CHAPTER XI

COUNCILS, COMMITTEES, AND CABINETS

The responsibilities of experts at War Councils — The Rt. Hon. A. Fisher's views — Discussion as to whether these meet the case — Under the War Cabinet system, the question does not arise — The Committee of Imperial Defence merged in the War Council early in the conflict — The Dardanelles Committee — Finding a formula — Mr. Churchill backs up Sir I. Hamilton — The spirit of compromise — The Cabinet carrying on pari passu with the Dardanelles Committee — Personal experiences with the Cabinet — The War Council which succeeded the Dardanelles Committee — An illustration of the value of the War Cabinet system — Some of its inconveniences — Ministers — Mr. Henderson — Sir E. Carson — Mr. Bonar Law — The question of resignation of individuals — Lord Curzon — Mr. Churchill — Mr. Lloyd George.

Before proceeding to refer to a few personal experiences in connection with the Ministerial pow-wows at which the conduct of the war was decided, there is one matter of some public importance to which a reference will not be out of place. That matter is the question of responsibility imposed upon experts at gatherings of this kind. Are they to wait until they are spoken to, no matter what folly is on the tapis, or are they to intervene without invitation when things become serious? My own experience is that on these occasions Ministers have such a lot to say that the expert is likely to be overlooked in the babel unless he flings himself into the fray.

The point is suggested by the "Conclusions" in the "First Report" of the Dardanelles Commission. The Commissioners gave it as their opinion that at the time of the initiation of the venture against the Straits, "the Naval Advisers should have expressed their views in Council, whether asked or not, if they considered that the project which the Council was about to adopt was impracticable from a naval point of view." The Commissioners also gave the decision on this point in other words, but to the same effect, in another paragraph. Mr. Fisher, who represented the Commonwealth of Australia on the Commission, while subscribing to the Report in general, emphatically demurred to the view taken by his brother Commissioners on this point, and Sir T. Mackenzie, who represented New Zealand, agreed with Mr. Fisher although he did not express himself quite so forcibly on the subject. Mr. Fisher wrote: "I dissent in the strongest terms from any suggestion that the departmental advisers of a Minister in his company at a Council meeting should express any views at all other than to the Minister and through him, unless specifically invited to do so. I am of opinion it would seal the fate of responsible government if servants of the State were to share the responsibility of Ministers to Parliament, and to the people on matters of public policy." Which view is the right one, that of the seven Commissioners representing the United Kingdom, or that of the two Commissioners representing the young nations afar off?

The answer to the question can perhaps best be put in the form of another. Does the country exist for the Government, or does the Government exist for the country? Now, if the country merely exists for the Government, then Mr. Fisher's contention is unanswerable. Whether it receives the opinion of the expert or not, the Government is responsible. For a Minister to have an expert, within his own Department of State and therefore his subordinate, blurting out views contrary to his own is likely to be a sore trial to that Minister's dignity, and this is not altered by the fact that the expert is likely to be infinitely better qualified to express opinions on the subject than he is. Supposing that the War Council, or the Cabinet, or whatever the body happens to be, ignores or is unaware of the opinion of the experts, and that it lands the country in some hideous mess in consequence, it can always be called to account for the lapse. The doctrine of responsibility which is regarded as of such paramount importance will be fully upheld—and what more do you want? Gibbets can be erected, the Ministers who have got the country into the mess can be hanged in a row, and a fat lot of good that will do towards getting the country out of the mess.

But if, on the contrary, the Government merely exists for the country, then in times of emergency it is the bounden duty of everybody, and particularly is it the duty of those who are really competent to do so, to help the Government and to keep it out of trouble if they can. One feels cold inside conjuring up the spectacle of a pack of experts who have been called in to be present at a meeting of the War Council or the Cabinet, sitting there mute and inarticulate like cataleptics while the members of the Government taking part in the colloquy embark on some course that is fraught with danger to the State. Salus populi suprema lex. Surely the security of the commonwealth is of infinitely greater moment than any doctrine of responsibility of Ministers, mortals who are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Indeed—one says it with all respect for a distinguished representative of one of the great British dominions overseas—it looks as though Mr. Fisher did not quite realize the position of the expert, and assumed that if the expert gave his advice when asked it made him responsible to the country. The expert is present, not in an executive, but in a consultative capacity. He decides nothing. The Ministers present decide, following his advice, ignoring his advice, failing to ask for his advice, or mistakenly imagining that the expert concurs with them as he keeps silence, according to the circumstances of the case. Naturally, the expert should try to induce the head of his department to listen to his views on the subject before the subject ever comes before the Cabinet or the War Council. But if the Minister takes a contrary view, if the matter is one of importance and if the Minister at the meeting fails to acquaint his colleagues that he is at variance with the expert, or again if the question crops up unexpectedly and the expert has had no opportunity of expressing an opinion, then the duty of the expert to the country comes first and he should say his say. It may be suggested that he ought to resign. Perhaps he ought to—afterwards. But the matter of vital importance is not whether he resigns, but whether he warns the Government of the danger. The country is the first consideration, not the Government nor yet the expert.

One great advantage of the War Cabinet system introduced by Mr. Lloyd George was that there was none of this sort of flapdoodle. At a War Cabinet meeting the expert never hesitated to express his opinion, whether he was asked for it or not. The work that I was doing in the later stages of the war did not involve me in problems of major importance, but when summoned to a War Cabinet meeting I never boggled over giving my views as to what concerned my own job. I have heard Sir W. Robertson, when he thought it necessary to do so, giving his opinion similarly concerning questions of great moment, and nobody dreamt of objecting to the intervention.

The Director of Military Intelligence was, more or less ex officio, a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence in pre-war days, and consequently I attended one meeting of this body shortly after mobilization. There was a huge gathering—the thing was a regular duma—and a prolonged discussion, which as far as I could make out led nowhere and which in any case dealt with matters that nowise concerned me, took place. Those were busy times, and, seeing that Lord Kitchener and Sir C. Douglas attended these meetings as a matter of course, I asked to be excused thenceforward. The Committee of Imperial Defence was obviously not a suitable assemblage to treat of the conduct of the war, seeing that it was only invested with consultative and not with executive functions, and that it bore on its books individuals such as Mr. Balfour and Lord Esher, who were not members of the Government, nor yet officials. It therefore at a comparatively early date gave place to the War Council, which captured its secretariat (a priceless asset), and which later on became transformed into the Dardanelles Committee. The Government did not, however, wholly lose the benefit of Mr. Balfour's experience and counsel. One day—it must have been in December—there was an informal discussion at the War Office in Lord Kitchener's room, he being away in France at the time, in which General Wolfe-Murray and I took part, and besides Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Churchill and Sir E. Grey—I do not think that Mr. Asquith was there—Mr. Balfour was present.

Up till the early days of May, I attended no War Councils. Very soon after that, the Coalition Government was formed, and thereupon the War Council, which had been quite big enough goodness knows, developed into the Dardanelles Committee of twelve members, of whom, excluding Lord Kitchener, six were members of the former Liberal Government, and five were Unionists. Sir E. Carson only came in in August, making the number of representatives from the two factions equal and raising the total to the lucky number of thirteen. What object was supposed to be fulfilled by making the War Council such a bloated institution it is hard to say. Almost the only members of the Cabinet who counted and who were not included on its roll were Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Long. Be that as it may, the result was virtually to constitute the Dardanelles Committee the Cabinet for general purposes of the war, and to lead to its dealing with many matters quite distinct from the prosecution of the campaign for the Straits. I have a vivid recollection of one meeting, which probably took place late in June (Lord Kitchener was not present), and at which the attitude to be assumed by us with reference to Bulgaria and Greece, particularly Bulgaria, was discussed. Sir E. Grey wanted a "formula" devised to indicate to the Sofia Government what that attitude was; as neither he nor anybody else knew what the attitude was, it was not easy to devise the formula. Formula is an odious word in any case, recalling, as it does, algebraical horrors of a forgotten past; but everybody present wrote out formulae, and dialecticians had the time of their lives. Mr. Balfour's version was eventually chosen as the most felicitous. But the worst of it was that this masterpiece of appropriate phrase-mongering did not bring in the Bulgars on our side. The triumphant campaign of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front somehow proved a more potent factor in deciding Tsar Ferdinand as to what course to pursue, than a whole libraryful of formulae could ever have effected.

