I joined the party at Tiflis, crossing the Black Sea from Sebastopol to Batum. On the steamer were two of the Britons. One evening we were all sitting in the smoking room. The Britons spoke their English with all its accents, and some of it I could not help listening to, trying nevertheless not to mind that they spoke it after the "We own the World" fashion. One of the Britons made up his mind that I was a Russian spy. On several occasions he looked at me as if I had no right on any ship that carried him. He also made blasphemous remarks about me to his friend. I learned later that he represented The Standard of London. He wrote several letters to his paper about the trip, and, on one occasion, even tried to send a dispatch concerning an interview the newspaper correspondents had with Kuropatkin at Askabad. I have been told since that only a few of his articles ever reached their destination. I have seldom met a man so submerged in the world of suspicion.
Kuropatkin received us at Askabad, the administrative Russian town. How he looked and acted during the Russian-Japanese War I do not know, but he looked the foxy soldier in every detail at Askabad. I say foxy advisedly. He had a detective's eyes, the reserve of a detective's chief, and the physique of a man who could stand much more punishment than his uniform would give him room for. Since the Japanese War it has been said that he is a thief—or a grafter, if that be more euphemistic. Certain persons claim that he is five million rubles winner as a result of the war. What certain persons say in Russia, and, I am sorry to say, out of it, also, so far as many of the dispatches to American newspapers is concerned, is really nothing but gossip. Fortunately, the Russians know what gossip is, and merely let it drip. Unfortunately for readers of American newspapers certain correspondents do not make the slightest effort to distinguish between gossip and facts.
Our party spent seventeen days all told in Kuropatkin's bailiwick, or Trans-Caspia as it is officially called. We lived in a special train, stopping at the different places of interest for a few hours, or overnight, as circumstances required. The train was in "command" of a colonel. The diplomatic side of the journey was attended to by a representative of the Foreign Office, attached to Kuropatkin's staff.
Trans-Caspia is no longer the terra incognito that it was forty to fifty years ago, thanks to numerous travelers and writers, among them our countryman, the war correspondent, MacGahan. It consequently does not behoove me, a mere skimmer, to attempt here much more than the statement that our party traveled from Krasnovodsk to Samarcand and back, and saw such places as Geok-tepe, Merv, Bokhara and the River Oxus. Geok-tepe in 1897 consisted principally of the fragments left by Skobeleff and Kuropatkin after their forces had slaughtered some twenty-odd thousand Turcomans—men, women and children. The siege of the fort lasted a full month, although the Turcomans had anticipated forms of defense. Before the Russian campaign against them was over Skobeleff had to begin the present Trans-Caspian Railroad in order to keep in touch with his base of supplies. Kuropatkin was his chief of staff. They went to war with the natives with the notion that one everlasting thrashing was imperative to teach the Turcomans to knuckle under. The slaughter at Geok-tepe proved very instructive, the Turcomans of to-day being a foolish people—docile, at least, so long as the Russians can continue to impress them. Skobeleff is long since dead, and Kuropatkin, the other "butcher," as he has been called, is under a cloud.
I had various glimpses and talks with this soldier, perhaps the most interesting glimpse taking place at Askabad during an outdoor religious service on St. George's Day. The men in our party had to appear at this service in dress suits early in the morning. The service was accompanied by the usual Greek orthodox paraphernalia and was interesting to those who had never before been present on such occasion. What interested me was the short, stocky general, standing bareheaded on a carpet near the officiating priests. For one solid hour he stood at "Attention," not a muscle in his body moving that I could see. I made up my mind then (and I have never changed it) that he was endowed with stick-at-iveness to a remarkable degree—a fact bolstered up by his persistency in the Manchurian retreats.
The most interesting interview I had with Kuropatkin was, one morning, when the three correspondents, including myself, were summoned to Government House at Askabad and given an official reception. Kuropatkin sat behind a large desk covered with pamphlets and official papers. We correspondents were given three chairs in front of the desk. The interpreter (Kuropatkin spoke neither English nor German) stood at our left.
"And I want you to know," Kuropatkin went on, after informing us somewhat about the Russian occupation of Trans-Caspia, "that our intentions here are eminently pacific. We have land enough. Our desire is to improve the holdings we now possess. You can go all over Russian Central Asia unarmed." I thought of Geok-tepe. No doubt Kuropatkin believed that that butchery had cowed the natives for all time.
"Our desire here is economic peace and prosperity."
This was the upshot of his words, translated for us by the interpreter. Was he telling the truth or not? There was not a correspondent present who could have answered this question.