had been sustained by one of the Army Corps, he issued an order for a general retreat, and the Army began rapidly to roll back. He was haunted by imaginary dangers of the enemy breaking through, surrounding our troops, of attacks of enemy cavalry which were supposed to threaten the G.H.Q. Twice General Brussilov moved his H.Q. with a swiftness akin to a panicky flight. The C.-in-C. was thus detached from his armies and out of touch with them.

We were retreating day after day in long, weary marches, and utterly bewildered. The Austrians did not outnumber us, and their moral was no higher than ours. They did not press us. Every day, my riflemen and Kornilov’s troops in our vicinity delivered short counter-attacks, took many prisoners, and captured machine-guns.

The Quartermaster-General’s branch of the Army was even more puzzled. Every day it reported that the news of the retreat was unfounded; but Brussilov at first disregarded these reports, and later became greatly incensed. The General Staff then had recourse to another stratagem: they approached Brussilov’s old friend, the veteran General Panchulidzev, Chief of the Army Sanitation Branch, and persuaded him that, if this retreat continued, the Army might suspect treason and things might take an ugly turn. Panchulidzev visited Brussilov. An intensely painful scene took place. As a result, Brussilov was found weeping bitterly and Panchulidzev fainted. On the same day, an order was issued for an advance, and the troops went forward rapidly and easily, driving the Austrians before them. The strategical position was restored as well as the reputation of the Army Commander.

It must be admitted that not only the troops but the Commanders were but scantily informed of the happenings of the front, and had hazy ideas on the general strategical scheme. The troops criticised them only when it was obvious that they had to pay the price of blood for these schemes. So it was in the Carpathians, at Stokhod, during the second attack on Przemyshl in the spring of 1917, etc. The moral of the troops was affected chiefly by the great Galician retreat, the unhappy progress of the war on the Northern and Western fronts—where no victories were won—and by the tedious lingering for over a year in positions of which everyone was sick to death.

I have already mentioned the cadres of commissioned officers. The great and small shortcomings of these cadres increased as the cadres became separated. No one expected the campaign to be protracted, and the Army organisation was not careful to preserve the cadres of officers and non-commissioned officers. They were drafted wholesale into the ranks at the outbreak of war. I remember so well a conversation that took place during the period of mobilisation, which was then contemplated against Austria alone. It occurred in the flat of General V. M. Dragomirov, one of the prominent leaders of the Army. A telegram was brought in announcing that Germany had declared war. There was a dead silence. Everyone was deep in thought. Somebody asked Dragomirov:

“How long do you think the war will last?”

“Four months.”

Companies went to the front sometimes with five to six officers. Regular officers, and later the majority of other officers, invariably and in all circumstances gave the example of prowess, pluck and self-sacrifice. It is only natural that most of them were killed. Another reliable element—the N.C.O.’s of the Reserve—was also recklessly squandered. In the beginning of the war they formed sometimes 50 per cent. of the rank and file. Relations between officers and men in the old army were not always based upon healthy principles. It cannot be denied that there was a certain aloofness caused by the insufficient attention paid by the officers to the spiritual requirements of the soldier’s life. These relations, however, gradually improved as the barriers of caste and class were broken down. The war drew officers and men ever closer together, and in some regiments, mostly of the line, there was a true brotherhood in arms. One reservation must here be made. The outward intercourse bore the stamp of the general lack of culture from which not only the masses but also the Russian intellectuals suffered. Heartfelt solicitude, touching care of the men’s needs, simplicity and friendliness—all these qualities of the Russian officer, who lay for months on end in the wet, dirty trenches beside their men, ate out of the same pot, died quietly and without a murmur, was buried in the same “fraternal grave”—were marred by an occasional roughness, swearing, and sometimes by arbitrariness and blows.

There can be no doubt that the same conditions existed within the ranks, and the only difference was that the sergeant and the corporal were rougher and more cruel than the officers. These deplorable circumstances coupled with the boredom and stupidity of barrack life, and the petty restrictions imposed upon the men by the military regulations, gave ample scope for underground seditious propaganda in which the soldier was described as the “victim of the arbitrariness of the men with golden epaulettes.” The sound feeling and naturally healthy outlook of the men was not mentioned while the discomforts of military life were insisted on in order to foster a spirit of discontent.

This state of affairs was all the more serious because during the war the process of consolidating the different units became more and more difficult. These units, and especially the infantry regiments, suffering terrible losses and changing their personnel ten or twelve times, became to some extent recruiting stations through which men flowed in an uninterrupted stream. They remained there but a short time, and failed to become imbued with the military traditions of their unit. The artillery and some other special branches remained comparatively solid, and this was due in some measure to the fact that their losses were, as compared with the losses suffered by the infantry, only in the proportion of one to ten or one to twenty.

On the whole the atmosphere in the Army and in the Navy was not, therefore, particularly wholesome. In varying degrees, the two elements of the Army—the rank and file and the commanding cadres—were divided. For this the Russian officers, as well as the intellectuals, were undoubtedly responsible. Their misdeeds resulted in the idea gaining ground that the barin (master) and the officer were opposed to the moujik and the soldier. A favourable atmosphere was thus created for the work of destructive forces.

Anarchist elements were by no means predominant in the Army. The foundations, though somewhat unstable, had to be completely shattered; the new power had to commit a long series of mistakes and crimes to convert the state of smouldering discontent into active rebellion, the bloody spectre of which will for some time to come hang over our hapless Russian land.

Destructive outside influences were not counteracted in the Army by a reasonable process of education. This was due partly to the political unpreparedness of the officers, partly to the instinctive fear felt by the old régime of introducing “politics” into barracks, even with a view to criticising subversive doctrines. This fear was felt not only in respect of social and internal problems but even in respect of foreign policy. Thus, for example, an Imperial order was issued shortly before the war, strictly prohibiting any discussion amongst the soldiers on the subject of the political issues of the moment (the Balkan question, the Austro-Serbian conflict, etc.). On the eve of the inevitable national war, the authorities persistently refrained from awakening wholesome patriotism by explaining the causes and aims of the war, and instructing the rank and file on the Slav question and our long-drawn struggle