the ground, but of living, growing trees trans-
planted without damage. Some of the trees must
be thirty years old. It is like a conjuring trick.
In the middle, sticking out from their incon-
gruous bowers, are the 75's. Dull, yellowish green,
but spick-and-span. There is no litter, no rubbish ;
all is as neat as on parade. " Would you like to see
one in action ? " asks the commander. No sooner
68 War and Revolution in Russia
said than done. Bang ! Whe-e-e-w ; we wait
breathlessly till a distant explosion tells us that the
shell has burst. " In the enemy's second trench,"
says the commander. The field telephone burrs.
Enemy aeroplanes have been spied, and in a few
seconds these mount into view, heard before seen,
two biplanes, dragonflies in their gracefulness
against a sky of Italian blue. Puffs of the prettiest
down spring into being below them and hang in the
still air, telling us that further along our line the
guns are making a cast for them with shrapnel. The
airmen soar serenely. They are almost directly over
us now, when at an order given the men dive for
their shelter.
We are taken for tea to the officers' bombproof
hut. It would be stupid to risk getting a bomb
among us without object. Inside the hut the party
is merry ; the General and the battery commander
are full of jokes and pleasant attentions. Once more
we have occasion to admire the spotless cleanliness
of everything, as well as the excellent quality of the
food. Officers and men are alike in the best spirits ;
a well-disciplined sense of good fellowship prevails.
The sun sinks, and a thin crescent rides the sky in
place, as it were, of the balloon being hauled down.
Hushed by the beauty of the evening the guns cease
to speak. Our cavalcade starts back for the railway,
and the General, driving with the ladies, gives me
With the Army 69
his horse. " We have only had two other visitors
here, ' ' he says. ' ' General Pau and your own General
Paget. Greet them through the London papers from
the division and from the battery and from myself ;
give them a great greeting." And so to the motor-
cars, and bump, thump, fifty miles without head-
lamps back to Warsaw at 1 a.m. Huge searchlights
stab the air for prowling Zeppelins.
XII
A VISIT TO GENERAL ALEXEIEV
"QTAVKA " is Russian for G.H.Q., and there my
rO train arrived, barely two hours late, at the
end of a wriggly, cross-country journey from the
front. The hard, settled frost of the real Russia
was bracing after days of alternate rain and snow,
verglas and slush. The station, like many on this
side of the world, two versts from its town — a place
of some local importance but not otherwise dis-
tinguished — had an air of unexpected neatness,
the result of subtly trim changes in the bearing of
porters and minor railway officials on whom greatness
for the time being has been thrust. A few staff
officers, too, who had come on the through train that
I had joined in the morning lent a smart touch to
the surroundings. Nobody asked my business, and
my specially procured pass, signed and counter-
signed by generals, reposed peacefully in my pocket.
Every hotel exhibited a sign, " All rooms full," and
though I was sent by high authorities on business
to yet higher, it hardly seemed decent at the outset
to ask the latter's staff officer, supposing I could
70
A Visit to General Alexeiev 71
catch him, for such a simple object as a bed. But
then I bethought me that there must be our own
general attached to the Commander-in-Chief's staff,
and that months ago I had sent him a letter of intro-
duction. The thought was fruitful. He made me
welcome at the staff quarters in the best hotel in
the town and put me under the charge of the officer
on duty, who without more ado gave me a room in
the hotel and a standing invitation to the staff mess
as long as my business should keep me.
On entering the mess my first impression was that
I had stepped straight into that chapter in " Anna
Karenina " where Vronsky's regiment offers a dinner
to General Serponhovskoy. And if this was the
first, so it remained a vivid impression to the end,
daily intensifying the sense of Tolstoy's astonishing
power to create his characters true to type. Yashvin
was at my table, with his great body, red face, and
merry eyes of a viveur, and his air of high pride.
Petritsky sat next me, and Count Alexander Vronsky .
looking a little out of place in the midst of so many
young and energetic officers, was at the next table.
Almost anywhere you might find Alexis Vronsky
himself, cool, handsome, inscrutable, an imperturb-
able Russian gentleman. And while we wait to
begin, who should come up the room but General
Serponhovskoy, bronzed and slim, with eyes quick
to take in every change of detail. Here he is not the
72 War and Revolution in Russia
dashing cavalryman back from the East, but quarter-
master-general.
One figure, indeed, Qannot be fitted into the Tol-
stoy scheme, the little great man for whom we are
waiting. The room is arranged much like a college
hall, with a high table to seat sixteen, and down the
room six tables of eight each, with the service table
at the far end. He, of course, takes the head of the
high table, and unless he is absent no one sits down
before him. He is of a punctual habit, and the room
is not full before he enters, with quick strides and
a happy look, nodding right and left in acknowledg-
ment of our bows. He picks out the newcomer and
has a special smile of welcome for him. But I have
to ask before feeling quite certain, " Is that General
Alexeiev ? " " Yes, yes, but why ? " " He is so
unlike his photographs." " Well, you see, he hates
being photographed ; that is most likely the reason."
Alexeiev has been described in the newspapers
as " a pale, silent force " ; probably by those who
have only seen his photos. A picture is conjured up
of a military Sherlock Holmes, or one of those mono-
syllabic heroes who are the delight of certain
novelists. Moreover, scowling at the photographer,
the general is distinctly forbidding. In the flesh
nothing could be more different. Alexeiev is small,
pink-cheeked, and smiling. Grey hair and a white
moustache set off an air of charming benevolence.
A Visit to General Alexeiev 73
I should give him five foot four or, at most, six
inches ; a good height for a fighting man, if there
is anything in historic example. For his height he
is broad in the shoulder and narrow in the hips,
and he moves with an alert balance. So far from
being the speechless image of legend, he chats freely
and pleasantly with those round him. He would,
indeed, appear to have a predilection for cheerful
society, for he lunches and dines as often as possible
at the staff mess, whereas the foreign generals
attached to the staff regularly attend the Em-
peror's table whenever the latter is, as now, at the
Stavka. For the rest he looks a Russian of the
Russians, with the wide face and large brow of the
good peasant stock from which he has sprung ;
only in him the type is illumined by a bright and
pervading intelligence, in contrast to the look of
patient illiteracy on a similar face seen in the ranks.
Russians of the modern progressive sort are pleased
to hear that our own Sir William Robertson, too,
is of the people, and count it a good sign of the time
that the nervous system of both our armies should
find its central point in such men rather than in any
of the tall and blue-blooded officers with which all
armies save the French and the American abound.
The whole meal passes with a pleasant sense of
the good-fellowship that exists in a peculiar degree
among staff officers, the more pleasant for the fact
74 War and Revolution in Russia
that everything is over in little more than half an
hour. At lunch there are only two courses and
coffee, at dinner three. The food is simple and well
cooked. The bottles of light Madeira and Bordeaux
that stand on the tables are nowhere punished.
Coffee is absorbed, and without waiting Alexeiev
rises and steps quickly down the room with the same
bright smile.
The Russians have ceased in this war to count
their chickens before they are hatched. They
believe that those only can be called great who in
the end achieve great things. With this in mind, I
recently sought from a well-informed source what
was thought in service circles of the Chief of Staff to
the C.I.C. " On pense que c'est un homme capable,"
was the decided answer. " Yes," said another in
close touch with staff opinion, " I think that Alexeiev
has the situation well in hand." For my own part,
all I can say as to this is that the General's appear-
ance and manners lend force to these hopeful judg-
ments.
SECTION III
THE EUSSIAN RETKEAT, 1916
XIII
THE RETREAT
IT was beautifully appointed, a hospital depot
on wheels. With four sister trains, each bear-
ing the Empress' own crest and initials, it has been
doing its work, and doing it hard and well. It
differs from some other sanitary trains in this, that
it carries no operating-room or nurses, but has a
separate daughter train to render personal service
to the wounded, while its own coaches, except the
living coach, are filled with hospital stores and
comforts. Stores of sheets, blankets, socks, under-
linen are there for a hundred thousand men ; there
is a disinfecting room for the cast-off clothes ; there
is a coach filled with preserved meat and soup ;
there are four thousand boot-soles on board for
distribution. No need of a cobbler, for every
battalion will be sure to number one or two among
its ranks. What perhaps is most valuable of all,
when hard knocks are going, is the admirable
75
76 War and Revolution in Russia
dispensary from which the doctors in the field can
readily be supplied with drugs and bandages. It
had just come back from Jaslo, with but three hours
to spare, and hospitably took us in for the night,
hospitable from the chief of the train to the friendly
orderly with the pure Muscovite accent and the
monk who administered spiritual aid to the
wounded.
Hospitable and friendly ; and who can be more
so than Russians ? But our thoughts were far from
laughter round the table in the little dining-car.
At such a moment it is hard to talk or to think of
anything else. It was of that the talk had been, and
the thoughts for four days. Among those who
knew, for longer, but for us for four days, from the
moment we first heard of the air raid on General
Radko Dmitrieff's headquarters. The next day at
Perimyshl the guns were plainly heard, and the day
after that in the stillness of the night there thundered
into the little town six motor-cars and two heavy
fourgons belonging to the Bessarabian Red Cross
detachment. There was little sleep then in the
hotel, every ear open to catch the frantic tale.
" One doctor has gone mad — another deaf and
dumb — half of a Zemstvo detachment has been cut
off — the line broken in three places — the Red
Cross falling back on Perimyshl." " And how dared
you, Red Cross sisters, leave the fighting line ? "
The Retreat 77
It was the doctor who spoke. " Your place is there,
with the wounded, not here ! " Their nerve was
broken, that was their excuse ; it happens to men,
too, but very rarely to these devoted women who
go without flinching to the battle and face the roar
of the German artillery. (One, only one other case
was related to parallel this, where a Red Cross
detachment lost its head and abandoned forty
wounded officers at a railway station. In the
Empress* train it was spoken of with deep sorrow.)
In the two days that followed Dame Rumour lifted
her head and spoke with her hundred tongues,
urging the fortune of war to and fro, now in our
favour, now casting the die for the enemy's arms.
It was for Jaslo that the fight raged principally,
so much grew clear. Along the Dunajec, a stream
that feeds the mighty Vistula, the attack had
stormed. Seven German army corps, it is said, were
swiftly moved down on that fatally efficient network
of railways, and from behind the shield of the
Cracow forts burst on the Russians with the sudden
force of a hurricane. Worse still, they came with an
irresistible concentration of superior artillery, known
from prizes taken to be partly manufactured in the
Belgian arsenals. Behind the Russian lines, alas !
is no such network to feed the army, no means of
hastening up the big guns that mean so much.
And there are but two army corps against seven.
78 War and Revolution in Russia
The retreat is honourable, the fighting heroic.
Tarnow is taken, retaken, taken again. Jaslo,
further south, has become the scene of dreadful
carnage. Here, as is certified by eye-witnesses, the
enemy had his heaviest metal, even to the semi-
mythical 42-centimetre guns. And here their
shooting was marvellously accurate : time after
time the shells burst in the very trenches, and where
they burst the trench with its complement of living,
of dead, of dust, of empty cartridges, water-tins, and
supplies were turned into a veritable " kasha."
" Kasha " was the word used by two separate
officers : it is the Russian for porridge. Yet the
retreat from Jaslo was orderly. Thirty bombs were
dropped on the station alone in the morning, and
during these days in Jaslo not less than a hundred
every day, but the nurses worked on heedless of the
falling death : each one had her name taken for the
reward that valour merits. Nothing was left to the
enemy : all the stores were removed, and the Union
of Zemstvos which succours soldiers and civilians
alike gave away all their store of tea, chocolate,
sugar, bread to the first comers. "Oh," cried a
happy little girl, " the Magyars gave us chocolate
too ! " So the Germans took and burnt an empty
town. From Gorlice and Biecz the same story,
where 5000 Russians are said to lie dead upon the
ground. But from the north comes a tale of strong
The Retreat 79
reinforcements ; a Circassian regiment has made
a gallant rearguard charge with their knives, saying,
in their quaint style : " Come, let us cut a little."
Pilzno is held and 10,000 Germans are reported
captured.
Under the hanging oil-lamp the mosaic is pierced
together, and the scum of legend melts from the
hard surface of fact. Here are men from Jaslo, others
from Tarnow, another from Sanoc. The situation is
serious it is admitted ; but not one man doubts the
future or the ultimate result. How has it befallen ?
The question is on all lips. Two main reasons are
given. One, the Germans' superior information,
their immense system of espionage, even that black
word treachery (for cannot the cause, flagrant as it
was, of the downfall at Suwalki be repeated ?) :
thus have they known of the Russian dispositions,
and that the reserves of artillery ammunition had
not come to hand. The other, the railways — eternal
problem confronting our Allies, who are hampered
everywhere, defective organisation, by lack of rail-
ways, single lines, shortage of cars ; and here most
of all, for in Galicia the gauge differs from the
Russian, and save for a few converted cars Austrian
rolling stock must be used. But there is yet another
reason. On the northern front, where the battle was
fought to a deadlock, the enemy is known to be
terrible in attack, and no precaution is neglected
80 War and Revolution in Russia
against him ; here it is we who have been attacking,
the great push was just to come, and no one foresaw
the necessity for defence. Before our eyes almost,
only a few miles away, the lesson is being taught with
ghastly effect — never despise your enemy. Yes,
here he was despised, we felt the triumph already
within our grasp, and, behold, he has taken advan-
tage of us.
To be successful in war, said a great German
soldier, you must fight to the last gasp — and then
you must go on fighting. His successors have en-
forced the precept by practice against our side :
their strength seemed to be failing, they were spent
and grew listless ; then suddenly Mackensen with his
fresh corps, his marvellous artillery, and the young
Austrian General Fischer, promoted from the rank
of captain since the war began, have dealt us this
shrewd, unlooked-for blow. Nor was anything
neglected to enhance the force of the assault. The
Emperor William himself has come ; " Lwow must
be taken," is his order, and the German infantry
are sent forward under the brilliant intoxication of
ether. But if the Russians were taken aback for a
moment, now they strain every nerve. If they have
the worst of it in guns, their cavalry is immeasurably
better than the enemy's, for the Germans lack
horses, and it was with four cavalry divisions which
the great man hurled against the German line that
The Retreat 81
the centre was held. For he came himself, speeding
through the old Galician capital on the night of the
7th, and with him four cartloads of precious food
for the guns. Held, but at what a cost ! The 10th
Army Corps has gone, to find a niche in history
beside the heroes of Thermopylae ; the 63rd division
has shared its noble fate ; of the Orlovsky regiment
and another are some four hundred left ; of the
Kursky only two officers have come through un-
scathed. So from all quarters runs the tale that was
told in the Empress' train. But — the centre was
held. And the Dukla Pass ? Was that held too ?
That no man knows.
Next morning against a bitter wind from the
mountains our course lies to the west. The sun is
beneath the horizon as we pull up at the outskirts
of Jaroslav, standing on its hill above the San.
Skimming aloft in the pale azure four silent forms
with motionless wings have called our halt. On the
white road our car would be an easy mark, were they
the foes ; but they swoop circling down, and sail
to rest in a level field hard by, and we know them for
friends. They are Henri Farman biplanes ; the
famous airman is known to be in Galicia, and may
be here himself. It is dark before the engine stops
panting in front of the shabby hotel. The other
and better has been taken bodily for those in com-
mand, and within two hours a pack of grey motors,
G
82 War and Revolution in Russia
brilliant each with three headlights, dash along the
street, coming from the other direction, miss their
way, stop, turn, and throb back to their quarters.
In the limousine, Cossacks on the footboard, two
a-side, clinging to the sides against the rush of air, is
the adored leader, the hero of Kirk Kilisse and Lule
Burgas, the victor of Lwow. The very walls of the
town he is in bear witness, with their shell-rent holes
and plaster pitted with rifle bullets, to another of
his triumphs. He is bearded now, his face is very
stern. And after him, all the night long, clatters the
stream of transport over the setts, with officers '
baggage, forage waggons, all the million require-
ments of an army on the move, and here and there
a black-robed monk squatting in a cart : all going
towards the east.
Modest in its resources, the restaurant is soon
reduced to impotence by the crowd of officers
demanding sustenance. First the soup gives out,
then the bread, last of all the tea. " Can I be of
any assistance ? " says a cheery voice. He could
be, and he was, and thanks to his kindly inter-
vention and our own bread, gladly shared, a meal
was obtained. " Why, yes, I guess it seems queer
to strike English right here. No, I'm Russian all
right, born in Petrograd, but I'm a mining engineer
and I've knocked round some. Know America ?
Why, sure, I was there for years. Say, you a Har
The Retreat 83
vard man ? Now, ain't that bully ! I'm on the
general's staff here. See you later." The whirligig
brought us together again, only for a moment.
Jaroslav was not a good place to ask questions in,
least of all for the only foreigners in the town. But
we managed to ask the mining engineer the big, un-
answered question — What about the Dukla Pass ?
" I'd tell you if I knew, sure ; but I don't. Say, if
I were you, I'd step lively. We cross the river
ourselves next night." Picking our way out of the
town at noon a doctor stops us for news, and we get
his. He is only waiting an hour longer ; he thought he
was stuck, but unexpectedly his transport has turned
up. There is smallpox and scarlet fever, too, and
wounded in large numbers. They must all go ; the
hospital furniture has mostly gone, and the wounded
are lying on mattresses in the courtyards waiting
to be moved. The wounds are often of a fearful
character, and point clearly to a liberal use by the
enemy of explosive or expanding bullets. From one
hospital five have run away, for the Germans are
killing the wounded, so it is said and believed, and
these poor men, crippled as they are, prefer chance
outside to the possibility they dread of being
bayonetted where they lie. Many eyes are cast up-
wards to the smiling heavens, but hostile aircraft
are not aloft this morning. On the road is a long
line of empty transport going into the town to load.
84 War and Revolution in Russia
Everything, save for a few stragglers, is orderly,
quiet, restrained. It is impossible not to admire the
simple, manly bearing of men and officers.
Perimyshl seems a different place from the town
we left four days earlier. Then work was going on
outside, but the centre was stagnant ; a few soldiers
to be seen, a few Jews leaving the place, a few
nurses — nothing more. Now it is a hive of in-
dustry, a continuous movement coated in dust.
Hundreds of army waggons, drawn by capital, well-
fed horses, restive even after a day's work, pull out
towards their camping ground within the forts ;
another stream passes them — fine, well-set infantry
these, marching into the town, and singing as they
march. And here is news at last. The Dukla ?
The Dukla, that cost so many thousand Russian
lives, was abandoned days ago. The retirement was
imperative, but was not effected without serious
loss. He himself who tells the tale was in Hungary
when the storm burst, and with his field hospital
got back across the mountains by the roughest
paths and byways. At Sanoc, some twenty-five
miles from Perimyshl, the battle is raging now.
The hospitals are warned to be ready for all emer-
gencies. The bridges on the upper San have been
blown up. The Russian line to the north is being
drawn back to the positions chosen by its com-
manders. Here, at least, at Sanoc the German
The Retreat 85
attack is checked. They cannot cross the river, and
forty guns have been captured from them. At
Sanoc, at Sambor, and all along the tensely stretched
line, a still greater battle, a still deadlier clash, is
expected. Bellona, the insatiable, has opened her
maw too wide. In the fight for Galicia that began
with the month — " der wunderschone Monat Mai,"
that Heine sang — the Russian losses are believed
to have totalled a 100,000, and the enemy must have
lost more. Intermingled with the distant murmur
of the guns, we seem to hear an echo of the shrieks
of those drowning on the Lusitania, and calling for a
judgment on the insensate policy of Teutonic
aggression that let slip the dogs of war and is
deluging the world with blood.
XIV
POLISH DISTRESS AND RELIEF
THE first dreadful rush is long since past, and
refugees no longer crowd the streets seeking
where to lay their heads. But the need remains,
and the work. There are still 50,000 Jews in War-
saw above the great normal Jewish population,
driven out of the neighbouring towns ; still other
thousands of peasants are in the shelters, helpless,
hopeless, deprived of everything. Half the news-
papers and periodicals in Warsaw are still in a state
of suspension owing to the high price of paper and
the dearth of advertisements ; lawyers, engineers,
artists are still out of work ; the factories still work
half-time or less ; the price of living is still twice as
high as the ordinary. This last is a factor common
to Russia, as well as Poland. Meat is twice as dear
as before the war ; leather nearly twice as dear ;
wood has risen enormously in price. Army boots
that before cost 10s. are now nearly 18s., and a small
ambulance cart, built on a Finnish model, which
would cost about £15 in England, including the
retailer's profit, here costs £45. This would appear
86
Polish Distress and Relief 87
surprising, in view of the stoppage of exports, but
there are three chief reasons for it : the immense
supplies of all sorts required for the army, the short-
age of labour owing to the young men being called
to the colours, and the deficiency of railway trans-
port. " Railways, railways, our kingdom for rail-
ways ! " might be the cry in Russia, and not only
railways, but rolling stock, is urgently needed. If
Russia had the same military laws as Germany her
army would not be three or ten, but thrice ten
million men ; but she could not carry them or their
supplies. The same shortage in the railway depart-
ment that affects the army also presses hard on that
part of the civil population which is already hit by
the war.
Warsaw, looked at from beneath the surface, is a
vast relief station, managed by that remarkable
body, the Citizens' Central Committee, which came
into being the day war was declared. Warsaw is the
seat of the mam committee, and in that part of
Poland which is free from the Germans are 456
branch committees, while in the country occupied
by the enemy are over a hundred more at present
feeyond the reach of communication. The figures
prepared to show the amount of the damage, direct
and indirect, suffered by the country are appalling.
They are only available till the end of last year, but
a very careful calculation for the first B.ve months of
88 War and Revolution in Russia
the war gives the result of damage done to the value
of £114,668,000. And the damage has been multi-
plied since.
To alleviate the suffering caused by these pro-
digious losses the Citizens' Central Committee has
laboured day and night. Under the joint presidency
of Prince Severyn Sviatopolk Czetvestinsky and
Prince Lubomirsky — admirable complements each
of the other, the one practical, businesslike, with
imperturbably clear vision of what must be done
the other idealist and dreamer full of new schemes
for the committee to test and adopt — it comprises
every eminent man and woman of business and
society in Warsaw, and it says much for the strength
and sobriety of the Polish mind that their work is
characterised by neither exaltation nor despair,
but rather by a luminous sense of duty and of simple
pride at their country's bravery. Within the first
fortnight of the war the committee organised a
military hospital containing 2,000 beds at the Corps
de Cadets de Suvorov, where, under the care of
Dr. Kievsky and the most distinguished surgeons
of Warsaw, the wounded are tended in what must
be one of the most beautiful hospital buildings in
the world. It is admirably kept, staffed, and
equipped, and the atmosphere in the wards show
how far ahead the Polish surgeons are of their French
and Belgian colleagues in understanding the im-
Polish Distress and Relief 89
portance of fresh air. Every employee in the
hospital, the fifty-seven doctors and 400 nurses
included, takes a bath on the premises daily. There
is bath accommodation for fifteen at a time, and
from eight to four every day it is fully occupied.
The storerooms, under the charge of the religious
sisters of the town, are models of neatness and
cleanliness, and a fortnight's provisions are always
kept in stock in case supplies be temporarily cut off.
All the medical and administrative work is done
voluntarily. The evacuation point at the Petrograd
Station, capable of dealing with 1,000 wounded
daily, was also organised by the committee, and
is run on the same successful lines, being also
thoroughly equipped with sterilising machines,
operating rooms, and provision for dental surgery.
On the civilian side the committee has organised
and maintains fifty-eight kitchens or dining-rooms
in Warsaw, of which three are exclusively for
children. In the poorer quarters an excellent meal,
enough certainly to keep a man from starving for
twenty -four hours, is provided for about ljd., while
for the unfortunate members of the professional and
higher classes who have been brought to penury
slightly daintier fare is offered in more luxurious
surroundings for 3d. There are, moreover, 600
shelters and residences where the penniless refugees
are kept till they can be sent off into the country, or
90 War and Revolution in Russia
where the distressed " Intellectuals " can live for
the inclusive fee of Is. 3d. a day. All the work in
connection with these enterprises is given volun-
tarily, and in all these institutions, even the poorest,
the predominating feature is cleanliness. Outside
Warsaw feeding points for the starving peasants
are established, and in co-operation with the
Union of Russian Zemstvos flying columns carry
food and medical relief right up to the Russian
lines.
Nor have the Jews been behindhand in relieving
their own people. Forty thousand refugees are
placed in private houses by the Israelite community,
and receive 5d. or 7£d. daily, and 10,000 more
receive food and help. In all the Jewish relief costs
£15,000 a month, and there are besides work-
shops organised by the Citizens' Committee and
the Israelite community, where refugees are put
to their own trades and earn from 3s. upwards a
day.
The disorganisation of life in the country is com-
plete. The Russian army pays for the goods and the
labour it takes, but military requirements destroy
normal conditions. Peasants are sent away with
their carts on duties which ultimately take them far
from their homes ; their families meanwhile have to
be cared for by the committee. One case is known
where a Polish peasant and his cart were captured
Polish Distress and Relief 91
by the Germans, sent to the Western front, were
captured by the French, and are now working in
France. Where the Germans have been everything
is destroyed and carried off without payment, and
the Hungarians have earned a specially bad name
for the thoroughness of their robbery. Hundreds of
thousands of peasants were turned out into the
winter with nothing but the clothes which they wore.
At first the infant mortality among these refugees
was tragic, averaging 50 per cent., but since the
committee has been able to induce mothers to give
over their children to creches established for that
purpose it has been greatly lessened. Through the
committee the Government distributes corn for
sowing, but in the districts fought over scarcely one
farmhouse remains — all have been destroyed by
artillery fire. Most touching of all is the devotion
of the peasant to his land ; as soon as the Russian
army drives back the Germans the recovered land
is instantly seized by the peasants, who follow in the
army's train regardless of danger, and after one
battle the general found that he had twice as many
peasants as troops with him, and that they had
taken as many prisoners as his soldiers.
Throughout this maze of misery and courageous
work the Citizens' Central Committee works hand
in hand with the Russian authorities and the Zem-
stvos in all loyalty and devotion to their common
92 War and Revolution in Russia
cause. This is a sight that inspires to hope and
confidence in the progress of mankind. A year ago
no one would have believed it possible. To-day
nothing seems impossible.
XV
LUTSK
WHEN I got out of the train at Kiev, my first
object was the office of the Commandant
of the station, to beg seats for myself and my com-
panion, a long-limbed young poet from Odessa, to
Lutsk. The trains to the front start from Kiev in
the evening, and unhappy indeed is he who goes
seatless. Therefore we took a short cut over the
rails and through a standing train to get our word
in early. Quick as we were, an energetic colonel,
who had travelled in our carriage and absorbed
more than a pint of privately bought vodka the
previous afternoon, was before us on the same
errand, and we entered with him. The commandant
was short-tempered, because he had been saying the
same thing probably to some three officers every
five minutes since break of day. " No, gentlemen,
I can do nothing for you. There are no trains this
evening. The usual train service is altered from
to-day. There is only one train at 9.15 to-morrow
morning to Kasatin. Beyond that I know nothing.
How can I give you seats ? It is a bezplatzkartny
93
94 War and Revolution in Russia
train." His tone was of one who should imply that
we ought all to have known. This news meant an
early start. A platzkart is a fixed and numbered
seat in the train from which no one, even a general
or a bishop, can eject you : a bezplatzkartny train
is one where the passengers scramble for seats, and
as many as possible crowd in. Therefore in the hope
of being in time we were on the platform at 7.30 the
next morning, to find a small and shivering crowd
already waiting outside the locked doors of the
train. In the three-quarters of an hour before they
were opened, our crowd swelled to between twenty
and thirty, while at the other end of the coach stood
a long queue of civilians faintly hoping to get seats
after the officers were accommodated. A young
Circassian lieutenant in an immense black sheepskin
hat, balancing his coat on his shoulders without
using the sleeves, kept up a constant stream of
conversation, teasing all the railway officials who
passed to let us into the train. However, only the
guard had the keys, and the guard it seemed was
breakfasting. In front of the first-class coach next
to ours, the crowd was smaller but contained two
generals and some elegantly dressed ladies, prob-
ably at the head of committees or hospitals. One
of the generals suddenly noticed the first-class
guard inside the coaoh, and executed a furious
tattoo on the window, hoisting himself up on tiptoe.
Lutsk 95
For some minutes the guard took no notice at all.
Then he began to shout inaudibly through the glass,
but remembering that the window could open, let it
down and faced a clamour to have the doors un-
locked. Perfectly unmoved he let the storm die
down, then answered with a blissful smile : " It's
no use — all the seats but two are already taken."
" What ? Why ? How are they taken ? This is a
bezplatzkartny train ! " " Yes, but the compart-
ments have had labels gummed on them by the
commandant's orders ! " And he shut the window
in triumph. Nothing could have produced a state
of more perfect beatitude in the guard's mind than
to be able to make this announcement. There are
two things that every true Russian official loves
beyond measure. One of them is to tell people that
they can't.
