Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning

by Maurice Francis Egan

'We are exporting nothing. The Russian peasant eats the food he raises. Butter is no longer a luxury. I have hopes for Russia—and fears.'

Her fears were justified. The murder of Rasputin called attention to the dissensions in the Russian court. Admiring the Empress Dowager, as everybody in the court circle did, it seemed amazing that her son, of whom we knew little, should have permitted this peasant to acquire such influence over his wife. There were fashionable ladies who knelt to this strange apostle of the occult, who kissed his hands with fervour. But murder was murder, and coming not so long after the killing of the Crown Prince of Turkey, it gave the impression that the oriental point of view as to the value of human life existed in both countries. As time went on, Russia occupied our vision more and more.

In spite of the revelations that have been made, revelations which show that the only secrets are those buried with men who have found it to their honour or interest to keep them—the details of the reasons which caused Russia to mobilise in July are not fully known. How the Russians gained their information of the intentions of Germany in their regard is very well known. The most clever of Russian spies was always in the confidence of the Kaiser; he paid for his knowledge with his life.

As days passed, it became evident that the Royal Couple in Russia were being gradually isolated. Calumnies almost as evil and quite as baseless against the Tsarina as those published about Marie Antoinette were freely circulated. To review here this campaign of malice is not necessary. There were no chivalrous swords ready to leap from the scabbards for her. The age of chivalry seemed indeed dead. The poor lady was not even picturesque, whereas her brilliant mother-in-law, Dagmar of Denmark, was still beautiful and picturesque; she was imperial, but then she understood what democracy meant. It is said that she believed that, if her son had appeared in his uniform on horseback, surrounded by a staff of men who represented traditions, the revolution would not have begun. Neither the Tsar not the Tsarina understood what tradition meant to the Russian mind. The empress was a German at heart,—an overfond and superstitious mother. Good women have never made successful rulers, as a rather cynical Russian said to me, à propos of the Empress Catherine. The nobility disliked her because she kept aloof from them. The glitter and the pomp of court life which the Russian aristocracy loved, the consideration which monarchs are expected to show for the social predilections of their subjects were disregarded by her. Living in perpetual fear, her nerves were shattered. All her interests centred in her family and in the unbending conviction of a German princess that the divine right of kings is a dogma. She was as incapable of understanding that there were powers in the nation which could destroy as was Marie Antoinette before she met destruction. We understood at Copenhagen that she looked on all the acts of the emperor that were not autocratic as weak; members of the Duma must be subservient and grateful; otherwise, it was the duty of the Tsar to treat them with the severity they deserved. The concessions, which, if granted earlier would have saved the emperor, were very moderate—merely a responsible ministry and a constitution. The Tsar, under the influence of the empress, the reactionary Protopopoff and the little clique of exclusives, who had forgotten everything valuable and learned nothing new, refused to grasp these ropes of salvation. The strength of the Grand Duke Nicholas-Michailovitch amazed and disconcerted this clique. 'If,' said one of the elderly Russian gentlemen we knew, 'he is not exiled, he will try to be President of all the Russias one day!' The emperess dowager was distrusted by the party around the empress. The empress dowager believed in prosecuting the war, for she knew that Russia could only follow her destiny happily freed from German control.

From February until March, 1917, Russia continued to be the one subject of discussion in diplomatic circles. It was the general opinion that the empress was the great obstacle to the emperor's giving a liberal constitution to his people. The Danish court, though the Emperor William had accused it of indiscretion, was silent. Prince Valdemar, who was, like all the sons and daughters of King Christian IX., devoted to the dowager empress, was plainly uneasy. We all knew that his sympathies were with the Liberal Party and against the pro-German and absolutist clique. 'The Russian people have endured much,' he said on March 10th, the day on which the news of the Tsar's abdication arrived; and, afterwards,—'Thank God—so far it has been almost a bloodless Revolution.'

'Why,' asked the devout Danish Conservative, who believed that kings were still all-powerful, 'why does not King George of England help his cousin?'

It was only too plain that in spite of all warnings, 'his cousin' had put himself beyond all human help.

The Russian soldiers calmly doffed their caps and said 'I will go home for my part of the land!' The condition of Petrograd was such that chaos had come again. To save the lives of the Tsar and Tsarina, Kerensky insisted that capital punishment should be abolished. Count Christian Holstein-Ledreborg, fresh from Russia, reported that at the soldiers' meeting in the banquet room of the Winter Palace, speakers imposed silence by shooting at the ceiling! There was an attempt on the part of the new democrats to have prostitution, hitherto the luxury of the rich, put within the reach of all.

Russia had gone out of the war; it was surely time for us to go in. On April 7, 1917, I informed the Foreign Office that the President at Congress had declared us in a state of war with Germany. Further patience would have been a crime.

From that day the Legation took on a new aspect. Our decks were cleared for observation and action. Mr. Cleveland Perkins, who had courageously assumed the duties of the Secretary of Legation although relieved by a secretary, had new and difficult duties thrust upon him, to which he was fully equal. Mr. Seymour Beach Conger and Mr. John Covington Knapp were invaluable. No words of mine can express my sense of their self-sacrificing patriotism. Mr. Groeninger did three men's work and Captain Totten kept us all up to the mark by his fiery and persistent enthusiasm. No great dinners now! Even if we had been in the mood, fire and food had become too scarce. Mr. Conger did a most important service; he looked after the crowds of late comers from Germany, and discovered what light they could throw on German conditions. The State Department came to the rescue of our staff, which was few but fit; Mr. Grant-Smith was sent from Washington, with instructions to spend all the money that was necessary. He made a complete organisation, and I, struck heavily in health, laid down my task regretfully, leaving it in hands more competent under the changed circumstances.