At another meeting, at which Lord Kitchener likewise was not present, a marked and disagreeable tendency to criticize Sir I. Hamilton for his ill-success made itself apparent. I was the only representative of the army present, and it was manifestly impossible for an officer miles junior to Sir Ian to butt into a discussion of that kind. But Mr. Churchill spoke up manfully and with excellent effect. The gist of his observations amounted to this: If you commit a military commander to the undertaking of an awkward enterprise and then refuse him the support that he requires, you have no business to abuse him behind his back if he fails. That seemed to me to fit the situation like a glove; it did not leave much more to be said on the point, and no more was said, thanks to the First Lord's timely remonstrance.

There was any amount of chatter at these musters; but on the other hand one seldom seemed to find oneself much forrarder. That is the worst of getting together a swarm of thinkers who are furnished with the gift of the gab and are brimming over with brains. Nothing happens. If a decision was by any chance arrived at, it was of a non-committal nature. The spirit of compromise asserted itself and the Committee adopted a middle course, a course which no doubt fits in well with many of the problems with which governments in ordinary times have to wrestle, but which does not constitute a good way of conducting war.

The full Cabinet of twenty-three was carrying on pari passu with the Dardanelles Committee. It did undoubtedly take some sort of hand in the prosecution of the war from time to time, because one day I was summoned to stand by at 10 Downing Street when it was sitting, soon after the Coalition Government was formed and when Lord Kitchener happened to be away, on the chance of my being wanted. They were hardly likely to require my services in connection with matters other than military. After an interminable wait—during the luncheon hour, too—Mr. Arthur Henderson, who was a very recent acquisition, emerged stealthily from the council chamber after the manner of the conspirator in an Adelphi drama, and intimated that they thought that they would be able to get on without me. In obedience to an unwritten law, the last-joined member was always expected to do odd jobs of this kind, just as at some schools the bottom boy of the form is called upon by the form-master to perform certain menial offices pro bono publico.

The mystery observed in connection with these Cabinet meetings was not unimpressive. But the accepted procedure—without a secretary present to keep record of what was done and with apparently no proper minutes kept by anybody—was the very negation of sound administration and of good government. Such practice would have been out of date in the days of the Heptarchy. Furthermore it did not fulfil its purpose in respect to concealment, because whenever the gathering by any accident made up its mind about anything that was in the least interesting, everybody outside knew all about it within twenty-four hours. And in spite of all the weird precautions, I actually was present once for a very brief space of time at one of these momentous sittings. It came about after this wise. On the rising of a Dardanelles Committee meeting, one of the Ministers who had attended drew me into a corner to enquire concerning a point that had arisen. There was movement going on in the room, people coming and going, but we were intent on our confabulation and took no notice. Suddenly there was an awe-inspiring silence and then Mr. Asquith was heard to lift up his voice. "Good Lord!" ejaculated my Minister (just like that—they are quite human when taken off their guard), "the Cabinet's sitting!" and until back, safe within the War Office portals, I almost seemed to feel a heavy hand on my shoulder haling me off to some oubliette, never more to be heard of in the outer world.

A less teeming War Council than the Dardanelles Committee was substituted for that assemblage about October 1915, and I only attended one or two of its meetings. Sir A. Murray was by that time installed as C.I.G.S., and things were on a more promising footing within the War Office. It was this new form of War Council which was thrown over by the Cabinet with reference to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, as related on pp. 103, 104. As far as one could judge, when more or less of an outsider in connection with the general conduct of operations but none the less a good deal behind the scenes, this type of War Council, constituted out of the Ministers who were directly connected with the operations, besides the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the First Sea Lord and C.I.G.S. always in attendance, worked very well during the greater part of 1916. But Mr. Lloyd George's plan of a War Cabinet, in spite of certain inevitable drawbacks to such an arrangement, was undoubtedly the right one for times of grave national emergency. Its accessibility and its readiness to deal with problems in a practical spirit are illustrated by the following incident within my own experience.

We had got ourselves into a condition of chaos in [p.216] connection with the problem of Greek supplies at the beginning of 1918. There was an extremely vague agreement with the French, an unsigned agreement entered into in haste by representatives on our side of little authority, under which we were supposed to provide all sorts of things for the Hellenes. But the whole business was extremely irregular and it was in a state of hopeless confusion—it will be referred to again in a later chapter. In the War Office alone, several departments and branches were concerned, including my own up to a certain point. The Ministries of Munitions and Shipping were in the affair as well, together with the Board of Trade, the Foreign Office, and last but not least, the Treasury. But what was everybody's business was nobody's business. Each department involved declared that some other one must take the matter up and get things unravelled, and at last in a fit of exasperation, although my branch was only a 100 to 3 outsider in the matter, I took the bull by the horns and wrote privately to Sir M. Hankey, asking him to put the subject of Greek Supplies on the Agenda for the War Cabinet on some early date and to summon me to be on hand, which he did. When the matter came up, Mr. Lloyd George enquired of me what the trouble was. I told him that we were in a regular muddle, that we could not get on, that several Departments of State were in the thing, but that it hardly seemed a matter for the War Cabinet to trouble itself with. Could not one of its members take charge, get us together, and give us the authority we required for dealing with the problem? Mr. Lloyd George at once asked Lord Milner to take the question up, not more than five minutes of the War Cabinet's time was wasted, and within a very few hours Lord Milner had got the business on a proper footing and we all knew where we were.

Now, supposing that instead of the War Cabinet it had been a case of that solemn, time-honoured, ineffectual council composed of all the principal Ministers of the Crown, gathered together in Downing Street to discuss matters which the majority of those present never know any more about than the man in the moon, what would have happened? We of the War Office might among us, with decent luck, have managed to prime our own private Secretary of State, and might have sent him off to the Cabinet meeting with a knowledge of his brief. But, unless the Ministers at the heads of the other Departments of State concerned had been got hold of beforehand and told what to do and to say, they would among the lot of them have made confusion worse confounded. If by any chance a decision had then been arrived at, it would almost inevitably have been a perfectly preposterous one, totally inapplicable to the question that was actually at issue.

A summons to attend a War Cabinet meeting was not, however, an unmixed joy. There was always an agenda paper; but it was apt to turn out a delusion and a snare. The Secretariat did their very best to calculate when the different subjects down for discussion on the paper would come up, and they would warn one accordingly. But they often were out in their estimate, and they had always to be on the safe side. Some quite simple and apparently straightforward subject would take a perfectly unconscionable time to dispose of, while, on the other hand, an apparently extremely knotty problem might be solved within a few minutes and so throw the time-table out of gear. The result was that in the course of months one spent a good many hours, off and on, lurking in the antechamber in 10 Downing Street.

Still, there was always a good fire in winter time, and one found oneself hobnobbing, while waiting, with all sorts and conditions of men. There would be Ministers holding high office but not included in the Big Five (or was it Six?), emissaries just back from some centre of disturbance and excitement abroad, people who dealt with wheat production and distribution, knights of industry called in over some special problem, and persons purporting to be masters of finance—which nobody understands, least of all the experts. Who could possibly, under any circumstances, be angry with Mr. Balfour? But he was occasionally something of a trial when one was patiently awaiting one's turn. Although the Agenda paper might make it plain that no subject was coming up with which the Foreign Office could possibly be in the remotest degree connected, he would be descried sloping past and going straight into the Council Chamber, as if he had bought the place. Then out would come one of the Secretary gang. The Foreign Minister had turned up, and was setting them an entirely unexpected conundrum inside; the best thing one could do was to clear out of that, as the point which one had been summoned to give one's views about had not now the slightest chance of coming before the Cabinet that day.