But now a cry went up from our own crowd, for
our guard was seen to be making his way to the
other end of the coach, oblivious of the Circassian's
yells. What ! Were we, who had borne the brunt of
the chilly wait to be ousted by newcomers who had
slept late and breakfasted ? At the thought we seized
our bags and made as one man for the further door,
where a fierce mellay had begun. Ancient experience
as " corner in the field game* enabled me to
get a good place, and I was in the carriage, and
had two seats before the worst began. Then it
* Eton Football.
96 War and Revolution in Russia
was that females screamed and strong men swore
themselves hoarse, for a good fifty were trying to
squeeze themselves and their luggage at once
through a passage made for " one at a time," and
rather a slender one at that, into carriages already
overflowing with humanity. Not one civilian got a
seat. When the train started there were not less
than ten in each compartment (made for six), the
corridor was a staggering human wall, and even the
lavatories and platforms were packed as with
sardines. A sister who, getting out at a wayside
station, found herself in the wrong carriage was
practically passed from hand to hand and almost
overhead before she could regain her original seat.
It is on occasions like these that Russian patience,
a quality that has also its defects, shows up well.
Nobody displays ill-temper or tries to pinch another's
seat, everybody is jolly and agreeable. Colonels
cheerfully stand while subalterns who have got
there first sit. In the second class we are not
perhaps so quite awfully jolly as the soldatiki
(little soldiers, the nearest equivalent to " Tom-
mies ") in their goods -waggons — teplushki, they call
them, as one might say, " warmies " — shouting five
different songs at once, perhaps with a balalaika
and a concertina going too ; but with the aid of a
little palmistry, and infinite cigarettes and chatter,
we do well enough.
Lutsk 97
Thus for about five hours to Kasatin, a junction
where is one of the best railway restaurants in the
world. Here an astonishing crowd from all parts
of the south-western front was collected, all going
in different directions and all gobbling, because no
one knew whether his train would go in five minutes
or five hours. The train to Bovno going after three
and a half, I had ample opportunity to watch the
proceedings. Probably at no moment were less
than two hundred persons eating ; yet at this time
of atrocious transport and cornering of food products
by greedy speculators, an endless supply of soup,
fish, flesh, fowl and excellent bread poured from the
kitchens. The only thing that gave out was the
tartlets. I had not long before been reading Mr.
Curtin's description of fare in Germany, and thought
with pleasure of the monotonous sardines, potato
bread, and cheese that he grew thin upon.
The journey of nine hours on to Rovno was a
repetition of our previous performance complicated
by the addition of civilians who had been waiting
since the previous day at Kasatin, and at 4.30 a.m.
we were dumped out in the muggy darkness before
dawn to be told that no passenger train would go
that day to Lutsk, but a goods train might be made
up at nine. This hour would naturally have no
relation to the time of the train's starting, while as
to arrival it could not take less than five and might
98 War and Revolution in Russia
take nine or ten hours. Any prospect seemed better
than this, and after some prowling about the town
we had the luck to hit on a motor lorry that was to
start at nine for Lutsk by road. In the event it
started at eleven, and landed us, after a drive of four
and a half hours pillowed on convenient bales, in the
town that has attained fame in the communiques of
the general staff.
Lutsk has no other claim to fame. It is one of
the horridest towns I have been in. Mean, damp,
dirty, it possesses no attraction but a nice Polish
cafe that freakishly has chosen its abode here.
What it did in time of peace is unimaginable, for the
entire population of Lutsk appears to consist of
downtrodden Jews. Now it does ceaseless trade
with officers who have nowhere else to go. The
hotels of Lutsk are worse even than its streets, but
with an easy excuse found by the proprietor for all
defects : " What can you expect after the Austrians
have been here ? " Candour compels me to believe
that Lutsk was neither better nor worse before the
Austrians came. None of the windows or doors fit
properly, and my first night when half a gale blew
through the room was one of the coldest I remember
to have spent.
It is an instance of the power of imagination let
loose by the absence of a regular post and the
presence of a censorship, that I was told in Petro-
Lutsk 99
grad that Lutsk was half in ruins and rooms almost
impossible to find. In fact no damage has been done
at all in the town, with the exception of the burnt
railway station and one of the barracks on the out-
skirts. Presumably the Austrians thought the
place nastier when left standing than if destroyed.
Rooms, moreover, were to be found in at least three
hotels. Wild tales were also told of the unit belong-
ing to the Anglo -Russian hospital, that was here for
a time : how it had been forced to retreat, abandon-
ing its buildings and equipment ; how one of the
doctors had been killed by a bomb, and so on. The
11 retreat," on investigation, resolved itself into a
single move, as part of its general scheme of things,
to another part of the front ; the heroically killed
medico, into a wounded motor mechanic. Part of
the unit, however, did have the bad luck to be near
an ammunition depot that was the object of pressing
attentions from German aeronauts. But during the
last few days the weather has been unfavourable
for flying, and there have, been no bombs. The
wind is in the east, and only the heavy thud -thud of
the big guns comes up against it. . . .
My last day at Lutsk was one of pure beauty,
such a day of clear sunshine as may be at English
Christ mastide. The infamous mud dried, and
under the pale blue sky a covey of German aero-
planes came skimming from far away. It is the
100 War and Revolution in Russia
prettiest game to watch the puffs of white smoke,
with a barely seen sparkle, burst apparently of their
own accord and stay like flecks of down in the still
heights of the air, as the gunners vainly try to touch
the gnat-like visitor, poised aloft in perfect com-
posure, with shrapnel. And now and again the
sharp rap of the field-guns is thrown into relief by
the heavier boom as a bomb is dropped and ex-
ploded. In the evening calm two of them came
again, but still higher, and only to observe, disdain-
ing the few shells sent, by way of form, to warn
them not to come too low . As dark fell they vanished ,
and the magic of the night redeemed Lutsk of some-
thing of its squalor. The moon, climbing the sky
in the majesty of fullness, seemed to spread a veil of
silence on the double stream of carts and lorries at
their ceaseless task of bearing supplies to the fight-
ing men, and the hurried, coughing motors that are
the armies' messengers.
XVI
THE GALICIAN VIEW
THE name Galicia exerts an extraordinary
fascination here. It is that part of the war
where the Russian troops have shown some of their
finest qualities ; its soil is consecrated to Russia
by a hundred bloody victories and defeats ; and to
its south-western end, a strip perhaps half as big as
that occupied by the Germans in Belgium, with the
two principal towns of Tarnopol and Buchach, the
Russians hung on, catlike, through all the fury of
last autumn, and are now consolidated and in strong
force, a perpetual menace to the Austrian flank.
But Galicia spells yet more than the claim of spilt
blood and strategic preparation. There hangs
about it the flavour of high romance and the thrill
of the fight for the mountains, to which the popu-
larity in England of pictures from the Carpathians
bore witness. And every Russian felt that the soil
of Galicia was not so much conquered as reclaimed.
Save for Austrian officials and Jews in the towns,
the population was wholly Slav, and fifty per cent.
Ruthenian, and the Ruthenians in blood and
IOI
102 War and Revolution in Russia
language are of the stoutest Russian stock, and by
religion are closely allied. To them the coming of
Russia meant liberation from the yoke of the
foreigner who persecuted their language, prohibited
their poems and their alphabet. The possession of
Pushkin's poems was evidence to an Austrian court
of criminal conspiracy. Russia therefore holds to
Galicia as to a part of herself — a little sister long
lost, now found and clinging to her skirts. She will
not be let go again, that is sure.
The night in the train from Kiev was prolific of
reflection. Thus, that a tip-up seat in the corridor
may be a pearl of much price, but that after 1 a.m.
the floor becomes preferable to a position where you
have to shift your knees to let the guard by, because
if you are on the floor he will step over you somehow.
Then, that more luggage than a sponge is unneces-
sary when even this article cannot be used for the
crush. Also, that though the day may have seemed
warm, for those who want to sleep on boards a
padded coat has its uses. Morning found us still in
Russia with a long motor drive to the base of the
th army, an eyrie fortified by the Turks cen-
turies ago on cliffs round which the river winds like
a maze, and there in front the road pierced into
Galicia like a white sword. Galicia, despite its
woods and rivers, is not a pretty country, but con-
sists mainly of bleak, rolling uplands with stretches
The Galician View 103
here and there of black and fertile soil. This road,
at dawn next day, proved a weariness to the flesh,
so much so that for some ten versts all traffic had
deserted it for an extemporised track in the fields
alongside. Beyond this again, it became excellent,
a testimony to the well-known Austrian care in
roads, though the snow was not melted off the low
hills before the surface, and all things on it were
white with dust. So we came to the line beyond
which the Russians could never be forced back.
They are far in advance of this line now, but you
could trace it with horrible regularity through the
length of the land. Behind are decent towns, snug
villages, smiling farms : in front, gaunt ruins, amid
which churches and chimney stacks and strangely
spared houses rear their heads, mute witnesses to
the thoroughness of the destruction. Low dark
lines begin to show on the hillside, a complete net-
work of trenches should the invader miraculously
penetrate again. These are very good trenches,
meant of course for temporary work and not for
residence as in France, the firing trenches invariably
covered in with a roof of woodwork and sods, that
from the front makes the trench almost invisible.
And now, in addition to the ceaseless motley train
of the army's supply, we begin to pass lines of white-
hooded carts with big red crosses on the hoods.
They are the ambulances, taking the recently
104 Wa/r and Revolution in Russia
wounded to the base ; their two-wheeled design is
said to be the easiest over rough ground. All is
quiet for the moment on this part of the line — this
pathetic caravan, on its fifty-mile journey, is the
result of the day's work of the snipers and mines
and the deadly trench-mortar, whose activities are
It is a dull, chill day, with heavy mists blanketing
the horizon and a bitter wind off the Carpathians.
Less than usual is going on. At our destination,
five miles or so behind the fire-trench, the enemy's
morning aeroplanes have not been seen. Everything
suggestive of transport, especially the hospital
variety, is cunningly concealed with pine branches —
our friend the Hun having lately manifested a
particular attention to the Red Cross. Even the
bread waggon of the Great Britain to Poland and
Galicia Fund's feeding point (my immediate object
here), where 2,000 hungry souls get daily sustenance,
is decorated with frivolous looking greenery. In
the afternoon three Taubes are up, but only scouting,
and they drop no bombs. The thud- thud of heavy
guns punctuates the distance.
Galicia of to-day is a very different place from that
of last year. Then the spirit of adventure was
uppermost. We went gaily along, never doubting
of our speedy success and thinking little of defence.
The summer campaign against Cracow was on
The Oalician View 105
everyone's lips. Advance parties were through the
mountains and pricked across the plains of Hun-
gary. It was then that the storm burst. Now that
we have weathered it, the atmosphere has changed.
We know better what we are up against, and no
longer despise the blue-coated Austrians. Every
step taken forward now is accompanied by compre-
hensive trench digging in the rear, to guard against
the unlikely possibility of retreat. The factories at
Kiev are turning out their thousands of shells and
hundreds of boots every day. Troops appear to be
innumerable, the officers fresh and lively. The
armies of the southern front have now a leader whom
they trust, General Brusilov. Maybe before the
summer is over more of Galicia will have been
reclaimed.
SECTION IV
SOUTH AND NOKTH
XVII
THE REFUGEESJ^AT KIEV »
WHEN Maxim Gorki wrote his famous play,
The Lower Depths, there was a pool of human
misery as yet unplumbed in our modern experience,
a depth below even that of the doss-house, with its
bestial jealousy and drunken orgy, which had he
known, he would have rewritten his play in different
surroundings. But then it did not exist ; it was not
dreamed of as barely possible, and only in this year
of grace has it come fully into being. It is a world
apart from anything known before, from anything
that exists beside it. Its inhabitants are of one class,
one type, one character, and they have but one
name. They are the Refugees. It is impossible
to be with them and not be stirred to the depth of
your soul. On the faces of all is the same expres-
sion, a look of mingled hopelessness and bewilder-
ment : how have they come, why have they come,
1 Fvrtnijhtly Iltviea; September, 1916.
1 06
The Refugees at Kiev 107
whither are they going, what will they do ? None
of these things they know, and, indeed, they hardly
care, for they have reached the point of complete
apathy. Once they were farmers, herdsmen,
carpenters, bricklayers, washerwomen, clerks,
students, priests — now they are flotsam on the tide
of war, carried aimlessly, helplessly, broken perhaps
upon the rocks, perhaps whirled suddenly into some
backwater where breath and a handhold are possible.
They have nothing, and wherever they are their
abode is the same : it is the Limit. Can they ever
escape from this hell ? They hardly believe it.
To the noble city of Kiev, the mother of Russia,
proudly seated on the wooded crests that overhang
the Dnieper, fair as the garden of the Lord, buried
almost beneath a screen of giant poplar, birch, and
chestnut, from which the cupolas of a hundred
churches spring glittering to meet the southern sky,
to Kiev, fragrant with rose and jasmine, come the
refugees. With the first pressure of the renewed
German offensive in Galicia, stragglers began to
arrive from Tarnow, over three hundred miles away ;
and as the enemy advanced the whole countryside
fled before him, seeking to escape death and out-
rage, or the horrid fate for men of serviceable age of
being forced at the bayonet point to fight against
their Russian brothers. For by blood and speech
these Ruthenian peasants are one with the Little
108 War and Revolution in Russia
Russians of the Ukraine, and in religion, belonging
as they do to the United Greek Church, are not
widely separated from them. In everything they
tend towards Russian culture, and, strengthened in
their resolve by the Austrian prohibition of the
Russian alphabet, they had long since fixed their
hopes on Russia as saviour and as friend. When the
war began many were forced unwillingly into the
Austrian ranks, many more were imprisoned as
friends of the Muscovite — " Moscali " they were
called — and many tasted death against a wall or at
the end of a rope as the Austrians retreated. Faint
echoes come through of the fate meted out to such
as have now stayed. To take but one instance :
in a village not far from Sanoc twelve Russian girls
were hanged. And why ? Because the day that the
Russian Emperor drove through they, poor mites,
had sung a song of welcome. What wonder, when
such things are done, that all who could escaped
beforehand ? While yet the Russian line was
beyond Lemberg the greater number stayed within
the Galician border, huddled together like field-mice
in the corner of corn that has not now yet been
reaped. Fifty thousand a day were fed in Lwow,
and yet children lay and died in the streets ; in the
one little village of Jagelnitze 22,000 were fed in nine
days. But when our Allies, grandly fighting, fell
back further, the Galicians could stay no more :
The Refugees at Kiev 109
they turned and poured into southern Russia, a
wailing multitude. Not perhaps since the settle-
ment of Europe after the great movement known
as the Wandering of the Peoples has there been in
our hemisphere so frightful an upheaval of social
life as has marked the track of the Teutonic armies
in Poland and Galicia during the war. And now,
as the degree of civilisation is higher so much more
profound is the depth of suffering.
This last exodus is the most tragic of all, and the
case of these refugees the most pitiable. Perhaps
they started with some little property ; if so they
have been forced to sell or abandon it on the way.
No one knows yet how many there are or will be :
at first 50,000 was the figure given, then eighty,
now it is supposed that there must be over 100,000.
The Zemstvo organisations, the town authorities, a
special committee at Kiev appointed to deal with
the problem, catch them on the way, divert them
into villages, prepare schoolhouses for them, try to
prevent their flocking into and overcrowding the
towns, sift them, label them, but still they come.
At first Kiev was unprepared. The refugees lay
in the streets and fainted from hunger. Then they
were got into monastery buildings, into the rooms
of the academy, into private houses and places of
business, and when I came a week ago 1 there was not
1 In the first week in July.
110 War and Revolution in Russia
much evidence of them to the casual passer-by. In
many of the refuges there is at all events some show
of ordered life, though the only furniture of the
dormitories consists of the pallet beds. But sud-
denly comes one that beggars description. . . .
It is a big two-storied building, a kind of mer-
chants' Exchange, standing in front of a sandy
square, with two immense halls and numerous large
adjacent rooms. In a small space cut off by a
paling from the square, the entrance to which is
guarded by a policeman, is a swaying crowd, very
filthy, very ragged, and quite undisturbed by the
stench that rises from the neighbouring extem-
porised latrines. We push through, up an outer iron
staircase into the main room, to find ourselves in
the midst of hundreds of refugees, intermingled
with yet others, prisoners brought from Galicia on
charge of espionage. Over a thousand people must
be in the building. They lie on the floor in every
stage of misery and weakness ; there is not a stick
of furniture in the place, nothing but the refugees
and their frowsy rags. Yes, it is the Limit. Many
are crying, silently. They come round us, not
obtrusively, but in a piteous, friendless way, as if
hardly daring to believe that anyone can take
interest in them. They began to talk, for among
the visitors is one from their own land, a bluff,
genial, bearded figure, who knows every village and
The Refugees at Kiev 111
every family in the country. " Where's your
mother ? " " Dead."—" Father ? " " Captured."
~* Who is this girl ? " " An orphan."— Here is
another, one of seven sisters ; she knows where five
are, or thinks she does, the sixth has disappeared.
There are over sixty little children in the room,
most lying quietly, and not even crying, but one
scampers ceaselessly about crowing and stamping,
with a broad grin and dancing brown eyes. He
cannot be above three years. He was found in
Lwow, but beyond that no one knows any-
thing about him. For his fun and sweetness they
call him " Jolly Willy." In one corner a young
woman, with a face like Michael Angelo's Delphic
Sibyl, is trying to suckle her baby. Twice she tries
to give it milk, but she cannot. There is none to
give. She is too weak. Hard by is another couple.
The mother looks healthy, but the child of three
weeks, born out of time on the road, lies open-
mouthed with eyes staring. It has the face of a very
old man, sharp and puckered.
Then they all begin to tell us. They are hungry.
Some have not eaten for days. None have had
enough to keep them above the point of constant
suffering. Most literally they are starving. For-
tunately the representatives of a British relief
organisation who are in Kiev are on the spot and the
situation is taken in hand. Three hundred pounds
112 War and Revolution in Russia
of bread are procured, tea, and as much milk as the
neighbourhood can provide, a sausage - maker's
shop is bought out, a big boiler found and set going,
meal tickets written and distributed, and before
long the refugees are having their first real dinner
since who knows how long. It was late before the
workers got to bed that night.
The next day showed how valuable one simple
meal may be. Already the look of sharp misery on
their faces was less, their eyes less tormented. The
bread of yesterday had done more than give them
fresh blood, it gave them hope : they have begun
again to believe in life. By midday an old kitchen
had been cleared out, and in the big coppers some
ninety gallons of " kasha " and pork bubbled
merrily for the first dinner. The general look of the
place had not yet changed much, but the work had
begun. An English engineer, a neat, hardy York-
shireman, himself escaped from death on the
Galician oilfields with his wife and child of sixteen
months, came forward to help the British Com-
mittee, and is now rebuilding the stove and fitting
a third copper ; another committee has been found
to tend the prisoners ; the Grand Duchess Tatiana's
committee has promised a doctor and medical
supervision, and with the engineer will improve the
imperfect sanitation, a daily source of danger. Best
of all, a bath has been bought and forty children
The Refugees at Kiev 113
already washed. Of course they cried, but after-
wards ! The change wrought in them can
nohow be so well described as by the simple fact
that they shrank from putting on again their dirty
clothes. The feeling of cleanliness was pleasant to
them, their skins had been miraculously white and
soft, and instinct told them, what one may be sure
none else had ever done, that a sweet, clean little
body should not be covered up with linen brown
with grime. But much time must pass before
enough linen can be obtained for these and the other
thousand men, women, and children all in the same
need.
What is tragic in the situation is that these
hundreds whose sufferings have begun to be relieved
make but a small fraction of the total number, and
what is happening at Kiev is surely repeating itself
in every town to which the Galician refugees come.
XVIII
WINTER IN PETROGRAD, 1915-1916
WINTER in Russia has often been described
by British novelists, and it is said that to
this day honest people exist in England who believe,
on the strength of such statements, that wolf -hunting
by the banks of the Neva is one of the amusements of
the nobility in Petrograd. But, if one may judge
from personal experience, the Russian winter has
not been described very accurately. For it is an
extraordinary thing and worthy of attention from
the curious. I once spent the winter in America, a
winter that was said to be the hardest there had been
for sixty years. From December to March the
thermometer went down to below zero on an average
four times a week, and at Christmas in the country
we had a temperature of 10 degrees below zero
(Fahrenheit). This, by all accounts, is as severe in
the Eastern States as the 20 or 30 or even 40° below
zero that you may find in the drier climate of the
Middle West or of Canada.
Now, Russians talk so much about the heat in
summer, and their heat is so much less severe than
"4
Winter in Petrograd 115
the American variety, that it was perhaps pardon-
able to think that their tales of the cold, too, were
probably exaggerated. But in this case it is their
moderation that is exaggerated. Snow and hard
frost one expected, but this . . . ! Certainly no one
ever gave me any real idea of what the Russian
winter was like. It must be that the cold in Russia
has a peculiar quality that makes it far colder than
elsewhere. I found that 15° of frost (Reaumur),
which is nearly 7° below zero Fahrenheit, was not
nearly so cold at Karungi, less than ten miles from
the Arctic Circle, as 12° at Petrograd. Twenty
degrees of frost in the capital, which is 13° below
zero Fahrenheit, is almost incredibly cold. It would
be cold in America too ; but there the breath does
not freeze men's whiskers solid, nor are the flanks of
your cabhorse sheathed in icicles, nor is it a matter
of urgency to wrap your head in furs — in fact, in
America there are many people who never wear fur
caps at all. In frozen Russia before you have been
fifteen minutes in the air your greatcoat collar is
white with your breath, to be without fur or a padded
cap on your head is to risk violent neuralgia, and
to go with your ears uncovered to court frostbite.
A " shuba," or heavy coat, padded with cotton-
wool, or with wool and fur combined, is a first neces-
sity of comfortable life, and almost every man,
woman, and child has one. If not they wear, like
116 War and Revolution in Russia
the cabdrivers, about six coats, one above the other.
Mark, too, that an ordinary fur coat, such as serves
in America or Germany, where the winter can be
hard enough, is almost useless in Russia, since the
fur, without an interlining of wool, does not keep
out the knife -like cold. On the other hand, a
Russian " shuba " could hardly be worn anywhere
else, as it would be far too heavy and hot. The great
majority of people wear fur caps as well, or, if not,
put on specially-made ear protectors lined with fur
or wool, turn-up collars six inches deep, or wind a
" bashlik," the military detachable hood, round
their heads. The army recruits — for whom a suffi-
cient supply of " papahi," the high military lambs-
wool hats, is probably not forthcoming — have then-
heads tied up in black cloth under their caps as
they exercise in the streets.
Russians of the peasant class, immensely hardy
as they are, respect the cold and take great precau-
tions against it. The " dvorniki " (concierges), who
doze at their posts in the streets even during the
early sharp frost, give up their rest when the winter
becomes severe, and wander about the streets in
front of the gateways to which they belong, buried
under gigantic coats of thick sheep's wool, their legs
thrust into high felt boots, or join little groups, with
cabmen and policemen, round blazing fires of wood
at the street corners. In England on a frosty day
Winter in Petrograd 117
one runs about from sheer joie de vivre and physical
frivolity. In Russia, even without being told, one
soon realises that it is a matter of importance to
keep the circulation going. You may see staid
passers-by break into a sudden run or begin violently
to beat themselves ; or a cabman leap from his
perch and, gathering his voluminous skirts in one
hand, while he still holds the reins in the other, run
alongside his sleigh with huge leaps. If hands or
feet get really cold, he knows the trouble he will have
to get them warm again. In this the quadruped has
the best of it ; he seems wholly impervious to the
cold, and will cheerfully drink at midnight from a
trough on which an inch of ice has to be broken
to get at the water. Sentinels are so carefully buried
in the immensity of their sheepskin coats that at a
yard's distance you would hardly take them for
human.
Another surprise of the Russian winter that awaits
the ingenuous foreigner is the temperature of the
houses. When, despite the efforts of countless
cleaners, six inches of snow lie in the street, and
every scrap of brasswork on the trams is swathed in
flannel to save unguarded fingers from the touch of
the naked metal, one would expect interiors to be
kept almost uncomfortably hot. But the big stoves
that warm Russian rooms, however well stoked,
cannot battle triumphantly with the fierce bite of
118 War and Revolution in Russia
the air, and the temperature of the rooms seldom
rises above 61-63° Fahrenheit. Windows have to be
hermetically sealed with putty, leaving only the
" vasistas " to open, or the whole room will remain
icy cold. During the last two days, when the glass
has been down in the morning to 22° below zero on
the streets and 35-5° below zero on the banks of the
Neva, the air in my room, despite a stove kept baking
hot, has never managed to be warmer than 60°.
Against such cold nothing but heating by a central
furnace can be really effective. Even the trains
heated by steam -pipes are by no means very warm.
Motor-cars are not numerous in the streets ; apart
from the cold, the snow, churned by the runners for
the sleighs wherever the traffic is dense into thick,
soft powder, makes driving unpleasant. The
bonnets of the motors have hoods of thick cloth, or
sometimes coarse fur ; even so, leave the car stand-
ing in the open for an hour and you risk frost in the
pipes and a cracked cylinder.
Thus it is in the capital when winter holds Russia
in its grip. Imagine, then, what it must be at the
front. In the Minsk region and to the south the
climate is much milder ; spurts of frost and snow
are succeeded by rain, and the worst enemy is the
damp. But further north, round Dvinsk, where
the climate approaches that of Petrograd, the
suffering must be terrible. Active fighting must
Winter in Petrograd 119
indeed be difficult when to stand still for ten minutes
is to have the feet chilled and the senses numbed,
and for the German, who is not inured from child-
hood to such experiences, one would think barely
possible. Here in Petrograd the sun, a rose of fire,
breaks through the mist of the horses' freezing
breath and the spray of snow thrown up from their
hoofs ; far away down the long street gleams palely
the golden spire of the Admiralty. Winter, the
master magician, spreads a pall of beauty over fur
and fustian, palace and hovel alike ; but his smile
is relentless and his touch upon the head or the
heart of man spells death.
SECTION V
REVOLUTION
XIX
RASPUTIN *
ON December 17/30, 1916, the evening edition
of the Stock Exchange Gazette contained a
headline in type larger than the message of the
General Staff or the news of the rising of the Duma.
The words of this headline were " Death of Gregory
Rasputin . ' ' The brief paragraph , to which it referred ,
was inserted at the foot of the page, also in headline
type. It ran : " This morning at 6 o'clock, at one
of the aristocratic mansions in the centre of the
capital, after a party, Gregory Rasputin suddenly
passed away." Within an hour of the publication
of the paper the entire edition was either con-
fiscated by the police or else recalled from the
office, and the streets were filled with people rushing
from one newsboy to another looking in vain for a
stray copy that might have escaped notice. Never-
theless, the tale spread like wildfire. Friends rang
1 The New Europe, February 1, 1917.
120
Rasputin 121
up on the telephone to congratulate one another on
the news, and in the evening the Imperial Theatre
had the appearance of an Easter Festival ; members
of the audience shook hands indiscriminately,
demanded that the orchestra should strike up the
national hymn, and forgot the play in their concen-
tration on the all-engrossing news.
For people living in England it is hard to realise
the importance of the announcement of Rasputin's
death. Those who are accustomed to the spectacle
of liberty in the British Empire, in America, in
France, and Italy, and of the strongly ordered
political regime of Germany, and who have seen
France rise renascent from the overthrow of the
retrograde elements that attempted in the Dreyfus
case to stifle civic conscience and process of law, can
hardly believe that in the twentieth "century, in one
of the chief European States, the powers of darkness
stalk unashamed and are openly known as such.
" The dark power," in the Russian idiom, is no new
thing. It has existed and sometimes ruled for a
hundred years, since Alexander I came notably
under its influence, and the term has been used to
designate the secret and usually semi-religious
advisers of the crown who have sprung up, flourished
and gone their way. There have been many ; the
most recent and the strongest of them was Rasputin.
He so much monopolised attention that an article
122 War and Revolution in Russia
on the dark power in a leading Petrograd daily not
two weeks before this staggering event began by
saying that the expression had come to be the known
synonym for one particular person.
Rasputin was by origin a peasant in the govern-
ment of Tobolsk in Siberia. Thence, after a youth
of varied experience, including conviction for horse
stealing, he set out on a voyage of discovery through
the monasteries of Russia, even going as far afield
as Smyrna and Constantinople. On his return he
settled at a monastery in his native government, and
here first gave proof of the gifts that were later to
earn him celebrity, fortune, and death. But it was
not until 1903 that Bishop Theophanes, Rector of
the Petrograd Clerical Academy, travelling in
Siberia, had his attention drawn to Rasputin, then
thirty -four years of age. He in turn interested a
well-known lady, the Countess Ignatiev, who had
Rasputin brought to Petrograd and introduced him
to society and the court, where his qualities were
soon appreciated by those on the steps of the throne.
