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476
REVOLUTION [chap. xxiv.
family, wishing to keep them as hostages; and I
realised perfectly well that if men like Rodzianko,
Gutchkoff, Prince Lvoff, Miliukoff and Schingareff
tolerated this base deed and this breach of their pledged
word, it was because they were absolutely powrerless to
object; in other words all authority was entirely
escaping from the Government, or at least from the sane
section of it.
But this was by no means all. I remember one
morning on which our military attache came in like a
whirlwind, his face crimson with emotion, his eyes
starting out of his head. " Have you seen this,
Monsieur ? " and he handed me the famous Prikase No i,1
settling the new rights of the Russian soldier. "Yes,
I have just read a short summary of it in the Swedish
newspapers of yesterday. It appeared to me to be a
little too liberal, especially in war-time: there are
always some exaggerations at such times. Yet you
must admit that it was high time to replace the absurd
discipline imitated from the Prussians which prevailed
in our Army by discipline similar to that of the French
or the British?" "Ah! but no, Monsieur! do read the
prikase itself; read it carefully." I took it from the hand
of my colleague and as I read and was given the needful
explanations by the Colonel, I became more and more
aghast. "It is madness!" I said when I had finished.
’’Yes, it is madness! but above all it means the end of
the war for us. In the state in which our troops will be
after a few weeks of such proceedings it will be
impossible to take them into the fighting lines. In a few
months we shall no longer exist for our allies." I
could find nothing to oppose to this mournful verdict
except the expression of a few vague hopes to which
I clung.
It became perfectly clear that the origin of the
Revolution had been quite different from what had been
supposed. While the members of the Imperial Family
1 Or of the day of the Army.
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