Alas, alas, for all these dreams! Poor Countess Bloudoff survived them, and when she ended her days, long after all of them had been forgotten, she might well have felt all the bitterness of a life’s disappointment. But this was not the case—at least outwardly. She was far too clever not to admit her defeat, but she maintained that her failure had been due to circumstances only, and that one day Russia would fulfil the mission which she had been given by the Almighty. She remained ever the same bright, clever woman, always deeply interested in politics, in literature, in art, even in current gossip, though in a most kindly way. For she was indeed kind—that small, short woman with the piercing eyes and the quick flash of sympathy in them, which made them glisten every time that she was being told something that interested her. Easy to move, she never refused a service, and at the time when her very name was a power she tried always to do good, to bring to the notice of her Imperial mistress every case in which the latter could help, either by a word spoken in season or by money given just when and where it was needed. Towards the end of her life she grew very infirm, and could hardly leave her arm-chair; but she loved seeing people, though her rooms were no longer thronged as during the time when she was all-powerful. She had kept a small circle of old friends, who came to see her almost daily, and through them she remained in touch with that social world in which she had been a leader.

Countess Bloudoff had one bête noire, and that was the famous Mme. Olga Novikoff. Poor “O.K.” never guessed the antipathy which she inspired, and always imagined that her activity in favour of the Slav cause, and her influence over Mr. Gladstone, were highly appreciated by the Countess Antoinette; but the latter had too keen a sense of humour not to feel that Mme. Novikoff was making herself ridiculous, and, what was worse, was involving in that ridicule her country itself. “Je déteste ces ambassadeurs volontaires en jupon,” she used to say, and she was not far wrong. The rôle played by the too celebrated Princess Lieven needs a very great lady, and one with a very large fortune or a great position, not to give rise to calumny and to ironical smiles and comments, and “O.K.” had none of these advantages. It is still a question whether the Princess Lieven could to-day have made for herself a position such as the one she enjoyed in London and in Paris. Society was different then, and fewer outsiders had entered its fold; people well born, and belonging to the upper ten thousand, could still pretend to influence, simply by reason of their being within that charmed circle. Now that classes are mixed, a person like Mme. Novikoff, who is merely a gentlewoman, runs a great risk of being considered in the light of a simple journalist in need of copy, and such only wield that measured influence which they delude themselves into believing they possess. Countess Antoinette knew all this well, and she disliked intensely women of the style of her famous compatriot, about whom she once made the most bitter remark I ever heard her utter against anyone: “Cette femme là fait de la politique,” she said, “comme une saltimbanque ses tours de passe passe.”

These reminiscences have caused me to diverge far from the subject of this chapter. What I wanted to say was that the war of 1877-8 was the natural result of the activity which the ill-executed reforms of Alexander II. had awakened in the country; an activity which a certain circle of St. Petersburg Society, headed by the Countess Bloudoff and the little coterie of the Empress Marie Alexandrovna—in which her confessor, Father Bajanov, was a leading figure—helped to divert from the channel towards which it had been directed: that of the internal administration of the country. The Government, that never for one single instant admitted the possibility of defeat, secretly encouraged this diversion, and, thanks to all these circumstances, the Emperor, who was the only person who sincerely wished that peace might not be disturbed, found himself drawn into a war the consequences of which were to be the disastrous Treaty of Berlin, the extraordinary development of Nihilism, and finally his own assassination. Dark days were about to dawn for Russia, and when again I left St. Petersburg I was far from anticipating the changes that its Society would experience between the day of my departure and that of my return to the capital, when everything was different and another Sovereign upon the Throne.

CHAPTER VIII
THE EASTERN WAR AND AFTERWARDS

I do not think that the Eastern War of 1877 was so popular as people were fain to represent, even at its beginning. The Slav movement, which had sent thousands of volunteers to Servia to help the Christian subjects of the Sultan against their oppressors, was very popular at the moment of its inception, but as soon as the volunteers began to return home and the public heard something about “these Slav brothers” it had been eager to defend, there was a violent reaction. People began to ask what good it was to sacrifice Russian blood for the needs of people who turned out to be not only cowards but brigands as bad as the Bashi Bazouks of whose cruelties they complained. Had the Emperor declared war during the summer of 1876, before the battle of Alexinatz had been fought and lost, the enthusiasm certainly would have been great; but by April, 1877, public opinion had had time to cool, and serious people were apprehensive as to the result of what, after all, was nothing but an adventure unworthy of a great nation.

The army itself, that for months had been kept at Kichinev on a war basis, was beginning to tire of its armed inaction; and, what was worse, the incapacity of those in command had already become evident, demoralising the troops and breeding discontent among them. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was in supreme command, had never been very popular, and the measures he had taken in view of the approaching campaign were severely criticised. One wondered why men with a serious military reputation—such, for instance, as Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol—had not been called upon to give at least their advice as to what should be done. The officers, more competent to form an opinion as to the morale of the soldiers than the Staff of the Grand Duke, knew very well that their men did not believe in the walk-over that was promised to them, and they knew also that the many refugees who had crowded to the Russian camp from Bulgaria and Servia had made anything but a good impression as to the qualities of their nations on their would-be liberators.

When, therefore, the war began in earnest, it was with far less enthusiasm among the army than was confidently expected and had been promised to the Emperor. When the Imperial manifesto was read announcing that war had been declared, and concluding with the words: “We order our faithful troops to cross the frontiers of Turkey,” it was noticed that the hurrahs that greeted them proceeded more from the officers than from the ranks, where they were but faintly echoed. It was only after the Danube had been crossed that anything like animation became evident in the army. To stimulate it a religious propaganda was started, and all the old legends concerning Constantinople and the mosque of St. Sophia, destined to become again a Christian church thanks to the efforts of Russia, were revived. That was a mistake of which the future was to prove the abysmal extent.

At length came the first battle of Plevna. It was there that Skobeleff, “the White General,” “Ak Pasha” as the Turks called him, won immortal fame. The mention of his name always recalls to my mind that sad and bloody day of the 30th of August, 1877, when the fortress was stormed for the third time in response to the mad idea of the Grand Duke Nicholas to present it as an offering to his brother on his name-day. It was a beautiful summer morning, with the roses blooming in the fields, and a clear blue sky lighting up what was so soon to become a scene of horror. The Turkish town lay in a valley, all surrounded by hills, each of which was a redoubt whence the enemy’s artillery was directed against our troops. They were ordered to storm it, and valiantly did they attempt to do so at three different times through that morning. As each regiment rushed to the attack, it was decimated by the deadly fire of the Turkish guns, thousands of men being mown down like ripe corn. At length the Bender Regiment was told to advance. It was commanded by the veteran Colonel Panioutine, to whom Skobeleff himself gave the orders to march. Panioutine looked up at the fort, which he knew that he could not by any possibility hope to wrest from the enemy, and simply answered with the classical word of the Russian soldier, “Slouchaious” (I shall obey); then he took off his cap and made the sign of the Cross. In dead silence the whole regiment took off their caps and crossed themselves, following the example of their commanding officer.

Skobeleff turned towards his staff and said: “If Panioutine is repulsed, I will myself lead the troops to the attack.”

He did lead them forward—led them to their death and to his glory. To his soldiers he appeared “the true god of war,” as Archibald Forbes justly described him. The troops followed him with an enthusiasm which made them forget their own danger, and the Turkish bullets whistling in their ears, and their old commander falling on the field of honour before their eyes. Skobeleff was the only object of their regard; and they seemed to be asking him in mute supplication to show them the way to conquer or to die.