Memoirs of a British Agent

by R. H. Bruce Lockhart

  I come away with a hopefulness which overrides my better judgment. Here was a Russia which I had never known—a Russia inspired by a patriotism, which seemed to have its roots deep down in the soil. It was, too, a sober Russia. The sale of vodka had been stopped, and an emotional religious fervour took the place of the squalid intoxication which in previous wars had characterised the departure of Russian soldiers.

  Among the bourgeoisie there was the same enthusiasm. The wives of the rich merchants vied with each other in spending money on hospitals. There were gala performances at the State theatres in aid of the Red Cross. There was an orgy of national anthems. Every night at the opera and the ballet the Imperial orchestra played the national hymns of Russia, England, France and Belgium, while the audience stood at attention in a fervour of exalted patriotism. Later, especially when the number of Allied hymns assumed the dimensions of a cricket score, the fervour evaporated, and the heavy-paunched Muscovites groaned audibly at an ordeal which lasted over half an hour. But in those early weeks of 1914 Russian patriotism had much on which to feed itself. The beginning of the war, indeed, was all Russia, and, as the news of each Russian advance was made public, Moscow gave itself up to a full-throated rejoicing. If there were pessimists at that moment, their voice was not raised in the market-place. Revolution was not even a distant probability, although from the first day of the war every liberal-minded Russian hoped that victory would bring constitutional reforms in its train.

  In St. Petersburg, it is true, these early Russian triumphs invoked covert sneers at the failure of the Franco-British effort. In drawing-rooms one heard whispers about English faint-heartedness, and pro-Germans spread slimy rumours about England’s determination to fight until the last drop of Russian blood. In Moscow, however, the tongues of the slanderers were silent, and enthusiasm for the Russian victories was tempered by a generous sympathy for the difficulties of France and England.

  Indeed, as far as Russia was concerned, the heart of the alliance was in Moscow. If ever Bayley or I appeared in public, we received an ovation. At the “Bat” Nikita Baleieff would come before the curtain, point us out, and say: “To-night we have with us the representatives of our ally, England.” The band would then play “God Save the King,” and the whole audience stood up and cheered. We pretended to be bored by these unaccustomed attentions, vowed to each other that we would avoid them in future, and returned as frequently as discretion permitted. There is no limit to the vanity of the very Great, and Bayley and I were only two very ordinary mortals.

  On September 10th we attended in full uniform a gala performance at the theatre in honour of the capture of Lemberg by the Russians. I went with sadness in my heart. The German armies were on the Marne, and the fate of Paris hung in the balance. My brothers were in France, and here was I taking part in the celebrations of a Russian victory. Inside the theatre the uniforms of the officers made a brilliant setting to the jewels and costly dresses of the women. The play was a Russian adaptation of Rostand’s “L’Aiglon,” and Bayley and I shared a box near the stage and directly opposite the box occupied by the French Consul-General. During the first act the Frenchman was called away. He remained absent for some time. When he came back, his manner was agitated. Then the curtain fell, but the lights did not go up. In an instant the atmosphere became electrical. “The Russians had won another victory. They had captured 100,000 prisoners. They had taken Przemysl.” In the darkness rumour ran riot. Then the footlights went up again; the orchestra filed into their places, and a young girl of eighteen, the daughter of the President of the French Chamber of Commerce, came on to the stage. With her white dress, her face free of all make-up, and her glorious golden hair, she looked like the Angel Gabriel. In her trembling hands she held a slip of paper.

  The audience hushed itself in an expectant silence. Then, quivering with emotion and nervousness, the girl began to read: “The following official telegram has just been received from French headquarters.” She stopped as if her tongue were chained. The tears streamed down her face.

  Then, in a shrill crescendo, she read the message: “Je suis heureux de vous annoncer victoire sur tout le front.—Joffre.”

  The lights blazed up. The girl ran wildly off the stage, and in a storm of cheering the orchestra struck up the Marseillaise. Bearded men kissed each other. Women smiled and wept at the same time. Then, as the orchestra broke into the chorus, a miracle happened. From the gallery above came the tramp of marching feet, and four hundred French reservists, singing in a glorious unison, took up the refrain. They were leaving for France the next day, and they sang the Marseillaise with all the passionate ardour of their Latin temperament. It was epic. It was the last occasion on which Russia was to feel supremely confident about the outcome of the war.