Like the bishop and the countess, who afterwards
became her protege's bitter enemy, these probably
made one mistake : they doubtless thought that
they could use his cleverness and strength, and
discard him when they wanted. His strength and
cleverness were not overrated ; but he stuck like a
limpet. For twelve years Rasputin's finger was in
Rasputin 123
innumerable court intrigues ; for six or seven he was
one of the most important figures in the State ;
for the last two he has been a danger to the arms of
the Allies. In the course of this career he amassed
a large fortune, and by the end of it had the appoint-
ment of the chief positions in the government in his
hands.
It is not to be supposed that so large and so
sustained a success could have attended the man
unless he had been possessed of real native ability,
perhaps the more effective because it did not show
upon the surface. But he had two special gifts that
marked him from the common adventurer. There
are in Siberia families with hereditary powers that
for want of a better word may be called magnetic,
comparable to those of Red Indian or Zulu " medi-
cine men," giving ascendancy over man and beast.
From such a family Rasputin probably sprang.
It is in any case certain that he obtained remarkable
credence with the Emperor and the Empress owing
to his influence on the health of the son to whom
they are both devoted. The heir -apparent suffered
from the rare complaint characterised by extreme
difficulty in stopping the flow of blood from a wound
however minute. Thus there are cases of persons
having bled to death on having a tooth extracted by
dentists ignorant of their idiosyncrasy. A touch
from Rasputin's hand could arrest the effusion of
124 War and Revolution in Russia
the Tsarevich's blood, and may have saved his life.
Partly through this and partly by direct action
Rasputin moreover had a salutary effect upon the
Empress' own health, that began to be observable
about the time, some years ago, when his influence
rapidly increased, no doubt as the result. He alone
was able to draw her from the dangerous fits of
melancholia that kept her nervously confined to a
dark room for weeks at a time. While these advant-
ages strengthened his hold and repelled all attempts
to oust him, his other gift enabled him to extend his
orbit and surround himself with an atmosphere
highly favourable to the corrupt practices in which
he revelled.
It is generally known that Russian religious
mysticism contains a strong element of eroticism.
Traces and occasional outbursts of this are not un-
known in the West ; in the East it has been common
from the earliest history, and Russia has still many
Eastern traits. Rasputin was a poor attempt at a
mystic ; but his amorous exploits rivalled those of
Casanova, and he may be reckoned a true example
of what Havelock Ellis terms a sexual athlete.
Thus supplying religious deficiencies by a peasant's
cunning and his own peculiar force, he erected him-
self into a cult strongly resembling on certain sides
the Bacchanalian orgies and other rites as practised
among the ancient Greek colonies of Asia Minor.
Rasputin 125
In his own town he had kept a mystic harem of
twelve young ladies, and celebrated Sabbat -like
feasts with them. He at least could not be held a
fool according to the saying of Martin Luther :
Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, Gesang,
Bleibt ein Narr sein Leben dang !
for he was fond of music, danced for hours at a
stretch, could drink a guardsman under the table,
and gave the cavalcade of women who passed
through his arms indelible impressions. A touching
scene was witnessed not many months ago at the
departure station for Tsarskoe Selo, where a hand-
some lady of princely rank, whose cousins have a
great house in England, pursued Rasputin with cries
of " Adieu, cheri ! " and he the while " Keep her
away ! Bring the young one there forward ! Send
the old thing back ! Come here, pretty ! "
Given these facts and the thorough suppression
of healthy public criticism by the censorship and
the police, it was inevitable that report should link
the Empress' name with Rasputin's in the most
intimate sense ; but it should be said that some well-
placed observers do not believe such rumours to be
supported by fact. 1 On this point the evidence of
a distinguished diplomatist until recently resident
1 These rumours, accepted as truth by an immense number of
people, have been the subject of innumerable lewd broadsheets
and caricatures since the revolution. — J. P., July, 1917.
126 War and Revolution in Russia
in Petrograd may be quoted. This gentleman's
influence was invoked in a case during the war where
Rasputin was believed to have meddled. He said
at once : " S'il y a du Rasputin dedans, il n'y a rien
a faire. A l'heure actuelle, cet animal est plus fort
que jamais. II dispose de tout. Le plus triste de la
chose est que physiquement, je suis persuad6,
Fimperatrice n'y est pour rien. Je la connais depuis
longtemps. Elle avait une education on ne peut
plus triste. Son pere etait un hyst6rique et un
vaurien qui passait son temps a boire, a jouer, et
avec les femmes ; son frere, le Grand-due actuel,
est un scelerat. Sa mere etait une sainte, oui, une
sainte. En venant en Russie l'imperatrice est
devenue plus orthodoxe que les orthodoxes et plus
bigote que tous les eveques, et sa soeur, la Grande
Duchesse Serge, est encore plus bigote qu'elle.
C'est une nature hysterique et le lieu qui la tient a
Rasputin est son amour pour son fils. Elle le croit
son sauveur. Une fois Kokostsov (le premier
ministre) insista qu'on renvoyat Rasputin. On le
renvoya. Le Tsarevitch tomba et faillit d'en
mourir. On envoya immediatement pour rappeler
Rasputin, et Kokostsov tomba. Oui, je connais
Rasputin. C'est un homme ni beau, ni laid, pas
tres signifiant, qui vous ne regarde jamais dans le
blanc des yeux ; les siens sont furtifs, il vous fuient
tout le temps. Oui, si vous voulez, Marie Antoinette
Rasputin 127
et la cour du 18* siecle. Mais quelle difference !
Alors, c'6taient les marquis, les fetes du Trianon ;
maintenant les fetes sont dans le bain, c'est de
la boue— le petit Trianon a la russe ! " To do him
justice Rasputin was no hypocrite. He made no
pretence to decent conduct and would as soon that
his debauches were in full view of the public as in the
privacy of a palace. In the winter of 1915 he was at
Moscow and at Yar's (the smartest Muscovite
restaurant) behaved himself in a way so unmention-
able that a proces -verbal by the police officer on
duty was inevitable. The result would have been
unexpected in any other country but Russia. The
officer who made the proces -verbal, the prefect of
the police to whom it was sent, and the prefect of the
city were all within a short time dismissed from
their posts.
Down almost to the end of his life Rasputin was
one of the most accessible of men. Anyone who had
liquor to share could enjoy his company. His
apartment was open to petitioners. All who came
not empty-handed could hope for success. But the
substance had to be there. Wine he had for the
asking, women, the pick of the court circles ; but
of gold he could never have enough, and he piled
high the money-bags. Otherwise he lived simply,
dressed like the peasant he was, washed no more
than a peasant, preserved the racy, sly wit of a
128 War and Revolution in Russia
peasant's talk. In this there was probably the con-
sciousness that the more that remained in him of
Russian soil, the better would be his position as a
Russian peasant seer at the half -German court.
He seemed in a sense to apologise for the foreign tone
of the rulers by his unimpeachably native presence.
He was almost wholly illiterate. His telegrams to
the Emperor, marked with a special cross to show
their authenticity, were delivered straight to the
chief of the telegraph service. His ungrammatical
scrawls, signed with the same cross, were well known
to ministers and had irresistible authority. Offi-
cially he held the office of lighter of the sacred lamps
in the palace, but although he was addressed as
Father Gregory he was never in religious orders.
Yet more than his actual person was deemed to be
sacred. The doctor attending the heir -apparent
once discovered in his patient's bed, pressed close to
the little fretful body, a dirty peasant's shirt. To
his indignant question the Emperor, blushing,
answered that he had himself placed the garment
there. The doctor understood and was silent. The
Imperial daughters have also worn Father Gregory's
shirt as a fetish. " It is not," said one of Russia's
old race of fighting men, whose name became
famous in'the Turkish war, " it is not that the fellow
is a wizard, but that our Imperial family have the
superstitions of peasants."
Rasputin 129
It goes without saying that Rasputin's position
was constantly challenged, and a considerable part
of his time was doubtless spent in warding off
attacks. He was alive to the slightest breath of
adverse opinion and prompt to prevent expression
of it. A twelvemonth ago two articles appeared in
a Petrograd paper reflecting on his position. The
proprietor of the paper was sent for by the chief of
police, who said : " You want to upset the empire.
Well, they say the winter is very pleasant in Turke-
stan. We can easily send you there ; as for your
paper, we will suppress it." A highly -placed friend
of the proprietor, learning of this, rushed to the
Prime Minister, and to other important personages,
and was able to get these drastic measures stopped.
But he was told that if such a thing happened again
there would be no warning and no mercy. A some-
what similar incident took place a few months later.
A well-known Russian author had written a play
in which the action turned on the influence exerted
on a woman by a peasant storyteller, who was
shown on the stage surrounded by his devotees ;
and this scene, together with the rest, was passed by
the censor. The first night was eagerly awaited
and the house sold out in advance. Three days
before the date fixed for production the censor
telephoned to the manager of the theatre that he had
been warned against the play, as containing an
130 War and Revolution in Russia
allusion to a living person, and that it might be
prohibited. The manager invited the censor to th«
dress rehearsal to see the play in its final form, ready
for the public, and the censor assured him that if he
were satisfied that no resemblance were intended,
no objection would be made. The day of production
arrived, the Press was primed for a successful send-off,
the manager was informed by the censor that there
was no objection and that the play could proceed,
when almost simultaneously a telephone message
came from the Prefecture that an order had been
signed forbidding it. The censor was telephoned
to, but knew nothing. The assistant of the Prefect
of Petrograd was telephoned to, but knew nothing.
The prohibition, it was said, came from the Minister
of the Interior, and a rumour began to go round that
Rasputin was aimed at in the play. The manager
instantly went to the Minister's residence and was
cordially received. But the Minister knew nothing,
had not heard of the play, and was unaware of the
author's existence. Next day the author and his
friends felt confident that the prohibition would be
removed. The author saw the Assistant Minister
of the Interior, who said that if the author would
omit the scene above referred to, his work could be
promised a licence. This the author refused, but
said he would completely change the passage.
Several other persons saw Ministers and persons
Rasputin 131
prominent in the government. What was remark-
able was that everyone professed not to know
whence the prohibition had come, and the Minister
of the Interior who had promised to find out and
telephone to the manager did not telephone. Next
morning, therefore, the manager determined to go
with a friend to see Rasputin, through the good
offices of a third who knew him. They presented
themselves at noon. An Imperial motor-car was
in the courtyard. A Sister of Mercy, who opened
the door, at first said that they could not be received,
as an emissary of the Empress was with Rasputin.
After some persuasion, however, they were admitted
and shown into the dining-room. The whole flat
was very plain and bare. In the dining-room the
only furniture consisted of chairs round the wall for
petitioners, and the room was in fact full of them,
mostly richly dressed Jewish women. On one wall
was a large signed photograph of the Emperor ;
opposite was a signed portrait of the Empress and
one of Rasputin himself. The manager and his
friend were shown into another room. The further
door opened and Rasputin came in. He was a man
of middle height, with very long dark hair and a
fullish beard. He wore a fine embroidered blue
silk blouse, trousers, and slippers. The manager
said : M Are you Father Gregory ? " Rasputin
went up to him at once and said in a serious, simple,
132 War and Revolution in Russia
rather sad way, " Why did you do it ? It was very
wrong of you. You wanted to do me harm. No, it
was very wrong of you." He used, as always, even
in speaking to the Empress, the familiar "thou."
The manager explained that he had not the slightest
idea of attacking him, and had no notion that a
single word used could be thought to have reference
to him ; he begged Rasputin to allow the produc-
tion, saying that after so much expense and so many
expectations the prohibition was a most serious
matter to him. Rasputin answered : " You will
find better plays. Forget about it. Forget it
altogether." The manager asked whether if the
scene objected to were completely changed, Rasputin
would not intercede in his favour. On this Father
Gregory said : "I'll speak to Maklakov (former
Minister of the Interior). No, I'll speak to Biletsky
(the Assistant Minister of the Interior) about it.
Ring me up on the telephone and we will talk
more — here is my number — say 'the gentleman
with the play ' ; yes, you shall be ' the — gentle-
man with the play.' "
The interview was short. On the whole, Rasputin
made a pleasant impression on the manager, far
more so than he had expected, because he had gone
much prejudiced against the quasi-prophet. Raspu-
tin was, he said, very simple, like a peasant priest :
his face was not bad, nor his eyes, but they had a
Rasputin 133
hunted, tormented look in them, the look of a
suffering man. The predominant thought in Raspu-
tin's mind was, he believed, fear of losing his posi-
tion ; this was what made the question of the play
serious for him. That he was deeply offended was
obvious, and he said almost in so many words that
he had heard of the matter and had personally had
the production stopped (as it was afterwards learned,
by having one of the court officials telephone to the
Prefect of Petrograd). He asked, with some sur-
prise : " When was the play licensed by the censor?"
The manager replied : " Two months ago." "Oh,
then I understand," Rasputin said with a little
laugh, " it was my enemies who did it," implying
that at that date he was out of favour and had since
surmounted a crisis. It was impossible, said the
manager, not to understand his position, and evident
that a play to which attention was prominently
drawn, where he was, however slightly, reflected on
was fraught with danger not only to his position,
but to his life, and even to the lives of others besides.
He left with the impression that, whatever changes
were made, Rasputin would never allow the produc-
tion of the play to take place.
Politics in Russia are always so much a matter of
court intrigue that Rasputin's attention could not
have failed to be turned to this fascinating sport.
Possessed of infinite relations among the higher
134 War and Revolution in Russia
clergy, he soon gained great ascendancy over lay
politicians also. Count Witte, that tower of German
and reactionary influence, constantly consulted him ;
he overthrew Kotostsov, was on intimate terms
with Maklakov and Goremykin, was hand and glove
with Stunner, and installed Protopopov in his
present powerful position. Officials who resented
his interference or refused his recommendations
were punished by the loss of their positions. One
honest man kicked him downstairs ; he was himself
ejected on the morrow by methods as forcible, if
more polite. Rasputin became a trusted agent of
the Empress in matters reaching beyond the palace
walls, and this was so widely recognised that open
lament was made at the beginning of the war to
Princess T., who happened to be in Austria, that
Rasputin had by ill-fortune not been at court during
the crisis : if he had been, it was said, Russia would
never have declared war. Rasputin himself made
the same boast : " Ah, if I had been with him, Nick
would never have gone to war. But since it hap-
pened, I said to him, you must command our army,
Nick ! Go on to the front ! And so I sent him
there." This was simultaneous with the Grand
Duke Nicholas' being superseded in the chief com-
mand, and though it may be that Rasputin took
too much credit to himself, the Grand Duke was his
open enemy, and, it is said, threatened to hang him
Rasputin 135
should he venture into the sphere of military rule.
Father Gregory became the close friend of General
Suhomlinov and of Rubinstein, the Jewish million-
aire banker, who was arrested by orders from
General Headquarters after Sozonov had been
ejected from the Government by the pro-German
party. It was therefore only fitting that Rasputin
should at a rout at his own apartment make the
announcement that both of them were to be liber-
ated ; and liberated shortly afterwards they both
were. A little while before Rasputin's death, a
general well known for work on the defences of the
empire refused to receive one of his messengers ;
as was only natural, the general was removed from
his important post.
With the meeting of the Duma in November the
universal indignation growing against Rasputin
found expression in words. Perhaps he was not a
worse man than many, but he represented an in-
tolerable system, and was its most active and
scandalous agent, The tempest first broke against
Stunner and with such overwhelming force that to
support him was out of the question ; and Stunner
was raised to the more tranquil spheres of an
elevated court post. It then turned on Pitirim,
Metropolitan of Petrograd, Raev, Oberprocurator of
the Holy Synod, and Protopopov, of the Ministry of
the Interior, all three reputed creatures of Rasputin,
136 War and Revolution in Russia
but the first surprise in which the Government was
caught by the Sturmer revelations had blown itself
out, and they have so far 1 weathered the storm. But
at the back of all minds was Rasputin. His name
was not allowed to be mentioned in the Duma or
in the Press, but one audacious deputy, a strong
Conservative, delivered a fiery speech ending with
an adjuration to the Duma and the Council of the
Empire to go in a loyal mass to their Emperor and
beg him to dismiss Rasputin. As the name was
almost the last word of the speech, there was no
stopping the speaker, though the end was cut out
of the Press reports. The clerical deputies are
known of all members of the Duma to be the most
conservative ; yet it was a priest who followed
Purishkevich and denounced Rasputin as the shame
of the Orthodox Church. There was no question of
parties. For the first time in its history, the Duma —
no longer, be it remembered, of the ardent com-
plexion that characterised the 1st and 2nd Dumas,
but a Duma elected under the law of June 3rd — was
united to combat the danger that treachery within
the realm, working through the despicable but open
agency of an illiterate and immoral charlatan, would
compass the ruin of Russia and achieve the success
of Germany. When the Duma, the Council of the
Empire, the association of the Noblesse passed
1 In January, 1917.
Rasputin 137
resolutions demanding a responsible ministry, every-
one knew that the dark power wielded by Rasputin
was one of the widest gulfs that had to be crossed
before reaching the desired goal. Nevertheless, when
a tactful representative from the Duma placed the
evidence of the nation's desire before his sovereign,
he was answered to the effect, " I cannot understand
why people should meddle with the private affairs of
my family." Rasputin generally met new acquaint-
ances with the question, " Are you a journalist ?
I'm afraid of journalists." But on this occasion he
went to the office of a newspaper, and said that he
had made ministers and would go on making
ministers let his enemies write what they pleased.
After December 6th, the Emperor's name-day,
when the expected reception of the two Chambers
did not take place, and instead of a reassuring mani-
festo to the nation was issued only a laudatory
rescript to the Metropolitan, Pitirim, it became
generally recognised that words could do no more.
" Everything has been said," people told one
another, and the words were reproduced by the
correspondent of The Times : " It now remains to
act." Princess Vasilchikov, wife of a member of
the Council of the Empire and former Minister of
Agriculture, wrote to the Empress, a personal
friend, and begged her to send away Rasputin. It
was Princess Vasilchikov who was sent away from
138 War and Revolution in Russia
Petrograd, accompanied by her husband, and then
received countless visits from members of both
Chambers and an address signed by nearly two
hundred ladies representing the Russian aristocracy.
The Grand Duchess Victoria approached her cousin
personally, and was banished to her estate on the
Bessarabian frontier. The Emperor's brother, it is
said, moved by his wife's relations, clever middle -
class Moscow people, sought an interview with
Nicholas II on the same errand, only to meet with
a sharp rebuff. Prince Trubetskoy said from his
place in the Council of the Empire that Russia was
ruled by a false prophet and a woman suffering from
hysteria. An assassin was hired by the Union of the
Russian people, a society commonly known as the
Black Hundred, and under the special protection
of the police, to kill Miliukov, who had denounced
Sturmer, but was overcome by patriotic feelings
and warned him instead.
Before the 10th of December it began to be said
that Rasputin would be killed, and that if this
warning did not suffice the turn of others would
come. One night the report indeed went round that
the deed had been done. To be threatened, even
assaulted, was no new thing to Father Gregory.
In 1913 he was stabbed by a woman and nearly
killed. A rival in religion, Eliodore, former Prior
of the Tsaritsin Monastery, once had him trapped
Rasputin 139
with the object of rendering him impotent. And in
1915 Hvostov, Minister of the Interior, whom Ras-
putin had himself raised to his post but without
getting sufficient guarantees as to his obedience,
arranged with a high police official to have him
assassinated, but was given away by the Assistant
Minister and dismissed. Hvostov still enjoys much
influence, and this event is quite calmly referred to
in the papers. This time, however, the matter
appeared more serious, for Rasputin shut himself up
at home and only received visitors after a close
scrutiny by agents of the secret police stationed in
the hall, sometimes capriciously refusing even
persons of high rank. Elaborate precautions were
taken to conceal his traces. An official in a public
office, having business with Rasputin, telephoned to
him one evening. No answer. He telephoned at
intervals all the evening. No answer. Next morning
the police came to this official's residence and
removed the telephone.
Late in the night of December 16th a very rich
and fashionable young nobleman connected by
marriage with the Imperial family rang up Rasputin
on the telephone and invited him to a supper-party
at his house. Rasputin, after some demur, con-
sented, but stipulated that his host should come to
fetch him, and come by the back way so that even
the porter might not know he had gone out. The
140 War and Revolution in Russia
young man arrived in a motor-car ; Rasputin him-
self opened the door and went away with him. On
reaching their destination, they entered together,
followed by the chauffeur, who was in fact a member
of the Duma, unknown to Rasputin. Rasputin
found himself in presence not of a party, but of these
two and a certain Grand Duke. The number of
versions of what took place is bewildering, but these
are believed to be the substantial facts. No women
were in the place, no wine was opened, there was no
friendly talk, no lots were drawn. Lots had been
drawn before among a much larger number of those
determined to put Father Gregory out of the way.
The three men informed Rasputin that he had to die,
and he was handed a revolver with which to shoot
himself. He took the pistol, but instead of com-
mitting suicide, fired point-blank at the Grand Duke.
The latter ducked, the bullet passing over his head,
and the three shot Rasputin down. The body was
placed in the motor-car and driven to a deserted
spot on one of the islands in the Neva, where it had
a stone tied round the ankles and was dropped over
a bridge into the river through a hole in the ice.
Traces of blood were found on the snow in the
morning, and one golosh had stuck on the lower
woodwork of the bridge. No detection, however,
was required to investigate the affair, since there
was no attempt at concealment, and the first step
Rasputin 141
taken by the authors of the deed was to inform the
police and telephone to the paper that published
the news. Throughout the following day search
was made for the body, but it was not found until
the morning of the 19th. The stone tied round the
ankles had apparently dropped off, or not been
heavy enough to sink the body, which had floated
up and caught under the ice. The arms were
frozen stiff over the head in the position in
which they had been tied to lower the body over
the bridge.
After the curt announcement of Rasputin's death,
a veil was dropped before the eyes of the public, and
for nearly a day it was doubtful whether the news
was true. Some thought that Rasputin had dis-
appeared for safety's sake ; others that the report
was a suspicious mystification. But on the 19th
guarded references in the papers made the main fact
clear. On the 20th the veil was suddenly lifted, and
for three days the Press revelled in accounts of the
event, and in luridly picturesque details of Raspu-
tin's career. Then the veil was dropped again, and a
circular from the Ministry of the Interior forbade
even the most distant reference to the subject.
More was written in those three days on the occasion
of Rasputin's death than on that of Leo Tolstoy's.
And rightly ; for the removal of this ulcerous patch
from the life of Russia is an event of historic im-
142 War and Revolution in Russia
portance. Scarcely one person has been found to
reprobate or deplore the deed, or to suppose that it
was other than the work of justice and patriotism.
Great joy fills the souls of men by reason of it. On
the day following the announcement a subscrip-
tion-list was opened for a war-relief charity in Mos-
cow in the name of one of the slayers and headed
with a donation of 25,000 roubles. Scarcely one
person even questions the political expediency of the
deed. Motives other than political were there too,
for among Rasputin's latest feats was a monstrous
outrage done upon a relative of two of the men who
met him on that night. But the presence of the
representative of the people showed clearly that in
the minds of all was a deep national impulse to free
Russia from an abomination that has stunk in the
nostrils of every honest man. There was no touch of
revolution or of radicalism. Rasputin was killed by
Monarchists, by men of high station, by men whose
desire is to see Russia great, in the most ordinary
and worldly sense of that word. To such a pass has
Russia come that such men, in their desire to drain
the Russian State of the foul corruption that para-
lyses every effort to win the war, have but one court
of appeal — murder. If ever assassination can be
held just, then assuredly the killing of Rasputin
was a deed of light. He did nothing good upon
earth : the wickedness he wrought was immense.
Rasputin 143
He was cut off at the height of his power. Proto-
popov's appointment, the struggle with the repre-
sentatives of the nation, must be laid to his charge.
In private affairs his hand was busy with simony,
with the protection of grafters, with the manufacture
of unjust and illegal divorce. One of the last acts he
is credited with is the stifling of the prosecution
of Manasevich-Manuilov, Stunner's secretary, who
openly confessed to taking German bribes, on which
account Makarov, the Minister of Justice, has since
resigned.
That Rasputin was the result of his environment
is evident ; but he was personally the cause of
much, and circles of corruption radiated from him
that widened and deepened all that is evil in Russian
social life. According to some of their best repre-
tatives, a notable deterioration has taken place in
the last four years even in the Bench and the Bar.
While Rasputin lived law can hardly be said to have
existed in Russia ; at the least, no law could be
believed to have a definite and unalterable force.
Germany loses in Rasputin a good friend, Eng-
land a dangerous enemy, and Russia one of her
greatest blackguards.
What results the assassination will have cannot
yet be gauged. The lapse of a week has shown but
little weakening in the phalanx of the Rasputin
party. They talk of fresh repression, of muzzling
144 War and Revolution in Russia
the Press more closely, of stopping those chosen by
the people with a yet stouter gag. With the death
of Gregory Rasputin the nation has taken one step
towards victory. It remains to be seen whether it
can go Jon and achieve it.
XX
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
THE SOCIETY OF THE YEAR 1914
WHEN the war was yet young and all Russia
was thrilled with the ideal of defending the
Slav nations of the south from Austria's claws, a
society was formed in Petrograd by some persons
of strongly national views, in the sense that they
wished the nation to learn to act for itself and not
always to be the lapdog of autocracy. It was called
the Society of the Year 1914, and its aims were to
struggle against German influence and for the
regeneration of Russia. To quarrel officially with
such objects was at that stage impossible, but it is
noteworthy that during the last weeks before the
revolution the Prefect of Petrograd forbade the use
on a poster of the second part of the Society's pro-
gramme, although it had been originally licensed and
the Society had received the congratulations of the
Grand Duke Nicolas when Commander-in-Chief.
From small beginnings the Society gradually grew
in importance, and as the court and the Government
became more pro -German and reactionary, persons
* i45
146 War and Revolution m Russia
of all shades of political opinion found under its wide
ensign a platform on which they could work jointly
for the salvation of their country. The Society
contained old revolutionaries, many of the spirits
of 1905, Radicals, Constitutional Democrats, and
Socialists, side by side with strong Nationalists like
Purishkevich and with elements that before the war
had been classed as even more opposed to popular
progress. With a yearly subscription of three
roubles it made a strong appeal to soldiers and to
the more intellectual workmen, and by the autumn
of 1916 claimed a membership of over 10,000,
which for Russia, uneducated as it was in politics,
was unexampled.
General Suhomlinov, now in the fortress of Peter
of Paul under a charge of high treason, 1 had forbidden
soldiers to join it ; but the prohibition was dis-
regarded and large numbers of both officers and men
enrolled themselves as members. Strongly sup-
ported by the Novoe Vremya and the Vechernee
Vremya (the New and the Evening Times), which
from being convinced Government papers had
swung round into sharp opposition, the Society
became during last winter a centre of political
agitation where soldiers, workmen, peasants, and
upper-class malcontents met to attack in their
various forms the pernicious tendencies of the
1 Since convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Before the Revolution 147
party in power. It started a " black book/' and
electrified Russian society by voting, at a meeting
at which over 800 were present, the inscription in it
of Protopopov, the almost all-powerful Home
Minister.
The influence of the Society can be measured by
the fact that even then Protopopov, who had been
bitterly attacked by the Society for his Stockholm
negotiations with German agents, did not dare to
have it shut up. But it was kept under strict obser-
vation, and the police lounged about in the neigh-
bourhood of the Society's rooms, while spies were
sent into the meetings. The Society stretched out
its hand to Allies : M. Patouillet, the director of the
Institut Francais, 1 was a member of the Committee,
as was also Mme. Lydia Yavorska, well known in
England as a strongly democratic Russian patriot
and advocate of women's rights. One of those who
killed the infamous Rasputin was a member of the
Society, which put forward as the main planks in
its political platform (1) the introduction of strict
Parliamentary government and the elimination of
irresponsible forces at the court ; (2) the appoint-
ment of a responsible Ministry ; (3) the removal
from all positions in the State of pro-Germans and
persons of German extraction. The last demand,
1 A local body not to be confounded with the Institut de
France.
148 War and Revolution in Russia
which openly aimed at the Empress, was so bold
that had the revolution not taken place the Society
must undoubtedly have come to an untimely end.
The part that it played in fomenting the popular
movement was beyond doubt considerable.
The shooting in the streets of Petrograd had
scarcely slackened when the Committee, some
members of which had been in the ranks of the
revolutionary troops, met to consider the changed
position. On the one hand was a tendency to take
the Society over, stock, lock, and barrel, to the
newly formed Council of Workmen's Deputies, to
drop the struggle with German influence and to
turn wholly to internal problems ; on the other a
strong reluctance to abandon the old motto and
thus to play into the hands of pro -Germans who
were known to be active among the workmen. The
latter party was energetically beaten up by Mme.
