The author in Malaya, 1910
The author
The Charnock brothers and the author in the Morozovsti football team, Gold Medal winners in 1912
Pages from the author’s passport
Lord Milner
Arthur Henderson
Sir George Buchanan, British Ambassador in Moscow
S.D. Sazonoff Tsarist Foreign Minister
Prince George Lvoff
Alexander Kerensky
Boris Savinkoff
Lenin
Trotsky
N. I. Bucharin
Karl Radek
Felix Derjinsky
Leaders of the October Revolution: Trotsky, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Spiridonova, Kollontai, Raskolnikoff, Kameneff, Zinovieff
G. V. Chicherin and Maxim Litvinoff
Moura Budberg
Sidney Reiliy
Captain Cromie
After I had kicked my heels in the Chancery for twenty minutes, Havery came in and announced that the Ambassador was free. As I entered the long study, in which afterwards I was to have so many interviews, a frail-looking man with a tired, sad expression in his eyes came forward to meet me. His monocle, his finely-chiselled features, and his beautiful silver-grey hair gave him something of the appearance of a stage-diplomat. But there was nothing artificial about his manner, or, indeed, about the man himself—only a great charm and a wonderful power of inspiring loyalty, to which I yielded at once.
His whole manner was so gentle that my nervousness left me instantaneously, and for an hour I talked to him, telling him my fears and my anxieties about the situation, the shortage of munitions, the subterranean propaganda against the war, the growing discontent of every class of the population with the Government, the murmurs against the throne itself. He showed some surprise. “I thought the atmosphere in Moscow was much healthier than in St. Petersburg,” he said rather sadly. Indeed, it was, but I guessed that up to this point he had rated Moscow patriotism too highly. I had shaken a faith that perhaps was never very strong.
I was asked to luncheon and was introduced to Lady Georgina, the Ambassador’s wife. She was a woman of strong likes and dislikes, which she made little attempt to conceal, and for some months she never failed to greet me, whenever I came to St. Petersburg, with the remark: “Here comes the pessimistic Mr. Lockh art.” In every other respect, however, she showed me nothing but kindness, and, although I never quite overcame my original awe, I counted myself among the fortunates who enjoyed her favour. To Sir George himself she was everything that a wife should be, watching over his health with tireless zeal, running his house like clockwork and never failing in that passion for punctuality which in the Ambassador amounted almost to a mania. She was a big woman, and her heart was in proportion to her bulk.
This is no place in which to give an account of Sir George Buchanan’s work in Russia, but I should like to pay my tribute to the man himself. Every British official, who was in Russia during the war years, has had inevitably to face the criticism which failure brings in its train. And in British eyes the collapse of Russia in 1917 was the greatest of all failures. The tendency, therefore, to seek scapegoats among their own countrymen is strong. Sir George Buchanan’s name has not escaped the calumniators either in England or in Russia. I have heard ministers of the Crown declare that with a stronger British Ambassador the revolution might have been avoided. There are Russians, who with the basest ingratitude have accused Sir George Buchanan of having instigated the revolution. Both criticisms can be dismissed as wholly ridiculous. Indeed, the Russian accusation is a particularly cruel and baseless slander, which, to the shame of London society, has been repeated without contradiction in London drawing-rooms by Russians who have enjoyed British hospitality in high places. It is a form of vilification which no personal sufferings can justify or ever excuse. Sir George Buchanan was a man whose every instinct was opposed to revolution. Until the revolution came he always refused to meet and, actually, never did meet any of the men, who were responsible for the overthrow of Tsardom, nor did he either personally or through his subordinates give any encouragement to their ambitions. Naturally he would have been lacking in perspicacity, if he had failed to foresee the catastrophe that was approaching, and in his duty if he had been afraid to warn the Russian autocracy of the dangers which he saw threatening it. This difficult task he undertook in a memorable conversation with the Emperor. I saw him just before he went to see the Tsar. He informed me that if the Emperor received him sitting down all would be well. The Tsar received him standing.
The Whitehall assertion that a stronger ambassador might have averted the final catastrophe is based on a fundamental ignorance of the traditions of the Russian autocracy. Contempt for foreigners is a characteristic of the English race, but in this respect the attitude of the most insular John Bull is tolerance itself compared with the arrogant indifference of St. Petersburg society to the stranger within its gates. With no long lineage and less real civilisation than one might expect from the luxury of its life, the Russian aristocracy lived in a world of its own. A foreign ambassador was not accepted merely because he was an ambassador. If he was liked for his own social qualities he was invited everywhere. If not, he was ignored. It was not actual snobbishness. The Russian aristocracy was as hospitable as the other sections of the Russian population. But it made its own selection of the recipients of its hospitality, and frequently its choice was startling in its indiscrimination. During the war years a junior lieutenant in the British Military Censor’s office probably went to more parties in high places than all the members of the Embassy put together.
