The next morning, June 20 [1918], we arrived at Charing Cross Station. Only Dr. Gavronsky, a representative of the Provisional Government in London, was there to meet us. It had been agreed beforehand that I should travel incognito and that my visit should remain unpublicized until I had met with British government officials.
`Taking leave of the naval commander who had accompanied me, we went to Gavronsky�s house, where I was to live during my stay in London. On the way there, the doctor told me that I would be seeing Lloyd George in a day or two and that in the meantime I could relax and take stock of my surroundings. . . .
A policy based on the certainty that the Germans would collapse and on the conviction that Russia must continue to support the Allies until the war was ended was Russia�s only way of salvation. . . .
On the third or fourth day of my stay, a well-dressed, pleasant-looking young man came to see me. It was Philip Kerr, the Prime
Minister�s private secretary, who had come to invite me to visit Lloyd George the next morning. Promising to be there at the appointed time, I asked Kerr to tell the Prime Minister that I would bring Dr. Gavronsky as my interpreter, since I knew no English at all at that time.
( pages 489 � 490 )
The next morning at nine- o�clock, we arrived at No. 10 Downing Street and knocked at the door of a small house, hardly different in any way from the adjoining buildings. This short, narrow street was actually the hub of the British Empire, and No. 10 was probably as much mentioned in the political world then as the White House is
today. It was the official residence of the British prime ministers, and for two centuries it had been the scene of historic decisions that had affected the destiny not only of Britain, but of the whole world.
As we went in, Philip Kerr came up to greet us and showed us into the Prime Minister�s study. I found myself face to face with a short, stocky man with a shock of snow-white hair, a noble brow, and small, piercing, yet sparkling eyes that lit up the whole of his youthful, ruddy face. He welcomed us cordially, rather as if we had been old friends whom he had not seen for a long time. His manner immediately created a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere uninhibited by any formality.
I cannot give a verbatim account of our hour-long conversation, since it was conducted through an interpreter and no notes were taken. I shall, therefore, merely give the gist of what I said and of Lloyd George�s totally unexpected response.
having dealt briefly with the course of the war in Russia, the collapse of the Monarchy, the attempts to restore the state and the fighting fitness of the army, I said that all that was now in the past. At the present moment Russia�s position could be summed up as follows : Central Russia had been seized by the Bolsheviks, who had now concluded a separate peace with Germany and were using German funds and military aid against their own countrymen, although neither the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk nor the Bolshevik dictatorship were recognized by the majority of the population.
In Siberia there were no Bolsheviks in power, and moreover a local democratic government had been formed in Tomsk. On the Volga members of the Constituent Assembly, mainly Socialist Revolutionaries, had set up a democratic anti-Bolshevik center and, assisted by the Czech legions1 had begun hostilities against the Bolsheviks. The Don and Kuban Cossacks were already fighting the Bolsheviks. The whole of the Volga as far as Samara and the Urals was free of Bolsheviks. In the south a volunteer army had been recruited through the joint effort of Generals Alekseyev and Denikin (Kornilov had been killed in April), and had already made contact with the advancing Bolsheviks. The Ukraine was still under German rule, but there, too, popular uprisings had sporadically broken out.
1 Prisoners of war who had fought against Germany on the Russian Front and had then volunteered to fight the Germans on the Western Front and were on their way there via the Far East.
I told Lloyd George that at the time of my departure from Moscow there were two political centers in existence. Both bodies were trying to form a new coalition government and to recruit a volunteer army politically affiliated to the National Center.
It was the aim of the government now being formed, I went on, to continue the war alongside the Allies, to free Russia from Bolshevik tyranny, and to restore a democratic system. The representatives of the Allies in Russia had promised their support, and at the present moment it was vital for the Allied governments to maintain close relations with anti-Bolshevik and anti-German Russia. Furthermore, it was important to decided how national Russia could best contribute to the military operations of the Triple Alliance. But such a contribution could only be made if the Allies recognized (de facto) the new government and if there was unity of action among the Allied representatives in Russia.
I had surmised that Lloyd George would not be completely conversant with the fast-moving events in Russia and the policy of the British and French representatives on the spot. . . .
The moment arrived for him to leave for the House of Commons, and he said goodbye without having expressed any personal view regarding what I had told him. He suggested that I have a talk with his war minister, Lord Milner, as soon as possible. Then he suddenly added as an afterthought: �In a few days� time I am going to Paris for a session of the Supreme Allied Council in Versailles. Why don�t you come too? You�ll be invited to Versailles.�
The same day, in a speech on the House of Commons, Lloyd George mentioned, among other things, that he had personally received good news from Russia that very morning.
We left No. 10 Downing Street in good spirits and with a feeling of achievement. My mission had gotten off to a flying start—in a few days� time all of the Great Five would have a first- hand account of the Russian situation.
it was a wonderful sunny morning. We decided to walk home, and on the way I dropped in at the Russian Embassy to ask Nabokov to arrange for a passport for me as soon as possible, since I had come to England without any papers and had no identification for travel
outside the British Isles. Nabokov ironically congratulated me on the unexpected turn of events and promised to have a diplomatic passport ready for me the next day. When I returned home to Gavronsky�s, I found that a telephone message had been left for me that Lord Milner was expecting me at six o�clock that evening.
I had a feeling that in sending me to see the War Minister Lloyd George was hoping to exert indirect influence on the military policy of my country. . . .
Lord Milner, a typical Victorian, received me with icy politeness. He listened carefully to what I had to say and put in a question from time to time, but he made no comment and gave no sign of what he was thinking. All the same, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
Several years later I met Lloyd George, then no longer in power, and we talked over former times. At the end of the conversation I asked him outright why the Entente had systematically encouraged all the military conspiracies aimed at establishing a dictatorship during the time of the Provisional Government. He evaded a direct answer, claiming he knew nothing about the matter. If that were true, he continued, then the British Ministry of Supply and the War office must have been conducting their own private war.
Shortly after my visits to the Prime Minster and Lord Miler, the world press reported my arrival in London. . . .
Immediately after my arrival in London (June 20, 1918) Paul Painlevé, the brilliant French mathematician and statesman, came over to see me from Paris. . . .
( pages 490 - 493 )
Paris
A few days after our meeting Lloyd George went to Paris, and as agreed, Dr. Gavronsky and I followed him. We took the night train and were careful not to let anyone in advance of our arrival. . . .
Three days passed without a sign of an invitation to Versailles. I
decided that Lloyd George was either unable to contact the officials who were anxious for me to attend the Supreme Allied Council, or else that he had lost interest in the idea. Personally, I was just as keen to fulfill my mission as before, although I had heard one or two sinister facts regarding the invitation.
. . . Clemenceau, or the �old Tiger,� as he was nicknamed had become head of the French government immediately after the Bolshevik coup in Russia, and his rule in France was a form of benevolent but firm dictatorship.
We had arrived in Paris ten days before the final German offensive, which swung the balance of the whole war. At last rid of Russian military pressure through the Bolshevik coup, the Germans had now concentrated all their fast-failing military strength in the West, and both Ludendorff and Hindenburg made several all-out attempts to break through the Allied defenses. But it was too late. The Germans now faced a new Anglo-French-American army under the joint command of General Foch . . .
( pages 494-5 )