Yavorska and M. M. Gedenstrom, formerly Russian
Consul-General at Melbourne, who had succeeded in
winning many of the soldiers and better-class work-
men that frequent the Society to see the necessity
of a real victory over German militarism if Europe
is to be freed from the menace of another war.
Recently a crowded meeting at the Town Hall,
under the chairmanship of the prominent revolu-
tionary Pankratov, just released from the Schliissel-
burg fortress, voted the adjournment sine die of a
Before the Revolution 149
Socialist programme wholly omitting the question
of the war, and reaffirmed the old motto of
struggle against German influence. The Society,
like almost everyone in Russia, is definitely republi-
can and democratic, as it has always been.
XXI
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION *
" During the last days disorders have taken place in Petro-
grad, followed by force and assaults on the lives of soldiers and
members of the police.
" I forbid every kind of assembly in the streets.
" I warn the population of Petrograd that commands have been
issued and repeated to the troops to use their arms and not to
stop short of anything in order to assure tranquillity in the
capital."
Habalov, Lieutenant-General Commanding the Forces
in the Petrograd Military Area, February 25, 1917.
THE above proclamation was posted in the
streets of Petrograd on the morning of Feb-
ruary 26th-March 11th. Its effects were quickly
seen. Before evening there was some three hundred
dead, killed in the square opposite the Nicolas
Station by machine-gun fire, and over a hundred
more along the Nevsky Prospect. At night the
streets, that had been unusually full of sightseers,
were deserted, the Nevsky was guarded by troops
from end to end, and a searchlight installed in the
Admiralty illumined its waste and menacing length.
The Government appeared to be securely in posses -
1 The Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1917.
i5o
The Russian Revolution 151
aion. On the following morning a proclamation was
posted from General Habalov that if all the work-
men did not resume work by the morning of
March 13th they would be arrested and sent into the
ranks. He received an answer no less prompt than
startling. In less than twenty -four hours from the
signing of his second threat General Habalov was a
prisoner and almost the whole of Petrograd in the
hands of the populace and revolutionary soldiery.
In the midst of the most gigantic war one of the
most momentous of known revolutions has been
accomplished in the space of exactly seven days.
Nevertheless, it began not as a revolution to change
the form of government, but as a movement directed
against the particular Government that was in
power because the Government had become sus-
picious to all thinking and patriotic men. The first
appeals made preserved the Emperor's authority,
and the people showed no wish to change it ; but
events moved rapidly beyond this point. The im-
mediate causes of the revolution are the reaction
that has only gained in severity since the assassina-
tion of Rasputin, provocation by agents in the ser-
vice of the Home Minister and probably bought by
German money, and shortage of bread. It is the
last that, acting on the exasperation produced by
the two former, has brought about the explosion.
An intimate connexion links the three causes to-
152 War and Revolution in Russia
gether, and all three are closely connected with the
conduct of the war.
From an early stage in the war there has existed
a strong pro-German element in the Russian Govern-
ment, and much criminal negligenca and actual
treachery in high places. The mass of the nation,
the huge unlettered peasant population, were in-
spired by vague feelings of patriotism, while among
the small educated class all the progressive spirits
looked to victory over the Germans as a priceless
chance for the nation to raise itself towards self-
consciousness and freedom. The first revelation of
highly protected treachery was the plot of Colonel
Myasoyedov, an intimate friend of the Minister of
War, which gave the Germans the key to Lithuania.
This was followed by the staggering news that the
Minister himself, General Suhomlinov, under the
exalted aegis of the Imperial Inspector of Artillery,
had failed to provide more than a fraction of the
shells required by the Army. From that moment
the nation wholly lost confidence in the Govern-
ment, which proceeded to justify its distrust in the
most thorough manner by a reversion to an almost-
daily increasing reaction. " From Goremykin on-
wards," said a conservatively minded Muscovite
lawyer, " every change of Prime Minister has been
for the worse."
The last straws on the back of Russian society
The Russian Revolution 153
were the events that attended the appointment as
Home Minister of Protopopov, known to have held
communication with enemy agents in Sweden, and
the complete gag that he was allowed to put upon
the Press. At the same time the other members of
the gang, who, like Protopopov, owed their offices
to the debauched charlatan and favourite of the
Empress, Gregory Rasputin, were given a free hand
to perpetuate numerous private and public crimes.
In every rank of society it was freely said that the
nation and the army were sold by the Empress's
minions, and that she aimed at obtaining a regency
to replace an Emperor whose weakness, garrulous-
ness, and drunkenness had become a by-word.
Should she succeed in this, it was thought certain
that by fomenting disorder at home and obstructing
the conduct of the war she would gain her desired
object and force upon Russia a separate peace which,
while ruining for ever the hopes of progress, might
save her native country, Germany, and would delight
the ranks of reactionary bureaucrats. The policy
pursued by the Empress was in the highest degree
alarming to the circle of Grand Dukes, who almost
unanimously protested against the banishment
without trial of the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich
for his share in the murder of Rasputin in Decem-
ber, 1916. Many of their number, apart from this,
not once, but often, represented to the Emperor
154 War and Revolution in Russia
that subservience to his wife must end in disaster.
When these protests were disregarded it became
generally believed that a court revolution would
take place and Nicolas the Second be dethroned in
favour of his brother or his uncle. No one foresaw
the immediate likelihood of a large popular move-
ment, which, however, many thought to be inevit-
able after the war.
The first bread riot in Petrograd took place on the
8th of March. Its synchronisation with the Em-
peror's departure for General Headquarters — for he
was nominally Commander-in-Chief — was probably
not due to chance, but was the sign of the deep
causes at work ; Protopopov's agents, on the one
hand, provoking disorder, and on the other German
money being spent with the same object among the
Social Democrats, in whose ranks in Russia the
claims of internationalism often call forth a readier
response than those of patriotism. The rioting was
so far confined to the Viborg side, the chief work-
men's quarter of Petrograd, but in the centre the
tramway service had already become irregular.
On the 9th the rioters stopped the trams across the
river, terrorising the drivers and throwing parts of
the mechanism away, so that the service grew still
more intermittent. Visits were paid to all the
factories and the hands called out in a sympathetic
strike against the sudden food shortage. On this
The Russian Revolution 155
day too a prefect of police (an official ranking above
the district colonels of police and next to the prefect
of the city) who threatened the crowd was killed.
Strong Cossack squadrons patrolled Petrograd, and
there was a collision on the Nevsky, in which the
Cossacks used their whips, but they told the crowd
they would not shoot so long as they only asked for
bread. Alarmed at the attitude of the Cossacks, the
authorities on the 10th brought troops of the line
into the streets to support the police, posted machine-
guns on the Nevsky, and stopped traffic across it at
many points. Protopopov, approached by one who
endeavoured to convince him of the madness of his
methods, only answered : " Do you know how
splendidly machine-guns work from the roof ? V
When the Duma met in February Protopopov had
received the Emperor's special thanks for having
kept order, which was effected by planting machine-
guns to command all approaches to the Duma. As
it soon turned out, he had now had the roofs at every
important street corner garrisoned by police with
machine-guns, and it is said that he promised a rise
in pay of fifteen roubles a month and a present of
fifty roubles to every man for his part in the bloody
work that was expected. To Protopopov 's dis-
position of the machine-guns the success of the
revolution is due. Had they been properly posted in
the streets at strategic points and a sound scheme
156 War and Revolution in Russia
of co-operation arranged among the police and the
gendarmes, some 50,000 in strength, they could have
swept every living thing from the streets : placed in
dormer windows and behind parapets, the mitrail-
leuses were extremely difficult to train on their
objective, and the police forces scattered throughout
the city in innumerable small detachments were not
in a position to support one another.
On the same day the first serious bloodshed took
place, the police opening fire on a peaceful crowd
opposite the Nicolas Station and inflicting some fifty
casualties. Sunday, March 11th, began nervously.
There were soldiers everywhere in the streets, and
strong bodies held in reserve in courtyards. By now
the trams had all stopped, and it was hardly possible
to find a car. No newspapers appeared. About
3.30 p.m. the troops began to clear the streets round
the Nevsky at the bayonet point, and soon after-
wards the police turned their machine-guns on to a
crowd at the same place as the day before, but with
more deadly effect, a Caucasian officer who was near
by estimating the number of dead at 300. At the
same time heavy firing took place further down the
Nevsky, and opposite the Kazan Cathedral several
score more people were killed. The crowd here
retaliated with pistol shots, another prefect and a
colonel of police, besides policemen and various inno-
cent passers-by, being killed. It was significant that
The Russian Revolution 157
soldiers were seen among the crowd firing on the
police, and a number of men and some fourteen
officers of different detachments were arrested for
refusing to support the police with arms. On the
same afternoon a drunken officer of the Volynsky
Regiment, named Lashkevich, ordered his men to
fire on the crowd. They refused, but Lashkevich
forced one of the soldiers to obey. His shot killed a
woman. Thereupon the men returned to barracks
and spent the night in great agitation. In the
morning of Monday, March 12th, a detachment of
gendarmes arrived to arrest the refractory soldiers.
On this the battalion rose, overpowered the gen-
darmes, killed Lashkevich and some other officers,
and at 8 a.m. left their barracks and rushed through
the streets cheering. They were quickly joined by
the Litovtsky and Preobrajensky Regiments, and in
the course of the day by two or three others. First
they marched to the artillery depot close by, then to
the arsenal across the river, both of which they
seized, burning the Courts of Justice on the way.
The general in command of the artillery depot and
several other persons were killed in the course of
this. Beyond the district in which this occurred
the event was not yet known.
At eleven o'clock the present writer, in company
with a naval officer, drove in a motor-car through
the lines of the revolutionary troops and of the
158 War and Revolution in Russia
Government troops called out to meet them, un-
aware that anything more than rioting had taken
place. The revolutionaries were in fair order, and
the two sides watched one another curiously, without
any hostile action.
When, soon after fighting began, it became
apparent that no troops in Petrograd could be relied
on by the Government, in the early afternoon the
police began to fire on the soldiers, and among the
troops adhesion to the revolutionary ranks became
general. In order to avoid recognition many officers
in the revolted regiments dressed like privates.
There were by now no police on the streets, and
crowds from across the river profited by the revolu-
tionary troops having overpowered the bridge
guards to come into the centre and help to spread
the spirit of revolution. Among their first objec-
tives were the prisons where political prisoners were
kept. These were released, but with them ordinary
criminals also, to the number of some 15,000, and
some of the prisons were burnt. Attention was next
turned to the police stations, which were sacked, and
the huge bonfires made by their contents, furniture
and papers, lasted for more than a day and a night.
The main police archives too were seized and burned
and in the evening the contents of the prefecture
itself, which had been the scene of much fighting,
suffered the same fate. English readers must re-
The Russian Revolution 159
member that the police of Petrograd were scarcely
in any sense an instrument for preserving order,
but were almost solely agents of political repression.
By night the revolutionaries were in possession of the
whole city, except the Winter Palace, the Admir-
alty, and the telegraph and telephone stations,
the latter of which worked fairly well all through
the day.
The guard regiments in Petrograd going over to the
revolutionaries, these now numbered between thirty
and forty thousand, and the only fear expressed was
as to the attitude of the two divisions stationed at
Tsarskoe Selo and of the troops at Moscow. Those
who wished ill to the movement confidently
expected that the tables would soon be turned and
with crushing effect. Had these troops gone against
the people, the revolutionaries, their discipline com-
pletely relaxed and many having given their rifles
away to the crowd, must have succumbed. When
the immense excitement is considered, and the fact
that, after years of reaction and months of the
sternest repression of whatever kind of public ex-
pression, all authority was suddenly removed from
the troops and populace alike, it must be thought
wonderful that so little disorder occurred. There
was no general looting, well-dressed ladies who
ventured out or dodged the fighting to get to their
homes were not molested, and though officers were
160 War and Revolutiwi in Russia
stopped and their arms taken from them, they were
not for the most part ill-used.
As early as Saturday, March 10th, Rodzianko, the
President of the Duma, had sent a telegram to the
Emperor begging him to take measures to avert
disaster and to allay feeling. On the 11th he tele-
graphed again that the Government was paralysed,
that shooting was going on, that all public services
were disorganised, and urged him to entrust the
formation of a new government to someone enjoying
the confidence of the country. On the morning of
the 12th he telegraphed : " Position growing worse.
Imperative take immediate measures, since to-
morrow will be already too late. The last hour has
struck when the fate of the nation and of the dynasty
will be decided." To these telegrams only one
answer was received. On the morning of the 12th
a decree was forwarded to Rodzianko from Prince
Golitzin, the Premier, dated two days before from
General Headquarters, and proroguing the Duma
"to a date not later than April, 1917, dependent
on extraordinary circumstances." It was clear that
Nicolas the Second and his advisers were bent on
crushing the popular will, and believed that this
could be done. Faced by a desperate position,
Rodzianko rose to the greatness of his task with a
promptitude for which the Allies should be for ever
grateful to him. He assumed a responsibility which,
The Russian Revolution 161
had the revolution failed, would undoubtedly have
cost him his head, and disregarding the prorogation
summoned a meeting of the Duma. The members
of all parties but the Right met at 2.30 and pro-
ceeded to elect a Temporary or Executive Com-
mittee for the establishment of order in Petrograd,
which assumed and during the next three days kept
control of the government. Rodzianko had already
telegraphed to the generals commanding the various
fronts, and had received answers from General
Brusilov, on the south-western, and from General
Russky, on the northern front, that were at least not
hostile. From General Ewert, the lowest of the
three in character and talent, he received no answer ;
and General Ewert has since resigned his command.
At 1 o'clock p.m. Prince Golitzin informed Rod-
zianko by telephone that he had resigned office, and
was followed by almost all the other members of the
Cabinet except Protopopov, who had vanished. The
revolutionaries searched and pillaged the houses of
ministers, the last-named only escaping a few
minutes before their arrival. Before evening the
president of the Council of the Empire, and former
Minister of Justice, a man notorious for having
debased justice and corrupted the courts, was
arrested, and the beginnings of a national govern-
ment already existed in Russia.
Throughout the day of March 13th fighting in
162 War and Revolution in Russia
Petrograd was general and heavy. The telephone
was early captured and communication cut for the
rest of the day. Every street corner became a trap
for machine-gun and rifle fire from the police, en-
sconced in the upper part of the houses and shot at
in their turn by parties of soldiers and civilians
sheltering in doorways below. Soldiers in motor-
lorries or armoured cars dashed to points where the
fighting was fiercest, and in many places a furious
battle raged all day. It was not until the afternoon
of Wednesday, March 14th, the Winter Palace
having been evacuated and the Admiralty captured
on the evening of the 13th, that this gradually died
out as the effect of an order from the Duma Com-
mittee that the owner and he ad -porter of any house
from which firing took place would be held re-
sponsible. These head -porters, or dvorniki, were
responsible to the police for the identity of every
inmate in their houses, and one of their chief busi-
nesses was in fact spying for the police. It was clear
that the latter could not now have mounted guns
upon the roofs without their knowledge, and the
prompt result of the proclamation proved its wisdom.
Evening before this, when in the course of the 13th
and the morning of the 14th it became known that
the troops at Tsarskoe Selo, Pavlovsk, Oranienbaum
and Cronstadt had joined the people, and later that
the garrison of Moscow too had thrown in his lot
The Russian Revolution 163
with the revolution, feeling had become quieter.
The autocracy was left without serious defence,
except in the unlikely event of the soldiers at the
front declaring in its favour. Desultory but heavy
outbursts of firing continued in Petrograd till Thurs-
day night, March 15th, when a detachment of 500
provincial police suddenly arrived, overpowered the
station guard, and marched through the city until
dispersed by armoured motors. So recently as
March 20th one or possibly more motor-cars orna-
mented with black flags have been dashing along the
streets loosing off occasional belts of machine-gun
cartridges at the passers, killing or wounding
many. But such piratical efforts are futile. Since
March 14th the red flag flies everywhere in the
capital.
It is at present impossible to arrive at an exact
figure of the numbers killed in and after the fighting,
but it is certain that the agreeable statements made
as to the bloodlessness are much exaggerated. The
lowest estimate puts the number of dead at over
2000 ; higher estimates at as much as 10,000, while
the number of wounded must also be considerable.
The truth probably lies between four and five thou-
sand killed. In the two days before the revolution
broke out, some five hundred were killed in the
centre of the city ; during the three days of fighting
many more, and this takes no account of the casual-
164 War and Revolution in Russia
ties beyond the river on the Petrograd and Viborg
sides. Many officers were murdered by their men
in the Baltic fleet as well as in the army. Many
policemen captured redhanded were made prisoners
and taken to the Duma ; but very many more were
shot on the spot and their bodies flung into the canals.
In the provinces the revolution was of a paper
character, being mostly executed in the telegraph
offices. Normal life was scarcely interrupted for
more than one day in Moscow, and even less in other
cities. It is none the less believed that not a few
policemen and officers were disposed of in various
parts, victims it may be in many cases of private
revenge.
Warned by the fate of others, ministers and lesser
servants of the old regime hastened to give them-
selves up to the Duma or were hunted out of hiding.
Among the first was Sturmer, at whose residence
a chest of coined money was discovered. Nor was
he the only one to provide in hard coin against a
rainy day, for at the house of Count Fredericks, the
Minister of the Court and one of the chief props of
the German system there, were discovered two boxes
packed with gold. His house, full of objects of value,
and probably also of highly interesting correspond-
ence, was burnt to the ground. The wine cellar in
the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna's palace, valued
at half a million roubles, was destroyed for fear that
The Russian Revolution 165
the mob would sack the house. Kshesinska, the
leading dancer of the Imperial Ballet and a former
mistress of the Emperor, inspired by similar motives,
took warning betimes and fled to Finland. The
Hotel Militaire, ci-devant the Astoria, from which
it was said that officers fired on the revolutionaries,
had been attacked and captured on the 13th ; its
lower floors were gutted and several officers and
civilians killed or wounded. The majority of the
officers in Petrograd were quick to realise that the
old order had passed away, and among the many
processions of soldiers and employees who marched
to the Duma to signify their adherence, none was
more pleasing than that of a great number of officers,
many colonels and even generals among them, who
on the 14th, after a meeting at the Army and Navy
Club, went to the place themselves at the orders of
the Duma Committee. On the same day the Grand
Duke Cyril Vladimir ovich, a man indeed of no
political significance but much opposed to the Em-
press, signified to the Duma that he would whole-
heartedly support the new regime with all the
strength of the Navy Guards. Protopopov, who
had spent the intervening two days since his dis-
appearance in wandering about the streets, seeking
refuge with his friends and being refused by all,
had given himself up late the night before, and with
his arrest the last shadow of the old government
166 War and Revolution in Russia
vanished. On the 14th the Duma Committee
appointed Commissioners to take charge of the
various ministries and other public offices, and
telegraphed the news to all the towns of Russia that
it had temporarily undertaken the direction of
affairs, and a municipal militia was established
in the capital with its head office at the Town
Hall.
Within a few hours of the appointment of the
Executive Committee of the Duma, a Council of
Workmen's Deputies was organised also at the
Duma, composed of labour representatives, some
soldiers, and a few stray sympathetic politicians.
They divided the city into districts, to each of which
a Commissioner was appointed, and representatives
were invited to be sent from the factories and from
every company. The object of the Commissioners
was "the establishment of the popular power in
the districts of Petrograd." " We call upon the
population of the capital," their proclamation ran,
"to gather round the Council, to organise local
district committees, and to take into their hands
the direction of all local affairs. " By the 14th of
March the Council was consolidated and enlarged
into the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' De-
puties, and was making a bold bid to get the power
over the army into its hands. Order No. 1 posted
throughout Petrograd on the 15th of March or-
The Russian Revolution 167
daiiied that in all their political concerns the military
were subject to the Council, that committees were
to be elected by every battalion or company to
supervise the internal administration of the regi-
ments, that all arms were to be under control
of the committees and in no circumstances to be
returned to officers as the Duma Committee had
authorised, and that the orders of the Military
Commission set up by the latter were only to
be obeyed when they did not contradict the
orders and resolutions of the Council of Workmen's
and Soldiers' Deputies. On the 13th discipline
was non-existent. Many of the soldiers had given
up their arms to the crowd and were drifting
listlessly about the streets watching the progress
of the fight and in difficulties for food. On the 14th,
though the food difficulty had increased, their be-
haviour was better ; they paraded in companies,
though still many without arms, and preserved
some outward orderliness. The adherence too of the
officers on this day had its effect, and soldiers even
began to salute again. But with the publication
of the Council's Order an immediate deterioration
became noticeable. The semblance of order pre-
served the day before vanished and was replaced
by a sullen and occasionally a threatening atti-
tude. There were no longer signs of respect for
the officers, and the men went about asking for
168 War and Revolution in Russia
food and collecting money to support soldiers'
tea-houses that had taken the place of many cafes.
Small squads went round searching private apart-
ments for arms, without, or refusing to show, the
authority they should have had from the Duma : a
fact greatly to the advantage of criminals, who
dressed themselves up as soldiers and carried off
valuables from citizens who dared not resist. It was
known that a strong party for the immediate con-
clusion of peace existed among the workmen, and
the gloomiest anticipations, freely entertained, were
intensified by reports of the enemy having broken
the Russian lines near Dvinsk. A counter-report, as
it turned out equally untrue, that came late in the
evening, of a Russian advance in the same district
to some extent restored spirits, but the situation
remained one of great tension.
From the very first day of the revolution, a news-
sheet was issued with the imprint of the " Committee
of Petrograd Journalists " and distributed gratis
in the streets. This had to compete with the fuller
sheet of the Workmen's Council, which though sold
at five kopeks enjoyed greater facilities for distribu-
tion, and it was not until Sunday the 18th that the
publishers could arrange with the compositors to
allow the regular papers to come out. The Council
further forbade cabs, which began to be seen again
on the streets on the 17th of March, to ply for hire
The Russian Revolution 169
after 7 p.m. ; but they have had difficulty in en-
forcing this rule. Over the tramways, however,
the Council had complete control ; the wires, cut
by bullets, were repaired by the 20th, but no trams
ran in the evening till some days later. The theatres
too are sought to be brought under the workmen's
heel : the Council flatly refused leave to any to open
until the burial of certain victims of the fight in
the cause of freedom, whom they proposed to inter
in the great square opposite the Winter Palace.
By dint of much tact and forbearance on the part
of the Duma Committee and of the new government
announced by it on the 15th of March with Prince
Lvov, the President of the Union of Zemstvos, as
prime minister, an open breach with the Council
has hitherto been avoided. Frequent reports indeed
are spread of the harmony reigning between the two
bodies. But the mischief done in the first two days
by the Council has spread very wide, and may prove
irreparable . While many of the troops have returned
to their duty, and fair discipline is kept, and work
goes forward, the peace party among the Socialists
have not relaxed their efforts, and have succeeded
in affecting some at least of the soldiers at the front.
General Alexeiev, nominally Chief of Staff and
virtually Commander-in-Chief, has been called to
task in the workmen's organ for issuing orders that
unauthorised bands calling themselves deputies
170 War and Revolution in Russia
be prevented from disarming the railway gendarmes,
which if allowed would give them control over
the stations and the line. General Radko Dmitriev
has found it necessary in two proclamations to re-
mind his troops that in the face of the enemy dis-
cipline must be preserved and that until new regula-
tions are properly issued the old ones must remain in
force. General Russky is said to have protested
against the presence of Socialist deputies who hold
meetings among the soldiers. On the 23rd of March
the papers contained separate appeals to the army
and the nation from A. I. Guchkov, the new
Minister of War, and from the whole Cabinet ;
and a third signed by Guchkov and General Alexeiev.
All three are couched in the most urgent terms and
call upon citizens to do their duty at the front and
at the rear, workmen and soldiers alike. They
inform the nation that a tremendous effort of the
enemy is to be expected, that Petrograd is threatened
by pressing danger, and that should the Germans be
victorious their victory will be gained not only over
the Russian State but over the newly won freedom
of the Russian nation. They passionately beg the
soldiers to trust and follow their officers, who shared
danger and hunger, and freely laid down their lives
with their brothers. Guchkov's appeal ends :
" The hour of trial approaches." In yet another
appeal on the 24th the Minister of War wrote :
The Russian Revolution 171
" The enemy threatens the capital. . . . The danger
is great." Nevertheless obstinate rumours circulate
that soldiers are leaving the Front, and that the
officers are helpless to control them. The extreme
Socialists make no secret of their desire. Their
programme is " Down with the war at any cost, in
any circumstances." In the third number of Truth
(Pravda), the Moscow organ of this party, it is
declared : " We hate every kind of despotism. We
hate the despotism of William and of Briand, of
Lloyd George and Ferdinand, just as we hate the
despotism of the Romanovs." In the fifth number
(March 22nd), a leading article calls upon the soldiers
in the trenches to raise the red flag, sing the Interna-
tional, refuse to attack, and fraternise " widely and
systematically " with the soldiers on the other
side. This party flatters or professes to flatter
itself that if fighting is stopped on the Russian
side there will be a revolution in Germany and the
Emperor and the bourgeois regime will be over-
thrown. True, they are opposed by other sections of
the Socialists, but unfortunately under the present
condition their quarrels are almost as pernicious
as if all were united against the war. In spite of
recent appeals by the Council of Workmen's Deputies,
few of the factories in Petrograd had resumed work
on the 21st of March, and the men may go out again
at any moment.
172 War and Revolution in Russia
March was the month when Paul the First was
murdered. In March, Alexander the Second was
slain. And on the 1st of March, Nicolas the Second
set out for his last journey as Emperor from General
Headquarters, with the object of reaching Tsarskoe
Selo. It is said that Rodzianko's second and third
telegrams were never delivered to him, and that
General Voyekov, one of his most intimate advisers
and a successful tool of the Empress, otherwise
chiefly known by having made a fortune out of an
inferior mineral water, only told him of the revolt
in Petrograd when forced to do so by General
Pavel, who said that if Voyekov refused he would
burst into the Emperor's room by force. Voyekov
thereupon told the Emperor that students and re-
volutionaries had worked up the young conscripts to
terrorise the Duma, but that the loyal regiments
from Tsarskoe would easily put the movement down.
The Emperor set out in one train with General
Voyekov and Pavel and Admiral Nivel, who appears
to have been fuddled with drink the whole time,
the suite following in another. Near the junction
for Pskov, revolutionaries managed to damage the
engine of the second train, which could proceed no
further, and General Pavel insisted on telling the
Emperor the whole truth, that Tsarskoe and Moscow
equally with Petrograd had abandoned his cause,
that a telegram had been received not to allow the
The Russian Revolution 173
train nearer to Petrograd, and that the Emperor's
position was hopeless. An attempt was then made
to return and to go to the front, but the line had been
blocked behind the last train and it had to be
abandoned. One thing only remained, to proceed
to Pskov, General Russky's headquarters, and there
to wait events. Thither on the 15th of March
A. I. Guchkov and V. V. Shulgin proceeded from
Petrograd with the Duma Committee's commission
to negotiate with the Emperor. They arrived at
ten o'clock in the evening, and immediately had an
interview with the Emperor in his train, at which were
also present General Russky, Count Fredericks, and
another General, who took notes, probably Voyekov.
The once all-powerful autocrat, who was in the
uniform of a Caucasian regiment, listened to an
exposition of the state of affairs by Guchkov, who
led up to the conclusion that he must abdicate
in favour of his son, the Grand Duke Alexis, and
nominate as regent his brother the Grand Duke
Michael. When Guchkov came to this point,
General Russky bent towards Shulgin and said
" That has already been decided." The Emperor
replied to Guchkov as follows : "I reflected all
yesterday and to-day, and I have decided to abdicate
from the throne. Until three o'clock to-day I was
ready to abdicate in favour of my son. But then I
understood that I was incapable of separating from
174 jVar and Revolution in Russia
my son." Then, after a little pause : " I hope you
understand that." He continued : " Therefore I
have decided to abdicate in favour of my brother."
The deputies asked to consider this proposition,
which was unexpected, in private, but after a short
colloquy announced that they accepted it. They
then presented a prepared form of abdication to the
Emperor, who affixed his signature in pencil. The
whole proceedings were simple, quiet, and evidently
not unfriendly.
The next day, however, when the matter was laid
before the Grand Duke Michael, the latter politely
but firmly refused to accept the crown, except in the
event of its being offered to him by a Constituent
Assembly elected by the nation by universal, direct,
and secret ballot. In this the Grand Duke (who
passed some time in England and rented Lord
Lytton's house at Knebworth) showed more political
judgment than the new government had shown in
attempting to keep his nephew Alexis on the
throne. Events had already moved beyond the point
where the workmen or the educated progressives or
the soldiers in Petrograd would consent to see a
Romanov on the throne. Even the Grand Duke
Nicolas, summoned from the Caucasus to take up
again the chief command by the Duma Committee
with the nominal authority, in one of his last acts,
of Nicolas the Second, has been compelled by the
The Russian Revolution 175
trend of events to lay it down. The nation has
suffered too much from a dynasty which with but
few exceptions has proved itself either cruel or
effete, or both ; which during the last forty years
has expended every effort in repressing the smallest
tendency towards westernisation ; and which has
finally played foolishly or knavishly into the hands
of the foe. It is unlikely in the extreme that a Rom-
anov will ever again wear the crown. Unless the
Germans take Petrograd and impose their own terms
of peace it is unlikely that anyone will wear a crown
in Russia. The new government is displaying
enough ability to justify the belief that if it had a
fair chance it would find its way towards a stable
and democratic republic. It is the misfortune,
not only of Russia, but of her Allies, that the
chances are not fair. Ministers have to take up the
reins where they were dropped in blood and dirt
and treachery by Nicolas the Second's government.