To the aristocracy the complete absolutism of the Tsar was something more than a religion. It was the rock on which its own sheltered existence was built. In its eyes the Emperor was the only real monarch in the world, and for its own sake it was always ready to regard any attempt by foreign diplomatists to influence him as an encroachment on the Imperial authority. The most efficient members of the bureaucracy were Baltic barons—a class hidebound even to-day in reaction. From the first they saw in the war a danger to the autocracy, and England as the home of constitutional monarchy they regarded with deep suspicion. Nor, for all his weakness, was the Emperor himself easily accessible or in any way, except the most tactful, amenable to foreign influence. He would have resented as much as his advisers any attempt by an English diplomatist to speak plainly to him.
Sir George Buchanan’s task was therefore abnormally difficult. He had to overcome the political prejudice against England which still remained from past differences of policy. He had to take into consideration the peculiar susceptibilities of the ruling class. To suggest that because he walked warily he was a weak man is to underrate his whole character. He had been selected for the St. Petersburg Embassy because of the excellent work he had done at Sofia, and I doubt if there was anyone in the British diplomatic service who understood the Slav character better. If not a man of outstanding intellect (he had the Scot’s mistrust of brilliance), he had remarkable powers of intuition and an abundant supply of common-sense. To Russian cleverness he opposed complete honesty and sincerity tempered with caution. He won the full confidence of Sazonoff, the most reliable of the Tsarist ministers, and by the vast bulk of the Russian population he was regarded as a man whose heart was in an Allied victory as distinct from a purely English victory, and who would countenance no intrigues at the expense of Russia. I say intentionally “the bulk of the Russian population,” for it is a mistake to imagine that Sir George Buchanan was an unpopular figure in Russian society. Except in pro-German circles his admirers among the aristocracy were numerous. It was only after the revolution that the nobility began to murmur against him, seeking in him a scapegoat for their own failure and a cloak for their own loose talk against the Emperor. More than all the resolutions of the Zemstvos and the Cities Unions, more than all the agitation of the Socialists, it was the openly expressed criticism by Grand Dukes and highly placed aristocrats which sapped the authority
of the Imperial throne. When the history of Anglo-Russian relations during these fateful years is seen in perspective, future generations will recognise how great was the work accomplished by Sir George Buchanan in helping to keep Russia in the war for as long as she remained. Certainly, I can imagine no greater calamity to the English fortunes than an English Ambassador in St. Petersburg who had tried to play the little Napoleon of Whitehall before the Emperor.
As a chief Sir George Buchanan was delightful—a man in whom all thought of self was submerged in the highest conception of duty. He was worshipped by his staff, and, when he took his daily walk to the Russian Foreign Office, his hat cocked on one side, his tall, lean figure slightly drooping under his many cares, every Englishman felt that here as much as the diplomatic precincts of the Embassy itself was a piece of the soil of England.
If there was one aspect of his character, on which I should lay stress, it was his magnificent courage both physical and moral. Physically, he did not know the meaning of the word “fear.” Morally, he triumphed completely over what I think was a natural inclination to the line of least resistance and faced without a moment’s hesitation situations and interviews which were repugnant to him.
To me he was unfailingly kind. Through the insignificance of my own position I was able to see people, whom neither he nor other members of his staff could see. I was thus enabled to supply him with information which, provided it was correct, was of some value to him. Many an ambassador would have taken this information as a matter of course and incorporated what he required in his own despatches. This was not Sir George’s way. He not only gave me every encouragement both by letter and in personal discussion, but he also sent my reports home to the Foreign Office—frequently with a covering despatch of approval. As a result, I was given full credit for my work in London and on several occasions received a personal letter of commendation from Sir Edward Grey. My head went a little higher in the air. I fought more fiercely with the Chief Clerk’s department for increased office and personal allowances. But to Sir George I was full of gratitude and of that respectful submission which gratitude should always bring with it. Later, I was to forfeit his goodwill by the anti-intervention attitude I adopted after the Bolshevik revolution. But of all the men I have worked under in my career he was, with the single exception of Lord Milner, the one who inspired in me the greatest affection and hero-worship, and I am glad that, before he died, I was able to make my peace with him.
CHAPTER FOUR
I RETURNED to Moscow well pleased with my reception and greatly encouraged by the Ambassador’s request that I was to keep in close touch with him and to come to St. Petersburg whenever there was anything important to discuss. Although I said nothing about my visit, the redoubtable Alexander was not so silent, and very soon I found that both with the officials and with the politicians my prestige was considerably enhanced. I expect that on Alexander’s lips the story lost nothing in the telling and that in the Governor-General’s office and in the headquarters of the Zemstvos and Cities Unions it was broadcast that His Excellency the Acting British Consul-General (Alexander always omitted the Acting) was now going regularly to St. Petersburg to consult if not actually to advise His Super-Excellency (in Russia ambassadors were Super-Excellencies) the British Ambassador.
