The staff of the German Embassy was composed almost entirely of Russian experts. Mirbach himself had been Counsellor of the German Embassy in St. Petersburg before the war. Riezler, his chief assistant, had had a long and varied experience of Russian politics. Hausschild, the first secretary, was an old friend of mine. He had come to Moscow as Vice-Consul at the same time as myself. He was a man of sterling character. Until the outbreak of war he had always been pro-English.
Although they possessed so wide a knowledge of Russian affairs, I do not believe that the Germans were more successful in their dealings with the Bolsheviks than we were. Certainly, they made as many mistakes, and at no time was their position secure or happy. We went everywhere unarmed and unattended. The Germans never moved out of their quarters without a guard.
Their presence in Moscow, however, was a considerable embarrassment to us, and the Bolsheviks must have found a childish amusement in playing us off against each other. They did it very effectively. They herded us together in the same waiting-room at the Foreign Office. If they wished to annoy Mirbach they received me first. If the British Government had offended them in any way, they were suave to Mirbach and kept me waiting. If the Germans were too insistent in their demands, the Bolsheviks would threaten them with Allied intervention. When the Allies tried to force intervention on the Bolsheviks, they would draw an alarming picture of the dangers of a German advance on Moscow. As neither the Germans nor the Allies could make up their minds on a clear-cut policy towards Russia, Bolshevik diplomacy had all the advantages.
My meetings with the Germans at the Bolshevik Foreign Office caused me acute discomfort. Sometimes we were left together for nearly an hour, during which we turned our backs on each other and gazed out of the window or read the Izvestia. My most painful encounter was the first time I came face to face with Hausschild. He was alone in the waiting-room when I entered, and he came forward to greet me with a frank smile. I turned away as if I did not know him. It was an act which I have regretted ever since. Later, when I was arrested and in danger of my life, he put me to shame by associating himself with the diplomatic representatives of the neutral Powers in the demand for my release. Through the Swedish Chargé d’Affaires, he sent a friendly message to me when I was in prison. To-day, he is dead, and I have never been able to repay my debt of gratitude or to apologise for my action.
There was one other visitor, who, like Arthur Ransome, became a permanency. This was Moura. Since saying goodbye to her in St. Petersburg at the beginning of March, I had missed her more than I cared to admit. We had written to each other regularly, and her letters had become a necessary part of my daily life. In April she came to stay with us in Moscow. She arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, and I was engaged with interviews until ten minutes to one. I went downstairs to the living-room, where we had our meals. She was standing by a table, and the spring sun was shining on her hair. As I walked forward to meet her, I scarcely dared to trust my voice. Into my life something had entered which was stronger than any other tie, stronger than life itself. From then onwards she was never to leave us, until we were parted by the armed force of the Bolsheviks.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WITH THE ARRIVAL of the German Embassy in Moscow the prospects of a renewal of the war between Germany and Russia began to diminish. The great opportunity for an understanding between the Bolsheviks and the Allies had been in February and March, when the Soviet Government was still uncertain what the Germans would do. By the beginning of May, Lenin’s peace policy had made headway even among those Bolsheviks, who were most opposed to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Strangely enough, the Foreign Office, who in February and March had given me no encouragement, now began to show signs of approval. Thus I was urged to do my utmost to secure Bolshevik consent to an Allied military intervention in Russia.
The moment was not so favourable, but it had not entirely passed. There were still certain factors in our favour, of which the most important was the attitude of the German troops in the territory they had occupied. They had set up a bourgeois Russian Government in the Ukraine, whose first action was to restore the land to its former owners. This naturally provoked a peasant revolt which was suppressed with great cruelty. The Bolsheviks and Left-Social Revolutionaries, who came from the South, were furious and were doing everything they could to stimulate a partisan war against the Germans. The latter could take and hold the towns by their military strength. They never succeeded in controlling the countryside. Moreover, the military support, which the Germans had afforded to the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War, was another factor to our advantage. Germany seemed to be taking the side of reaction. It was therefore natural that the forces of the Left should turn to us for aid.