They have to fight the Germans in a war already
made difficult by the wickedness of their prede-
cessors, and seriously handicapped by the necessity
of provisioning the population after transport has
been allowed to wind itself into a complete tangle.
But when they have also to make head against
malicious want of patriotism and ceaseless efforts
to crab the war on the part of Socialist agitators, the
tools or dupes of German intrigue, and against the
176 War and Revolution in Russia
wrong-headed eagerness of other perhaps honest
workmen to snatch at a class advantage without
thought for their country, their task may well seem
desperate. They may yet achieve it. They are
able and devoted. They have backing among the
saner workmen, that has grown in the last few days ;
they have officers with them ; much, if not all, of
the soldiery would shrink with horror from defeat
at the hands of the Germans. But the soldiers
are ignorant, and the magic of their discipline
has been broken. The issue is on the knees of
the gods.
Should the disaster that the Government and the
generals warn us against occur, and should Russia
lie again under the burden of a Romanov, set up by
the conqueror, we may be sure that his reign would
not be long. The Russian people has raised its
head too high ; it could never sink again into the
slavish courses from which the revolution tore it ;
it will always remember how in the teeth of every-
thing that tyranny could devise it flung off the
shackles and established order within itself. And
English people must remember this too, that the
worst case will not be worse than what would have
come without this revolution. No one who has
not worked for the war in Russia for the last two
years can perhaps quite realise how increasingly
difficult work had become during the last part of
The Russian Revolution 177
that period : how every channel has been clogged,
how every enthusiasm has been killed, how stagna-
tion has spread over every activity. Precisely when
and how it would have happened cannot yet be
seen, though history may learn it, but the writer
has not a doubt that the former Government would
have succeeded in selling Russia and the Allies to
the Germans, and would have left a Russia miserable,
ashamed, semi- Asiatic, and economically ruined
instead of the great and splendid democratic nation
that she has now won the chance to become.
Yet should she barter away her new freedom for a
mirage, the way will be long and may be still more
dreadful to retrieve it.
After his abdication the Emperor was allowed to
return to General Headquarters. But on the 20th of
March four deputies were despatched by orders of the
new government to arrest and bring him to Tsarskoe
Selo. The motive for this is said to have been that
leave having been given him to telegraph to his
wife, but only in plain words, he nevertheless
despatched a cipher telegram to her. Whatever the
reason, the arrest was effected without any opposi-
tion on the 21st of March, and at 11.35 p.m. Nicolas
the Second arrived at Tsarskoe, where he and his
wife and family remain under strict supervision.
Happily the unfortunate suggestion that the Imperial
family be sent to England has been dropped before
178 War and Revolution in Russia
the serious trouble that would undoubtedly have
come of it has arisen.
Meanwhile the government, appointed by the
Executive Committee of the Duma, remains both in
fact and in name temporary. On the 19th of March
it announced that in due time a Convention would
be summoned to decide the future constitution of
the Russian State. In view of the large number
of men at the Front, it is hard to see, even in the best
case, how this can be before the end of the war.
Whatever form of government the Convention
elects, the people's representatives are sure to
insist upon a redistribution of the land and maybe
upon the confiscation of monastic property, which
lies heaped in millions without the slightest return
by way of spiritual or educational participation
in the nation's life. But these are problems for the
future. With the announcement of the Constituent
Assembly and the arrest of the Emperor, the Russian
revolution has come to the end of its first phase.
The air that Russians breathe is free. All that an
Englishman and a lover of their country can do is
to wish them God-speed in a task that cannot but
be troubled, and to show by his sympathy that in^
the main, in spite of excesses and crimes wrought
by the ignorant and the exasperated, in spite of the
dreadful possibility that Germany working through
her secret friends and agents may paralyse and
The Russian Revolution 179
disrupt the power of Russia's forces, nevertheless
he feels that, in so far as the inner life of Russia is
concerned, right has triumphed and the curtain
been drawn upon the long drama of brutal despotism,
unsweetened by any grace of chivalry or touch of
ideal.
[The reader is requested to observe, as to matters
of opinion, that the hopes and fears of well-informed
Russians are recorded as they stood on the 24th of
March, 1917.]
XXII
THE DUMA OF THE REVOLUTION
A MAN set down in the precincts of the Duma,
JTjL or more accurately of the State Duma, of
Russia, for every city has its own town duma, or
municipal council, without knowing what had
happened, would undoubtedly think he had gone
mad. In the broad street outside, in the semi-
circular garden fronting the palace, on the steps that
go up to the central door, is a palpitating, swaying
crowd of soldiers and civilians, so thick that move-
ment through it is at best crablike, and some-
times wholly impossible. And lined up in the midst
stand regiments or ships' crews or cadet corps
bedecked with red ribbons and with red banners of
every size. On the banners are such inscriptions
as " Long live the Democratic Republic ! " " Soli-
darity between sailors and officers ! " " The land and
the people's will ! " " Long live Social Democracy ! "
The regiments are waiting their turn to go into the
Duma and add their tribute of welcome to the
Temporary Government and the Council of Work-
men's and Soldiers' Deputies. Inside the building
180
The Duma of the Revolution 181
itself, all day long, in the great hall that Prince
Potemkin reserved to dance the polonaise in, the
regiments and the deputations succeed one another,
packed in a breathless mass, while from a stand set
up in the centre Parliamentary or Socialist orators
hoarsely dilate on the duties of revolutionaries. It
is an easy audience to speak to, for whenever the
speaker is at a loss he has only to cry " Long live "
— whatever he may fancy: "the army, the people,
the revolution ! Hurrah ! " and the band will play
the " Marseillaise " twice through and the crowd
cheer for three minutes. Twenty or thirty thousand
people a day, when the sightseers are counted, must
proceed to the Duma and listen and cheer. On one
day, for instance, a cadet corps, the Navy Guards
battalion, the First Reserve battalion, the house
porters and Suisses of Petrograd, and a woman's
suffrage procession were received. The work of the
committees of the Duma and of the Temporary
Government has to go on round and in the midst of
this, messengers from one department to another
sometimes getting hopelessly wedged in the throng.
It would be easy to laugh at the fervour and sim-
plicity that carries these multitudinous processions
through the melting snows of Petrograd to the
Palais de la Tauride, and to find fault with a Govern-
ment that allows such conditions for its work. But
it must be remembered that the Russian people
182 War and Revolution in Russia
is packing into weeks the political education that
Westerns, happier in having long since accomplished
their big revolutions, suck in through long years. To
visit the Duma and to hear an authorised political
speech are experiences unique in the lives of most
Russians, and are made the more desirable by the
memory of the machine-guns placed at the opening
of the present Duma by the late regime to shoot
those who attempted to gain them. A month ago
Russia had no civic sense, no political aspirations
that could be given a definite name, now almost
everyone is a republican, and is ready to argue
the question whether the Constituent Assembly
should be held in Petrograd or Moscow. Moscow
is of course for Moscow, as " the heart of Russia "
and the centre of the Zemstvos ; but Petrograd will
hardly let the chance out of its own hands. It was
Petrograd that made the revolution and bravely
knocked the feet of clay from under the brazen
idol ; Moscow did nothing but acquiesce with
enthusiasm. The Petrograd workmen, who know
that without them nothing would have happened,
resent the attempt to cold-shoulder them, and the
Council of their deputies has uncommon influence
with the Government.
From the point of view of an Ally as well as from
that of many patriotic Russians, it is sad to notice
how scant are the references to the war in the
The Duma of the Revolution 183
speeches made to the processing troops at the
Duma. True there are not openly hostile remarks
about it — or were not in my presence, — but one
might listen to many orators without knowing that
there was war in the land. They occupy themselves
with demanding the overthrow of all monarchs, the
redistribution of the land, strict measures to prevent
the old powers from ever again rearing their heads.
In small groups, however, Socialist students and
their followers among the soldiers argue that there
has been enough fighting, and though they admit
that the war may be continued in self-defence will
not of hear waging it longer in the hope of acquisi-
tions, and express fine confidence that the German
Socialists in the trenches will grasp the right hand of
friendship held out to them from across the No
Man's Land. How far this agitation takes effect is
most difficult to gauge. It has less success in
Moscow than in Petrograd, and in Cronstadt the
soldiers have confiscated the local edition and
offices of Pravda (Truth) — that is, its chief
organ, in which Petrograd is systematically and
symbolically printed " Petersburg " ; but the capital
is by far the most important. The Russian soldier
is easily puzzled, and if he loses his bearings may
not quickly find them again. One has already
committed suicide because he did not know where
his duty lay or what to think.
184 War and Revolution in Russia
Two minor effects of the revolution may be
noted. Just as the late Emperor has become plain
" Nicolas Romanov," and is now addressed by the
soldiers as Mr. Colonel (his military rank), so the
Grand Dukes have become, without any legislation
but in universal accent ation, " the late " Grand
Duke So-and-so. The other is even more natural.
There is a saying in Russian : " The dvorniki (house
porters) make the spring." It is their business to
clean the pavement and street in front of their
houses from the melting snow. Now, the police,
once the paymasters and bullies of this army of
spies on the dwellers they were supposed to serve, are
non-existent. This spring, therefore, the dvorniki
have no one to make them work, and the streets
of Petrograd are filthy.
As I write the sound of singing from a marching
regiment comes through the double window, march-
ing to the Duma to greet the Council of Workmen's
and Soldiers' Deputies and the Temporary Govern-
ment.
The following articles are included in this volume
because they were true at the time they were
written and are of importance as the record of an
observer on the spot, although the rapid develop-
ment of events has caused them to be no longer
true in all respects. The article on the Polish
The Duma of the Revolution 185
question, with such changes as the change of
regime makes necessary, gives a considered opinion
based upon general principles which still hold good
— as the developments in Finland and Ukraine have
shown.
SECTION VI
AFTER THE REVOLUTION
XXIII
THE DANGER IN RUSSIA
NOTHING could better illustrate the danger-
ous tendency visible in Russian thought
since the revolution and becoming daily stronger
that an article by the well-known novelist Mere-
shkovsky, published on April 5th. Taking as his
text the manifesto issued on March 27th, 1917, by
the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies to
the Peoples of the whole World," Mereshkovsky
echoes with enthusiasm its words : " We have freed
not only ourselves but the whole world also." At
last, he cries, we have the truth about the war in
the workmen's appeal to the German proletariat to
aid them in stopping this " terrible war, that is
dishonouring to all humanity." To all humanity,
Mereshkovsky repeats : " not only to our enemies,
but to us, and to our Allies. Not one side alone is
guilty — both sides are guilty." When, he argues,
two boys are fighting, and both say "Please, the
1 86
The Danger in Russia 187
other fellow began it," we inquire not who is right,
but who insists on continuing the fight — implying
that this is the one in the wrong. " William
attacked Nicolas, or Nicolas attacked William : isn't
it all the same ? " So it is all the same to Mere-
shkovsky, that Serbia, a sister Slav nation, was
unjustly attacked and her independence sought
to be destroyed, all the same that Belgium was
violated and ruined by her sworn defender. All the
same that the population of Poland, of Belgium,
of Northern France are sent by the German slave-
drivers to work the fields and mines in an enemy
land. All the same, whether justice or injustice
exists upon the earth, all the same whether military
despotism stretches its iron hand from Bremen to
Bagdad and shuts out Russia for ever from the
West. Never, Mereshkovsky says, have people lied
so much as in the last three years. So the en-
thusiasm that moved the Russian people to take
arms for Serbia's freedom was a lie ; it was a lie
when they shouted themselves hoarse at Britain's
championing of Belgium ; it was for a lie that
the thousands of volunteers went gladly to battle,
and that who knows how many hundred thousand
brave Russians have been sent to death. Every-
thing before the revolution and except the revolu-
tion was a lie. "In the Council of the Workmen's
and Soldiers' Deputies beats a profound heart — in.
188 War and Revolution in Russia
the Temporary Government is strengthened the
lofty reason of the people ... let them speak,
not separately, but the Council together with
the Government, their word concerning the war
and' peace. Let the united revolution pronounce a
united word."
The tendency revealed in this is doubly dan-
gerous, dangerous to all the Allies including Russia,
and, particularly, dangerous to Russia alone. To
the Allies, because the spread of such ideas will
disorganise all resistance to the foe and paralyse
the efforts of Russians loyal to their under-
takings ; to Russia because if the Germans take
Petrograd, beside the crippling blow to her
heritage and her industry, she risks everything
that the revolution would seem to have gained,
and the loss for generations of a way out to the
warm seas. And when Mereshkovsky writes so,
who has been for years on the literary committee
of the Imperial Theatre, that stronghold of intel-
lectual flunkeyism, it is certain that very many
others think like him. This way the tide flows and
they swim with it, though before they never made a
gesture against the then existing fashion. They
take their cue from the Council of Workmen's
Deputies, and while openly professing, like Mere-
shkovsky, to oppose " peace at any price," ignore
the results of the doctrine that he also maintains :
The Danger in Russia 189
" in one hand the rifle, the other stretched out in
brotherhood." The enemy is at the gates, he has
just scored a considerable success on the Russian
Western Front, the fleet is in a state of acute dis-
organisation — yet the Socialist doctrinaires enun-
ciate the theory of a " compromise " peace " with-
out annexations or indemnities " and pretend to
trust that in such conditions the Russian soldier,
whose illiterate mind is incapable of grasping more
than the simplest idea, will fight well against a
foe already in possession of some of the best Russian
provinces, when moreover he is further urged to go
and take the land at once lest the golden moment
pass and the bourgeois rob him of his heritage.
It is impossible now to analyse all the forces
that are driving the Russian ship perilously close to
the rocks, but one influence, regrettable enough,
is noticeably at work. Tseretelli, a member of the
second Duma exiled to Siberia, who has now
returned and passes for a moderate Socialist,
said, in an interview published on April 4th, that
the duty of the Council of Workmen's Deputies
was to see that the Temporary Government pre-
served a sufficiently revolutionary character and to
" correct " its transactions. In other words, the
Government, whose able and patriotic members
represent a large proportion of the intelligent
opinion of Russia, is unable to take one step without
190 War and Revolution in Russia
the approval of the Council, which represents only the
workmen, a minute proportion of the nation, and
some of the soldiers, of whom something like 80 per
cent cannot read or write. In face of this it is need-
less to dwell on the incongruity of the pretensions
fostered by the Petrograd " intellectuals," largely
of non-Russian extraction, to a special mission of
Russia to the world ; but it seems clear that one
motive in the itching for a peace compromise is
anxiety on the part of the Social Democratic
leaders lest, if the war were vigorously conducted
and pushed to a successful conclusion, much of
their influence should pass into the hands of the
" bourgeoisie " whose representatives, with the
exception of Kerensky, the Minister of Justice,
compose the Temporary Government. This migh*
particularly be the case, should the latter be free
from Social Democratic control when the time
comes for the Constituent Assembly to meet. The
same motive can be detected in the inscrip-
tions carried on some of the more recent banners
in the processions of troops to do obeisance to the
new regime at the Duma. The legend " War to
a Democratic Victory," has appeared during the last
week. It resembles the protestations of Pravda
(Truth), the organ of the advanced Social Democrats,
that they are not opposed to war in defence of the
rights of the masses, but only to " imperialist "
The Banger in Russia 191
wars, like the present, that advantage none but the
bourgeoise. If it means anything, it means that
the soldiers who exhibit it desire to turn their arms
not against the Germans but against the proper-
tied classes, a result to be facilitated by the hoped
for fraternisation with the Socialists among the
enemy.
In this welter of cloudy ambitions and half-
sincere illusions General Alexeiev and A. J. Guchkov
have to reorganise the national defences. That the
Russians, with their easily excitable emotions, can
feel the appeal of right views on the war is proved
by the success of a young actress, Miss Galli-
Yanovska, who ten days since electrified a work-
men's audience by her vivid claim for Russia's
duty to fight to the end. " There is no freedom,"
she cried, " in treason, and they are calling you to
betray your brothers' graves, to betray our Allies
whose trust is placed in the Russian people and in
them alone. The old power has fallen, and in the
face of the whole world stands the free Russian
people. Let no one dare to say : Russia could not
fulfil her promises, the free Russian people befouled
its freedom with treachery to the general weal.
Comrades, let that not be ! " Practically the whole
of the Press is for achieving the oft -repeated aims of
Russia in a definite victory. But the influence of
the Press is at a discount as being "bourgeois,"
192 War and Revolution in Russia
and though there is no censorship the papers are
prevented from publishing unpleasant facts by the
workmen's despotism. It would be foolish not to
realise that the forces against the common cause are
strong. Not only those touched on above, but there
still exists the profound want of willingness and
desire to escape responsibility that characterises
many public officials, who, all but a few of the chiefs,
remain in the posts they occupied before the revolu-
tion. There still exists the ingrained laziness of the
Russian character, and an English engineer calculates
that in the Government factory he supervises there
will in the course of the next fortnight be thirty-
six working hours. Officers who threw themselves
whole-heartedly into the revolutionary movement
are discouraged at the attitude adopted towards
themselves and their fellows, and there have been
several cases of suicide. On the news of the Ameri-
can declaration of war, one young officer said
bitterly : " The Allies now consist of three republics,
seven monarchies, and one anarchy." The Russian
revolution, which in the given circumstances was
inevitable, and has put an end to one of the most
monstrous systems of misgovernment and oppres-
sion in history, has come six months too soon,
probably for the Allies, but almost certainly for
Russia.
XXIV
SOLDIERS AND WORKMEN
(April, 191V)
THE questions of the hour remain the relation
of the workmen to their work and of the
soldiers to the workmen ; and on both a great deal
of doubt exists. Reports of the workmen's refusal,
active or passive, to resume work for the supply of
the army having reached the latter, many of the
troops are incensed against those who, having
earned " fancy " wages in the factories, now seem
prepared to starve the soldiers of shells. Deputa-
tions have come from the front to affirm the resolu-
tion of the troops to fight to the death, and to call
on the workmen to support them. We made the
revolution, they say. Plain hints have already been
given that if the workmen do not respond to the call
of duty, they may apprehend the most serious con-
sequences. A party of the Petrograd Guards
marched to the Patilov works and said : " We have
come with our rifles at the easy, and in a friendly
spirit, but if you don't work for us, we shall come
back with our rifles at the ready, and in a different
o 193
194 War and Revolution in Russia
spirit ! " I talked two days ago with a deputy from
a Cossack regiment, an intelligent non-commissioned
officer, whose eyes blazed with fury at the thought
that the army might be stabbed in the back. Yester-
day a deputy arrived from the Guards,
stationed in Galicia, with the message that they will
fight on to victory and will treat as traitors any
workmen who do not back them up to the best of
their power. What maddens soldiers at the front
is the idea that while they spend days and nights in
the trenches and risk their lives for 75 kopeks a
month, there are workmen who refuse to work even
eight hours a day without bargaining for a rise in
their already high wages.
These warnings have inspired the Council of
Workmen's Deputies to feverish efforts to content
and convince the soldiers in Petrograd and to offer
to Russia a spectacle of complete solidarity between
the workmen and the soldiers. In this they have
largely succeeded, but the solidarity, which may be
more propitious in other cities, has been gained in
Petrograd rather in the direction of the extreme
Social Democratic views than of those held at all
events on the south-western front. There, discip-
line is reported steady, the men rely on their
officers, agitators have been bested, and the fighting
spirit is high. This is easy to understand ; for the
armies of General Brusilov have beaten the enemy
Soldiers and Workmen 195
and, fighting to reclaim the soil of their Galician
brothers, believe they can beat him again. Deser-
tions there were ; but they have now been made
good again. Nearer to the influence of the capital
the military spirit would seem progressively to
languish ; the accusation would doubtless be unjust
in many cases, but the greater ease of communica-
tion, following on the already shaken confidence of
officers and men, under the persistent treachery of
the old regime, has enabled anti-military propaganda
to attain greater success.
In the capital itself this propaganda reaches its
height. Here, too, many of the troops would not
be satisfied at its success, but it can be pushed
far without fear of consequences. I was present
yesterday at the Duma, when two ladies were dis-
tributing patriotic pamphlets to the soldiers. A
week ago the same pamphlets had been distributed
without objection. Now the ladies were surrounded
by an angry crowd of soldiers, sailors, and workmen,
many of whom tore the pamphlets to pieces, accusing
the ladies of being spies, police agents, and capitalists,
threatened them with denunciation to the Council,
and even with personal violence. An ugly scene
was only averted by the fact that the ladies,
both practised orators, behaved with great courage
and restraint, and that one of them was widely
known as a woman of advanced democratic opinions.
196 War and Revolution in Russia
The wife of a sergeant who had herself come to
Petrograd as a deputy from the non-commissioned
officers of a regiment at Smolensk, said to this lady :
"They don't want the truth. You can't tell the
truth here." The fiercest among the men were the
sailors. As a rule, they are too well trained to say
openly that they are against the war, but denounce
the supposed aggressive policy of the Government,
the capitalist interests in which England and Ger-
many are alleged to have begun the war, and acclaim
internationalism ; but now, worked up, they spoke
freely, and one shouted amid general approval :
" We've had enough of the war ! Enough blood has
been spilt ! We know what our skins are worth ! "
Public pronouncements by the Council of Work-
men's Deputies, more or less favourable to the prose-
cution of the war, must be read with the knowledge
that these undercurrents exist and receive every
encouragement, and that the Socialist group have
attained great skill in minimising the truth. Thus
the official figures of the casualties of the revolution
are arrived at by neglecting those that fell in the
cause of the old regime and the murdered officers,
who are not considered " victims." Helsingfors and
Cronstadt are officially reported in peace and
security : from private information I learn that the
spirit at the former remains bad, while at the latter
an emissary sent by the Government to release the
Soldiers and Workmen 197
imprisoned officers was refused, with the argument
of a loaded machine-gun. Officially the Council sup-
ports the Temporary Government, but by its sup-
porters and members attacks have been made on
Guchkov, Miliukov, and Rodzianko, while there
was even a question of arresting the Labour Minister
of Justice, Kerensky, for having allowed General
Ivanov, who made a half-hearted attempt to help
the ex-Emperor during his journey to Petrograd,
personal freedom while the charges against him
are investigated. Purishkevich, who has worked
like a lion for the needs of the army throughout the
war and freed Russia from Rasputin, is accused of
being a traitor. In a fine letter published yesterday,
he rejects the accusation on to those who, in league
with Germans within and without the realm, seek
to reduce Russia to the Muscovite principality of
the sixteenth century. While the factories are
officially reported to have made an unexampled out-
put of shells during some days of the past week,
a correspondent writes on April 12th in Pravda
(Truth), the extreme Socialist organ, that the work-
men cannot work even half time " since there is
nothing to do at the benches — there is no fuel,"
throwing the blame for this on the Government and
the " bourgeoisie."
The proportion of the extreme Social Democrats
on the Council is estimated at about 20 per cent.
198 War and Revolution in Russia
In a resolution on the war they voted (April 10th)
that " the Russian revolutionary democracy ought
to appeal to the peoples of all the warring countries
to rise against their oppressors, guilty of the fratri-
cidal war. ... It is necessary to carry on further
work for the construction of international ties with
the object of stopping the war. ... It is necessary
to compel the Russian Temporary Government not
only to renounce all militarist plans, but immedi-
ately to formulate the will of the peoples of Russia,
i.e. to propose to all the combatants peace without
annexation, indemnities, with the right of the peoples
to self-government." Pravda, commenting on the
situation in its issue of April 13th, remarked : " The
undertakings of the deposed Tsar and of his Govern-
ment, which up to the present are entirely unknown
to the people, cannot be considered as unquestion-
ably binding on the democracy." On the same day
a leader in the official organ of the Council declares :
" We are willing to hold out the hand of brotherhood
to the peoples of Germany and Austria if they
compel their Governments to renounce militarism.
. . . We are ready to support with armed strength
the popular masses of England, France, and Italy, if
they compel their Governments to renounce mili-
tarism and, nevertheless, are compelled to defend
themselves from Germany. But we will emphatically
protest against the prolongation of the war in the
Soldiers and Workmen 199
interests of capital, under whatever national flag it
is hidden." When the innuendo of this passage is
examined, and the power of an energetic 20 per
cent minority is borne in mind, the difference
between the whole Council and its extreme left wing
would not seem to be great.
XXV
THOUGHTS ON THE POLISH QUESTION 1
THE Polish question has once more burst upon the
attention of a staggered and distracted Europe.
It would, perhaps, be truer to say that, like an
ammunition depot, near which an acquaintance
of mine was stationed, which, touched by an
Austrian bomb, continued cracker-wise to explode
in bits all day, the Polish question has been actively
bursting ever since the beginning of the war, and
has now given a particularly violent explosion which
will certainly not be the last, and probably will not
prove to be the most violent. At the present
moment the Moscow and Kiev papers, which
reach Rovno at irregular intervals, are full of the
German proclamation of a quasi-independent king-
dom of Poland, and contain interviews with any
Pole within reach of their correspondents who may
have something to say on the subject. In its main
lines the situation created by the latest German
move is clear enough. Mr. Lednicki, president of
the Moscow Polish Committee and one of the most
1 The New Europe, December 7, 1916.
200
Thoughts on the Polish Question 201
widely respected of the Polish leaders in Russia,
formerly a member of the Duma, remarks briefly
that it is difficult to say anything about the pro-
clamation, except that it appears to be dictated by
military motives and that it will create a most
unpleasant situation for the upholders in Poland
of the Russian " orientation," those, that is, who
have looked to Russia as the direction from which
the hopes of their country are most likely to receive
the beginnings of fulfilment. But Mr. Szebeko,
member of the Council of the Empire, goes further
and lays the responsibility for the present situation,
and for the fratricidal war that may develop from
it between Poles in the Russian army and Poles from
Russian Poland taken to serve in the German army,
on the Russian Government and on the present
Premier. He states as a fact that Mr. Sazonov
resigned because of his dissatisfaction with Mr.
Stunner's policy upon the Polish question, and
that after trying in vain to get an Act accepted
that would have contented the Polish leaders and
cleared the atmosphere, laden as it has been
with storm clouds throughout the year, he left
the Government. Other reasons, too, may have
been at work, and the actual occasion of Mr.
Sazonov 's resignation is understood to have been
different, but what Mr. Szebeko now says was
freely said at the time and is probably true. The
202 War and Revolution in Russia
only remedy, Mr. Szebeko thinks, for the dangerous
situation that has been allowed to arise would be
the publication, on behalf of Russia and her Allies,
with pointed emphasis on the latter, of a clear
statement as to the proposed constitution of the
future Polish state.
One of those interviewed on this vital question
says that, although everyone has been talking of
something of the sort for a long time, the German
act took him entirely by surprise. As usual there
has been plenty of talk on our side — and the
Germans have acted. What they have done now
has doubtless, as the authorities quoted above point
out, a double motive ; firstly, they want to create
some show of legality before pressing Poles from
Russian Poland into their army ; secondly, they
have to create a buffer of sympathy with them-
selves or antipathy against the Russians wherewith
to hold up the pressure from the east towards the
close of the war. But if the actual step taken by
the enemy and the moment of it was unforeseen,
the situation has clearly been developing in this
direction for a considerable time past. As early as
the beginning of summer the Polish leaders were
much exercised by the news received of the political
progress made by the Germans in Poland, and
feared that when the Russian arms were victoriously
carried back across the Vistula they would cease to
Thoughts on the Polish Question 203
be regarded as those of liberators by people of not
sufficiently advanced political training to appre-
ciate the underlying reasons for the privileges
granted them by their German governors. Not
long since a paper was read at a political club at
Petrograd on the Polish question, when a Pole pre-
sent put a damper on the subsequent discussion by
remarking that since the proclamation of the Grand
Duke Nicolas nothing had been done, and that the
Polish question was at the moment being settled
in Poland. In fact, the Germans have gone a
long way towards satisfying the agitations of
Poles as far as the internal life of the country goes.
There is a Polish University in Warsaw, there are
Polish courts and Polish schools, the Polish lan-
guage and Polish customs are everywhere en-
couraged, and in Warsaw there have been elaborate
Polish national demonstrations under the direct
patronage of the German Governor, Von Beseler.
In this benign atmosphere the German tyranny
and persecution of everything Polish in Posen may
well fall into oblivion. True, the matter of the
Polish legions in Austria does not seem to have been
handled with conspicuous success, but, as was
found in the Russian Army when something of the
same sort was attempted, this is an experiment
fraught with difficulty.