  The capture of Lemberg had softened the grim defeat of Tannenberg. But the Tannenbergs were to be repeated, and, although the Russians were to hold their own against the Austrians almost to the end, it was already clear that they were no match for the Germans. Tannenberg, in fact, was the prelude to the Russian revolution. It was a message of hope to Lenin. It gave a handle to the hidden army of agitators in the factories and in the villages and, by destroying the pick of the Russian officers, it undermined the war-spirit of a people who by nature and by the exigencies of the Russian climate have always been incapable of any sustained effort.

  Certainly, the transition from optimism to pessimism was not accomplished in one stage and, if on the Russian front there never was the same immobility as in France, there were long periods of monotonous inactivity.

  The decline in morale was, in fact, gradual, and, as it became clear that the war was to be a long one, life stabilised itself. In Moscow, which was far removed from the front, the spirit of the bourgeoisie was by no means discouraging. There was, it is true, little attempt to economise or to make sacrifices. There was no sentiment of public opinion against shirkers, and “embusqués” could find security in a Red Cross organisation without fear of being handed a white feather. Theatres and places of amusement flourished as in peace time, and, although the proletariat and the peasantry were deprived of their alcohol, no such restrictions were imposed on the well-to-do classes. To replenish their private stock of wine they required a permit, but, as the cost of living rose and since Russian officials were badly paid, permits were easily obtainable. In restaurants the only difference was that one drank one’s alcohol from a teapot instead of from a bottle. As control became more lax, even the pretence of the teapot disappeared.

  On the other hand, an immense and extremely valuable work was done by the so-called public organisations, represented by the Union of Cities and by the Union of Zemstvos, in providing the army with a whole network of hospitals and factories. Without this aid, the Russian military machine would have broken down far sooner than it did. Yet, instead of stimulating this patriotic effort and encouraging the public organisations in every way it could, the Russian Government did its best to hamper and curtail its activities. It may be said that the public organisations were politically ambitious, that they were honey-combed with Liberalism and therefore a menace to the autocracy. Admittedly, both the Cities Union and the Zemstvos Unions were controlled by Liberals, who had a deep suspicion of St. Petersburg. Admittedly, too, their headquarters were in Moscow, and Moscow was never popular with the Emperor. But, in the beginning at any rate, their enthusiasm for the war was single-minded, and the political aspirations, which came later, were the direct result of a policy of perpetual pin-pricks. It was the tragedy of Russia that the Tsar, dominated by a woman who was obsessed with the one ambition to hand down the autocracy unimpaired to her son, never took the public organisations into his confidence. The fact that gradually Moscow became more absorbed in the internal political struggle than in the war itself was mainly the result of the Tsar’s fatal obtuseness. And, although his loyalty to his Allies remained unshaken to the last, it was his failure to harness the loyalty of his own people which eventually cost him his thro
ne.

  For me personally that first winter of 1914–1915 was a period of sadness relieved only by incessant hard work. My wife had made a slow recovery from her illness. Her nerves were shattered, and she was forced to enter a Russian sanatorium—an experience which did her little good and which, had I known more about Russian sanatoria, I should never have allowed her to undergo. We gave up our flat, and in the period of looking for a new one took over a furnished flat from some English friends who had gone to England. My days and frequently my nights were entirely absorbed by consular work, which the war had more than trebled. In particular, the blockade and the manifold regulations controlling imports and ex-ports involved an immense amount of ciphering, most of which I had to do single-handed. Moscow, too, had become an all-important political centre, and, as Bayley relied almost entirely on me for his political intelligence, my time was fully occupied. Another difficulty in my own case was the want of money. My wife’s confinement had been expensive. With the new importance of our position our social obligations had increased. The business community—and Moscow was the chief commercial city of Russia—was prospering exceedingly from the lucrative war contracts, which were being handed out lavishly, and with the increased cost of living which this prosperity brought in its train we were left at a sore disadvantage both towards the Russians and towards our own English colony. Moreover, the war had put an automatic end to my earnings from journalism. I was not permitted to write about the war. The English newspapers were interested in nothing else.