At the various forms of War Council at which the prosecution of the war was debated, one was necessarily brought into contact with a number of politicians and statesmen, and was enabled to note their peculiarities and to watch their methods. I never to my knowledge saw Lord Beaconsfield; but in the late 'eighties and early 'nineties Mr. Gladstone was sometimes to be met in the streets, and, even if one thought that he ought to be boiled, one none the less felt mildly excited at the spectacle. That aphorism, "familiarity breeds contempt," does put the point a little crudely; but the fact remains that when you are brought into contact with people of this kind, about whom there is such a lot of talk in the newspapers, they turn out to be very much like everybody else. Needless to say, they will give tongue to any extent, but, apart from that, they may even be something of a disappointment to those who anticipate great things of them. Still, it is only right to acknowledge that the majority of Ministers met with during the Great War were sensible enough in respect to military matters. The amateur strategist was fortunately the exception in these circles, and not the rule. Most of them picked up the fundamental facts in connection with any situation that presented itself quite readily; they grasped elementary principles when these were explained to them and they were able to keep those principles in mind. But there were goats as well as sheep. You might just as well have started dancing jigs to a milestone as have tried to get into the heads of one or two of them the elementary fact that the conduct of war cannot be decided on small-scale maps but is a matter of stolid and unemotional calculation, that imagination is a deadly peril when unaccompanied by knowledge, and that army corps and divisions cannot be switched about ashore or afloat as though they were taxi-cabs or hydroplanes.

Mr. Henderson shaped well when military matters were in debate; he looked portentous and he held his tongue. Then there was Sir E. Carson who, during the few weeks that he figured on the Dardanelles Committee, was an undeniable asset. His interjections of "Mr. Asquith, we really must make up our minds," uttered with an accent not unfamiliar to one who had passed youthful days in the vicinity of Dublin, and accompanied by a moody stare such as his victim in the witness-box must find rather disconcerting when under cross-examination at the hands of the famous K.C., had no great effect perhaps. But the motive was unexceptionable. He and Mr. Bonar Law used to sit together and to press for decisions, and it was unfortunate that Sir Edward resigned when he did. Mr. Bonar Law was within an ace of resigning likewise very shortly afterwards. He invited me to go over to the Colonial Office to see him and to talk over matters, and I expressed an earnest hope that he would stick to the ship. An artist in letter-writing (as was shown in his momentous epistle written on behalf of the Unionist leaders when Mr. Asquith's Cabinet were in two minds at the beginning of August 1914), his memorandum which is quoted in the "Final Report" of the Dardanelles Commission, and in which he insisted upon the advice of the military authorities with reference to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula being followed, indicates how fortunate it was that he remained at his post.

The truth is that resignations of the individual Minister seldom do any good from the point of view of the public interest, except when the individual Minister concerned happens to be unfit for his position—and then he generally seems immune from that "unwanted doggie" sort of feeling from which less illustrious persons are apt to suffer when they are de trop. The cases mentioned on p. 144 in connection with the Army Council stood on an entirely different footing. When a body of officials resign, or threaten to resign, their action cannot be ignored; in the second case mentioned the mere threat sufficed. Lord Fisher paid me one of his meteoric visits on the morning that he submitted his resignation to Mr. Asquith, and he confided his reasons to me; the reasons were good, but it seemed doubtful whether they were quite good enough to justify the taking of so drastic a step.

There was no more edifying and compelling personality amongst the party who were in the habit of taking the floor in 10 Downing Street in 1915 than Lord Curzon. He, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd George might almost have been called rivals for the role of prima ballerina assoluta. The remarks that fell from his lips, signalized as they ever were by a faultless phraseology and delivered with a prunes, prisms and potatoes diction, seldom failed to lift the discussion on to a higher plane, to waft his hearers on to the serene hill-tops of thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his mind to be carried into execution, any small hopes which remained of our ever winning the war would inevitably be blotted out for good and all. As for Mr. Lloyd George in drab days before he became First Minister of the Crown in spite of his superhuman efforts to avoid that undesired consummation, he always loved to make his voice heard, and he always succeeded—just as a canary will in a roomful of chattering women.



CHAPTER XII

SOME INTER-ALLIES CONFERENCES

The Conference with the Italians in Paris in April-May 1915 — Its constitution — Italians anxious that Allies should deliver big offensive simultaneously with advance of Italian army — Impossibility of giving a guarantee — Difficulties over the naval proposals — Banquet given by M. Millerand at the War Office — A visit to the front — Impressions — Mr. Churchill turns up unexpectedly — A conference with General Joffre at Chantilly over Salonika — Its unsatisfactory character — Admiral Gamble races "Grandpere," and suffers discomfiture — A distinguished party proceed to Paris — A formal conference with the French Government — Messrs. Asquith, Grey and Lloyd George as linguists — The French attitude over Salonika — Sir W. Robertson gives his views — The decision — Dinner at the Elysee — Return to London — Mr. Lloyd George and the soldiers on the Boulogne jetty — Points of the destroyer as a yacht — Mr. Balfour and Sir W. Robertson afloat — A chatty dinner on our side of the Channel — Difficulty over Russian munitions owing to a Chantilly conference — A conference at the War Office — Mr. Lloyd George as chairman — M. Mantoux.

The first meeting of importance with representatives of the Allies at which I was present took place in Paris at the end of April 1915, and has already been referred to on p. 63. Sir H. Jackson and I were sent over, as representing respectively the Admiralty and the War Office, to take part in a secret conference that was to be held between French, Russian, and British naval and military delegates on the one side, and Italian naval and military delegates on the other side in connection with Italy's entry into the war as an associate of the Entente. That Italy was to join the Allies had already been arranged secretly between the four governments, and it was understood that she was to open hostilities in the latter part of May. The purpose of the Conference was to permit of the situation being discussed, and formal naval and military conventions were to be drawn up between the contracting Powers. Sir Henry and I were accompanied by small staffs, and we put up at the Ritz in the Place Vendome.

M. Millerand, who was French War Minister at the time, presided at the Conference which assembled in the War Office, and he made an ideal chairman—the French are always admirable at managing such functions. The principal French military delegate was General Pelle, General Joffre's Chief of Staff; the Russians were represented by their Military Attache in Paris, Colonel Count Ignatieff, and the principal Italian military delegate was a colonel (whose name I cannot recall), a most attractive and evidently an extremely capable soldier, who unhappily was killed within a few months when in command of a brigade in one of the early fights near Gorizia. In so far as framing the military convention was concerned, that part of the proceedings gave little trouble. The Italian representatives, it is true, were anxious that the Allies should undertake to embark upon an offensive on the greatest possible scale practicable, simultaneously with the Italian army crossing the frontier about the Isonzo; but General Pelle and I could give no guarantee to that effect, the more so seeing that a Franco-British offensive had already, as it was, been decided upon to start in the Bethune-Vimy region within a few days and before the Italian army would be ready. One had a pretty shrewd suspicion that there was no opening whatever for an offensive on the Eastern Front in view of our Russian Allies' grave munitions difficulties, although the French seemed strangely unaware of the nakedness of the land in that quarter; still, it was no part of the game to hint at joints in our harness of that kind to the Italian representatives. Ignatieff, bluff and cheery, was careful not to commit himself on the subject. The end of it was that our military convention amounted to little more than an agreement that we were all jolly fine fellows, accompanied by cordial expressions of good-will and of a determination on the part of the four contracting Powers to do their best and to stick together. The naval side of the problem, on the other hand, was beset by pitfalls, and that part of the business was not satisfactorily disposed of for several days.

Even to a landsman like myself, it was apparent that the Italian conception of war afloat in the year of grace 1915 was open to criticism. Our new friends contemplated employing their fleet very freely as an auxiliary to their army in its advance along the littoral towards Trieste, a theory of naval operations which came upon one with something of a shock at the very start. Pola and other well-sheltered bowers for under-water craft lie pretty handy to the maritime district in which King Victor's troops were going to take the field. For battleships and cruisers to be pottering about in those waters serving out succour to the soldiers on shore, succour which would in all probability be of no great account in any case, suggested that those battleships and cruisers would be transmogrified into submarines at a very early stage of the proceedings. One wondered if the Ministry of Marine away south by the Tiber had heard the tragic tale of the Hogue, the Cressy and the Aboukir. Nor was that all. The Italian naval delegates put forward requests that fairly substantial assistance in the shape of war-craft of various types should be afforded them within the Adriatic by the French and ourselves.

