TSARIST RUSSIA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3263, 5 February 1931, Page 7

TSARIST RUSSIA

PETROGRAD IN WARTIME.

(By Commander Oliver LockerLampson.)

I never dreamed when I met Sam Hoare (as I must call him), immaculate in khaki and red tabs at Petrograd, in 1916, that it was Kitchener who had roused the latent military spirit within him and that it was our old neighbour, W. T. Birkbeck, of Norfolk, who encouraged him to learn Russian. He mastered that complex tongue with an ease denied you and me and it stood him in good stead as Intelligence Officer to our Military Mission in Russia. He was soon here the .centre of spy plots and the unraveller of endless mysteries and misunderstandings, and his tact and urbanity proved often the sole medium through which we could overcomme official indolence and obstruction. Nobody living in Petrograd at the time but must find revived magicaly by his pen those war conditions in Russia when necessaries were absent in the shops and ammunition in the arsenals, but the giddy glory of the theatre and ballet remained undimmed. Sir Samuel was also instrumental in encouraging Rumania at a critical time when her entry into the war hung in the balance, and it is affecting to remember, his association then with Lord Thomson, who was strangely to succeed him as Air Minister, and then die in R 101; and of whom Mr. Lloyd George recently spoke as an Allied bulwark, whose advice, if taken, might have saved many losses and mistakes.

Russia at this time was not only an autocracy living under the shadow of a secret police; it was also a theocracy haunted by the spectre of the monster monk Rasputin. I remember those days when no one dared mention that sinister name, and once, when I happened to utter it, a Russian friend went white and, quickly glancing behind to, see that no one had overheard, he begged me to be silent. RASPUTIN’S DEATH. Sir Samuel’s account of Rasputin’s death in his new book, “The Fourth Seal,” is the best because the most reliable. He lets that horrid story tell itself, and what with the fascination of Rasputin’s personality and the utter scheme of his end, it must grip every reader. I can never forget the bombshell of the news of Rasputin’s disappearance, when nothing but a blood-stained golosh was found on the banks of the Neva.

Sir Samuel’s picture of the Tsar also is tragic and true. Here was a good “family man,” but a poor monarch, who allowed Rasputin to be to the Empress what Cagliostro was to Marie Antoinette. The pestiferous rumours of these relations, however untrue, wore away all reverence for the Tsarina and destroyed the prestige of the monarchy itself.

Although Rasputin was not actually a traitor in the sense that he sold Russia to the enemy, he was out for a good time at the expense of his country. Undoubtedly he sold places and honours in high quarters and round the Court. It was the Tsar under petticoat influence who dismissed Sazanov and imported Sturmer, and who soured the last pitiful days of chop and change through which the monarchy lurched.

I also remember clearly the news reaching Russia of Kitchener’s death, described graphically by our author. It may to us seem a matter of only casual account for an alien Ally then at such a distance. But let us recall the legend of Kitchener’s name; a legend reinforced a thousandfold in Russia by ignorance and rumour. Kitchener would have arrived in Russia the mightiest figure among the Allies, and by force of presence and prestige he would have compelled the Emperor, if not actually to reform Army Headquai'ters at once, at any rate to grant to the country some foi’m of self-gov-ernment which would have satisfied extremists.

He would have introduced ammunition and artillery to the denuded battalions at the front, and probably created an Anglo-Russian staff which would have co-ordinated future movements upon respective fronts. THE MILNER MISSION. Lord Kitchener’s place was taken by Lord Milner and Sir Henry Wilson, who were treated with elaborate courtesy by the Russian authorities, but they failed to soften the Tsar’s heart one fraction or to stiffen his will. Indeed, by common consent all parties in Russia agreed to camouflage their action pending the return of the Milner Mission, in order to be free later to declare the Revolution, which would never have dared to lift its head with Kitchener in the country.

Few exclaim this clearer than Sir Samuel. He escaped from Russia ultimately across the makeshift Murmansk railway, which I know too well, as I had been locked in the Arctic along the Lapland coast with my unit for many months. Indeed I am proud to find myself credited with having assisted to bring him to

ultimate safety, for he narrates that “the permanent way, which was subsiding into the White Sea at one point, ran over an embankment made out of Oliver Locker-Lampson’s armoured cars.”

But while his description of Russian life in those faded days is unforgettable; while his pen pictures of scenes are vivid and vital, I like no less his summing-up of characters at the end of the book. Captain Cromie was indeed a hero when he allowed himself to be shot in our Embassy by Soviet soldiers. General Kolchak was indeed a gallant adventurer, and his fate, betrayed by the French to the Bolsheviks, is the last word in pathos. While Sir Samuel brings back to me, as if she were in the room as I write, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, whom I called on in her convent in Moscow. This saint was cut to bits and flung down a well. THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. But perhaps Sir Samuel is most sure in his estimate of the Russian Church. It was another Norfolk man, Birkbeck, who studied the origins of the Russian Orthodox Church and brought Anglicans to realise the close communion of the two branches. It was he who decorated a remote Norfolk chancel in the barbaric Greek style and translated ancient Slavenic liturgies into lovely English. He must have captured Sir Samuel Hoare's sense of romance in early days. Nihilism has triumphed in Russia since, and doubt and tyranny dominate the Slav State to-day. But faith and freedom will revive and destroy the “Fourth Beast” in the end. This is the lesson of the book. Belief is stronger than Bolshevism.