Trotsky, too, was still talking of war as though it were inevitable. When I asked him if he would accept Allied intervention, he replied that he had already asked the Allies to make a proposition. He wanted safeguards about non-interference in Russia’s internal affairs. I then said that, if the Allies would come to an agreement on this point, could we have a half-hour’s conference to draw up a working arrangement. His reply was characteristic: “When the Allies agree among themselves, it is not half an hour but a whole day that I shall give you.”
It is true that Lenin’s views were less satisfactory. He, too, thought that war was inevitable and was in favour of an arrangement with the Allies. But he was determined to fix his own date of inevitability. I saw him for the last time on May 7th. He informed me frankly that to him it appeared clear that sooner or later Russia would become a battle-field for the two opposing Imperialist groups and that he was determined, for the sake of Russia herself, to prevent this for as long a period as was possible.
Nevertheless, right up to the end of June, there was a reasonable prospect of arriving at a modus vivendi. Unfortunately, although both the British and American Governments made some attempt to play with the idea of Allied intervention with Bolshevik consent, no definite policy was ever formulated. And in Vologda there was M. Noulens, the French Ambassador, intent only on one aim: to have no dealings with the cut-throats, who had insulted him. On April 29th we had a meeting of the Allied representatives in my rooms. General Lavergne informed us that M. Noulens was in favour of intervention without Bolshevik consent and without asking for it. The General, who had been at Vologda, admitted that his Ambassador had been unable to advance a single military argument in favour of his proposal. Romei, Riggs and I again affirmed our adherence to a policy of co-operation with the Bolsheviks.
There were, too, minor frictions between the Bolsheviks and ourselves—frictions which played an important part in wrecking the working agreement we sought to achieve. Japanese intervention was one stumbling block. At one moment we would be reporting favourable progress with Trotsky. The next day we would be back to where we were before. The Japanese had landed troops at Vladivostok. Scowls from Trotsky. All privileges to the British stopped. Telegrams to London. And after days of delay the answer would come that the incident was to be regarded as purely local.
Prospects of an agreement were not enhanced by a well-intentioned speech of Mr. Balfour, who declared that the Japanese were coming to help the Russians. In a conversation with Ransome Lenin at once raised the question of “which Russians,” and in a shrewd analysis of the problem set out his reasons why Japanese intervention would benefit neither England nor Bolshevik Russia. He typed out his analysis and in his own handwriting added his attestation that it correctly represented his views. I reproduce the document in facsimile with an English translation on another page (1) as a specimen of Lenin’s handwriting and (2) as an illustration of the workings of his mind.
Another source of trouble was the Czech army which, formed of Czech prisoners, had been fighting for Russia up to the period of the Bolshevik revolution. The Czechs, who were a well-disciplined and fully-armed force, were under the control of French officers. My services, however, were requisitioned to secure their evacuation, presumably because of
the privileged position I enjoyed with the Bolshevik Government. The evacuation was no simple matter. Not unnaturally, the Germans protested violently against the presence, on what was now neutral Russian territory, of a large force, which was to be used against them. Nevertheless, I succeeded in securing Trotsky’s good-will, and but for the folly of the French I am convinced that the Czechs would have been safely evacuated without incident. My task was not made easier by the last-minute requests of the British Government to use my influence to persuade Trotsky to divert the Czechs to Archangel. This, too, at a time when General Poole was already in North Russia, advocating a policy of intervention, which was subsequently adopted and which never amounted to anything more than an armed intervention against Bolshevism.
Ultimately, the Czechs were the cause of our final breach with the Bolsheviks. How I wish to-day that President Mazaryk had remained in Russia during this trying period. I am convinced that he would never have sanctioned the Siberian revolt. The Allies would have listened to him, and we should have been spared the Crowning folly of an adventure which sent thousands of Russians to their deaths and cost the British taxpayer millions of pounds in money.
SOVIET OF THE PEOPLE’S
COMMISSARS.
_____
Petrograd
27th February, 1918.
