Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918

by Sir C. E. Callwell

Some references were made in the last chapter to the discontent that was manifesting itself throughout the country even early in 1916, and to the attitude of marked indifference that was being displayed by the officers in respect to the Sovereign to whom they owed allegiance. But things had gone rapidly from bad to worse since that date. M. Sazonoff, the eminent Foreign Minister, to whose efforts before the war the satisfactory understanding between Great Britain and Russia was largely due and whose policy was uncompromisingly anti-German, had been got out of the way by the machinations of the Court clique. (The Emperor, it may be mentioned, had been almost cringingly apologetic to our representatives about this step, which he could not but realize would create a very bad impression in London and Paris.) Successive substitutions carried out amongst the personnel of the Executive had all tended towards introducing elements that were reactionary from the point of view of internal policy and were suspect from the point of view of the Entente. Dissatisfaction and loss of confidence had been growing apace amongst the public, and what had been merely indifference manifested amongst the officers towards the Autocrat at the head of the State was giving place to openly expressed dislike and even to contempt for a potentate who, however well-meaning he might be, was constantly affording evidence that he was in the hands of mischievous counsellors and possessed no will of his own.

A special Mission had come over to England from Russia in August, including amongst its numerous personnel the Finance Minister and the Chief of the General Staff at the Ministry of War. This Mission had obtained from us promises of financial assistance running into scores of millions sterling, to say nothing of an undertaking to furnish substantial consignments of war material. But in the understanding that was then arrived at, I never could detect any trace of conditions designed to check the dangerous policy which all who were behind the scenes realized the Emperor to be adopting. Who paid the piper never called one note of the tune. There was an ingenuousness about the proceedings on the part of our Government that was startling in its Micawberism and improvidence.

Now, our Cabinet was extraordinarily fortunate in the British representatives within the Russian Empire upon whom they depended or ought to have depended. They were admirably served on the Neva, at the Stavka and in the field. We had an ambassador who was trusted to an unprecedented extent by all ranks and classes in the realm which he was making his temporary home. The Head of our Military Mission, Hanbury-Williams, was a persona gratissima with the Emperor. Our Military Attachés—Knox, Blair, and Marsh—were masters of the Russian language, and, in common with several British officers especially accredited to the different armies, ever had their fingers on the pulse of military sentiment on the fighting fronts. How it came about that our Government—or rather Governments, because Mr. Lloyd George and his War Cabinet replaced Mr. Asquith and his sanhedrin of twenty-three just when things were becoming highly critical—shambled blindly along trusting to luck and did nothing, it is hard to say. But among them they nearly lost us the war.

Towards the end of the year 1916 the situation was already becoming almost desperate, even if the putting away of the horrible Rasputin did seem for a moment to relieve the gloom. Officers high up in the army were imploring our military representatives for British intervention with their rulers. Our ambassador appears to have done everything that man could do, even remonstrating in set terms with the Emperor; but he would not seem to have been accorded the strenuous support from home which he had a right to look for, and which would have given his representations that compelling weight demanded by an exceedingly precarious situation.

Owing to the nature of my duties in connection with supplies of all kinds for Russia, following upon visits to that country, I had been closely in touch with the situation for some months, heard from our military representatives from time to time, and saw Russians in an official position in London practically daily. By the end of the year the position seemed to me so fraught with peril that, on learning of the contemplated despatch of a special political and military Mission to Murmansk en route for the interior, I wrote a private letter to Mr. Lloyd George, and this was duly acknowledged with thanks by his Private Secretary. This communication warned the Prime Minister that Russia was on the brink of revolution owing to the reactionary tendencies of her government; it pointed out that if a revolution were to break out the consequences must be disastrous to the campaign of 1917 on the Eastern Front, as all arrangements would inevitably be thrown out of gear; and it proposed that we should play our trump card, that, backed by the express authority and enforced by the active intervention of the War Cabinet, we should turn to its fullest account the influence of our Royal House with the Emperor Nicholas. The remedy might not have produced the desired effect. The diagnosis at all events turned out to be correct.

One never anticipated, needless to say, that if the revolution which seemed to be imminent were actually to take place, the consequences would be quite so terrible as those which have actually supervened. One never dreamt of the executive power over great part of the vast dominions then under the sway of the Romanoff dynasty falling into the hands of wretches such as Peter the Painter, Trotzky and Lenin. But, even assuming a more or less stable form of reasonable republican government to replace the existing autocracy, it could not be other than obvious to all who were in any way conversant with the social conditions holding good in this enormous area, peopled as it was by illiterate and profoundly ignorant peasants, that a revolution was bound to produce a state of affairs for the time being bordering on chaos. What ought to prove the decisive year of the war was at hand. Revolution must be staved off at all costs.