Now it may well be that a mistake was made in
204 War and Revolution in Russia
not, within a reasonable time after the Grand
Duke's proclamation, and during the palmy days
of the war on the Bzura and the Rawka, publish-
ing the intentions of the Russian Government on
the future of Poland. Because this was not done,
however, it does not follow that the motives for not
doing it were altogether pernicious. Many Rus-
sians, believers in the sincerity of the proclamation
and eager that Poland should have real autonomy,
thought that while active military operations were
going on it was not opportune to enter upon a de-
tailed consideration of the legal steps that should
define and assure it ; and to have done so would
undoubtedly have been to distract the attention
of statesmen and administrators from the sole object
which should have engrossed them — the prosecu-
tion of the war. Any attempt to put into motion an
autonomous administration with the front fifty miles
west of Warsaw would probably, when the cum*
brous movements and infinite tentacles of the Rus-
sian bureaucratic machine are considered, have had
an even more disintegrating effect. The flood
of ink now let loose is a measure of what might
have been expected had contrary counsels prevailed.
It may be objected that what the Germans have
done could have been done on the side of the Allies
There is, however, this difference in the situation,
that in setting up a new kingdom of Poland, the
Thoughts on the Polish Question 205
Germans are dealing with foreign land of which
they are in occupation. We learn that German
public opinion is not wholly favourable to the
manner and policy of the proclamation. But
the German Government can afford to disregard
German opinion about Russian Poland just as
it can disregard the dissatisfaction of Poles as
expressed by the Rector of the University of
Warsaw at the disappointingly partial scope of
the measures promised to be put in force. If
it were a question of Posen, or Silesia, the German
Government could not maintain so comfortable
an attitude. The Russian situation, on the other
hand, is much what would be that of Germany
were she called upon to set up autonomy in Posen :
with the best will in the world Russia must tread
warily, and has a long and thorny path before her.
Not even with this considerable advantage have
the German statesmen found their task easy. It
is evident that there have been many abortive
attempts to find a wider basis for their policy, and
they have only succeeded in maintaining a scheme
by strictly confining it to Russian Poland. They
have, in fact, partially solved their problem by
excluding from it all the refractory elements.
On the side of Russia and her Allies such a
simple method is inadmissible. Now or later they
will have to find a formula covering the whole
206 War and Revolution in Russia
question of Poland ; and to leave out of present
consideration many hard questions that will call for
answer, there is one which, after insistently pre-
senting itself time and again for inspection, now
resolutely refuses to be put back into the box. This
is the fundamental question of geographic delimita-
tion. " There is no real Poland," says Mr. Lednicki,
" without Galicia, Silesia, and Posen." In this he
is supported by Mr. Szebeko, who will probably,
he himself says, be entrusted with the task of pre-
senting the Polish view to the Russian Government,
as well, indeed, as by every other prominent leader
of Polish public opinion. And Mr. Szebeko demands
for this problem the attention and co-operation of
the Allies.
In maps of Poland as it was, the territory claimed
forms roughly a square from north-east of Vitebsk
to west of Danzig, and embraces Breslau and Cracow
on the west, Mogilov and Kiev on the east, Lvov and
Tarnopol on the south. The reintegration in a new
kingdom of Poland of the eastern strip with Vitebsk,
Mogilov and Kiev, belongs evidently to the realm of
dreams and need not be considered ; the rest is of
serious moment. When the military strength of
Germany has been blasted away and the map of
Europe is carved anew, the future of Silesia and
Posen must be one for the general council of the
Allied Powers, and it will be for them to consider
Thoughts on the Polish Question 207
whether by cutting away from Germany the whole
of Silesia, containing, as it does, a large pro-
portion of Germans, they will be paving the way
towards a stable peace or will thereby rather
create a new Alsatian problem in the East of
Europe. Posnania, more definitely Polish, the
cradle, it is called, of Polish civilisation more hardly
treated, and not Germanised by the brutal thorough-
ness of the Expropriation Laws and their like, may
present less trouble. The question of Danzig,
however, is sure to give rise to difficulty if insisted
upon by the Poles, and so far back as the spring
of 1915 aroused spirited reproach from some leaders
of the Polish National Democratic Party against
the part they declared to be played by Great
Britain in blocking the approach of Poland to the
sea. " No Pole," repeats Mr. Lednicki in a separate
article, " will be satisfied by a Polish State that
does not take in Galicia, Silesia, and the principality
of Posen, a Polish State without Danzig, without
the mouth of the Vistula, without a way out to the
sea." But far more urgent at the present moment
than Danzig is the problem of Galicia 's future, and
at the same time it is one less within the competence
of the Western Allies.
Polish writers and politicians claim Galicia as
part of Poland. They have never made a secret of
this. No Russian I have ever met admits their
208 War and Revolution in Russia
claim. The Polish claim is founded upon their
historical possession before it fell into the seething
pot of the Austrian Empire, and upon the prepon-
derance of Poles among the town population. The
Russian view has for its justification that still
earlier in history the land was Russian before ever
it became Polish, and that the bulk of the peasantry
is Ruthenian, that is, Russian at one remove. The
figures of the population taken from a recent Polish
guidebook are — 40 per cent. Polish, 40 per cent.
Ruthenian, and 20 per cent. Jewish, and it needs
only a very slight acquaintance with Galicia to see
that the town and the rural population belong in the
main to different nationalities. Therefore, if the
principle of nationality were to be applied, it would
be hard to say to which of its neighbours Galicia
should be attached, save that it can never again be
attached to Hungary, from which it is separated by
mountains of rock and national hatred. The
Ruthenians, who were the advance guard of the
Little Russians, pushed up against the Carpathian
Mountains, are, in fact, as much Russian as their
brothers who stayed within the boundaries of
Volynia and Podolia. They speak the same lan-
guage, they wear the same clothes, they have the
same high, broad foreheads and little tip-tilted
noses ; they are the same peasants, tillers of the same
rich, black soil. By religion they belong to the
Thoughts on the Polish Question 209
Uniate Greek Church, but now many of them
have become Orthodox, like a colony of Ruthenians
who emigrated not many years since to Canada,
to the indignation of the local Roman Catholic
authorities. They belong so much to the land of
Galicia and the land to them, that, in ordinary
parlance, they are often simply called " Galicians,"
a term which would never be applied without
qualification to the Poles or Jews of that country.
Among the Ruthenians are not only peasants,
but also a substantial educated class. In Galicia
they are divided politically. The majority are the
so-called Ukrainophils, supported by Austria-Hun-
gary, who cherished the vain hope of a separate
Little Russian state being set up under the auspices
of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and even carried
on their propaganda in the Russian Ukraine itself.
The Russophile minority, as is only natural, have
always turned towards Russia as to their true
mother-country, and kept alive the spirit of Russia
among their people. Their attitude was held a
danger to the State ; the Russian alphabet was
forbidden, all Russian tendencies persecuted, those
found in possession of Pushkin's poems were sent
to prison by the active Austrian police. Therefore,
when, in the autumn of 1914, General Brusilov and
Radko Dimitriev drove the Austrians through^Lvov
and to the outer hills of the Carpathians, their
p
210 War and Revolution in Russia
troops were hailed by thousands of Ruthenians
as saviours and as brothers. Every Russian who
set his foot upon Galician ground felt that he was
helping to reclaim a part — a very little part, but yet
a part — of Russia's soul from the hated domina-
tion of the Teuton. The compact of welcome and
brotherly friendship then made has since been
sealed by suffering. Hardly a clod of Galician
earth is there that has not been hallowed by the
shedding of Russian blood. And though the suffer-
ing of the Galician people has been great, through
it still shines the hope of a future life of peace under
the sheltering arm of their great mother Russia.
They had much that Russia cannot give them :
good administration, beautiful roads, agricultural
colleges, pretty things in the towns from Vienna,
neat books from America ; but their souls sighed
for the spirit of Russia and without it will not be
at rest.
The same must be said of the big Ruthenian
fragment in Hungary. The persecution of these
Ruthenians is very brutal, and the Magyars have
been aided by Rome. They have been allowed to
introduce the Magyar language in the Ruthene
Uniate Church and to expel its Slavonic liturgy.
Here, then, is a point of acute difficulty in a
pronouncement by the Russian Government on
the Polish question. The Ruthenians welcomed
Thoughts on the Polish Question 211
the Russian arms, suffered for them, died in thou-
sands for their movement of loyalty towards Russia.
The Poles and Jews of Galicia were not inspired by
the same feelings. Among the Poles the more far-
sighted political leaders indeed accepted and wel-
comed the Russian conquest as the only means
by which they could hope that Galician Poland
might be rejoined to the greater part of their
country ; but the rank and file of the bourgeois
population were too comfortable under Austrian
rule to desire any change. Their province enjoyed
practical autonomy, and within it they ruled the
roost. Without displaying actual hostility towards
the Russians, it was nevertheless clear that their
sympathies were not with the conquerors. Nor
must it be forgotten that the Russians were con-
querors, and have been busy all this summer again
driving back the Austrians. They won Galicia by
the sword. A very typically Russian administra-
tion was set up in Lvov. The Emperor himself
made a special tour through the province, and gave
a diamond -mounted sword to the Grand Duke
Nicolas in memory of his conquest. When the day
of settlement comes, these things will not, and per-
haps ought not, to be forgotten. Possibly some
rational partition of Galicia can be devised, leaving
the west and Cracow, Polish beyond all question,
to the nation of which it is the ancient capital, and
212 War and Revolution in Russia
giving the east and south to Russia. But prophecy is
useless. I am merely concerned here to point to the
existence of a grave difficulty. The Poles say they
will not be satisfied with anything short of Galicia.
The Russians believe that Poland has no right to
Galicia, and feel it to be a part of Russia. It is
significant that, in the course of a lengthy interview,
Mr. V. A. Maklakov, one of the chief Russian pro-
gressive politicians (not to be confused with his
brother, a former reactionary Minister of the Interior)
while emphasising the past faults of Russian policy
towards the Poles and the necessity that Poland
should be an autonomous State, makes no reference
at all to Galicia. In view of these facts it would
not seem easy for a Russian proclamation on the
future constitution of Poland to satisfy the hopes
or assuage the fears of the chief contending parties.
As if expressly to point a finger of warning for
those who believe in easy solutions, the same papers
bring the strange news that the police have searched
the rooms of Mr. Grabski, President of the Central
Citizens' Committee (of the Government of the
Kingdom of Poland) at Petrograd, and have seized
his documents. The fact that such an incident should
have taken place shows the bitterness of the Polish
situation. The Poles feel themselves to be one
people, whether under Russia, Germany, or Austria-
Hungary. Nevertheless, they are expected in
Thoughts on the Polish Question 213
Russia to be loyal against their brothers among the
enemy ; in Austria and Germany they are bound to
fight against the Slav. During the terrible days
of the great retreat, the loyalty of the Russian Poles
was terribly tested, the more because each step back-
ward taken by the Russian Army raised the hopes
of the Austrian Poles that the liberation of their
country might come from their side. A vain hope,
indeed, as anyone who had considered the history
of Austria might have known. From Germany,
with her rod of iron, no one was rash enough to look
for a liberating movement. Alone in Russia could
hope be placed, and Russia had spoken through
the Grand Duke Nicolas the word of freedom which
had set Russia and all the world aflame. The Poles
undoubtedly hoped for an earlier fulfilment of their
national longing, and perhaps, without thinking of
the practical difficulties, were deeply disappointed
that nothing was done to put the Grand Duke's
promise of freedom into practice. And this dis-
appointment must have been the greater because it
was exasperated by the repeated raising of expecta-
tion that immediate measures would be taken. In
the last days before the evacuation of Warsaw, Mr.
Goremykin, then Prime Minister, gave an assurance
that a fundamental law expressing the promised
autonomy was being worked out and would be
published. No such law was published, and on other
214 War and Revolution in Russia
occasions hope was raised only to be equally dis-
appointed. What makes the Polish position one of
exceptional difficulty and gives to many utterances
of the Polish leaders a tinge of bitterness, even of
despair, is not the length of time that hope has been
deferred, or the internal difficulties that confront
them, but the fear that influences exist which if
they gained the upper hand would annul the Grand
Duke's proclamation, or at best end in such a
whittling away of it that only a dead and fruitless
stick would remain in place of the splendid young
tree that imagination foresaw. It is this fear that
makes the Poles now lay special emphasis on the
connection of all the Allies with the Polish problem.
It is impossible not to sympathise deeply with them.
It is needless to repeat that the British public joins in
their expectation of the fulfilment of the Grand
Duke's words. It is elementary statesmanship that
without a settlement of the Polish problem no peace
can prevail in Europe after the war. It is essential
that the Poles should believe that it will be honestly
and well settled. But it is useless to disguise that
the problem is a hard one, and that the settlement
cannot be such as will fully satisfy everyone. This is
of the essence of political settlements under given
circumstances, a truism that is in danger of being
forgotten, at all events on this side of the world.
"PEACE WITHOUT ANNEXATIONS OR
INDEMNITIES "
A LETTER FROM PETROGRAD IN JUNE 1
""VT^OU know — we all know — that the country
JL is on the verge of ruin, that our army hardly
exists, that it could not possibly advance, that the
immediate future of Russia is black : well, you
must realise that the present situation is ten times
worse than the worst that you imagine, and then
the picture will not be black enough." These words
were spoken by a Russian officer, of between thirty
and forty years, by rank a Captain in one of the
technical services, a Knight of St. George, who has
been at the Front for two and a half years, at a small
gathering of representatives of various public
Societies on the 29th of May, 1917, and at the time
there was much to justify them. In fact, from the
first week after the revolution the situation became
almost steadily worse. True, Russia has looked
civil war in the face, and the parties responsible
for bringing her there did not like the sight. The
four regiments which turned in the 3rd of May to
1 The Nineteenth Century and After. Nov., 1917,
215
216 War and Revolution in Russia
threaten the Government, and those which turned
out later to defend it, were fortunately persuaded
to go home before the collision occurred that might
have been fatal. Save for a few shots next day,
half a dozen killed, and a few dozen trampled on,
no harm was done. The guilty drew back, but
only to continue underground the policy that they
did not venture openly to champion. Excessive
attention has been paid to the leader of the " Bolshe-
viki " or Maximalists among the Russian Social
Democratic Labour Party, Lenin. His return to
Russia through Germany was a theatrical demon-
stration of the Teutonism in Socialist circles in
Petrograd and his influence is considerable ; but
had it been met by sincerity among those who
profess to stand apart from his platform, he would
not have accomplished much. What has done most
harm has been the unexpressed support given to
the Lenin agitation by the acts of those who pose as
his opponents, and it is principally owing to this
that, after a temporary or superficial improvement,
the discipline of the army suffered a terrible decline.
One section indeed among the Socialists, remaining
staunch to its patriotism, has unwaveringly held
aloft the banner of rectitude : this is the party of
Plehanov, among which also the famous revolu-
tionaries, Vera Zasulich and Deutsch, may be
counted. For this Plehanov is openly assailed as a
" Peace without Annexations " 217
bourgeois and an imperialist in company with
Emile Vandervelde, Gustave Herve and Will Thorne.
" Capitalist," " imperialist " and " bourgeois "
have indeed, as the words are now used, ceased to
have any real meaning and have become mere
terms of abuse. Against the Plehanov party,
whose admirably edited paper Unity (Edinstvo)
does daily battle for the cause of Russia and her
allies, are ranged the Leninites, various other
factions of the Socialist party, Maxim Gorky and
his friends, and the chief influence of the Council of
Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies in their official
organ, the News of the Council. That this is not
the ostensible policy of the Council does not alter
the fact.
From the moment of its inception the managers
of the Council pursued the line of destroying all
confidence in the Liberal leaders of the nation by
whom its social forces were organised for the
purpose of combating the Germans within and
without the realm, who attacked and overthrew
Sturmer and Sukhomlinov, and without whose
ardent and patriotic work during the days of the
revolution Russia would have been split by the
internecine feuds of different parties struggling for
power. The Council, child of that Council which
organised the great general strike of 1905, was not,
it must be noted, in any sense a constitutionally
218 War and Revolution in Russia
elected body. In 1905 it was a revolutionary group,
and in 1917 it made its appearance in the same
guise. But there was this difference. In 1905
action could only be taken by revolutionary means :
when the Council was now re-born the Duma had
already taken control of the situation, and it was
not against the autocracy but against the influence
of the Duma that the Council directed its revo-
lutionary aims. The excuse offered that the Fourth
Duma, elected on a restricted and partial franchise,
did not truly represent Russia, is too flimsy to bear
inspection ; for the Duma, by determined opposition
to the Court and by its efforts in the prosecution of
the War, had long proved its devotion to the
popular cause. Every thinking patriot could see
that the authority of the Duma required to be
strengthened, not weakened, and its life lengthened ;
that under the influence of the revolution it must
inevitably go forward under a more democratic
banner ; and that at the worst but a few months'
delay would bring the Constituent Assembly and a
new franchise. In these circumstances, the Work-
men's Council set to work to make effective action
by the Duma impossible ; Steklov (whose real
name is Nahamkis), Skobelev, and others, in their
innumerable speeches to the masses of soldiers who
thronged to the Duma, bent all their energies to
arouse in their hearers a sense that only the revolu-
"Peace without Annexations " 219
tion was of importance, that only the soldiers and
the workmen had achieved it, and that everyone
else was a bourgeois or a capitalist pursuing the
most vulgarly selfish aims. Rodzianko was thus
spitefully assailed ; but it is needless to give a list
of names. The tendency was general and persistent.
The soldiers, in whom the sense of discipline, shaken
by the furious events in the streets, was almost
completely uprooted by the Council's Order No. 1,
were a blank page for its leaders to write on, and
were naturally incapable of distinguishing between
a despotic body like the Council, self -elected in the
beginning, or elected by an infinitesimal fraction
of the people, and afterwards collecting round itself
the authority of other committees taught that they
had no one else to whom to turn, and an assembly
of true representatives of the nation. The Tem-
porary Government chosen by the Duma was to
work exclusively " under the control " of the
Council, and to have power only " so far as and no
further than " it deserved the confidence of revolu-
tionary Russia, of which the test was to be applied by
the Council. Nobody knowing these facts and not
determined to be deceived could expect that the
Government would be able satisfactorily to fulfil
its first duty towards the nation, that is, to govern.
When the Petrograd Council obtained from a general
assembly of all the Councils of Workmen's and
220 War and Revolution in Russia
Soldiers' Deputies throughout Russia a commission
to represent them until the meeting of the Con-
stituent Assembly and to keep watch over the
Government, it was only the outward ratification
of an already existing state of affairs. Observers at
a distance who, remembering the former importance
of Moscow and the immense proportion of peasants
to the total of the nation, believe that Petrograd has
not the decisive voice in Russia are mistaken.
Moscow has sunk to the position of a large provincial
town, where the first question is u What do they
think in Petrograd ? " In so far as anyone wields
power in Russia, the power is in the hands of the
Petrograd Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Deputies.
The two points of vital importance for the
Government were inevitably the War and, depend-
ing from it, foreign policy. The two men in the
Government best known as political leaders of
ability and experience, as resolute patriots, were
Guchkov, the Minister of War, and Miliukov at the
Foreign Office. On them, therefore, the attack of
the enemies of the Government was concentrated.
Guchkov 's position was made difficult from the
first, and in spite of concessions on his part rapidly
became impossible. When he went to inspect the
Western Front, the Commander-in-Chief, General
Gourko, found it necessary to recommend him to
" Peace without Annexations " 221
the soldiers as having fought against England in
the Boer War ; for this proved his democratic
principles. When he went to the South- Western
Front, he shook hands at the Staff at Kiev with all
the soldiers, but only bowed to the Generals, and
pursued a similar policy in visiting the chief military
hospital. But no outward obeisance could avail.
Guchkov, hinself an ex-hussar, who has seen service
in four campaigns, who has given fully of his
strength and energy to the army during the present
War, and understands the organization of war, was
not the man for the Council. Every step he took
was supervised, his orders questioned or ignored,
his authority set at nought, and on the 14th of May
he resigned, giving his reasons with complete
frankness. It was inevitable that Miliukov should
follow him. The two belong to different parties and
were political opponents before the War ; but
now they both belonged to the party that aimed at
efficiency. The same charge lay against Miliukov
as against Guchkov : he wished to win the War.
He refused to attempt to juggle the Allies into a
situation where doing lip service to the cause of the
War they risked bartering away for the fiction of
Russia's support the reality of what they were
fighting for. For this was, if not the object of the
Council, at all events the logical effect of its policy.
The first stage of the revolution came to an end
222 War and Revolution in Russia
when the ex-Emperor was confined to Tsarskoe
Selo. The second was accomplished when the
formula " Peace without annexations or indem-
nities " broke up the Government and drove it, by
forcing on it the choice between open anarchy and a
coalition, still more completely under the power of
the Council, which refused openly to accept power
and responsibility.
Great efforts have been made both by the Allies
and by patriotic Russians to interpret the formula
as to renouncing annexations in the sense in which
Germany annexed iUsace-Lorraine, and indemnities
in the sense of the German indemnity levied on
France after the war of 1870. But this is not the
meaning of the Workmen's Council. A leading
article in the official News of the Council on the 27th
of May quotes the following phrase from an English
paper :
" Public opinion in Russia, so far as it is ex-
pressed in the views of the revolutionary leaders, is
entirely inclined towards the same understanding
of the objects of the War on which the Western
Allies take up their position."
The News continues :
" You deceive yourselves, gentlemen ! Or rather,
you vainly try to deceive your peoples concerning
the real policy of the Russian revolution. The
Russian revolution will not sacrifice one soldier to
" Peace without Annexations " 223
help you to set right historical injustices ' accom-
plished against you. And what about the historical
injustices accomplished by you ? Your force used
on Ireland, India, Egypt, the numberless peoples
inhabiting every continent."
Let the " Allies " [inverted commas in the article]
clearly understand :
" No seizure of lands, no indemnification. If after
this it [the Temporary Government] decides on an
advance, it will be in the firm belief that the
Governments of the nations ' allied ' with us stand
on the same platform."
This was followed on the 29th of May by a leading
article entitled " Without Annexations," in which
" the direct sense " of the word is explained as " the
seizure by force of territory in the present — and
only in the present ! — War." The article continues :
" We want peace. We want it as quickly as
possible. . . . • Annexation ' means the forcible
seizure of territory which was on the day of the
declaration of war in the power of another State.
' Without annexations ' means not one drop of the
people's blood for such seizure ! This is clear and
definite. Only he will not understand it, who wishes
not to understand."
On the following day the first leading article in the
News of the Council declared :
" An impression may be created as though an
224 War and Revolution in Russia
offensive [on the part of the army] were the principal
task of the new Temporary Government and the
Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies. . . .
But such an impression is a profound error. It is
entirely untrue that we are organising an offensive
at the Front."
Further :
" The revolutionary army cannot take the offen-
sive, if every soldier in its ranks is not firmly con-
vinced that his exploits and sacrifices really serve
the cause of freedom and of the revolution and not
the enrichment of the robbers of international
capital. For an offensive to be possible on our
Front, an active foreign policy is imperative, which
should set aside all possibility of error as to the aims
and character of the present War."
" Peace without annexations or indemnities "
was not a Russian invention. It came to Russia
from the West and in the mouths of Scheidemann
and his fellow-Socialists of Teuton breed meant the
policy lately endorsed by Vorwtirts, that Germany
would never give up Alsace-Lorraine, or Austria
Bosnia-Herzegovina ; and doubtless that Belgium
and Serbia should not receive compensation for the
wrong done them unless as part of a new bargain
the price of which should be their acceptance of
Hohenzollern-Hapsburg tutelage. In the mouths
of the Petrograd Council it means, as their own
declarations show, precisely the same. Their idea of
" the aims and character of the present War " was
" Peace without Annexations " 225
further clearly expressed in the front page editorial
of the News on the 9th of May, an article which
deserves particular attention. " The Struggle for
Peace " it is headed.
" Three years of a war criminally contrived by
international robbers have filled to overflowing the
cup of popular patience. How much blood, how
much woe, how many tears ? Strength does not
suffice longer to bear this outrage on humanity.
And if at moments the burden of blood and tears
threaten to crush us, who are far from the Front,
what must it be to those soldiers who live from day
to day waiting on the whistle of bullets in the cold,
in the damp, in the dirt, far from everything that is
sweet and dear ? Is it surprising that at times
nerves cannot hold out, and that they want to
throw everything to the devil and run home, with-
out looking back, to their own corner ? Is it
surprising that a spirit thus spreads ready to
take shape in the cry : Peace at any price ?
Separate peace, or not separate peace, but at once,
to-day ! "
Is it surprising, it can only be echoed, that within a
week from this Guchkov resigned ?
The Council is against war to a victorious con-
clusion ; it is therefore for peace without victory,
that is, for a peace which will not be a defeat for
Germany. But the ideas of the Council do not stop
short here. They aim at no less than a complete
subversion of the existing order in the nations
Q
226 War and Revolution in Russia
allied to Russia, and their propagators regard
themselves as torch-bearers to the whole world.
" We will not [says a pronouncement of the
Council's International Department on the 2nd of
June concerning English affairs] make illusions for
ourselves : the democratic flood mounts, but it has
not yet reached the primary stage of its growth.
Weeks and months will probably elapse before the
flood can really overflow the strongholds of reaction
and turn England to freedom within and peace
without."
England is warned betimes. A glance at the position
of Kerensky, the new Minister of War, shows how
deeply the Council is committed to its policy.
When the Black Sea Fleet passed a resolution
that " The watchword ' Peace for the whole world '
is in the first place actively threatened by German
militarism, therefore we must exert all our strength
together with the peoples allied to us for the struggle
against it," the Council's organ editorially com-
mented (June 6) :
" But it is also true that this watchword is no less
threatened by the militarism of the governing
classes in the countries allied to us. Revolutionary
democratic Russia will betray itself into self-decep-
tion and become a powerful weapon in the hands of
the * allied ' imperialists if it forgets this. We are
bound to support our brothers, the workmen and
peasants, in allied countries. And only when our
" Peace without Annexations " 227
joint friendly force succeeds in compelling the allied
Governments to renounce great imperialist aims,
only then will it be possible to attain in full measure
the ' exertion of all our strength,' if the German
people then continues to remain in complete sub-
jection to its imperialist Government and Germany
does not wish to conclude peace.
" Really fruitful results [says another leader in
the same issue] can only be given by another
conference — a conference in which every group that
comes to it will from the very beginning feel itself
one of the detachments of the international army
of labour, collected to undertake a common business
with common forces. "
In other words, before the British nation feels and
acts as if it were animated by the same aims as its
enemies, the Council will give no countenance to the
prosecution of the War ; and no amount of resolu-
tions and protestations against a separate peace, by
which the Council tries to save its face before the
world, can minimise the force of its teaching in the
minds of the ignorant Russian soldiery.
Kerensky is x Assistant President of the Council.
He is a much-loved man, widely respected at the
Bar for modesty and high ideals. He is responsible
to the Council. As War Minister his most decisive
act so far has been an order on the 25th of May
concerning preparations for a general offensive.
1 That is, was in June.
228 War and Revolution in Russia
" Standing where we are," he wrote, " we can never
drive out the foe. Forwards, for freedom for the land
and the will of the people ! " Such is the antago-
nism to the idea underlying this order, that it was
actually never printed in the News of the Council and
was only distantly referred to in the hostile leader
of May 30, quoted above. And if this is the attitude
of the Council in its official capacity towards the
War and the Allies, it can easily be understood that
individual members and supporters go much further.
Chernov, one of the Socialists in the Coalition
formed after Miliukov's resignation, spoke so openly
against an offensive at a meeting of the Peasants'
Assembly, that the other members of the Govern-
ment asked for an explanation, which, being
furnished, was to the effect that his speech had not
been correctly reported, but that in any case he
spoke as a civilian. Skobelev, another Socialist
Minister, publicly states that his standpoint is that
of Robert Grimm, who teaches that any Socialist
defending his country is a traitor to himself.
Examples could easily be multiplied. It is sufficient
to say that the Russian army and people were
industriously taught during the space of three
months by the leaders of the Council that the War
was manufactured by capitalists — but chiefly by
those in France and England — and must be stopped
as soon as possible without reference to the acts
" Peace without Annexations " 229
that led up to and began it on the part of Germany,
to her violation of international rights during it,
or to the European hegemony to achieve which is
her aim in it. Even Kerensky so far adopts this
view that in a speech to the sailors at Helsingfors he
declared that Russia does not wish to be " a State
like England or Germany." In order to gain
credence the Socialist leaders constantly profess that
the revolution is in danger of being crushed by a
reactionary party. " Around Miliukov," wrote the
News of the Council on the 25th of May, " there is
already going forward the organization of all the
counter-revolutionary forces of the Imperialist
bourgeoise." In the same number of the News a
violent attack was printed on Purishkevich, to
whose words and deeds the possibility of the
revolution was in no small degree due, entitled
" Counter-Revolutionary Agitation in the Army,"
and falling on an open letter, in which Purishkevich
exposed the Leninites, as an incitement to pogroms
and " a public scandal to which it is time to put an
end." The fact is that there has been and is no
counter-revolutionary party and that no one even
dimly fosters the hope of restoring the old regime.