All this struck even an outsider like myself as somewhat unsatisfactory, and that was clearly the view which Sir H. Jackson took. For, in some disorder, he let slip an observation to the effect that it looked like the recently acquired collaborator with the Entente being rather a nuisance than otherwise. The rendering of this expression of opinion of the Admiral's into French at the hands of our Naval Attache in Paris (Captain Hodges) was a masterpiece of diplomatic camouflage. In the end the Italian sailors were obliged to ask for an adjournment to allow of their communicating with Rome, and, if I recollect aright, the principal one of them had to proceed home to discuss the question at headquarters. All this took up time, and we did not finally get the conventions signed for nearly a fortnight.

M. Millerand gave a banquet at the War Office in honour of us delegates, at which we met M. Viviani, the Prime Minister, together with other members of the French Cabinet. I enjoyed the good fortune of sitting next to M. Delcasse, and so of making the acquaintance of one of the great Foreign Ministers of our time. Paris is at its best in spring, and had it not been war-time and had one not been in a fidget to get back to Whitehall, a few days of comparative idleness spent in la ville lumiere after nine months of incessant office work, while the international sailor-men settled their differences, would have been not unwelcome. The pause, however, provided an opportunity for motoring down to St. Omer and spending a couple of days in the war zone—my first visit to the Front. Two points especially struck me on this trip. One was the wonderful way that the women and children of France (for scarcely an adult male was to be seen about in the rural districts) were keeping their end up in the fields. The other was the smart and soldier-like bearing of the rank-and-file amongst our troops, in striking contrast to the go-as-you-please methods which prevailed in South Africa, and to which, indirectly, some of the "regrettable incidents" which occurred on the veldt were traceable. It gave one confidence. Sir J. French and some of G.H.Q. were at advanced headquarters at Hazebrouck as offensive operations were impending, and Sir John, on the afternoon that I saw him, was greatly pleased at a most successful retirement of our line in a portion of the Ypres salient which General Plumer had brought off on the previous night. On getting back to Paris it transpired that the naval trouble was not yet settled.

One morning, sitting with Admiral Gamble who was over to help Sir H. Jackson, in the long alley-way of the Ritz where one enjoys early breakfast if that meal be not partaken of in private apartments, Commodore Bartolome, the First Lord's "Personal Naval Assistant," was of a sudden descried in the offing and beating up for the Bureau. "Good God!" exclaimed the Admiral, horror-stricken. "Winston's come!" He had, so we learnt from Bartolome; but what he had come for nobody could make out. Telegraphic communication exists between Paris and London, and Sir H. Jackson was in constant touch with our Admiralty. However, to whatever cause the visit was to be attributed, there was Mr. Churchill as large as life and most anxious to get busy; and I personally was glad to see him, because he told me all about what had been going on in the Gallipoli Peninsula since the landing of a few days before. One did not gather that the French were any more delighted at his jack-in-the-box arrival, and at his interventions in the Conference discussions, than were our naval representatives who had been officially accredited for the purpose. A satisfactory agreement was, however, at last arrived at over the Adriatic, the conventions were signed with due pomp and circumstance, and our party returned to England. While in Paris I had paid one or two visits to General Graziani, who was the Chief of the General Staff at the French War Office; but we in Whitehall never could make out exactly what were the relations between the military authorities in Paris and those at Chantilly. The very fact that General Joffre's Chief of Staff had been French military representative at our Conference, and not General Graziani or his nominee, seemed odd.

Some six months later, early in November, I again went over to France, this time with Sir A. Murray, to attend a discussion with General Joffre at Chantilly concerning Salonika. Admiralty representatives, including Admiral Gamble and Mr. Graeme Thomson, Director of Naval Transport, were of the party. Sir J. French with Sir W. Robertson, his Chief of the General Staff, and Sir H. Wilson came up from St. Omer. It was by no means a satisfactory meeting. We from the War Office in London desired to circumscribe British participation in this new side-show to the utmost, and to keep the whole business as far as possible within limits; but we got uncommonly little support from G.H.Q. Sir W. Robertson expressed no opinion, nor was he called upon to do so; he would have found it awkward to dissent from his commander-in-chief. But the result was that when a much more important conference over the same subject took place a few days later, this time between the two Governments, Sir J. French was not present while Sir W. Robertson was. These things do arrange themselves somehow.

As the discussion took place at Chantilly late in the afternoon, G.H.Q. and we put up at Amiens for the night. On our discovering that General Joffre contemplated crossing the Channel next day to have a chat with our Government, the C.I.G.S. prevailed upon Admiral Gamble to hurry on in his motor to Boulogne next morning so as to catch the packet there, to cross to Folkestone, and to get up to London in time to warn our people of the somewhat expansive Salonika programme which "Grandpere" had up his sleeve. The Silent Navy, it is hardly necessary to say, fairly rose to the occasion, for the Admiral was off under forced draught in the dog-watch. Chancing things, however, when weathering a promontory off Montreuil, he contrived to pile up his craft on a shoal in a bad position, and he would have missed trans-shipment at Boulogne altogether had he not got himself taken off in a passing craft which was under charge of soldier-officers who were likewise making for the packet. So he got across all right in the end and he flashed up to town, only to find that old man Joffre had not played the game. "Grandpere" had slept peacefully in the train, had boarded a destroyer at some unearthly hour of the morning, and was already in Whitehall before our staunch, precipitate emissary had cast off from Boulogne.

On the occasion of that next pow-wow mentioned [p.228] above, Messrs. Asquith, Balfour (now First Lord), Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey crossed over as our representatives. Sir H. Jackson (now First Sea Lord), Sir W. Robertson, who had been summoned over to London, and I accompanied them, as well as Colonel Hankey and some others. We travelled by specials and a destroyer and took the Boulogne route. Our warship tied up to the East Anglia, hospital ship, at Boulogne, and as we passed across her some of us had a few words with nurses and wounded on board, little anticipating that she would be mined next day on the passage over to England, with most unfortunate loss of life. Eventually we arrived at the Gare du Nord about midnight, to be welcomed by a swarm of French Ministers and Lord Bertie, and to find all arrangements made for us with typical French hospitality.

The Conference took place at the Foreign Office on the Quai d'Orsay, M. Briand presiding. Several members of the French Government were present, besides Generals Joffre, Gallieni and Graziani; and with our party, as well as interpreters, secretaries and others, there was quite a gathering. After M. Briand had welcomed us cordially and in felicitous terms, Mr. Asquith got a charming little speech in French off his chest; it may perhaps have had a whiff of the lamp about it and had probably been learnt by heart, but the P. M. undoubtedly managed to serve up a savoury appetitif, and we felt that in the matter of courtesy and the amenities our man had held his own. In the course of the discussion that followed, Sir E. Grey's minute-gun process of turning our host's delightful language to account afforded all present ample time to take in the drift of his cogent, weighty arguments and to appraise them at their proper worth. Had it been any one else, Mr. Lloyd George would have been voted an unmitigated nuisance on all hands. As a result of prolonged residence in the Gay City at a somewhat later date, the Right Honourable Gentleman is now, it is understood, in the habit of bandying badinage with the midinettes in the argot of the Quartier Latin. But at the time that I speak of his acquaintance with the Gallic tongue was strictly limited (although he did put forward claims to be able to understand "Grey's French"), and he kept from time to time insisting upon the proceedings being brought to a halt while a translation of something that had been said was furnished for his benefit, generally selecting some particularly unprofitable platitude which had been uttered by one of those present for the purpose of gaining time.

The French took up a strong line over Salonika. In a sense they drove our side into a corner, and the responsibility for hundreds of thousands of French and British troops being interned in Macedonia for years rests with them, and it was in great measure the outcome of that day's debate. Sir W. Robertson was called upon to state his views. He knows French perfectly well, but he absolutely refused to speak anything but English, and his remarks were translated, sentence after sentence, by a young French officer with a perfect command of the latter tongue. After each successive sentence had been rendered into French, Sir William, who was sitting beside me, would murmur, "Infernal fellow, that's not what I said," as though repeating the responses, the poor interpreter having in reality done his duty like a man. The gist of his remarks was what might have been expected, viz. that the Germans were the real enemy and that the proper course for the Allies to pursue was to concentrate force against them and not to be hunting about for trouble in the uttermost parts of the earth. Views of that kind, enunciated bluntly and with considerable emphasis, were very likely not wholly palatable to M. Briand; but it seemed to me that they were not regarded with disfavour by General Joffre, nor yet by General Gallieni, although those distinguished soldiers when invited to give expression to their views contrived merely to say nothing at considerable length. The end of it all was that we were committed to dumping down three more divisions at Salonika in addition to the two already there or disembarking, and that we were, moreover, committed to sending them thither without delay. When they got there it took ages to get their impedimenta ashore owing to lack of landing facilities—as we had fully foreseen. The amateur strategist imagines that you can discharge an army out of a fleet of transports and freight-ships just anywhere and as easily as you can empty a slop-pail.

