sive on a great scale, and he seemed disappointed when I said
that, merely expressing my own personal opinion, I doubted whether we
should be ready to do much before the summer, as so many of our New
Army divisions were short of training and as we were still in arrear
to some extent in the matter of munitions. As a matter of fact, the
great German offensive against Verdun was rather to settle this
question for us; for it kept the French on the defensive and General
Joffre was not obliged to call upon Sir D. Haig for aid, which allowed
our troops just that comparative leisure (apart from holding the line)
that enabled them to prepare for the Battle of the Somme.

Mohileff was reputed to be about the most Jewish township in Russia,
and, judging by the appearance of the inhabitants, that reputation was
not undeserved. One had heard a lot about pogroms in the past, but
they would not appear to be of the really thoroughgoing sort. It is an
unattractive spot in the winter-time in spite of its effective
position, emplaced on a plateau with the Dneiper winding round two
sides of it in a deep trough. Hanbury-Williams was a great walker,
always anxious for exercise, and each afternoon we wandered out
somewhere in the snow for a constitutional; the Emperor used to do the
same, but he always motored a good way out into the country before
starting on his tramp. The only exercise that the other foreign
officers ever seemed to take consisted in motoring backwards and
forwards between the hotel and the Imperial headquarters for meals. It
is wonderful how any of them survived.

The last forenoon that we spent there, a special service took place in
the principal church in honour of the Grand Duchess Tatiana's
birthday; and the foreign missions received a hint to go, it being
understood that the Emperor proposed to be present in person. This,
however, proved to be a false alarm. The service began at 10 A.M., and
we went at 11.30 A.M. and stayed till noon; it was still going on at
that time, and we understood that they were only in the middle of it.
Even half an hour of this was something of an ordeal, seeing that the
church was overheated (as Russian interiors always are), that we had
our furs on, and that we had to choose between standing or else
kneeling down on the stone floor. Services of the Orthodox Church are
not unimpressive even when one cannot follow them; the Chief Priest at
Mohileff had a real organ voice and made the very mo