  A pleasant relief to the monotony of our existence at this time was the visit of Hugh Walpole, who arrived in Moscow shortly after the outbreak of the war, and who remained with us for some months. He was a frequent visitor to our flat, and his cheery optimism was a godsend to my wife. At that time he had written several books, including “Fortitude,” and already had his feet well planted on the ladder of success. He was, however, entirely unspoilt, could still blush from an over-whelming self-consciousness, and impressed me more as a great, clumsy schoolboy, bubbling over with kindness and enthusiasm, than as a dignified author, whose views were to be accepted with awe and respect. With the exception of Bayley we took him to our hearts, and he repaid our friendship with a sympathy and kindness which have never failed. With Bayley he was less successful. Bayley, who was then a sick man, was a cynic and an autocrat. He mistrusted enthusiasts. Still more did he dislike contradiction. Hugh, whose enthusiasm for everything Russian knew no bounds, liked argument and had views of his own. He irritated Bayley, and I fancy the irritation was mutual.

  When Hugh left us, he went to the front as a Red Cross orderly. Later, he became head of the British propaganda bureau in St. Petersburg. From the first he had made up his mind to make the best of Russia. Certainly, Russia got the best out of him. His adventure at the front produced “The Dark Forest.” His experiences in St. Petersburg inspired “The Secret City.”

  My diary shows that at this period I went out little and that such spare time as I had was spent in reading. In the last fortnight of January, 1915, I read and finished “War and Peace” in Russian. Occasionally I went with Walpole to the ballet and to the circus. It was with Hugh, too, that I first met Gorky—at Nikita Baleieff’s “Bat.” In those days the “Bat” was the favourite haunt of literary and artistic Moscow. Its performance did not begin until after the theatres had ended and many actors and actresses went there to sup as much as to see the performance. The “Bat,” in fact, started as a kind of club of the Moscow Art Theatre, Baleieff himself having been a member of the company and failed to make good in that severe school. To-day, his troupe is as well-known in Paris, London and New York as ever it was in Russia, but to my mind the performances have lost much of the delicious intimacy of those early Moscow days, when there was no gulf between player and audience. Baleieff, incidentally, is an Armenian and belongs to what was once a rich family.

  Gorky made a deep impression on me as much by his modesty as by his talent. His eyes are extraordinarily expressive, and in them one can read at once that sympathy with human suffering which is the dominating influence on his character and which in the end was to drive him, after a long period of opposition, into the arms of the Bolsheviks. To-day, Gorky writes more bitterly against the bourgeoisie and against the moderate Socialists than the most violent “Chekist” in Moscow, but in spite of these literary outbursts I refuse to believe that he has lost that fundamental kindness which in the past he never failed to show to any case which deserved his pity. No one who has ever seen Gorky with children, with animals, and with young authors, will ever credit him with the power to inflict harm or suffering on any of his fellow-creatures.

  It was at the “Bat,” too, that I first met Chaliapin. An hour before I had seen him at the opera in “Boris,” a part in which he is and looks every inch a king with the manners of a great aristocrat and with hands which seemed to belong to some ancient Doge of Venice. The whole thing was a trick—a marvellous example of that dramatic art which, as Stanislavsky always used to say, could have made him the greatest actor in the world, had he chosen to abandon his singing for the drama. Off the stage the man was still a peasant, with a peasant’s appetite and the huge, strong hands of a son of the soil. In those days Gorky used to tell a good story of Chaliapin. In their youth the two men were tramping the Volga district in search of work. At Kazan a travelling impresario was looking for local talent to supplement his chorus. He wanted a tenor and a bass. Two poorly clad applicants entered his ramshackle office and were given an audition. The impresario took the tenor and rejected the bass. The tenor was Gorky. The bass was Chaliapin.

  Moscow, always much more anti-German than St. Petersburg, was a perfect cesspool of rumours of pro-German intrigues in high places. One entry in my diary in February, 1915, runs as follows: “To-day an officer telephoned to ask when England was going to rid Russia of ‘the German woman’.” This, of course, was a reference to the Empress, and my own comment was: “This is the third time that this kind of thing has happened this week.” It was to happen still more frequently as the months passed. To this period, too, belongs the most popular Moscow story of the war. The Tsarevitch is seen crying in the corridor of the Winter Palace. A general, who is leaving the Palace after an audience, stops and pats the boy’s head.

