|
From Memoirs by Sir George Buchanan
December18 [1917]
" . . . I am feeling better to-day and propose remaining on till the Constituent has either met or been sent about its business. The latter seems the more likely, as the Bolsheviks have issued a proclamation ordering the arrest of the Cadet leaders and declaring that the enemies of the people, the landlords and the capitalists, must have no place in that assembly. They have already arrested six Cadets who had been elected.
" On December 1 the Stavka was occupied by the Bolsheviks without any fighting, as General Dukhonin had not allowed the Death Battalion, who had placed themselves at his disposal, to offer any resistance. As Dukhonin was about to leave Mohileff by train he was dragged from his carriage and brutally murdered. On the 3rd the Bolshevik delegation, under Joffe, arrived at Brest Litovsk and commenced negotiations. As the Germans declined to accept their first proposals they returned to Petrograd on the 5th to consult the Government. They left again for Brest Litovsk on the 11th, and an armistice that was to continue till January 14 was signed on the 15th. The Germans accepted the clause in which the Bolsheviks had
insisted that during the armistice there was to be no transfer of troops to other fronts ; but, as they attached the condition that the clause was not to apply to transfers which had already commenced, they have been able to move as many troops as they wished to our front. There was also a dangerous clause about the exchange of commodities. Peace negotiations are to begin to-day.
" Meanwhile the situation at Petrograd is getting worse and worse. There has lately been a perfect orgy of drunkenness. On the 7th a band of soldiers and sailors broke into the Winter Palace and pillaged the cellars, while five successive guards sent to arrest them did but follow their example and get hopelessly drunk. There was much shooting, but only a few soldiers were wounded. Eventually someone had the happy thought of ending the debauch by flooding the cellars, and in the process several drunken men were drowned. The soldiers have since been turning their attention to the cellars of private persons, and last night some friends of ours came to take refuge in the Embassy, as their cellars had been occupied by soldiers who were indulging in promiscuous firing. Robbery and murder are becoming common everyday proceedings, and at night people are stopped in the streets and stripped of all their clothes and valuables. Not a night passes without the constant firing of rifles and machine-guns, but nobody can ever tell me what it's all about. One night there was so much firing on the Bridge, close to the Embassy, that my wife, whose bed is in a line with the windows of the room, slept on a mattress on the floor for greater security. One never knows what a day or night may bring forth."
December 19.
" Trotzky called this afternoon on the French Ambassador and said that the Allies had always refused to revise their war aims, and that, as he did not wish to be repeatedly put off as his predecessors in office had been, he had decided to open peace negotiations. They would, however, be suspended for a week so as to give the Allies the opportunity of participating in them. He was quite correct and civil. He has not honoured me with a visit for fear that I should decline to receive him.
( vol i, pages 239 - 241 )
My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories
by Sir GEORGE BUCHANAN
British Ambassador, Petrograd, 1910-1918
Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 1923.
From My Mission to Russia by Sir George Buchanan, 1923
I do not propose to follow the Russian Armies through all the successive phases of the war, as this has already been admirably done by my friend and former military attaché, Major-General Sir Alfred Knox, in his book , " With the Russian Armies, 1914-1917." I shall therefore content myself with a brief sketch of the principal events in the Eastern theatre of war, with reference more especially to their bearing on the general Russian situation.
( vol i, page 216 )
In my first conversation with Mr. Balfour and other members of the Government I had deprecated a complete rupture with the Bolsheviks on the ground that it would leave the Germans a clear field in Russia. On the other hand, I had laid stress on the fact that, while we had nothing to hope from the Social revolutionaries, Lenin and Trotzky, though very big men, represented a destructive and not a constructive force. They could pull down, but they could not build up. Their end and aim was to sweep away all the old so-called imperialistic Governments, and they would never, as I told the Prime Minister at the time, work
with a man whom they regarded as the very personification of imperialism.
As the situation changed for the worse, I modified the views which I had originally expressed. The Bolsheviks had dissolved the Constituent and had murdered two ex-Ministers ; while Litvinoff had, in a speech at Nottingham, openly preached revolution. To allow an unofficial diplomatic agent to carry on an active revolutionary propaganda in our midst seemed to me inadmissible ; yet were we to take disciplinary measures against him Trotsky would retaliate with reprisals against members of our embassy. We had therefore to choose between coming to terms with the Bolsheviks, on the basis of complete reciprocity in all things, or to break with them altogether and to withdraw our embassy. I was strongly favour of the latter course, more especially as there now seemed some prospect of the Allies affording material assistance to the loyal elements in South Russia, who had not yet submitted either to the Bolsheviks or the Germans.
( vol ii, pages 255-6 )
My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories
by Sir GEORGE BUCHANAN
British Ambassador, Petrograd, 1910-1918
Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 1923, vol. i, page 216.
Buchanan, George, Sir, 1854-1924.
Title My mission to Russia and other diplomatic memories. Russian
Moia missiia v Rossii : vospominaniia diplomata / Ser Dzhordzh Biukenen ; perevod s angliiskogo D.IA. Blokh.
Imprint Berlin : Obelisk, 1924.
Descript 2 v. : port. ; 23 cm.
Note Translation of: My mission to Russia and other diplomatic memories.
Buchanan, George, Sir, 1854-1924.
Title My mission to Russia and other diplomatic memories,
Publisher Boston, Little, Brown & company, 1923. {
Publisher London, New York [etc.] Cassell and company, limited, 1923.
}
Description 2 v. fronts., plates, ports., 2 fold. maps. 24 cm.
Language English
Great Britain. Foreign Office.
Title Reports on tariff wars between certain European states. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty. February 1904.
Publisher London, Printed for H.M. Stationery off., by Harrison and sons [1904]
Description 1 p. l., 85, [1] p. 34 cm.
Series Commercialno.1, 1904
Great Britain. Parliament. Papers by command ;Cd. 1938
Series Cd. (Great Britain. Parliament) ;1938.
Note (Contents cont.)--no.4 (Sir C. S. Scott, St. Petersburgh) Report on the tariff war between Germany and Russia, by Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice.--no. 5. (Sir F.C. Lascelles, Berlin) Report on the Russo-German tariff war of 1893-1894, by George William Buchanan.--no. 6 (Sir C. Greene, Berne) 1. Summary of the history of the Franco-Swiss tariff war of 1893-1895, by Conyngham Greene, Berne. 2. A condensed history, from the commercial and industrial aspect, of the Franco-Swiss tariff war of 1893-1895, extracted from the annual reports of the Swiss commercial and industrial society, for the years 1890-1895 inclusive, by John Carpenter Milligan, British commercial agent at Z�rich.
Contents Circular of July 1, 1903, addressed to H.M. representatives at Paris, Rome, St. Petersburgh, Berlin, and Berne, with replies and inclosures as follows: no.1-2 (transmitted by Sir E. Monson, Paris) Reports on the tariff war between France and Switzerland, 1893-1895, and on the Franco-Italian tariff war, 1888-1899, by Henry Austin Lee.--no. 3 (Sir R. Rodd, Rome) Report on the tariff war between France and Italy, by Stephen Leech.
Language English
|