No. 567.
_____
I request all Organisations, Soviets and Commissars
of Railway Stations to give every assistance to the members
of the English Mission, Messrs. R. B. Lockhart, V. L. Hicks
and D. Garstin.
Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
L. TROTSKY.
Secretary,
SERGEIEFF.
P.S.—Personal stores of provisions
not to be confiscated.
L. TROTSKY.
The sands were running out. We were drifting rapidly towards the inevitable tragedy. In Moscow, too, I was not alone in receiving no support from home. Robins had lost ground in Vologda. He had a formidable opponent in Summers, the American Consul-General in Moscow, who, married to a Russian of good family, was heart and soul for the old régime. When Summers died suddenly towards the end of April, there were slanderers, who declared that he had been poisoned by the Bolsheviks and who looked askance at Robins. The French, too, had put a spoke in Robins’ wheel by playing on the American Ambassador’s vanity. In his presence a member of the French Embassy had asked who was the American Ambassador—Francis or Robins—because they always said the opposite of each other. As a result of these intrigues Robins’ position became intolerable, and early in May he left Russia in order to make a personal appeal to President Wilson. The night before he left he dined with us. He had been reading Rhodes’ life and after dinner he gave us a wonderful exposition of Rhodes’ character. Like Lord Beaverbrook, he possessed in a remarkable degree the talent of extracting exactly what he wanted from everything he read, and dramatising it afterwards in his conversation. He was a great personality and a man of sterling character and iron determination. His departure was a great loss to me. In the almost lone hand I was playing his moral courage had been an immense support.
Lavergne, too, willy-nilly, had been forced to adopt the Noulens policy. Even Romei, who as a soldier preferred action to inaction, was beginning to reach the stage when intervention even without Bolshevik consent seemed better than no intervention at all. At this stage the position was that President Wilson was still opposed to intervention without Bolshevik consent. The French were working vigorously for military support of the anti-Bolshevik forces. The British Foreign Office—I write Foreign Office intentionally, because the British War Office seemed to have a totally different policy—was pressing us hard for an immediate acceptance by the Bolsheviks of Allied military support. Presumably, although I do not think the conditions were ever laid down, they were prepared, in return for this consent, to guarantee to the Bolsheviks complete non-interference in Russia’s internal affairs.
In this gloomy vacuum a ray of hope was suddenly propelled. Trotsky had been more than usually amenable. The Germans had been very aggressive in the South, and he had reacted in the usual belligerent manner. He had been conciliatory about Murmansk and about our stores at Archangel. He had even asked for a British naval mission to re-organise the Russian Fleets and had offered to put an Englishman in charge of the Russian railways. I had telegraphed this news to London and for several days I received no answer. I was not astonished. The telegraph service was erratic, and delays and a break in the sequence of numbers were frequent. Then one evening I received a telegram, which was as long as a despatch. I sat up until late into the night deciphering it. It was from Mr. Balfour. I learnt later that he had drafted personally nearly all the telegrams I received in Russia. I have no copy of this telegram. I cannot remember all its details, but its beginning and its end are firmly fixed in my memory. It began: “There are three duties of a diplomatist: one is to make himself persona grata to the government of the country to which he is accredited. In this you have succeeded admirably. The second is to interpret to his own government the policy of the government of the country to which he is accredited. In this you have also been successful. The third is to interpret to the Government of the country to which he is accredited, the policy of his own government. In this it seems to me that you have not been so successful.” Then followed a list of British grievances against Bolsheviks. When the list was completed, there was a sudden change. “Since writing this,” the telegram went on, “I have received your telegram informing me of Trotsky’s request for British naval and technical experts. This is good news. If you can, indeed, persuade Trotsky to resist German penetration, you will have earned the gratitude of your own country and of all humanity.”