  “What is wrong, my little man?”

  The Tsarevitch replies, half-smiling, half-crying:

  “When the Russians are beaten, papa cries. When the Germans are beaten, mama cries. When am I to cry?”

  Stories of this kind were repeated all over the country and did immense harm both among the industrial proletariat and the peasantry. Moscow, in fact, lived on stories and rumours, and, if the spy-hunting mania was never as bad as in England and in France, there was considerable persecution both of the Jews and of the Russians of German extraction. Not all the stories, however, were concerned with the shortcomings of the autocracy. The German Kaiser received a considerable share of the wit and sarcasm of the Muscovite humorists. Many of them are too coarse for print. Others have been told before. One, however, is, I think, new to English readers. In the winter of 1915 the Kaiser visited Lodz and with a view to placating the local population made a speech. His audience was, of course, mainly Jewish. As they listened to him, they heard him refer, first, to the Almighty and the All-Highest, then to God and himself, and finally to himself and God. When the speech was ended, the leading Jews withdrew into a corner to discuss the situation.

  “This man will do for us,” said the Chief Rabbi. “He’s the first Christian I’ve met who denies the Holy Trinity.”

  How strange and unreal these stories sound to-day. Then, however, they were the stock-in-trade of every gossip and the staple entertainment of every salon.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I HAVE SAID that Bayley was a sick man. Lack of exercise—always the curse of the Moscow winter—and overwork had undermined his health, and in April, 1915, he made up his mind to return to England and to undergo the operation whi
ch for some time he had been told was necessary. With characteristic kindness he insisted on my taking a week’s leave before his departure. It was the last real holiday I was ever to have in Russia and I enjoyed every minute of it. Leaving Moscow still bound in the grip of winter, I went to Kieff, the cradle of Russian history and the Holy City of the Orthodox Church. When I woke up after my night in the train, I looked out on green fields and delicious white cottages glistening in the warm sunshine. My travelling companion, an officer, who was returning to the front, greeted me with a smile. “You will like Kieff. You will find a better atmosphere here than in Moscow, let alone St. Petersburg.” In the exuberance of my spirits I was prepared to believe anything. Actually, he spoke the plain truth. Although full of wounded, Kieff had far more war-spirit than Moscow. Indeed, right up to the revolution, the nearer one came to the front, the more optimistic was the prevailing sentiment. All the best of Russia (with, admittedly, some of the worst elements) was in the trenches. It was the rear and not the front, which let the country down.

  As we drew near to Kieff, we stopped for some considerable time at a wayside station. A train, carrying Austrian prisoners, was stranded in a siding. The prisoners, apparently unguarded, had slipped out of their cattle trucks and were sprawling about on some wood-piles, enjoying the first warmth of the Southern sun before continuing their long “trek” to Siberia. Poor devils. They looked as underfed as they were wretchedly clad. In Moscow the news of the capture of so many thousands of prisoners had always filled me with a fierce exultation. Here, face to face with the unfortunates themselves, I had only one thought. Snodgrass, the American Consul-General, who was in charge of German interests in Russia, had given me a graphic account of the terrible conditions of the Russian orison-camps, and with a deep pity in my heart I wondered low many of these poor fellows, some, doubtless, happy to be captured and ignorant of the fate that lay ahead of them, would ever see their homes again. Then, as I stood at the open window looking at them much as a visitor studies a new animal in the Zoo, one of the prisoners began to sing the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana. He was a Croat, and the spring had warmed his heart, bringing him memories of his Dalmatian home. He was sublimely unconscious of our train-load of Russians. He was singing to please himself, and he sang as though his heart would burst. I do not know who he was. Probably he was a tenor from the Zagreb opera. But the effect of his voice in that tiny station with its background of green fields and orchards was magical. His fellow-prisoners stopped their pebble-throwing. The Russians in our train rose from their seats and stood in silent admiration at the windows. Then, when he had finished, Austrians and Russians combined in one spontaneous outburst of applause, while from the carriages a hail of cigarettes, apples and sweetmeats descended on the prisoners. The singer bowed gravely and turned his head away. Then the whistle went, and we passed on our way.