We dined with the President and Mme. Poincare at the Elysee that night, and most of the French Cabinet, as well as Generals Joffre and Gallieni, were likewise invited. Our Big Four were in some doubt as to what garb to appear in, seeing that it was not to be a full-dress function, sporting trinkets; and they eventually hit upon dinner-jackets with black ties. So Sir W. Robertson and I decided to doff breeches, boots and spurs, and to don what military tailors refer to as "slacks" but what in non-sartorial circles are commonly called trousers. The French civilians all wore frock-coats, so that there was an agreeable lack of uniformity and formality when we assembled. I sat next to M. Dumergue, the Colonial Minister, and between us we disposed of the German Colonies in a spirit of give and take—or rather take, because there was none of that opera-bouffe "mandate" which has since then been wafted across from the Western Hemisphere, included in our arrangements. In the course of the evening I managed to obtain General Joffre's views concerning the feasibility of withdrawing from the Gallipoli Peninsula without encountering heavy loss, a subject that one had constantly in mind at that time. Pere Joffre's opinion was that, subject to favourable weather and to the retreat taking place at night, the thing could be managed, and he emphasized the fact that the conditions of trench warfare rather lent themselves to secret withdrawals of that nature.

We made our way back to London on the following day, leaving Paris in the forenoon, and were to embark at Calais; but owing to some misunderstanding our special ran into Boulogne and out on to the jetty, where numbers of troops were assembled as a leave-boat was shortly to cross. This afforded me an opportunity of experiencing how very engaging Mr. Lloyd George can make himself when dealing with a somewhat critical audience. For the whole party got out, glad to stretch their legs, and I wandered about with the Munitions Minister. We got into conversation with some of the men, he was recognised, and a crowd speedily gathered round us. He questioned them, and it is hardly necessary to say that, being British soldiers, they did not forget to grumble; they were particularly eloquent on the subject of the quality and the quantity of hand-grenades. But Mr. Lloyd George handled them most skilfully, got a great deal of useful information out of them, delighted them with his cheery manner and apt chaff, and when we had to hurry off as our train was about to move on, the men cheered him to the echo. "Sure he's a great little man intoirely," I heard a huge lump of an Irish sergeant remark to a taciturn Highlander, who removed his pipe from his mouth to spit in unqualified acquiescence.

They say that a destroyer represents an invaluable form of fighting-ship, and no doubt she does; but it is ridiculous to pretend that she makes an agreeable pleasure-boat—at all events not at night and with all lights out. In the first place there is nothing whatever to prevent your falling out of the vessel altogether, and as the gangways which pretend to be the deck are littered with anchors, chains, torpedoes, funnels, ventilators, and what not, you dare not, if you have been so ill-advised as to remain up top, roam about in pitch darkness even in harbour, let alone when the craft is jumping and wriggling and straining out in the open. Having tried the high-up portion of the ship at the front end, where the cold was perishing and the spray amounted to a positive outrage, on the way over, I selected the wardroom aft on the way back and found this much more inhabitable. There was a nice open stove to sit before, a pleasant book to read, and there was really nothing to complain about except the rattle and whirr of the propellers. Sir W. Robertson is a very fine soldier, but he does not cut much ice as a sailor; although it was as settled as the narrow seas can fairly be expected to be in late autumn, he lay perfectly flat on his back on a bunk with his hands folded across his chest like the effigies of departed sovereigns in Westminster Abbey, and he never moved an eyelid till we were inside the Dover breakwaters. All the same, he stayed the course, and that is more, I fear, than the First Lord of the Admiralty did. For the Ruler of the King's Navy made a bee-line for the Lieutenant-Commander's own private dug-out the moment he came aboard at Calais, and he remained in ambuscade during the voyage.

There used to be a ditty sung at a pantomime or some such entertainment when I was at Haileybury—music-halls were less numerous and less aristocratic in those days than they are now—of which the refrain was to the effect that one must meet with the most unheard-of experiences ere one would "cease to love." We used to spend an appreciable portion of our time in form composing appropriate verses, as effective a mental exercise perhaps as the labours we were supposed to be engaged on. Mr. Goschen had recently been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, and one distich in the official version ran: "May Goschen have a notion of the motion of the ocean, if ever I cease to love." It is to be apprehended that Mr. Balfour acquired a better notion of the motion of the ocean than he cared for, on these destroyer trips in which he was in the habit of indulging; for when we fetched up on this side of the Channel and made our way to the attendant dining-car, where the trained eye instantly detected the presence of glasses on the tables of that peculiar shape that denotes the advent of bubbly wine (none of your peasant drinks when the taxpayer is standing treat), the First Lord rolled up swathed in a shawl, a lamentable bundle, and disappeared like a transient and embarrassed phantom into a corner, to be seen no more until we steamed into Charing Cross.

The run up to town from Dover by special was edifying and was not uninstructive, for it threw some light upon the mystery that is connected with the frequent leaking-out of matters which upon the whole had better be kept secret. A train composed of only a couple of cars makes less noise than the more usual sort, and our dining-car happened to be a particularly smooth-running one. The consequence was that almost every word that was said in the car could be heard by anybody who chose to listen. The Big Three (Mr. Balfour had deserted as we have seen) sat together at one table, whilst we lesser fry congregated close at hand at others. The natural resilience following upon the conclusion of the Conference and the happy termination of cross-Channel buffetings may perhaps have been somewhat stimulated by draughts of sparkling vintage; but, be that as it may, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Munitions were in their most expansive mood, and after a time their conversation was followed by the rest of us with considerable interest. To the sailors present, as also to one or two of the junior soldier-officers, it was probably news—and it must surely have been news to the waiters—to learn that Sir J. French was shortly to vacate command of the B.E.F. in France. Nor could we be other than gratified at the discussions concerning Sir D. Haig's qualifications as a successor; I was expecting every moment to hear Sir W. Robertson's suitability for the post freely canvassed; he was sitting back-to-back with the Munitions Minister, but with the half-partition usual in our English dining-cars intervening. Cabinet Ministers certainly are quaint people.

I attended more than one Conference with the Allies on the subject of munitions and supplies at a later stage of the war. They had a rather inconvenient habit, some of them, of springing brand-new proposals upon one without any warning, and they would without turning a hair raise questions the discussion of which was wholly unforeseen and had not been prepared for. A good deal of trouble was, for instance, caused on a certain occasion owing to the question of armament for Russia being brought up at one of the Chantilly Conferences which used to take place from time to time, without our having a delegate present who was posted up in the actual situation with regard to this particular problem. The Russians had, shortly before, put forward requests that we should furnish them with a very big consignment indeed of heavy guns and howitzers—somewhere about 600 pieces of sorts. We had no intention of falling in with this somewhat extravagant demand; but we had more or less promised about 150. However, at a meeting of a Sub-Committee on munitions delegated by this particular Chantilly Conference, only General Maurice, who was not concerned in munitions details nor aware of the actual facts, represented us; and at this meeting the Russians and French mentioned in the course of the discussion that we had promised 600 pieces. Not fully acquainted with the position, General Maurice did not contradict the assertion. This caused some difficulty, because on later occasions the French and Russians would say, "But you agreed to furnish 600 at Chantilly," and would produce the protocol of the meeting. Similarly, we were regularly rushed into a Conference at Paris over Greek supplies in the autumn of 1917—the subject has already been mentioned on p. 216, and it will be referred to again farther on in this volume—without knowing what the business was about. Greek supplies and our connection with them were consequently in a shocking tangle for months to come.

