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39°
A VISIT TO PETROGRAD [chap. xxi.
with the number of subjects that we treated
exhaustively during one hour’s conversation; this denoted
remarkable conciseness and clear-mindedness on his
part. Later on, at the approach of the Revolution,
the Press spoke very badly of the General. He was
universally accused of servility towards the worst
leaders of those ghastly months. AJas! I fear it was
true. One can, moreover, possess a very clear mind
and much intellectual power and yet be total!}’ lacking
in civic courage and even in moral honesty. The
opposite is unfortunately just as common; we
experienced this from the beginning of the
Revolution, when men who were perfectly upright, pure,
and animated by the best intentions found
themselves absolutely incapable of controlling Government
machinery after rude reality had replaced for them all
generous dreams and abstract criticism S
A few days after my arrival in Petrograd, I heard
that M. Savinsky was there, recovering from rather
a serious illness, and that he wished very much to see
me. I found my colleague pale and thin and animated
by that feverish wish to exonerate himself and to bring
his services and opinions into repute which is the
distinguishing characteristic of every man who has
suffered a serious reverse, and who feels that he is a
butt for the accusations of his enemies and the gossip
of his friends.
He told me—and was able to prove—that already in
April, 1915, he had warned the Foreign Office of the
imminence of the Bulgarian peril, and had suggested as
the sole means of stopping Bulgaria the restitution by
Serbia of the part of Macedonia annexed by virtue of
the treaty of Bukharest. In Petrograd they could not
make up their minds to force the Serbians to do this,
and in order to get out of the difficulty they persuaded
themselves that the danger was in no sense pressing and
that the Russian Minister to Sofia exaggerated the perils
of the situation; there was all the more excuse for this
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