The special Mission actually started for Murmansk some two or three weeks later. Although the list of its personnel made a good enough show on paper, it lacked the one element that was practically indispensable if its representations were to save the situation. They say that Lord Milner, on getting back, gave the War Cabinet to understand that all was going on fairly well in Russia, and that there was little or no fear of a bouleversement. This would have seemed to me incredible had I not met several of the members of the Mission when they turned up again, and had they not, one and all, appeared perfectly satisfied with the internal situation of the empire on which they had paid a call. Whom these good people saw out there, where they went, what steps they took to acquire knowledge in quarters other than official circles, how it came about that they returned to this country with no more idea of the state of affairs than a cassowary on the plains of Timbuctoo, furnishes one of those mysteries which cast such a recondite glamour over our public life. Why, the Babes in the Wood were prodigies of analysis and wizards of cunning compared with this carefully selected civilian and military party, which, it has to be acknowledged, spent a by no means idle time while sojourning in the territories of our eastern Ally. For among them they promised away any amount more munitions and war material of all kinds. They went into the details of the contemplated deal with meticulous care and consummate administrative skill. They elaborated a programme which would undoubtedly have proved in the highest degree advantageous to Russia, had the conditions not undergone a complete metamorphosis owing to the outbreak of the Revolution in Petrograd a very few days after they landed, sanguine and reassuring, in this country on their return journey.

Had it not been for the Hampshire disaster, had Lord Kitchener succeeded in carrying out his mission in the summer of 1916, it is conceivable that, in virtue of that almost uncanny intuition that he possessed, he would have pieced together the realities of the situation, and would have managed to teach his colleagues in our Cabinet to understand them on his return. His personal influence might have made all the difference in the world in Russia. He would have gained touch with all sorts and conditions of men while out there, and would have got to the back of their minds by methods all his own. The very fact that Russians have so much of the oriental strain in them would have helped him in this. But it was not to be.

Of what followed after the Revolution much might be said; but, in so far as the blunders committed by our Government are concerned, it has to be admitted that the situation was no easy one to grapple with. When you have been such an ass as to ride your horse into a bog, there is a good deal of excuse for your botching getting the beast out again, as that is in the nature of things a difficult job. The mischief was done when the Revolution was allowed to occur. After that it became a case of groping with a bewildering, kaleidoscopic, intangible state of affairs. Mr. Henderson's performances have excited much ridicule, but against his absurd belief in M. Kerensky must be set his prompt recognition of his own unfitness for the position of representative of the British Government on the banks of the Neva. M. Kerensky, no doubt, may have meant well by the Allies after his own fashion; but as he can claim so great a share in the work of destroying the discipline of the Russian army, he proved the kind of friend who in practice is more pernicious than are open and undisguised enemies. One of the most singular features, indeed, in the epoch-making events of 1917 in Eastern Europe was the fact that a windbag of this sort should ever have gained power, and that, having gained power, he should have retained it for the space of several months. Only in Russia could such a thing have happened. It must be added that the perplexities to which the Entente Governments were a prey in connection with the Russian problem subsequent to March 1917 were aggravated from the outset—and yet more so after Lenin's gaining the mastery—by the very divergent views which prevailed amongst them in connection with most of the awkward questions that arose.

This was illustrated by the strange happenings concerning Siberia and Vladivostok of the early part of 1918. Gathered together at the extreme eastern doorway into Russia were enormous accumulations of war material and of vital commodities of all kinds—most of them, it may be observed incidentally, being goods which had been procured in the United States by British credits on behalf of pre-Bolshevist governments, Imperial and republican. It was imperative that these should not fall into the hands of Lenin's warrior rabble that was spreading eastwards from beyond the Ural Mountains, and it was equally imperative that the progress of these tumultuary Bolshevist levies into Siberia should be stayed at the earliest possible moment. These were duties which, owing to the geographical conditions, naturally devolved upon the United States and Japan, and, seeing that the United States were hurrying soldiers in hot haste to the European theatre of war, the duties in reality properly devolved upon Japan. But it was now no longer a question of reconciling the views merely of London, Paris, Rome, and Tokio. A disturbing factor had cropped up. President Wilson had entered the lists.