But a reactionary movement was necessary to
excuse the continued agitation of the Council itself,
and a reaction was therefore invented.
The divisions of opinion since the revolution have
230 War and Revolution in Russia
had the result of bringing into prominence antago-
nism to the Western Allies or partiality to Germany
that lay relatively dormant before. Although
indeed his attitude towards the War was well known
among Russians, Maxim Gorky was placed in the
spring of 1916 on the committee of the Anglo-
Russian Society. The revolution gave him an
opportunity to show his true colours, and his paper
Novaya Jizn (New Life), of which the publica-
tion commenced on the 3rd of May, is notable for
the persistency of its attacks and insinuations
against England and France, or as they are called
" the Anglo-French Coalition." In the fourth
number Gorky himself wrote that the War was " a
bloody nightmare," " the suicide of Europe " ;
" let us tell the bitter truth — we are all guilty of
this crime, all and every one " ; and in articles and
parables Gorky has done everything in his power
to prove the uselessness and wickedness of the War,
and that it should be stopped. The same tendency
is pursued almost every day in leading articles and
by the principal contributors to the paper. One
remarks that the question of compensating Belgium,
Serbia, and Poland is conjoined by the English and
the French with the question of the guilt of the War.
" But in view of the difficulty and the sterility of
deciding the question in such a form," the writer
proposes that an international loan should be
" Peace without Annexations " 231
raised for the purpose, to which those who have
most profited by the War should most contribute.
In another, attack is made on the supposed decline
of freedom in England. " Cabinet autocracy," we
read, " is turning so-called parliamentary govern-
ment into the worst of tyrannies. . . . This down-
fall of English political liberty has been manifested
in the most appalling fashion during the shameful
War which our patriotic defenders shamelessly con-
tinue to give out to the uninstructed masses as a
struggle 'for freedom and culture.'" Or again, an
article " On Loyalty, Victory, and the Offensive "
leads up to the conclusion that " an offensive
without the Allies first assenting to the new peace
platform would be a victory for Miliukov and a
sacrifice of the interests of the country to the
bourgeoisie policy of aggression." Or again, Gorky
sympathetically prints a long letter to himself from
the Bulgarian Ambassador at Berlin, known from
of old as a strenuous pro-German agent, proposing
an immediate armistice between Russia and
Germany upon the terms that the forces of both
nations should remain where they are, until such
time as the Constituent Assembly in Russia decides
as to the prolongation or otherwise of the War. As
a final example may be taken the editorial comment
on the 3rd of June on Ribot's speech, which is
denounced as " a resolute refusal to adopt the peace
232 War and Revolution in Russia
platform put forward by the Temporary Govern-
ment under the immediate pressure of revolutionary
democracy. ... The word is with our Temporary
Government. From our side also the question must
be put no less clearly and resolutely. If peace
cannot be attained with the assistance of M. Ribot,
it must be attained against his will." And to
enforce this, Gorky's paper is taking a prominent
part in the agitation against Kerensky for having
suggested the idea of an offensive.
Nor was Gorky, whose chief commercial interests
are in Germany, the only member of the com-
mittee of the Anglo-Russian Society known to hold
anti-war opinions, and this body's want of success
in winning any measure of support among average
otherwise uninterested Russians may have been
partly due not only to its official godfathering,
always suspicious in Russia, but also to the fact
that side by side with genuine patriots some of its
movers were drawn fron a well-known literary circle
in which the influence of Teutonic studies is pro-
found and of long standing. Mereshkovsky, the
novelist, also chose an early moment to cry that the
War was the shame of human kind, that all alike
were guilty of its outbreak, that the fine phrases
used of it by the Allies were lies, and that those who
insisted now on continuing it are the chief culprits.
In such circles the fashionable catchwords have been
" Peace without Annexations " 233
" the revolution will conquer the War " and
" England must learn that the revolution is far
more important than the War." It will be wise if
England scrutinises with some care Russian literary
prophets who may arrive to boom the revolution,
for behind the smile of friendship may lurk thoughts
of enmity and treason.
To turn from such elevated spheres to the
Leninites is to plunge into the abyss of prejudice,
hatred, and crime. On the 30th of May Pravda
(Truth) despairingly shrieks : " The English and
the French bankers have through their agents —
Sir Buchanan, Albert Thomas, Vandervelde and
Co. — attained their end." People have begun to
talk in Russia of an offensive. It is (May 29).
" the clearly formulated powerful will of the pro-
letariat and army of Russia to propose a general
peace to all the warring Powers on the basis of the
self-government of nations. Only he can be an
ally of revolutionary Russia who wants this peace
and refuses, in deed and not in word, to make use
of the revolutionary army of Russia for the aims of
imperialism."
But this is not to be construed merely in the sense
of the Council's pronouncements. Pravda yearns
for the liberation of Alsace-Lorraine, though not
its return to France ; but further also of Armenia
(from Russia), Egypt, India, Ireland (from
234 War and Revolution in Russia
England), Finland, Turkestan, Persia, the Ukraine
(from Russia), Bosnia, Serbia, Poland, etc. Let
all the troops be withdrawn from these countries
and the political millennium will ensue. But in the
meantime " peace without annexation," i.e. in this
War, will do. Only the way to get it is not by the
negotiations of Asquith, Ribot, Bethmann-Hollweg,
Scheidemann, and Thomas, the lackeys of capital-
istic grab, but by a world-wide proletarian revolu-
tion, starting with an " ultimatum " to the Allies.
Though first of all detesting England, it is only fair
to say that the rage of Lenin's party is directed
against all ordered government. Pravda has been a
steadily bitter opponent of the first Temporary
Government, of the present Coalition Ministry, and
demands that the Council should formally take all
the power into its hands. Yet the probability is
that should it do so Pravda would not cease to fume.
Its trend is towards anarchy in every form. The
Leninites were the first to seize private property in
Petrograd, installing themselves in the beautiful
house of Kshesinska, the dancer, from which it is
alleged that 227,000 roubles' worth of furs have
since disappeared. This was an example eagerly
followed, and bands of anarchists have on several
occasions seized and rifled private houses. It was
the Leninites who formed the " Red Guard " of
armed workmen responsible to their party alone.
u Peace without Annexations " 235
They cry openly " Down with the War ! Down
with the bourgeoisie ! " On the banners of the last
contingent to arrive through Germany was inscribed
" Long live Germany ! " and members of the
Council welcomed the new stalwarts, " Not one
kopek for the new loan ! " Nothing, in fact, that
could make Russia strong or efficient. A meeting
which collected 30,000 roubles for the defence of
Adler, the Austrian Socialist, resolved that
" the English, German, and French capitalists, and
ex-Socialists who have gone over to their side, are
our foes, our class enemies. . . . Down with the
* mutual amnesty ' of the Socialists who have fled
over to the side of the bourgeoisie ! Long live the
best representatives of the Third International . . .
who sit not in ministerial chairs, but in the convict
prisons of Germany, Austria, England, Sweden."
It was the Leninites who shot into the unarmed
crowd on the 4th of May, killing several soldiers.
They organise innumerable small meetings at street
corners, especially on Sundays, where are exposed
the criminal aims of England and the harmlessness
of Germany. The Leninite agitators often gain new
converts, but at the very least succeed in absorbing
endless attention and in wasting endless time.
Whoever has seen the serried ranks they send to
influence meetings, their faces of cruelty, spite,
fanaticism, and venality, has seen a row of portraits
236 War and Revolution in Russia
that might stand for members of the League before
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the Council
they are in a minority of 20-25 per cent., but on the
executive committee of the Council they have a
strength of not less than 30 per cent. They have
great influence in the Baltic Fleet. Kerensky, once
the idol of all the Socialists, is attacked as an
oppressor of Finland, and as a false servant of the
revolution for having even thought of an offensive.
The declaration of the rights of soldiers issued by
him on going to the War Office, so wide-reaching
that, as Kerensky himself informed the Council on
the 5th of June, " many of the higher command "
would have resigned on account of it but for his
order forbidding resignation, is actually represented
as a disfranchisement of the soldiers. This propa-
ganda has undoubtedly been enhanced by the work
of numerous paid agents of the enemy, many
probably already resident in Russia, but reinforced
by others who swarmed across the unguarded
frontier on the first days of the revolution. The
general picture is given by the report of Admiral
Kolchak, the gallant Commander-in-Chief of the
Black Sea Fleet, published in the papers on the 27th
of May, but written somewhat earlier. The position
on the Front, he wrote, presents one general
characteristic : after thirty-two months of war the
army is weary, and the interest in the War and the
" Peace without Annexations " 237
national duties imposed by it has declined, until the
army is in a condition of absolute decomposition.
There are detachments which still preserve discipline,
but the greater part of the army offers the spectacle
of a rabble of armed men, completely innocuous to
the foe. Many detachments have renounced their
military duties. In others there are absolutely no
officers., and the whole of the command is merged
in the rank and file, who take the direction upon
themselves. The worst of all is the Baltic Fleet.
Here discipline is non-existent. The relations
between the officers and the crews are characterised
by misunderstanding and mistrust. There is no
connection between different units of the squadrons.
In fine, considered as an armed force, the Baltic
Fleet does not exist. If it met the German Fleet in
a serious action, there could be but one issue. The
operations in March on the French and English
Front, continues Admiral Kolchak, saved the
Russian army from immediate disaster. If it
does not now come to its senses, nothing can save
it. But the Admiral concludes that nothing will
effect this, save a German advance, which would
force the soldiers to fight and with the first Russian
victory would give back the army its former
strength.
It must not be thought that this is the report of
a bitter or unsuccessful man. On the contrary,
238 War and Revolution in Russia
Admiral Kolchak enjoys in a peculiar degree the
confidence of his men. It is the proud boast of the
Black Sea Fleet that they have not had one case of
desertion, and their Admiral has a few days since
triumphantly resisted an attempt on the part of the
Sebastopol Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Deputies to destroy his authority. Orders given by
him were refused to be obeyed, and the Commandant
of the Port who tried to have them carried out was
arrested. Admiral Kolchak promptly resigned. The
sailors of the fleet, aghast at this, had the Com-
mandant released, the malcontents suppressed, the
orders carried out, and persuaded the Admiral to
resume the command. Following his report the
Black Sea Fleet sent a deputation x to Moscow and
Petrograd with the message to the country that
they would do their duty to the end : they trusted
their officers, and every part of the fleet would
instantly execute orders without question. Though
yielding to none in their enthusiasm for the revolu-
tionary ideals of freedom and justice, they coupled
1 Under the leadership of Able-Seaman Batkin, now famous
as an orator and a patriot. Batkin is a Jew. I only mention
this to counter the suggestion sometimes made that the Russian
Jews as a whole are against the war. Steklov-Nahamkis, a Jew
who is despised for having three times changed his religion for
political or social profit, has done great harm. Batkin, also a
Jew, has done great good. Both have followers among their own
race as well as among other Russian races, and on these great
questions the Jews are perhaps not more united than the rest.
" Peace without Annexations " 239
them with love of their country, and denouncing
desertion and fraternisation with the enemy as
treason, boldly announced their watchword " To
attack is the best defence." They were themselves
attacked as partisans of Miliukov and as counter-
revolutionaries, as not being genuine sailors, and
the Baltic Fleet at Helsingfors retorted that they
would do better to trust not their officers but the
revolutionary sailors and soldiers.
On the 2nd of June were published the resolu-
tions passed at a meeting of the First Detachment
(Equipage) of the Baltic Fleet, in contrast to its
more patriotic sister, the Second Detachment,
prominent for its work in popularising the Liberty
Loan and its support of loyal demonstrations ; they
demanded the formal transfer of all power to the
Workmen's, Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies ; the
convention of a military congress of all forces at
Cronstadt ; the dismissal of General Alexeiev ; the
confiscation of State, Imperial, monastic, and
privately owned land with all live and dead stock ;
the confiscation of all " bourgeois " printing offices
and stocks of paper for the benefit of the revolu-
tionary parties, to carry on a class war ; the formal
confiscation of Kshesinska's house for the benefit
of the Leninites ; and the arrest of all persons
" preaching the War to a victorious conclusion."
Four days earlier, Cronstadt, which ever since the
240 War and Revolution in Russia
revolution has been virtually beyond the reach of
the shadowy power of the Government, declared
definitely that it did not recognise the Temporary
Government, would only conduct business with the
Council, and dismissed the Government's Com-
missioner, who had indeed been a negligible quantity
from the first ; and the triangular negotiations
between the Council, the Government, and Cron-
stadt, with a view to " elucidating the situation/'
are still going on.
Apart from the general downfall of discipline and
growth of insubordination, the disintegration of the
army has been manifested in two ways : by
desertion and by fraternisation with the enemy.
It has been asserted over and over again that both
have been stopped, only to be admitted later that
they were continuing, and it seems certain that until
a very recent date the proportions of neither had
seriously diminished ; perhaps they have even
increased. At Kiev at the end of April it was
estimated that there were between six and seven
hundred thousand deserters from the South-
western Front, and as many as two millions taking
all the Fronts together. Then, after repeated
statements that -the evil had been checked, on the
28th of May the Assistant Minister of War, Yaku-
bovich, informed the delegates from the Front :
" The Government by itself is impotent to struggle
" Peace without Annexations " 241
with desertion. The putting down of this evil
symptom depends entirely upon you. Desertion is
weakening the Front." The deserters not only
weaken the Front, but exasperate the difficulties
of transport, choking the trains and stations,
preventing railway officials from carrying out their
duties, and there have been serious street fights
with bands of deserters in Kiev and other towns.
At the same meeting of the delegates from the Front,
the representative of the Russian army in France
remarked " that the Generals at the Front were
leading the Minister of War, Kerensky, into a
mistake. ' In no circumstances must we now
undertake an offensive. By an offensive we should
play into the hands of the French and English
imperialists.' . . . The speaker's pronouncement
was greeted by noisy applause," although some
dissent also was heard.
Fraternisation with the enemy, advocated from
the first days of the revolution by the extreme
Social Democrats and never abandoned by them,
although it has since been frowned upon and
officially denounced by the Council, has despite all
the efforts of the saner and more patriotic soldiers
attained astounding proportions. On the 22nd of
May an informant of Edinstvo, Plehanov's paper,
wrote as follows :
" Fraternisation is a fact known to all. All the
242 War and Revolution in Russia
committees — army, divisional, regimental, company
— have expressed their most resolute censure of it.
1 We consider fraternisation treachery to our
country,' say the resolutions of all their meetings.
They even go to the length of threatening to shoot
on those who leave the trenches. This is in the
committees.
" In fact things are quite different : fraternisa-
tion goes on and no one can hinder it. Only the
artillery attempts to offer opposition, and has on
this account drawn upon itself the fierce hatred of
the infantry. Our advanced observers are always
threatened with the bayonet. One observer with
difficulty saved his life : they wanted to do for him
because he had killed a German coming towards
us. Two infantrymen were once among the Ger-
mans. In the evening they came back, naturally,
drunk. During the night an Alsatian came over to
us and told us what the two had done. They had
given away all the company dispositions and
pointed out where the machine-guns were. ' Why
don't you attack us ? ' they said to the Germans.
1 You could take us with your bare hands.' The
regimental committee arrested the pair. Soldiers
came up from the trenches and told the committee
that if they were not set free they would shoot the
whole committee. In the companies they say :
* We won't fight, we're tired. . . . The capitalists
began the War, the War's only useful to the
capitalists, I'm not a capitalist, so I won't fight.'
" Pacifism has gone to such a point that in one
" Peace without Annexations " 243
battalion they said : ' We'll pay the Germans a fifty
milliard rouble indemnity, we'll work for them all
our lives, but we won't fight, and we'll get our own
back on the artillery. . . .'
" The committee, I repeat, is one thing ; the
company another. . . . Members of the committees
are generally men of understanding, old soldiers,
wounded ; they go beside themselves showing the
necessity of the War for freedom's sake, the harm
of fraternisation, the necessity of discipline, etc.,
but they only reach one result — that of arousing a
hostile attitude to themselves. Among us soldiers
and officers in the artillery there is but one thought :
at the end of the third year of war are we to finish
ingloriously on a Prussian bayonet ? There is no
army. Only one thought keeps us up ; why have
not the regiments so far left the trenches and gone
home, as they had every possibility of doing ? "
Cases are in fact reported of officers having been
murdered because they wished to punish frater-
nisers ; but this is hardly to be wondered at when
General Gourko was taken to task in the News of
the Council for his " iron discipline " because he sup-
ported a divisional General who attempted to prevent
a soldier from wearing a fancy device of red ribbons
on parade.
At the Council meeting on the 6th of June
Kerensky said :
" I have been asked why the Russian j>ower does
244 War and Revolution in Russia
not take measures against fraternisation. But we
thought : let the army learn by experience what
fraternisation is. It has cost us the loss of several
batteries and of many valuable lives, but it has been
a real lesson."
One regiment, Kerensky admitted, had actually
concluded a form of peace with the Germans, and he
did not attempt to affirm that fraternisation had
really been stopped ; when he was lately at Dvinsk,
he begged General Danitov " immediately to take
measures to stop this shameful state of things " ; but
since his speech to the Council news is received that
a thousand men have been sent back to Dvinsk from
the trenches poisoned by the Germans in the spirits
they were given.
At the same time, drunkenness has reached such
proportions in the army that it is classed as nearly
as dangerous as desertion. The men make a
decoction of wood-alcohol which has dreadful results.
It is now not uncommon to see drunken soldiers in
Petrograd ; at the Front, to judge from an urgent
order and appeal made by the Minister of War on the
25th of May, drunkenness is much worse ; and at
Cronstadt huge drunken crowds go roystering through
the streets. Even worse almost as a symptom of
the decline in morale than desertion or fraternisa-
tion, is the news published on the 7th of June in
an order of the day by General Gourko that on one
* Peace without Annexations " 245
sector of the Western Front the Russian soldiers
have for two months been bartering away bread,
sugar and soap to the Germans for cigars, watches
and trinkets. This dreadful fact proves, says the
order, " to what a point may go the disorganisation
of the army at the Front, when every soldier con-
siders himself at liberty on his own risk and con-
science to enter into private agreement and negotia-
tion with the enemy."
On the higher command the results of the general
disorganisation have been grievous. General
Kornilov, a fine Cossack leader, was forced by
disobedience to his orders to give up the command
of the Petrograd military area. General Russky
resigned the command of the Northern Front,
ostensibly and perhaps truly, from ill-health. General
Lechitsky, one of the organisers of the victories of
1916, has resigned. General Evert, an unsympa-
thetic personality and an unsuccessful General in
attack, but a good disciplinarian, left for political
reasons. Lastly, on the 8th of June, General
Gourko was deprived with insult of the command
of the Western Front for having said that in view
of the licence accorded to the troops he could not be
responsible for what took place. Worst of all,
General Alexeiev has been hounded out of the chief
command. In a speech to the officers he spoke of the
policy of " peace without annexations or indem-
246 War and Revolution in Russia
nities " as Utopian. Thereafter, although Kerensky
said at Dvinsk that " in the free Russian army
every opinion may be freely expressed " (reported
in Edinstvo, June 8), General Alexeiev was a marked
man. That he was an accomplished strategist,
trusted by all ranks, a democrat by origin and
conviction, that the army has not suffered defeat
since he took the virtual command, that the
absence of a military party to stand by the Emperor
in the first moment of the revolution was largely
due to his influence, could not save him for Russia.
In a leader in the News of the Council on the 24th
of May, sneeringly entitled "The Loquacious
General/ ' a rancorous stream of reprimand was
poured on him, echoed with slightly greater decorum
in Gorky's paper, and hardly surpassed in the
organs of the Socialist advanced wing. The demand
for General Alexeiev's removal was not to be with-
stood. When, in obedience to it, he resigned,
Kerensky announced the fact at the Council meeting
of June 4 in the following way : " About what
Commander-in-Chief am I asked ? Formerly
General Alexeiev was Commander-in-Chief : now
it is General Brusilov." The News of the Council
characteristically comments :
" The democracy has once more received proof
that its representatives in the Temporary Govern-
ment watch over its interests and do not permit
" Peace without A nnexations " 247
their infringement. The army has once more
received proof that discipline is a duty of. the
General in no less degree than it is that of the
soldier."
The brilliant qualities of the new Commander-in-
Chief are known to all ; it will be interesting to see
how his belief in the offensive consorts with the
Council's management.
In the first days of the revolution the enormous
German concentration on the Dvinsk Front made
for the belief that a great stroke would be made at
Petrograd with its loot, its naval bases, its 80 per
cent, of Russia's war factories, and many were they
who expected the worst. But there were none who
foresaw that the Russian army, shaken as it was,
would sink to so low a level that the enemy could
completely neglect it. Yet this is what has hap-
pened. The Germans treat their Eastern Front
as a rest-cure for divisions battered to pieces on the
West, and have flung all their fresh troops against the
fighting Allies. An attack would save Russia, for
the sterling qualities of the Russian soldier would be
stung into renewed activity. But the Germans, who
saw where their real chance lay before anybody
else, will be too clever to make this mistake so long
as the inaction of the Russian army is of importance
to them. At present they can afford to despise it.
Let no one think that among these facts so much as
248 War and Revolution in Russia
one is unknown to them. Their information from
Russia is earlier and fuller than that which reaches
the latter's allies, and is not confined to public
news such as is dealt with in this paper. Well
indeed might the Staff Committee of the Caucasian
Rifle Division write : " The army has fallen into a
dreadful condition ; if complete disorganisation has
not set in, at least it is very near." There are still
many firm and warlike units in the army, and bands
of volunteers have been formed to whom it is hoped
that an opportunity to attack will be given. The
attitude, too, of the Cossacks would not appear
from the latest indications to be quite palatable to
the Council. Nevertheless, educated soldiers, among
them some who led the revolution, are often in a
state bordering on despair. One, an extraordinarily
brave man, who fought as a volunteer in the French
artillery for the first nine months of the War and
since as an infantryman and an automobilist on the
Russian Front, lately went back to the Front as a
deputy from his detachment in Petrograd. He
returned, almost echoing Kerensky's words spoken
a month ago : " I wish I had died in battle sooner
than have seen what is going on now." Both naval
and military officers are constantly asking if it is
not possible for them to enter the British, French
or American Services. They believe that their
comrades murdered at Cronstadt, Helsingfors and
" Peace without Annexations " 249
Revel were killed in accordance with lists drawn
up by German agents. German money raised in
America is believed to be at work in Cronstadt now.
Save among the educated, those among the
soldiers who take the matter to heart are few.
A portion of the Kiev garrison has joined in the
demand of various units in the Baltic Fleet that
" Bloody Nicolas " (as we say " Bloody Mary ")
should be sent to Cronstadt to join the officers kept
there in the foulest imprisonment since the revolu-
tion, without trial or even accusation, despite the
efforts of the Government to have them released ;
and the plutocrats who roll about in motor-cars of
the Union of Zemstvos (in other words, the hard-
worked officials of that admirable institution)
should be sent into the trenches. An order pub-
lished on the 9th of June directs the re-formation
of four regiments at the Front that have refused en
masse to obey orders. At Kazan, out of a draft of a
thousand men for the Front, only three hundred
made their appearance at roll-call.
As to the effect on the country, the Russian Press
speaks freely of anarchy. If this were quite accurate
there would be little occasion to say more. But
things have not really gone to the point of anarchy,
though they have gone near the line. The country
has not completely lost its cohesion. The main
facts are as follows. On the 2nd of June, A. J.
250 War and Revolution in Russia
Konavalov, the Minister of Commerce and Industry,
resigned, giving as his reason :
" that he is unable to remain at his post in view of
his complete disagreement with the industrial policy
which is now sought to be put in motion under the
pressure of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Deputies . . . [and] when the whole industrial
system is going to ruin."
He views " sceptically the form of social-State
control and the method of regulating production
proposed by the Minister of Labour [Skobelev]." In
the actual conditions of Russia, he concludes, such
democratic experiments must result in enterprises
being given over to less experienced control and
disorganization will inevitably increase. Skobelev 's
suggestion, as is well known, was to confiscate all
the capital in the banks and for the workmen, or
failing them, the State, to take over the whole of
the profits of industrial enterprises. That these
heroic measures will be carried out in their entirety
is improbable, but it is known that a measure
involving the sequestration of a considerable per-
centage of private capital in banks is being worked
out, while the impossibility of resisting the demands
of employees goes a good way towards attaining the
latter result, even without, as sometimes happens,
the employees simply taking possession of whole
establishments.
" Peace without Annexations " 2 51
In every industrial centre in Russia, few as these
are in comparison with the Western world, the same
process is going on. The workmen demand 50,
100, or 150 per cent, to be added to their former
high wages, and shorter hours ; and if they do not
get them, strike. Acute crises have already been
caused in almost every important industry and
worse convulsions are momentarily expected. To
take a few examples : in Moscow, Petrograd, and at
the Schlusselburg mills there have been many cases
of works seized by the hands. At Moscow in one mill
of over five thousand looms all the managers and
engineers have been driven away and the factory
is running in charge of an under-foreman. In
Petrograd all the office employees at over two
hundred factories demanded a six-hour day and a
minimum wage of 150 roubles a month ; and their
demands have been acceded to, although in reality
they will only do five or perhaps four hours' work.
Street repairers in Petrograd now receive 150 roubles
a month ; so do men at the doors of the savings
bank, and these refuse to do anything but to stand
and ostensibly keep watch. The waiters and hotel
servants at Moscow, Kiev, and Sebastopol have
struck, thereby inconveniencing thousands of
persons engaged in war work. The peat-diggers on
the Volga demand 1000 roubles a month, the barge
labourers 75 roubles a day. In eighteen metal
252 War and Revolution in Russia
factories in the Donets district, with a joint capital
of 195 million roubles and a declared dividend last
year of 18 million roubles, the workmen have
demanded an increase in wages amounting, accord-
ing to Professor Sirinov, to 240 million roubles. If
conditions demanded by the workmen are not
agreed to, they appeal to the Government, which
has no alternative — even if it wished — but to try to
persuade the owners to agree, whatever it may cost
them, in order that the economic life of the country
may somehow be carried on. But that this can be
for long in the present conditions is thought dubious.
At the same time the workmen do not show any
special degree of confidence in the Government ;
when Nekrasov, the Minister of Ways of Com-
munication, went to Moscow to settle a railway
dispute, the men, offended by something that he
said, threatened " We won't let him go from Moscow
till he has taken his words back."
The railways themselves are in a deplorable con-
dition. From the 28th of April to the 28th of May
25 per cent, less work was done than in that month
of last year. From the beginning of the year to the
28th of May 44,000 waggons, or 732,500 tons of
coal, less than in the same period of 1916 were trans-
ported. The chief reason of this, says an official
report, is the anarchy existing on the railways. On
the slightest occasion all sorts of local unions and
" Peace without Annexations " 253
committees interfere with the working of the lines
and produce chaos. A further cause of trouble is
the interference by soldiers with the railway
servants, who have in districts so far removed from
one another as Pskov, Kiev, and the Caucasian
Railway, begged for protection from the armed force
used upon them. Trains are compelled or forbidden
to be run, or are run out of time or in wrong direc-
tions, with the result that accidents have taken
place and the line is blocked for hours. The
transport of provisions, wood, and raw materials
is gravely curtailed. Moreover, the railway servants
receive wages far inferior to those obtaining in
factories, these being more or less decent only in the
workshops, and a general railway strike at Petro-
grad or Moscow has only narrowly been averted.
Nor is the spirit of unrest confined to factories
and transport. In every part of the country
agrarian disorders take place. Without heed to the
instructions of the Government that land must not
be touched till a general settlement by the Con-
stituent Assembly, the peasants, inspired by Socialist
agitators from the towns, often take possession of
the soil at once. Thus on the borders of the Petro-
grad Government the peasants have left to each
owner of two thousand acres thirty acres and three
cows, which they say is all one man can manage,
and are only with difficulty and not always restrained
254 War and Revolution in Russia
from burning the landlords' houses. Elsewhere,
particularly in the Governments of Minsk and
Mogilov, fires both of houses and woods have been
common. Such agrarian " expropriation " or
destruction on a large scale is general. Only where
peasants already own the soil, as is largely the case
in the Kazan Government, such Communistic ideas
find little favour, and students from the University
of Kazan sent to propagate them have been roughly
handled, and some even killed by irate peasant
proprietors.