There was one of these international gatherings, one that was held in Mr. Lloyd George's room in the War Office about November 1916 when he was Secretary of State for War, of which I have a vivid recollection. M. Albert Thomas and General Dall' Olio, the respective Munitions Ministers in France and Italy, had come over, accompanied by several assistants; and the Russian Military Attache from Paris with several representatives of the special Russian Commission in England were present, as well as the Head of the Roumanian Military Mission in France. The Russians, Roumanians and Italians all, needless to say, wanted to get as much as they could out of us, and the French were quite ready to back the Russians and Roumanians up. Mr. Lloyd George made a tip-top chairman, conciliatory and, thanks to ignorance of French, always unable to understand what was said when it happened to be inconvenient to grasp the purport. At one juncture M. Thomas and General Dall' Olio came rather to loggerheads over something or other, steel I think. Had they been Britishers, one would have been preparing to slip under the table so as to be out of harm's way; but Latin nations are more gesticulatory than we are, and this sort of effervescence does not mean quite so much with them as it does when it shows a head amongst us frigid islanders. Just when the illustrious pair of Ministers were inclined to get a little out of temper, arguing of course in French, Mr. Lloyd George burst out laughing, threw himself back in his chair and ejaculated, "Now will some kind friend tell me what all that's about!" He had touched exactly the right note. Everybody beamed. The disputants burst out laughing too, harmony was completely restored, and the discussion was conducted thenceforward in friendliest fashion.

By far the most interesting feature, however, about this pow-wow, and several others, was provided by the interventions of M. Mantoux, the gifted interpreter who used to come over from Paris, and of whom I believe great use was made at Conferences at various times at Versailles. His performance on such occasions was a veritable tour de force. He never took a note. He waited till the speaker had finished all that he wanted to say—and your statesman generally has an interminable lot to say—whether it was in French or in English. He then translated what had been said into the other language—English or French as the case might be—practically word for word. His memory, quite apart from his abnormal linguistic aptitudes, was amazing. Nor was that all. He somehow contrived, almost automatically it seemed, to imitate the very gestures and the elocution of the speakers. M. Thomas is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust of the hand accompanied by a muttered exclamation, presumably a curse. Rendering M. Thomas into English, M. Mantoux would sweep back an imaginary wisp of hair with an imprecation which I am confident was a "damn!" Then again, no man can turn on a more irresistibly ingratiating smile when he is getting the better of the other fellow than Mr. Lloyd George, and he has mastered a dodge of at such moments sinking his voice to a wheedling pitch calculated to coax the most suspicious and recalcitrant of listeners into reluctant concurrence. M. Mantoux would reproduce that smile to admiration, and his tones when translating Mr. Lloyd George's seductive blandishments into French were enough to cajole a crocodile.



CHAPTER XIII

A FIRST MISSION TO RUSSIA

Reasons for Mission — An effectual staff officer — Our distinguished representatives in Scandinavia — The journey — Stockholm — Lapps — Crossing the frontier at Haparanda — Arrival at Petrograd — Sir G. Buchanan — Interviews with General Polivanoff, Admiral Grigorovitch and M. Sazonoff — Imperial vehicles — Petrograd — We proceed to the Stavka — Improper use of the title "Tsar" — The Imperial headquarters — Meeting with the Emperor — Two disconcerting incidents — Nicholas II. — His charm — His admiration for Lord Kitchener's work — Conference with General Alexeieff — Mohileff — Service in the church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's birthday — Return to Petrograd — A rencontre with an archbishop — The nuisance of swords — Return home.

In spite of the debacle which had taken place in the early summer of 1915, the information coming to hand from Russia in the War Office later in the year was not wholly discouraging. It became apparent that a strenuous effort was being made to repair the mischief. Marked energy was being displayed locally in developing the output of munitions and war material of all kinds. This, coupled with the unequivocal confidence that was manifestly being displayed in Lord Kitchener by the Emperor, the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the leading statesmen of our great eastern Ally whether they belonged to the Government or not, gave promise that the vast empire, with its swarming population and its boundless internal resources, might yet in the course of time prove a tremendous asset on the side of the Entente.

We had, however, never established a very satisfactory understanding with the Russian General Staff. A number of British officers of high rank had gone out to pay more or less complimentary visits, but rather more than that appeared to be needed. I had been thinking in the latter part of 1915 that some steps ought to be taken in this direction, and so, when it became known that Sir W. Robertson was shortly coming over to become C.I.G.S. at the War Office, which would assuredly mean other important changes of personnel, I wrote to him suggesting that I should go out and talk things over with General Alexeieff, the Russian Chief of the General Staff. After Sir William had taken over charge and had considered the matter, he agreed, and he gave me practically a free hand as regards making known our views, only stipulating that I should return promptly and report to him.

One of the many active and capable members on its rolls, Captain R. F. Wigram, was picked out from the Director of Military Operations' staff to perform the functions of Staff Officer and A.D.C. He possessed the merit amongst many others of being young and of looking younger, and he lost no time in exhibiting his remarkable fitness for the post. For without one moment's hesitation he bereft his club in Pall Mall of the services of a youth of seventeen, who by some mysterious process became eighteen then and there, whom he converted into a private of Foot, whom he fitted out with a trousseau extracted from the Ordnance Department that a Prince of the Blood proceeding to the North Pole might have coveted, and who thus, as by the stroke of a magician's wand, became transformed into an ideal soldier-servant. We made our way north-eastwards via Newcastle, Bergen and Stockholm, round the north of the Gulf of Bothnia, and thence on through Finland to Petrograd. Traversing the chilly northern waters between the Tyne and the Norse fiords, it became possible to appreciate to some very small degree what months of watching for a foe who could not be induced to leave port on the surface must have meant to the sister service and to its wonderful auxiliaries drawn from the Mercantile Marine. For if there is a more dismal, odious, undisciplined stretch of ocean on the face of the globe than the North Sea, it has not been my ill-fortune to have had to traverse it.

Our Foreign Office has served as a butt for a good deal of criticism of late years, some of which has perhaps not been wholly undeserved. But whether it was by design or was the result of some happy accident, Downing Street managed to be most efficiently represented at the courts of northern Europe during the epoch of the Great War. Sir G. Buchanan's outstanding services in Russia are now recognized on all hands—even apparently by H.M. Government. But the country also owes much to Sir E. Howard and to Sir M. Findlay, who represented us so worthily in Sweden and Norway during periods of exceptional stress and difficulty. It was a real pleasure when passing backwards and forwards through Scandinavia to meet these two strong men who were so successfully keeping the flag flying, to discuss with them the course of events, to be made acquainted with the peculiar problems that were constantly confronting them, to note the marked respect in which they were held on all hands, and to enjoy the hospitality of two typical English homes planted down in a foreign land. On one occasion Sir E. Howard was good enough to make special arrangements for me to meet the Russian and French Ministers at Stockholm and the French Military Attache at luncheon at the Legation, thereby enabling us to examine into a number of points of common interest.

Bergen was reputed to be a regular hotbed of German spydom, and apparently with justice. A party of Russian officers coming over on a mission to this country and France some months later were taken off the Bergen-Newcastle packet by a U-boat. The commander of the U-boat had a list of their names, with ranks and everything in order, and he knew all about his prisoners. One officer was overlooked, and he brought news of the contretemps to this country; he had, as it happened, only joined the party at the very last moment as an afterthought, and the Boche agents at Stockholm and Bergen had evidently overlooked him on the way through. An idea prevailed over here that the Swedes in general were decidedly hostile to the Entente; Stockholm, a cold spot in winter—almost as cold as, but without the blistering rawness of, Petrograd—was undoubtedly full of Germans, and the red, white and black colours were freely displayed. But partiality for the Central Powers seemed in the main to be confined to the upper classes and to the officers, and, even so, the Swedish officials were always civility itself. It was indeed much easier to get through the formalities at Haparanda on the Swedish side of the frontier, going and coming, than it was at Tornea on the Finnish side, although there we were honoured guests of the country with special arrangements made on our behalf. One could not but be impressed by the unmistakable signs of wealth in Stockholm, where hospitality was being exercised on the most lavish scale at the leading restaurants and at the palatial Grand Hotel—no bad place to stop at when you are travelling on Government service and can send in the bill. The good Swedes (who, like most other people, have an eye for the main chance) were making money freely out of both sides in the great contest, although they were always protesting against our blockading measures.