During that summer of 1915 I consolidated my friendship with Michael Chelnokoff, the Moscow Mayor and a former vice-president of the Imperial Duma. Chelnokoff, a splendid type of Moscow merchant, grey-bearded, patriarchal, broad-shouldered and, in spite of a game leg, stout-hearted beyond most of his compatriots, was a grand fellow. Although he was twenty years older than myself, we became the closest friends, and through him not only did I come to know intimately all the Moscow political leaders like Prince Lvoff, Vasily Maklakoff, Manuiloff, Kokoshkin, and many others, but I also received copies of the numerous secret resolutions which were passed by such bodies as the Moscow Municipality, the Zemstvo Union, of which Prince Lvoff was head, and the Cities Union of which Chelnokoff himself was the moving spirit. Sometimes I was even able to obtain in Moscow through the same source copies of secret resolutions passed by the Cadet Party in St. Petersburg or of such documents as Rodzianko’s letter to the Prime Minister and to send them to our Embassy in St. Petersburg before anyone else had brought them to its notice. These minor successes naturally added to my reputation as a “news-getter.” Through the Zemstvos and Cities Unions, too, I was of some service to the War Office. The Zemstvos and the Cities Unions, though stupidly hampered by the Government, were the nearest Russian equivalent to our Ministry of Munitions, and from Lvoff and Chelnokoff I received regularly the latest figures regarding the output of every kind of war material.
During the two and a half months of Bayley’s absence I had entrenched myself solidly in Moscow. I had received the thanks of the Foreign Secretary. I was persona grata with the war-leaders in Moscow. The Ambassador had sent for me. At the end of July Bayley would return. He would, I felt, be pleased and I should have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my job well. There seemed nothing more to which I could look forward.
Then, however, came a new crisis. Things had gone from bad to worse on the Russian front. The retreat in Galicia and in the Carpathians did not affect Moscow so much except in the increase of wounded, but the advance on Warsaw was different. For some weeks Polish refugees had been pouring into Moscow. Now on July 19th came a telegram from Grove informing me that Warsaw was being evacuated and that he and the remaining members of the British colony were leaving for Moscow immediately. Three days later he arrived, and on the same day came a telegram from Bayley, informing me that he had been appointed Consul-General in New York and was returning to Moscow at once to pack up. I had no ill-will against the Groves. If I had any personal ambitions, I was unconscious of them. But I must confess that this double-barrelled shock filled me with consternation. If Bayley went to New York, Grove obviously would take his place in Moscow, and, quite candidly, after Bayley I did not relish a return to the Grove régime.
On July 30th Bayley arrived, carrying a surprise-packet in his pocket. All my apprehensions were ended. Grove was to be transferred to Helsingfors. I was to be left in charge of the Moscow Consulate-General. Bayley informed me that, on his appointment to New York, the Foreign Office had promptly appointed a new Consul-General to Moscow. Sir George Buchanan, however, had protested, saying that I had done invaluable work and that it would be a mistake to hamper my activities by imposing on me a chief who could not know the situation as well as I did. Bayley told me with genuine joy that the Foreign Office was very pleased with me. I tried to look unconcerned. Although I had done nothing to push my own claims, I was full of remorse about the Groves, who I knew would be bitterly disappointed. But deep down in my heart there was a quiet exultation: “Not yet twenty-eight and in charge on your own merits of one of the most important Consulates-General in the war.” A certain amount of self-conceit is good in the young. Except in the case of the ambitious and the brigands it soon gets rubbed off.
For a week I waited hand and foot on Bayley, helping him to clear up, arranging farewell dinners for him, and taking over from him at the Consulate-General. The British Club gave him a splendid send-off, and we had our own formal parting at the Consulate-General, when everybody gave Bayley a gift and was given one in return. I received a massive cigarette case which I have to this day. Alexander wound up a rather trying performance with a speech which undid the last floodgates of even Bayley’s emotions. (My lady secretaries were both crying, and only old Fritz, the Lett clerk, remained impassive.) In lyrical language he referred to Bayley and myself as shining examples to all Russians of what an official ought to be and declared his firm intention that, if I were to leave Moscow, he would leave with me. The bathos of Alexander’s oratory just put the necessary brake on my own tear-glands. Yet I was full of sadness over Bayley’s departure. He had been more like a father to me than a chief. He had been kindness itself to me during my wife’s illness. That
he was devoted to me and genuinely interested in my advancement, though pleasing to my vanity, did not deter me from listening to the excellent advice which he gave me from the store of his worldly knowledge. I was losing not only a friend but an ally—in a very real sense my only ally in a city of nearly two million inhabitants. Alas! I never saw him again. His advice, which consisted mainly in an exhortation to observe the eleventh commandment so long as I remained an official, fell on stony ground.
Memoirs of a British Agent Page 13
