The fact that no decision as to Siberia and Vladivostok was arrived at for weeks, and that when it was arrived at it was an unsatisfactory one, was not the fault of the British, nor of the French, nor of the Italian, nor yet of the Japanese Government. We have heard a good deal at times about "wait and see"; but Mr. Asquith is a very Rupert compared to the Autocrat reigning in the White House in 1918. Had Japan been given a free hand, with the full moral support of the Allies, and with some financial support and support in the shape of certain forms of war material, Bolshevism might have been stamped out even before the Central Powers were brought to their knees in 1918. It would surely be to the interest of the United States, as it would undoubtedly be to the interest of Canada and Australasia, that the swelling millions peopling eastern Asia should be encouraged to expand westwards into the rich but sparsely populated regions lying north of Mongolia, rather than that they should be seeking to expand across the Pacific Ocean. As it was, Japan received scanty encouragement, and only received it after procrastination had been developed to the very utmost.
What occurred in connection with Siberia and Vladivostok on that occasion provided an unpleasant foretaste of the pathetic performance which was to go on for months and months in the following year at Versailles. It moreover foreshadowed and furthered that untoward extension of Bolshevism far and wide which has since taken place. Some of us would willingly have made shift to get on without a League of Nations could we have been saved from the disastrous consequence of action on the part of civilization in Siberia in 1918 having been so unjustifiably delayed, and its having taken so perfunctory a form.
CHAPTER XVI
CATERING FOR THE ALLIES
The appointment of Colonel Ellershaw to look after Russian munition supplies — His remarkable success — I take over his branch after his death — Gradual alteration of its functions — The Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement — Its efficiency — The despatch of goods to Russia — Russian technical abilities in advance of their organizing power — The flame projector and the Stokes mortar — Drawings and specifications of Tanks — An early contretemps in dealing with a Russian military delegate — Misadventure in connection with a 9.2-inch howitzer — Difficulties at the northern Russian ports — The American contracts — The Russian Revolution — This transforms the whole position as to supplies — Roumania — Statesmen in conflict — Dealings with the Allies' delegates in general — Occasional difficulties — Helpfulness of the United States representatives — The Greek muddle — Getting it disentangled — Great delays in this country and in France in fitting out the Greeks, and their consequences — Serbian supplies — The command in Macedonia ought on administrative grounds to have been in British hands.
One day early in the summer of 1915 Lord Kitchener sent for me to say that I must find him an artillery officer to take general charge of the arrangements that he was setting on foot for supplying the Russians with armament from the United States and elsewhere. I repaired to Colonel Malcolm Peake, who dealt with all questions of artillery personnel (he was killed on the Western Front very shortly after taking up an artillery command there), who asked what qualifications were needed. It was intimated that the officer must be something of an Admirable Crichton, must be a thoroughly up-to-date gunner of sufficient standing to be able to keep his end up when dealing with superior Russian officials, must be possessed of business capacity, must be gifted with tact and be a reservoir of energy, and ought to have a good working knowledge of French.
Peake asked for time, and next day proposed Colonel W. Ellershaw for the appointment. Ellershaw had just been ordered home from France to assume charge of an important artillery school on Salisbury Plain, and he was duly instructed to come and report himself to me. He was by no means enthusiastic on his being informed of the proposal to divert him from the work that he had arrived to take over and which particularly appealed to him, and he displayed a diffidence for which, it speedily became apparent, there were no grounds whatever, for he proved himself to be absolutely made for the Russian job. As a result of his practical knowledge, of his genius for administration, of his driving power and of his personal charm, he gained the complete confidence of Lord Kitchener and of all Russians who were brought into contact with him. I kept him in a manner under my wing till the end of the year, although his work was not, properly speaking, General Staff work; but his little branch was transferred to General von Donop's department when Sir W. Robertson arrived and reorganised the General Staff arrangements at the War Office.
Ellershaw formed one of the party which accompanied Lord Kitchener on the ill-fated expedition that terminated off the Orkneys, and he was drowned with his Chief. His death, like that of Colonel Fitzgerald and Mr. O'Beirne, was a real loss to his country, and it was greatly deplored by the many highly placed Russians who had had dealings with him and who had been enormously impressed by his work on their behalf. For some weeks after the Hampshire catastrophe his place was not filled up; but General von Donop eventually asked me to take charge of his branch, which I agreed to by no means willingly, the work being entirely out of my line and my technical knowledge being virtually non-existent. Ellershaw, however, had everything in such good order and had got together such efficient assistants that the duty of superintendence did not, as it turned out, prove so difficult as had seemed likely. General Furse, on succeeding General von Donop some months later, objected to having under him a branch which was not a supply branch, but a liaison branch between the Russians on the one hand and his department and the Munitions Ministry on the other hand, so it was then settled that we should come directly under the Under-Secretary of State—a very appropriate arrangement.
As all armament for Roumania had to pass through Russia, it became convenient that my branch should look after this as well, and we gradually came to be co-ordinating the supply of armament to all the Allies. Then, early in 1918, as a consequence mainly of the muddle that the War Office had got into over the question of supplies for Greece (of which armament only formed a small proportion), it was decided, somewhat late in the day, that we should deal with supplies of all kinds furnished by the War Office to the Allies. But it was arranged at the same time that my branch, instead of remaining under the Under-Secretary of State, its proper place, should be included in the new-fangled civilian department of the Surveyor-General of Supplies which had nothing to do with armament, a plan that set fundamental principles of administration at defiance inasmuch as the branch actually supplied nothing and merely acted as a go-between. It simultaneously acquired a title that constituted a very miracle of obscurantism and incongruity, warranted to bewilder everybody. Labours in connection with Russia and Roumania were by that time, however, virtually at an end, the importance of the branch had to a great extent lapsed, and it was afforded a not unedifying experience. For it became possible to compare the working of the military departments within the War Office with that of a department set up within that institution and run on the lines of the Man of Business, just as it had been possible before to compare the working of those military departments within the War Office with that of the Ministry of Munitions. If the military departments of the War Office came out with flying colours, it must in fairness be allowed that, as they were of the old-established and not the mushroom type, their competitors were giving away a lot of weight.
As a matter of fact, the branch had never in principle been supposed to deal direct with the representatives of the Allies, although in practice we were in close and constant touch with them. Official business transactions with them were carried out, accounts kept, and so forth, by the "Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement," and, until we became entangled with the Surveyor-General of Supplies people and were obliged to shift quarters, we were accommodated in the building occupied by the "Commission," which constituted a very important department, nominally under the Board of Trade but for all practical purposes independent. This C.I.R.—departments and branches are always described by their initials in official life; the day would not be long enough nor would available stationery suffice to give them their full titles—was an admirably managed institution. It enjoyed the good fortune of being under charge of an experienced Civil Servant, Sir E. Wyldbore Smith, who had one or two of the same sort to help him, although the bulk of the staff were of the provisional type; and, as the various foreign delegations dealing with supplies were housed under the same roof, this was manifestly the proper place for us to be. We were in close touch with the people we actually had to deal with. The foreign delegates could always look in on us and could discuss points of detail with us on the spot, thereby avoiding misunderstandings and friction. Consisting, as they did, for the most part of officers, they liked to have officers to deal with. A foreign officer of junior rank will take "no" for an answer from a general and be perfectly happy, whereas he may jib at receiving the same answer from a civilian or from an officer of his own standing. Points of that kind are apt to be overlooked in a non-military country like ours.