Travelling is particularly comfortable alike in Norway and in Sweden, for the sleeping-cars are beyond reproach; owing to snowfalls, the time-table is, however, a little uncertain during the winter months. With their eternal pine-woods, Sweden and Finland are dismal enough regions to traverse in the cold season of the year, although on the Swedish side the line crosses a succession of uplands divided by deep valleys, which are probably very picturesque after the melting of the snows. It was noticeable that all the important viaducts in Sweden were protected by elaborate zeribas of wire entanglement although the country was neutral, a form of defensive measure which was much less noticeable in England and Russia although they were belligerents. Haparanda is close to the Arctic circle, and there the Lapps were very much en evidence, forming apparently the bulk of the population—the children astonishingly sturdy creatures, maybe owing to the amount of clothes that they had on. Lapps did all the heavy work in the way of sleigh-driving, porterage at the station, and so on; nor did they manifest much disposition to depreciate the value of their services when it came to the paying stage.

To the traveller without special credentials, the short journey from Haparanda to the railway-car at Tornea which is to bear him onwards must have been almost a foretaste of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Even for the members of a military mission with "red passports," whose advent had been announced, it was one prolonged agony; and it would probably have been even worse when the intervening estuaries were not frozen over and when one had to take the ferry. All the formalities had to be gone through twice over because there was an island, although the Russian officials were the very pink of courtesy. One learns a great deal of geography on journeys of this kind; we had not realized the extent to which Finland, with its special money, its special language, and its special frontier worries, was distinct from Russia. The train took three days and nights between Stockholm and Petrograd, and one was supposed to fetch up at the terminus somewhere about midnight; but it always took two or three hours to get through the frontier station between Finland and Russia at the last moment, with the result that one might arrive at the capital at any hour of the early morning. When we at last steamed into our destination we found awaiting us on the platform Count Zamoyski, a great Polish landowner and A.D.C. to the Emperor, who had been appointed to attend me, with Colonel Knox, our Military Attache, and we were driven off in Imperial carriages to the Hotel d'Europe.

Our object was to reach Mohileff, where Russian General Headquarters, known as the "Stavka," were stationed. But the Emperor happened to be away from there just at the moment, so that we were obliged to wait in Petrograd for two or three days until His Majesty should have returned. Still, there was plenty to be done and seen in the capital. In the first place there were the official calls on the Imperial family to pay; that, however, was merely a case of writing names in the books for the purpose. Then there was the Embassy to be visited, to enable me to make the acquaintance of Sir G. Buchanan and the Embassy staff. Sir George was not in the best of health, and he obviously stood in need of a rest and change of air—the climate of Petrograd is trying, making it an undesirable place for prolonged residence—but the unique position that he held in the eyes of the Russians of all shades of opinion made it almost impossible for him to leave the capital. Diplomats as a class are not generally popular in military circles abroad, and that was perhaps more marked in Russia than in most countries, but our ambassador was held in extraordinary esteem even amongst soldiers who only knew him by name. Properly supported from home, he would have proved a priceless asset when things were going from bad to worse in the latter part of 1916 and the early days of 1917.

I had interviews with General Polivanoff, the War Minister, Admiral Grigorovitch, the Minister of Marine, and M. Sazonoff, the Foreign Minister. General Polivanoff told me his plans, what he had already effected and what he still hoped to effect, confirming the favourable reports that we had received from General Hanbury-Williams and our Military Attaches as to the efforts that were being made to set the Russian army on its legs again; he also explained that his friendly relations with a number of the leading Liberal men of affairs in the Duma were proving of great assistance in connection with, his extending the manufacture of war material throughout the country, in which the "zemstvos" were lending willing aid. With M. Sazonoff I had a very long and interesting conversation, all the pleasanter owing to his complete command of English. Like General Polivanoff, he was sanguine that, given time, Russia would yet play a great role in the war.

In the meantime we were being royally entertained and looked after. One had heard a great deal about Russia having "gone dry" by ukase; but the drought was not permitted to cast its blight over guests of the nation, and our presence ensured that those at the feast would be enabled to abandon rigid temperance for the moment, an opportunity which was not missed. Who, after all, ever heard of a pleasant party round a pump? Imperial carriages, with the servants in gorgeous yellow livery, all over eagles, were always at our disposal, and traffic was held up as we passed. This was all very well when you were heading for a Grand Duke's residence to leave cards, or proceeding to the Embassy; but you felt rather the beggar on horseback when the object of the drive was merely to procure a razor-strop at a big store in replacement of one mislaid on the journey. Your desire was to purchase the cheapest one that was to be had; but noblesse oblige, you simply had to buy the most expensive one there was, and it was a mercy that they had not got one set in brilliants. Zamoyski, most lighthearted and unconventional of companions, was quite happy to remain in Petrograd in preference to rushing off hot-foot to Mohileff, and he made everything extremely pleasant for us. Dining at the Yacht Club one night we met Admiral Phillimore, who had recently arrived on a naval mission; having commanded the Inflexible at the Falkland Islands fight and afterwards in the Dardanelles (where he had spent some anxious hours after his ship had been holed by a drifting mine during the big fight of the 18th of March), few naval officers of his rank had enjoyed a more varied experience since the beginning of the war.

Petrograd is, or was then, in many respects a fine city, adorned by numbers of imposing buildings and churches; while the view across the half-mile-wide Neva, with its stately bridges and the famous fortress of Peter and Paul on the far side, is very impressive. But its winter climate seemed detestable, cold and tempestuous, accompanied by intervals of thaw which converted even the most important streets into unspeakable slush, while the drip from the roofs was moistening and unpleasant. It has to be confessed that the exhibition of extravagance apparent on all hands in the capital of an empire large portions of which were in the hands of a foreign foe, was not altogether edifying; the atmosphere was so different from that of Paris. Still, there were not wanting encouraging signs. The soldiers in the streets were smart, well-set-up, stalwart fellows garbed in excellent uniforms, and the training carried on on the Marsova Polye (Champ de Mars) near the Embassy struck one as carried out on excellent lines, particularly the bayonet work.

After three days' stay we proceeded to Mohileff, leaving at night and arriving on the following afternoon, to be put up at the hotel where Hanbury-Williams and the other foreign missions were housed. We dined and had luncheon at the Emperor's mess while at the Stavka, as always did the heads of the various foreign missions. Now that the glories of the House of Romanoff have suffered eclipse consequent upon the terrible end of Nicholas II. and his family, interest in it has no doubt to a great extent evaporated. But it may perhaps be mentioned here that our practice of referring to the Autocrat of All the Russias as the "Tsar" is incorrect, and the custom indeed seems to have been almost peculiar to this country. You never heard the terms "Tsar" and "Tsaritza" employed in Russia, not, at all events, in French; they were always spoken of as "L'Empereur" and "L'Imperatrice," and in the churches it was always "Imperator." On the other hand, one did hear of the "Tsarevitch," although he was generally spoken of in French as "Le Prince Heritier"—rather a mouthful. How we arrived at that extraordinary misspelling, "Czar" (which is unpronounceable in English), goodness only knows.

The Emperor and his personal staff occupied a couple of fine provincial government buildings, which Davoust had made his headquarters at the time of the battle of Mohileff in 1812, standing in an enclosure which shut them off from the rather unattractive town and overlooking the Dneiper. The practice at meals was for the party to assemble in the antechamber; the Emperor would then come in from his private apartments, would go round the circle speaking a few words to some of those present, and would then lead the way into the dining-room. There, after we had partaken of the national "zakuska" preceded by a nip of vodka, he presided, sitting in the centre of the long table with General Pau, the senior foreign officer, generally on his right, and one of the other foreign officers taken by rote, or else a visitor, on his left. I understood that General Alexeieff had excused himself from these somewhat protracted repasts, on the ground that he really had not the time to devote to them; but one or two others of the Headquarters Staff were generally present, besides the Household. After the meal the Emperor would talk for a short time to some of those present in the antechamber, and would then retire to his own apartments while we of the foreign missions made our way back to our hotel.