The telegram, although affording me fresh hope, was a little unkind. Admittedly, I had been unsuccessful in interpreting the policy of His Majesty’s Government to the Bolsheviks. But for three months London had given me no indication of its policy or policies. In my reply I referred to my previous telegrams and requested humbly to be supplied with a more precise statement. It was not forthcoming. No naval mission was sent. No Englishman was appointed to the control of the Russian railways. But General Poole and a staff of officers were sent to Archangel and Murmansk.
Altogether May was a hectic and nerve-racking month. It began with an impressive parade of the Red Army on the Red Square. Trotsky took the salute in the presence of the foreign diplomatic representatives. Mirbach watched the review from his motor car. At first he smiled superciliously. Then he looked serious. He was the representative of the old German Imperialism. There was an unmistakable living force in the ill-clad, unorganised men who marched past him. I was impressed. The bourgeoisie, however, could not read the signs. They were obsessed with a strange story of a miracle, which had taken place that day. On the Nikolskaia the Bolsheviks had draped an ikon with red bunting. As soon as they put it up, the cloth was miraculously torn.
On May 6th the American Ambassador paid a visit of several days to Moscow. I had several interviews with him and liked him. He was a kind, old gentleman, who was susceptible to flattery and swallowed any amount of it. His knowledge of anything beyond banking and poker was severely limited. He had a travelling spittoon—a contraption with a pedal—which he took with him everywhere. When he wished to emphasise a point, bang would go the pedal, followed by a well-aimed expectoration. During his Moscow visit he was responsible for a story which deserves to rank with Dumas’ account of the loving couple plighting their troth under the shade of the “Kliukva” (cranberry)! One afternoon Norman Armour, the efficient secretary of the American Embassy, came into the Ambassador’s room.
“Governor,” he said, “would you like to go to the opera to-night?”
“Nope,” was the reply, “I think I’ll play poker.”
“Do come, Governor,” said Armour. “You really ought not to miss it. It’s Evgenie Onegin.”
“Evgenny what?” said th
e Ambassador.
“Oh! you know,” replied Armour. “Pushkin and Chaikovsky.”
There was a crash from the pedal of the spittoon.
“What!” said the Ambassador ecstatically. “Is Pushkin singing to-night?”
On May 7th I had an excitement of a more disturbing nature. At six o’clock in the evening Karachan telephoned to me requesting me to come to see him. He had an extraordinary story to tell. That afternoon a British officer had walked boldly up to the Kremlin gate and had demanded to see Lenin. Asked for his credentials, he had declared that he had been sent out specially by Mr. Lloyd George to obtain firsthand news of the aims and ideals of the Bolsheviks. The British Government was not satisfied with the reports it had been receiving from me. He had been entrusted with the task of making good the defects. He had not seen Lenin but he had been interviewed by Bonch-Brouevitch, a Russian of good family and the closest personal friend of the Bolshevik leader. Karachan wished to know if the man was an impostor. The name of the officer, he said, was “Relli.” I was nonplussed, and, holding it impossible that the man could have any official standing, I nearly blurted out that he must be a Russian masquerading as an Englishman or else a madman. Bitter experience, however, had taught me to be prepared for almost any surprise, and, without betraying my amazement, I told Karachan that I would inquire into the matter and let him know the result. That same evening I sent for Boyce, the head of the Intelligence Service, and told him the story. He informed me that the man was a new agent, who had just come out from England. I blew up in a storm of indignation, and the next day the officer came to me to offer his explanation. He swore that the story Karachan had told me was quite untrue. He admitted, however, that he had been to the Kremlin and had seen Bonch-Brouevitch. The sheer audacity of the man took my breath away. I knew instinctively that on this occasion Karachan had adhered strictly to the truth. Now I was faced with the unpleasant and even dangerous task of saving a British agent, who, unless I denied him, might compromise me and for whose safety, although he was in no way subordinate to me, I felt myself in some measure responsible. Although he was years older than me, I dressed him down like a schoolmaster and threatened to have him sent home. He took his wigging humbly but calmly and was so ingenious in his excuses that in the end he made me laugh. Fortunately, I was able to arrange matters with Karachan so that his suspicions were not unduly aroused.
Memoirs of a British Agent Page 29