In the towns also disorder is frequent. On the
23rd of May the Minister of Commerce and Industry
appealed to the Prime Minister for help, being
himself in receipt of numerous appeals from places
all over the country where self-appointed Executive
Committees, Committees of Social Safety, Com-
mittees of Popular Power were taking the govern-
ment into their own hands. The Minister has no
means, he says, of combating such destructive
symptoms, and it is to be feared that those at the
command of the Prime Minister are not much more
substantial. Events of this description in the
district of Schliisselburg, only a few miles from
Petrograd, were magnified into reports of " the
Schliisselburg Republic." The militia that has
taken the place of the police is often unsatisfactory.
Crimes of violence are not unusual in Petrograd, and
" Peace mthout Annexations " 255
in Kiev the chief of the militia pathetically urged
his men to do their duty, especially in view of one
of them having robbed a member of the local
Workmen's Council whom he held up with a
revolver. Lynching, a sure sign of incompetence of
the police, is making its appearance in various
towns. The tale of disorder and violence runs from
the confines of Poland to Serbia, and at Tsaritsin on
the Volga the garrison calmly levied a contribution
of a million and a half roubles on the town to
increase their pay. To top all, in Petrograd on the
31st of May an elaborate procession of anarchists
took place in the principal streets, adorned with
black flags and the motto " Down with the militia ! "
A peasant was talking on one of the Volga steam-
boats, whose time-table and course are now changed
at the caprice of soldiers going on them. " We must
get rid of this bourgeoisie. Down with the doctor !
And with the schoolmaster ! We must have our
own people." " That's right," said another ; " our
committee made a resolution. Far too many bour-
geoisie at the hospital. Three doctors, two trained
nurses, and a midwife to boot ! And what for ?
Look at the expense ! So they decided to leave one
doctor, and he's a good enough fellow, at the
hospital ; let him make his powders for himself,
and his wife can help him." Then, turning to the
reporter of this scene, " Yes, and you — anyone can
256 War and Revolution in Russia
see that you're from the bourgeoisie, Mister. We
don't want your annexations ! The landlords have
got ground enough." " Let them go themselves
and sit in the trenches ! The bourgeoisie shove us
all on, and they sit in their gardens and play music ! "
" England, that's where the capitalists are. They
want to pay for all sorts of annexations with our
blood."
What will happen ? is the question on all lips.
The answer most commonly given, not only in
private, but even publicly now in the Press, is that
a Dictator will arise, restore order with a strong
hand, lead the army to glory, and Russia to
prosperity. At present there seems no obvious
candidate for the post, but should one be found
the aspect of the scene might change for the good,
even quicker than it has changed for the bad. If
the mass of the Cossacks, five million warlike
soldiers, are really becoming discontented, as it
would seem that at least "some are, the issue may
lie in their hands. But whoever the Dictator might
be he would be hailed as a saviour by almost all
thinking men in Russia, and would find strong
support among the officers and the very large class
of invalided soldiers, who feel bitterly that their
wounds may be in vain, as well as the Knights of
St. George, a large body bound together by strong
ties of honour and gallantry. There could be no
" Peace without Annexations " 257
question of again setting up the old regime. That
is gone for ever. Not only is the revolution an
established fact, but it saved Kussia from other-
wise inevitable ruin and shame. It opened the
gates of Eastern Europe to the roaring wind of
liberty. No sane Englishman can wish it had not
been. But the peculiar circumstances in which it
took place have engendered new dangers. Russians
are now looking on while the foundations of their
liberty and prosperity are threatened with destruc-
tion by a band of extremists, and wrath at the
spectacle gathers force. There would be no greater
mistake than to suppose that educated Russians do
not realise their position. With them it is not a
question : " Will Russia fulfil her engagements to
the Allies ? " They say without mincing the
matter : " Russia has betrayed the Allies. We
shall never be able to hold up our heads again.
All Europe will scorn us." It must be our part to
prove them wrong in this. Russia and her Allies
are suffering from one and the same cause. What
we are going through now is not the result of some
baseness inherent in the Russian nation, but a legacy
from a despotism that betrayed its country and its
friends, whose very shadow corrupted all it touched.
It stank of bloodshed and cruelty. How should
there be understanding of the causes of the War,
when to educate the people was treated as a crime ?
s
258 War and Revolution in Russia
How should there be honour among the lower classes
in the cities which the Government debased and
used as instruments of debasement by every means
in its power ? We too have our responsibility for
this. Our want of interest in the growth of reaction
in Russia, the easy ear lent by our Press to the
pretences of autocracy, our deafness to the warnings
and complaints of the best representatives of Russia
among us, our slavish attempt to identify a great
nation with its despicable rulers, the mistake of
giving to the democracy of Britain a narrow and
snobbish representation ; these are all points that
have weighed in the balance against us, and should
give us pause were we tempted to pass a hasty
judgment.
The ultimate outcome for Russia is secure. The
nation will yet rise to the height of its destiny. No
country so rich, with a peasantry of such native
intelligence and an educated class so talented,
could suffer permanent arrest. Russia is like a blind
man to whom sight has suddenly been given. He
cannot distinguish colours, he cannot judge distance.
He must learn by stumbling and fumbling. But
much time is needed before Russia can make
progress in the development of her material and
mental gifts, and time during the War is her enemy.
Germany is organised, she is not ; Germany is
united, Russia a prey to dissension and intrigues.
" Peace without Annexations >? 259
Germany acts ; Russia talks. Yet when full
allowance is made for this, it would be wrong to
despair. The patriots, their eyes fixed with ardour
and gratitude on the example of their Western
Allies, cheered by the encouragement of the Ameri-
can Republic, are not yet at the end of their
resources. Russia is a land of wonders, and the
wonder of re-born patriotism may be nearer than
any can know, ready to spring to life within her
and blossom in a day into a rare and deathless
flower.
THE DOG DAYS, 1917
THE Socialists have sown the wind ; Russia is
reaping the whirlwind. The observations
made in the paper entitled Peace without Annexations
or Contributions affe proved only too just by the
events of the three months since it was written.
The Russian army, under the teaching of the
Socialist agents of Germany, has surrendered all its
conquests and immense booty to the enemy ; the
Ukrainian separatist movement, cherished by
Austria, has taken strides towards fulfilment ; and
the economic situation in Russia is such that the
words " on the brink of ruin " have become a
commonplace.
On Sunday, July 1, the Leninites, or Maximalists,
after having got a patriotic demonstration by the
Knights of St. George and the Women Volunteers
on the previous Sunday prohibited by the Council
of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, held a great
parade in Petrograd. It was announced that arms
were not to be carried ; it was not a demonstration,
but " a review of the political forces " of the party.
The parade was attended by enormous numbers
260
The Bog Days, 1917 261
and would have been a triumph for its organisers,
had not the news come next day of the simultaneous
offensive made by the Russian army on the south-
western front in the direction of Stanislavov and
Galich. The Leninites, despite their attempts to
ignore an event that was delighting patriotic
Russians, were deeply depressed. It was clear that
for the moment they were nonplussed. The streets
of Petrograd were filled with scowling soldiers,
whispering evilly at street corners, while orderly
citizens dared openly to rejoice. Their joy, however,
was short lived. It soon was reported that the
advance, carried out under the eloquent inspiration
of Kerensky, had been made by the Czech-Slovak
troops, recruited last year from among the Slav
prisoners taken from the Austrians, by special
bodies of volunteers, largely composed of officers,
and by the cavalry ; the infantry, it was said, had
taken but little part in the movement, and the loss
of life among the officers was enormous. General
Brusilov, then Commander-in-Chief, has since
stated that he agreed to the offensive because, what-
ever its result, he believed it would clear the des-
perately obscure situation on the front. It was
indeed obvious either that a wave of military spirit,
engendered by the Russian success, would spread
throughout the army, or that a reaction of unknown
proportions would follow.
262 War and Revolution in Russia
Almost exactly a fortnight later the traitors
played their trump card in Petrograd. Before dawn
on July 16 the First Machine Gun Regiment took
possession of the streets, and on the following day
several thousand sailors from Cronstadt made an
armed descent on the capital, being joined by other
disaffected portions of the garrison and the extreme
Socialist workmen. Had they been efficiently led
and followed a well-laid plan, they might have com-
pletely upset the Government, and brought Russia
to almost instant ruin. The revolt in Petrograd
synchronised with a Cabinet crisis, itself ultimately
due to the same causes, and with the disaster at
Tarnopol ; but in arms the Leninites proved cowardly
and incompetent, and within an ace of success
allowed themselves to be suppressed without serious
difficulty, thus having put into the bands of their
opponents the weapon without which the latter had
been condemned to inactivity. Their treason was
patent, and subsequent investigation, that could not
now be prevented, established it beyond doubt.
The terrorisation of Petrograd dispelled the mists
that clouded the eyes of many believers in a " coali-
tion " ministry, part of which was responsible to
the Council with its policy of " peace without an-
nexations or indemnities," and its avowed intention
to set up the rule of the " proletariat " over the
" capitalist " and the " bourgeois."
The Dog Days, 1917 263
The timorousness of the Government, faced by
ruffians in armoured cars in the streets, was not
however reassuring. The Minister of Justice, to
whom the Novoe Vremya, of which the offices were
seized by the Leninites on July 17, appealed for
protection, expected any minute to be arrested or
even killed.- He had no news of the rest of the
Government. He had had warning beforehand of
the outbreak, and had put the military authorities
on their guard, and proposed to Prince Lvov to call
a Cabinet meeting on the 17th to take measures to
meet the situation, but the Prime Minister had
replied that to leave home was to risk death every
minute. 1 Even when action was taken, the Cossacks
were at first allowed to go against the Leninites
without proper supports and suffered unnecessary
loss. Nevertheless, with the aid of the Cossacks
and the " Junkers," the Cadets, that is, of the
officers' military training college, order was re-
established and some losses inflicted on the Cron-
stadt contingent, the only part of the rebels who
showed any fight on meeting with serious opposi-
tion. And here it may be noted that to the Cossacks
and the cadets exclusively is due the relative
salvation of Russia. Not only in the capital but at
the front the Cossacks have done the work of the
1 Vechernee Vremya, Mo3cow, July 18th, by telephone from
Petrograd.
264 War and Revolution in Russia
nation. They have stemmed the rout, covered the
retreat ; when murderers and mutineers have had
to be arrested, when disloyal regiments have had
to be broken up, it is the Cossacks who have been
called upon to do it. The cadets too have been un-
sparing of their service, like all members of the
brotherhood of officers in the Russian army. They
have remained on guard at Government offices and
the residences of ministers for days at a time ; they
were employed to search and break up the nests of
Leninites, to put down the disorders at Mjny-
Novgorod, where several of them were killed, to
keep order at Kazan after the huge conflagration at
the riverside powder factories, " in view of the
hopelessness of the soldiers," among whose ranks,
the Petrograd Telegraph Agency reports, " the fire
at the factory caused malicious joy." While the
attitude of the cadets is accepted as natural, that
of the Cossacks has aroused joyful surprise. Once
a weapon of the reactionary government, citizens
were astonished to find them now as apt a tool in
the hands of a Government become liberal and as
stern in repressing revolutionaries against the new
state as against the old. The explanation is that
they have implanted in them a strong sense of
discipline, and are better educated than the mass
of Russian peasants. The Don territory is reputed
the best farmed district of Russia, and it is note-
The Dog Days, 1917 265
worthy that nearly all the Cossacks can read. By
their restraint and steadiness, their inflexible loyalty,
and the sense they have shown of the necessity for
moderate counsels in allying themselves to the
party of National Freedom (Miliukov's party) 1 for
the purposes of the Constituent assembly. The
Cossacks have proved themselves worthy to be free
citizens of a free state, which without then services
it is certain that Russia could not hope to become.
It was hardly known that the Leninites had been
defeated in Petrograd before news came which
showed that at the front their success had gone
beyond expectation. On July 19, in face of a
demonstration by the enemy, the 11th Army, which
covered Tarnopol, broke up and dissolved into a
fleeing mob. It is needless here to dwell upon the
details of a rout which saw as incidents the sack by
Russian soldiers of Tarnopol and Kaluszcz, and was
described by General Kornilov, then in chief com-
mand on the south-western front and fresh from
his own victorious onset there, in these memorable
words : " On fields, that cannot even be called
fields of battle, complete horror rules, and shame,
and ignominy, such as the Russian army has never
known since the first moment of its existence." In
1 Formerly known as the Constitutional Democrats or
Cadets, from K.D., the initial letters of the words Kon-
stitutsionnaya Demokratiya.
266 War and Revolution in Russia
the famous telegram sent on July 20 to Kerensky, in
his newly-assumed office of Prime Minister, and to
the Commander-in-Chief, General Kornilov de-
manded the instant re-establishment of the penalty
of death for desertion and refusal to obey orders at
the front, as " the only means of saving the army
and using it for its real object — the defence of
country and freedom," failing which he would
immediately lay down his command.
When the Russian Sixth Grenadier Division left
their positions and fled, no one was more surprised
than the Germans. They were not planning a
serious attack, and only took their cue from the
suicidal flight of their enemy. That these events
may be seen in their proper light, it must be insisted
that the catastrophe at Tarnopol was due not to
an offensive of the Germans, but to an offensive of
the Russians themselves further south. That is to
say, it was the answer of the traitor's party to the
Russian success at Stanislavov. How that was
considered by the Socialists may be seen from an
article on July 10 in the Social Democrat, the
Moscow organ of the Social Democratic Labour
Party. " Indeed," says the writer, " our offensive
at the present moment, when there are no facts to
show its necessity, when the army is weakened by
not knowing why it has been fighting for three
years, constitutes a conscienceless prolongation of
The Dog Days, 1917 267
the war, and in the final reckoning is a service to
those same capitalistic forces that long to stifle the
Russian revolution in the press of imperialism, as
being the joyous harbinger of world-wide peace.
. . . Not by an offensive can we proceed to the long-
wished-for peace, but by opening negotiations for
peace and an immediate armistice on all fronts." It
is such teaching as this that has rotted the heart of
the once great Russian army. Following the
publication of Order No. 1 of the Council of Work-
men's and Soldiers' Deputies, 1 swarms of agitators
were despatched to the front by the various Socialist
parties and spread its poison far and wide. Officers
were abused, distrusted, insulted, sometimes ill-
treated and murdered ; obedience was replaced by
meetings. A verb " to meeting " was coined, and
before orders were executed they were examined
by " meeting strategists " at sittings that might
run into two days. Small wonder that even when
the soldiers' meeting voted to carry out the com-
mands issued, the troops sometimes arrived too late
on the scene of action. " At these meetings," said
General Alexeiev at the Moscow Congress on
August 27, " the great, healthy soul of the Russian
soldier fell asleep or died. . . . The Army passed into
the hands of the new power capable of fulfilling its
duty and, side by side with the Allies, of leading long-
1 See above : The Russian Revolution.
268 War and Revolution in Russia
suffering Russia to an early end of the war. ... It
was turned into a sort of general camp of agitators.
. . . With such an army to wage war, to dream of
victory is impossible. In many detachments the
greater part of the cavalry, the Cossacks, the artil-
lery, and the engineers have preserved their military
spirit and discipline. They have preserved their
soul ; but, gentlemen, our infantry, with compara-
tively small exceptions, is up to the present non-
existent. Then what are we to do ? Must we
acknowledge ourselves vanquished and bow our
heads before the proud, persistent foe ? Never ! "
At these words of the fine old soldier the whole
audience sprang to its feet with wild applause, with
the significant and shameful exception of the Socialist
phalanx. If support be needed for General Alexeiev's
testimony, we may find it in a resolution, passed on
July 25 under the immediate influence of the
Tarnopol disgrace, at a joint meeting of the com-
mittee of the soldiers' section of the Council with
representatives of the regimental and battalion
committees of the Petrograd garrison, that the
" deplorable events at the front are the result not
only of the criminal agitation of the Maximalist and
other irresponsible groups, but of the unenlighten-
ment and want of organisation among the soldiery."
In themselves the latter defects were comparatively
harmless : as the ground for the seed sown by
The Bog Bays, 1917 269
traitors their fertility was deadly. Nor must it be
thought that the poison is eliminated from the
army. General Alexeiev quoted a recent case where
in one regiment ordered to attack there went forward
28 officers — over half of the whole — 20 non-com-
missioned officers — one-sixteenth of their total
number — and 2 soldiers — ttV nth part of the regiment.
In another instance on the western front, out of a
whole division four hundred men advanced. On
the northern front fraternisation, by the evidence
of a resolution of the committee of the 12th Army,
was going on at least till the middle of August.
On the Roumanian front on August 27 two regiments,
not attacked by the enemy, fled from the trenches
and broke up. On the same day, speaking at
Moscow, General Kornilov, now Commander-in-
Chief of the whole army, named four colonels and
three other officers, all murdered or seriously injured
by their men in the course of the preceding fort-
night. And there are many cases of officers and
even of the heroic Women Volunteers being shot
from behind by traitors. " The enemy," writes the
war correspondent of the Russkoe Slovo, " now
beats us in aviation owing to the want of machines
consequent on the demoralisation of the factories ;
but the weaponless army of 1915 never showed
such an example of cowardliness and such a triumph
of the spirit of self-preservation."
270 War and Revolution in Russia
No one publicly advocates immediate or separate
peace. Kerensky at Moscow has solemnly cursed
anyone who should do so. The Leninites are for the
time weakened and their leaders dispersed. The
death penalty, abolished by Kerensky and replaced
by what he fondly hoped would be a sufficient
substitute — a promise that deserters should be dis-
franchised and their names published — has been
re-enacted and is in force at the front since July 27,
and the Government has promised to satisfy General
Kornilov's other demands for restoring discipline in
the army. Nevertheless the situation remains
obscure, the outlook lowering with storm-clouds.
What is needed, a phrase repeated ad nauseam, is
not words but deeds, and it is deeds, not words, that
must be scrutinised. That a separate peace is
rejected is well. But it is not enough. Even Lenin
himself never publicly advocated an immediate
cessation of the war for Russia alone. What his
party did was to do everything to make its continu-
ance impossible. And the question now confront-
ing Russia is : are steps being taken to make its
continuance possible ? General Kaledin, speaking
at Moscow in the name of the Cossacks, demanded
the abolition of the Council of Workmen's and
Soldiers' Deputies with its branches throughout the
country ; but the Council is strong and well en-
trenched. Its attention is devoted to defending
The Bog Days, 1917 271
■* the conquests of the revolution " and to spreading
the belief that a counter-revolution is imminent ;
and it is possible that a movement to overset the
present state may be provoked by the Council's
policy. It will indeed be a marvel if there should be
no attempt in that direction. 1 Three instances will
suffice to make plain the character of the Council's
activities. On September 1 it passed a resolution
protesting against the re-establishment of the death
penalty at the front and demanding its abolition
once more. 2 On August 2 it invited an Austrian
prisoner of war, Otto Bauer, to one of its meetings,
where he was welcomed by the Socialist members of
the Government. A short time earlier it obtained
the dismissal of General Polovtsev from the com-
mand of the Petrograd military area in consequence
of his having raided the Leninite nests after the
revolt, and had Steklov, who was arrested by his
orders, liberated and the search at his flat stopped.
This action of the military authorities was described
by Maxim Gorky's newspaper as " the sack of the
1 The day after I wrote this, the papers brought news to
Ekaterinodar, where I was, of the discovery of a plot against
the Government, followed by the arrest of the Grand Dukes
Michael Alexandrovich and Dmitri Pavlovich.
2 It is a curious comment on this that in June the sailors of
Cronstadt, which was fast becoming the prey of criminals,
illegally but openly and in orderly fashion executed several
armed robbers ; since when life and property there have been
respected.
272 Watr and Revolution in Russia
party organisations," and although exposed by
Vladimir Burtsev, who formerly brought the terrorist
police-spy Azev to book, as an enemy of Russia in
company with Lenin and his fellows, Gorky daily
continues his campaign of venom and evil. It is not
to be supposed that the foe within the gates will
lightly desist, and his ramifications are wide. As a
case in point, it may be noted that when the female
agent Kolontai, Lenin's right hand, infamous for
her championing of the German prisoners in Russia
while she lied about the treatment of the Russians
in Germany, returned to Petrograd, she stayed in
the house of a well-known poetess of Jewish extrac-
tion, Shchepkina-Kupernika, who when the war
was fashionable made a great hit with a lament
over the fate of the lace-makers of Mechlin. The
pro -German literary cliques of Petrograd, though
now hiding their Maximalist tendencies, will not
easily veer round again to the patriotic point. Well
may Plehanov, the true Russian Socialist, ask
whether the silence of the " internationalists " in
response to the call to unity, results from " a
complete absence of the understanding, or simply
treason. "
Even within the Government it is not clear
that unsound views lack support. It may pass
for a blunder that Tereshchenko, on becoming
Foreign Minister, admitted to Russia Robert Grimm.
The Dog Days, 1917 273
whom Miliukov had refused because he knew him
for a German agent, only to be compelled to eject
him after a month's fruitful agitation, on docu-
mentary evidence of that fact being furnished ; but
it is to be remarked that Tereshchenko and Nekrasov
hotly protested against the publication, as being
not sufficiently considered, of the facts concerning
Lenin's treason, while the Socialist ministers sup-
ported them on the theory that the Maximalists
were " ideologues, representatives of one of the
tendencies of social democracy and ought to enjoy
free play in bringing their ideas to life." It was the
same two ministers who at Kiev concluded with the
representatives of the Ukrainian separatists a pact
that was beyond the scope of their authority. These
were among the grounds for the resignation of
Prince Lvov and his fellow ministers. The general
reason, however, underlying it was the appreciation
of the fact that, in his words, the Council, to whom
the Socialist ministers were responsible, was " in-
capable of guiding Russian democracy upon the
lines of statecraft as understood by the Russian
nation in its entirety." The coalition, on which
Prince Lvov's second ministry was founded, was in
fact no true coalition, seeing that one powerful
party to it, that of the Council, had never any
intention of coalescing but merely used the arrange-
ment for its own purposes. As regards the Council,
274 War and Revolution in Russia
Kerensky may be in a more independent position
than his predecessor, and the impassioned eloquence
that at the front earned him the nickname of
" talker-in-chief " is a powerful weapon ; yet,
despite the patriotic ideals that find a growing
expression in his speeches, his dismissal of General
Brusilov from the post of Commander-in-Chief, and
the imprisonment for more than a month without
charge of General Gurko, must raise a doubt as
to the sureness of the present Prime Minister's
touch in dealing with the situation. The abolition
of the death penalty was his ; his the publication
of the " Declaration of the Soldier's Rights " ; he
was vice-president of the Council when Order No. 1
was issued ; and these were the three chief instru-
ments that reduced the army from its former height
to its present depth. Less brilliant in the public
eye than Kerensky, but possessed of special influence
with the Socialists, is Chernov, the Minister of
Agriculture. To Russia's Allies it matters little
whether or no Chernov was concerned in the " expro-
priations " of 1905 ; it matters little even that he
remained minister for two months without having
taken the oath of allegiance to the nation ; but it
matters much to them if he belonged to an extreme
pacifist section of the Socialists, if during the war
he conducted an anti-war newspaper in Switzerland,
and if through his agency Ukrainophil agitation was
The Dog Days, 1917 275
carried on among the Russian prisoners of war in
Germany. These allegations are made against
Chernov, and are so far unanswered ; and so long as
they are unanswered Chernov's presence in the
ministry bodes ill for the virile conduct of the war
and for the support by the Council of an honest war
policy.
One present at the Moscow congress records the
terrible impression made on him, when in the midst
of General Kornilov's unvarnished relation of facts
so tragic that his hearers could have howled like
dogs at the feet of a dead master, he suddenly saw
on the faces, in the eyes of the Socialist section of the
audience, not one mark of emotion or sympathy.
The Germans may find that they have gained less
than they thought by opening up the breach made
by the deserters of Tarnopol : they have seized
two hundred million pounds of sugar, millions of
bushels of corn, whole warehouses of meat, trains
loaded with stores of all kinds, railway engines,
artillery, shells — the tale is endless ; yet though
they retook Galicia in a week, they are hardly over
the border into Russia now. Against an advance of
the enemy on real Russian soil, we may yet believe,
the Russian soldier will fight. 1 But far deadlier
than her weapons in the field is Germany's gift to
Russia of class-warfare, which is enfeebling the
1 This was written before the fall of Riga.
276 War and Revolution in Russia
Government, mutilating production, paralysing dis-
tribution, and assuring the impotence of a nearly
ruined transport system. Petrograd, Moscow, the
Volga districts, even Kiev are already threatened
with hunger : a state of things due partly to the
lack of coal and defects in rolling-stock for carriage,
partly to the unwillingness of the peasants to sell
food-stuffs, unless they can obtain in exchange not
depreciated paper money, but the tea, clothes,
boots, sugar, household implements that they
require.
These cannot be had, or had in sufficient
quantities, because of the disorganisation of the
factories, the laziness and exorbitant demands of
the workmen, and the lack of fuel ; and this last
again is due to the same causes among the coal-
miners and to the railway breakdown. Up to the
present these dire causes are working tighter and
tighter in an inexorable ring on the life of the
country. Nor may their influence on the war be
indirect only. To-day, September 2, is printed a
telegram from the Minister of Industry to the Harkov
Supply Committee, supplicating the latter to get
bread to the armies of the south-western front : the
stores of flour, he says, have entirely given out, and
a small reserve of biscuit is all that remains.
Unless within two days a large consignment of flour
is delivered, the army will begin to experience " the
The Dog Bays, 1917 277
horrors of hunger. ' ' And almost at the same moment
a similar appeal has reached Ekaterinodar from the
Caucasian front, coupled with the warning that if
the army hungers no exhortations to discipline will
hold it. Then it will become, in the words of the
spokesman for the officers at Moscow, " an expensive
armed mob, and a danger in the highest degree to
the State."
This is the position at the beginning of autumn,
and, due allowance made for the excitability of the
authors of such appeals and for the necessity they
perhaps are under of laying the colour thick on their
canvas, is serious enough. What then must be
expected in mid-winter ? The Government has
resumed the extraordinary powers of arrest, deporta-
tion, confiscation of disloyal newspapers, etc., indis-
pensable to any Government in time of war. It
now has to use them in the right direction, to free
itself from unpatriotic influences, and effectively
to gather all the loyal forces of Russia in an effort
to swing the country into its stride again. Should
it fail to do so, and should no other overmastering
influence intervene, then Russia may in sober earnest
be face to face with the catastrophe spoken and
written of these several months past — a catastrophe
the like of which has not been seen in the history of
modern nations. Shortly after the revolution, a
cartoon in an English paper showed Russia as a
278 War and Revolution in Russia
peasant bitten by a mad dog named " Autocracy,"
with the legend :
" The man recovered from the bite,
The dog it was that died."
The picture represented the situation pithily but
not accurately. The revolution, of which the crea-
tive idea was beyond doubt the patriotic desire of
all classes for victory over German militarism and
the central rallying point the Duma, was seized by
a small group of parties, well-drilled and well-
supplied, and turned against the interests of the
nation to the advantage of a class within the State
and of the foe without. The dog in the cartoon
should have been labelled " German Social Democ-
racy." It is unfortunately too early to say whether
or no the legend also must be amended.
August 20-September 2, 1917.
INDEX OF PKOPER NAMES
References manifest in the headings of the chapters
are not invariably repeated here
Alexeiev, General, 70, 169, 170,
191, 245, 267
Chernov (Socialist Minister),
274
Cossacks, 263, 268
Council of Workmen's and
Soldiers' Deputies, 166, 168,
186, 190, 194, 196, 218, 228,
271
Duma, 180 sqq., 195
Galicia, 44, 101 sqq., 207, 211
Gorky, Maxim, 230, 271
Great Britain to Poland Fund,
104, 106 sqq.
Karungi, 5, 8
Kerensky (Minister), 227, 236
Kiev, relief of refugees at, 106
sqq.
Kornilov, General, 245
Lemberg. See Lwow
Lutsk, 93
Lvov, Prince, 169, 273
Lwow, 41 sqq., 211
Michael, Grand Duke, declines
crown, 174
Nicolas (ex - Emperor), depo-
sition of, 172
Perimyshl, 24 sqq., 47
Protopopov (ex-Minister), 153,
154, 155, 165
Rasputin, Gregory, 120 sqq.,
153
Rodzianko (President of
Duma), 160, 219
Russia —
Army : Siberian regiments,
14, 23, 35
Message to English soldiers,
66
In retreat, 75
In the Revolution, 167,
215, 237, 240, 248, 255
279
280 War and Revolution in Russia
Russia —
Court and Rasputin, the,
125
Industrial confusion, 251
Russian Navy in the Revolu-
tion, 238, 262
— Railways, 93, 252
— Socialists, 171, 183, 197,
233
— — Maximalist faction of,
260, 265
Ruthenians, 208, 210
Soviet. See Council
Sturmer (ex-Minister), 164
Ukraine, 209
Vasilchikov, Princess, 137
Warsaw, 20 sqq., 56
— relief of distress in, 86 sqq.
— German policy in, 203
Yavorska, Lydia, 147, 148
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