I was presented to him while he was making his round before dinner on the first night. That clicking of heels business is highly effective on such occasions, but it is a perilous practice when you are adorned with hunting spurs; they have protuberances which have a way of catching. There is no getting over it—to find, when conversing with an Emperor, that your feet have become locked together and that if you stir you will topple forward into his arms, does place you at a disadvantage. An even worse experience once befell me when on the staff at Devonport a good many years ago. Our general liked a certain amount of ceremonial to take place before the troops marched back to barracks of a Sunday after the parade service at the garrison church; a staff officer collected the reports and reported to another staff officer, who reported to a bigger staff officer, and so on; there was any amount of saluting and of reassuring prattle before the general was at last made aware that everything was all right. One Sunday it was my turn to collect the reports and to report to the D.A.A.G. In those days cocked hats had (and they probably still have) a ridiculous scrap of ribbed gold-wire lace of prehensile tendencies at their fore-end—at their prow, so to speak. While exchanging intimate confidences with the D.A.A.G., the prows of our cocked hats became interlocked; so there we were, almost nose to nose, afraid to move lest one or both of us should part with our headgear. But he never lost his presence of mind. "Hold your infernal hat on with your hand, man," he hissed, and did the same. We backed away from each other gingerly, came asunder, and there was no irretrievable disaster; but the troops (who ought all to have been looking straight to their front) had apparently been watching our performance with eager interest, because there was a fatuous grin on the face of every one of them, officers and all. The colonel of the Rifle Brigade said to me afterwards that he trusted the staff did not mean to make a hobby of these knock-about-turns on parade, because if they did it would undermine the discipline of his battalion.

After dinner the Emperor summoned me into his room and we had a long conversation. He spoke English perfectly, almost without trace of foreign accent, and was most cordial, being evidently pleased at the possibility of a closer understanding being arrived at between his General Staff and ours. He expressed the hope that I would speak quite openly to General Alexeieff at the conference which we were to have on the following day. I sat next to him at dinner that next day after the conference and he was most anxious to hear my report of it, having previously seen General Alexeieff and heard what he had to say. The Emperor had the gift of putting one completely at one's ease on such occasions, and, being an admirable conversationalist, interested in everything and ready to talk on any subject, it was a pleasure to be with him. He spoke most affectionately of our Royal Family—His Majesty the King had been pleased to entrust me with a private letter to him—and, referring to the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert, he remarked what a fine thing it was that they were old enough to take their share in the Great War, whereas his boy was too young. The little Tsarevitch had been staying at the Stavka shortly before, and the foreign officers agreed that he was a bright, intelligent, mischievous youngster; but the Emperor told me the boy was momentarily in disgrace. It appeared that they had on a recent occasion been going to some big parade at the front. At these ceremonials the Emperor, or whoever is carrying out the inspection, salutes the troops on reaching the ground by calling out "Good day, brothers"; but the Tsarevitch had managed to get off before the flag fell and, slipping on in front, had appeared first and called out, "Good day, brothers," to which the troops had lustily responded. It had upset the whole business. "The young monkey!" said the Emperor.

He expressed the utmost detestation of the Germans in consequence of their shameless conduct in Belgium and France, and he referred in indignant terms to their treatment of Russian prisoners. If I inquired of the Austro-Hungarian captives, of whom a number were employed on road-mending and similar useful labours in Mohileff, I would find, he said, that they were perfectly contented and were as well looked after in respect to accommodation and to food as were his own troops. Of Lord Kitchener and his work he spoke with admiration, and he asked me many questions about the New Armies, their equipment, their training, their numbers and so on. He talked with wonder of what our great War Minister had accomplished in the direction of transforming the United Kingdom into a first-class military Power in less than a year. In this respect he, however, merely reflected the opinion held in military circles right throughout Russia; one heard on all hands eulogy of the miracles that had been accomplished in this direction. His Imperial Majesty was also most appreciative of what our War Office was doing towards assisting the Russians in the all-important matter of war material, and he asked me to convey his thanks to all concerned for their loyalty and good offices.

General Alexeieff had likewise pronounced himself most cordially with regard to Lord Kitchener, his achievements and his aid to Russia, at the conference which Hanbury-Williams and I had had with him that afternoon. The general was not a scion of the aristocracy, as were so many of the superior officers in the Emperor Nicholas's hosts; he could not talk French although he evidently could follow what was said in that language. He said he did not know German, so we had to work through an interpreter, an officer of the General Staff, employing French. Alexeieff was very pleasant to deal with, as he expressed himself freely, straightforwardly and even bluntly with regard to the various points that we touched upon. Our meeting was taking place late in January 1916, and at a moment when active operations on both the Western and the Eastern Front were virtually at a standstill; but he was anxious to know when we should be in a position to assume the offensive on a great scale, and he seemed disappointed when I said that, merely expressing my own personal opinion, I doubted whether we should be ready to do much before the summer, as so many of our New Army divisions were short of training and as we were still in arrear to some extent in the matter of munitions. As a matter of fact, the great German offensive against Verdun was rather to settle this question for us; for it kept the French on the defensive and General Joffre was not obliged to call upon Sir D. Haig for aid, which allowed our troops just that comparative leisure (apart from holding the line) that enabled them to prepare for the Battle of the Somme.

Mohileff was reputed to be about the most Jewish township in Russia, and, judging by the appearance of the inhabitants, that reputation was not undeserved. One had heard a lot about pogroms in the past, but they would not appear to be of the really thoroughgoing sort. It is an unattractive spot in the winter-time in spite of its effective position, emplaced on a plateau with the Dneiper winding round two sides of it in a deep trough. Hanbury-Williams was a great walker, always anxious for exercise, and each afternoon we wandered out somewhere in the snow for a constitutional; the Emperor used to do the same, but he always motored a good way out into the country before starting on his tramp. The only exercise that the other foreign officers ever seemed to take consisted in motoring backwards and forwards between the hotel and the Imperial headquarters for meals. It is wonderful how any of them survived.

The last forenoon that we spent there, a special service took place in the principal church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's birthday; and the foreign missions received a hint to go, it being understood that the Emperor proposed to be present in person. This, however, proved to be a false alarm. The service began at 10 A.M., and we went at 11.30 A.M. and stayed till noon; it was still going on at that time, and we understood that they were only in the middle of it. Even half an hour of this was something of an ordeal, seeing that the church was overheated (as Russian interiors always are), that we had our furs on, and that we had to choose between standing or else kneeling down on the stone floor. Services of the Orthodox Church are not unimpressive even when one cannot follow them; the Chief Priest at Mohileff had a real organ voice and made the very most of it; he was almost deafening indeed at times. The prayers appeared to be devoted entirely to the welfare of the Imperial family; at all events the names of the Emperor, of the Empress, of the Empress Marie, of the Tsarevitch and of the Grand Duchess herself were thundered out every minute or two—they were the only words that I could understand Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two years' time the winsome princess—her photograph was to be seen everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially popular—whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been foully done to death by miscreants in some remote eastern spot of Russia.

We left for Petrograd in the evening, and shortly after the train got under way a message came to hand to say that the Archbishop of Petrograd was on board and hoped that I would pay him a visit in his compartment. At the first hint of this, Wigram, being a man of resource, went to sleep in self-protection; so only Zamoyski and I proceeded to His Grace's lair. It turned out that the Archbishop could not speak French, so that conversation had to be carried on through Zamoyski. Our host, as is usual, sent for tea, and we spent about half an hour talking about the war, the Emperor, Lord Kitchener and other matters. His Grace, however, intimated that he was particularly interested in the possibility of a union being effected between the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches, and he expressed himself as most anxious to have my opinion on the subject. Now this was not a matter that I should have felt myself especially competent to debate at a moment's notice even in English; but, seeing that the discussion was being conducted in French, with a Pole as intermediary who happened to be a Roman Catholic, the perplexities of the situation were appreciably aggravated. A safe line to take, however, was to declare that a union such as was proposed would be all to the good, and the Archbishop pronounced himself as much gratified to find that I was entirely in accord with him. He said something to his secretary, who disappeared and turned up again presently with a beautiful little gold pectoral cross and chain which His Grace presented me with, Zamoyski receiving a smaller replica. When we got back to our own carriage and the Staff Officer saw what we had carried off, he intimated his intention of keeping awake in future when high dignitaries of the Church were about.