It appeared to us Russians that England was always on the look out for something to magnify into an international incident. As I write, I am reminded of another incident where the sacredness of the person of British subjects was demonstrated. This was the Dogger Bank affair. Although the circumstances are well known, I will recapitulate them.
Russia was at war with Japan, and her Baltic Fleet was on the way to the Far East. On the night of October 21st-22nd, 1904, fifty British trawlers, manned by some five hundred men, were engaged in fishing on the Dogger Bank. The first division of the Baltic Fleet passed them, the second division turned their searchlights upon the fishing boats. The officers in charge imagined that they saw torpedo boats approaching. They immediately opened fire on the trawlers with quick-firing guns, and in the course of twenty minutes had fired some three hundred shots. Their gunnery was not very good, however, as fortunately only six of the boats were hit, one being sunk. Two fishermen were killed, and four wounded. The Russian fleet then steamed away to the south.
Unfortunately the officers of this scratch fleet seemed to have been suffering from nerves, but that did not, I think, justify the outcry raised in this country.
I wrote to the Press, drawing attention to a similar mistake that had occurred in 1890, in which the position had been reversed. It was on the occasion of the joint international forces that were being sent from Tientsin to Peking at the time of the Boxer Revolt. About midnight on June 4 a body of Russian sailors were returning on foot from their work. Some English sailors, believing them to be Boxers, opened fire from the railway carriages. Before the mistake had been discovered two Russians had been killed and several others wounded. Vice-Admiral Seymour, who was in command of the British forces, hastened to send an official letter of regret, which was immediately accepted, and there the matter ended. There was no outcry in the Russian Press—we understood and accepted the Englishman's word.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PHANTOM OF NIHILISM
England's Sympathy with the Nihilists—Cabinet Ministers' Indiscretion—Mr. Gladstone's Incredulity—I Prove My Words—Mr. Gladstone's Action—A Strange Confusion—A Reformed Nihilist—His Significant Admission—The Nihilist's Regret—The Death of Revolutionary Russia—The Greatness of the Future—The Reckless, Impulsive Russian—The Russian Refugees at Buenos Ayres—They Crave for a Priest
Once upon a time the newspapers in Great Britain devoted quite a considerable space to Nihilism, almost invariably writing of it with considerable sympathy and very little insight. If the editors, in whose papers many "illuminating" articles appeared, were to imagine those self-same articles written to-day in Russian newspapers with the single alteration of the word "Nihilism" into "Sinn Feinism," they would understand something of the feelings their articles aroused in the hearts of Russians.
As an illustration of the fascination that the internal affairs of Russia seemed to possess for Englishmen, I may tell a little story which at the time caused me and other Russians no little annoyance. There was a paper that used to reach me more or less regularly entitled Free Russia. It was the organ of the English Society of Russian Freedom, and its amiable object was "to destroy the Russian Government." In other words, it was Nihilistic. I believe the publication started in the autumn of 1893. As soon as I discovered its purpose I used to drop it into the waste-paper basket without a second thought. One day, however, I happened to glance at the title page, on which I found were printed the names of the General Committee of the Friends of Russian Freedom, and to my astonishment I found there the names of the Rt. Hon. Arthur Ackland, M.P., and the Rt. Hon. G. J. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P. (who became Lord Eversley), and Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P. The two first-named were members of Mr. Gladstone's Ministry.