evolution was
bound to produce a state of affairs for the time being bordering on
chaos. What ought to prove the decisive year of the war was at hand.
Revolution must be staved off at all costs.

The special Mission actually started for Murmansk some two or three
weeks later. Although the list of its personnel made a good enough
show on paper, it lacked the one element that was practically
indispensable if its representations were to save the situation. They
say that Lord Milner, on getting back, gave the War Cabinet to
understand that all was going on fairly well in Russia, and that there
was little or no fear of a _bouleversement_. This would have seemed to
me incredible had I not met several of the members of the Mission when
they turned up again, and had they not, one and all, appeared
perfectly satisfied with the internal situation of the empire on which
they had paid a call. Whom these good people saw out there, where they
went, what steps they took to acquire knowledge in quarters other than
official circles, how it came about that they returned to this country
with no more idea of the state of affairs than a cassowary on the
plains of Timbuctoo, furnishes one of those mysteries which cast such
a recondite glamour over our public life. Why, the Babes in the Wood
were prodigies of analysis and wizards of cunning compared with this
carefully selected civilian and military party, which, it has to be
acknowledged, spent a by no means idle time while sojourning in the
territories of our eastern Ally. For among them they promised away
any amount more munitions and war material of all kinds. They went
into the details of the contemplated deal with meticulous care and
consummate administrative skill. They elaborated a programme which
would undoubtedly have proved in the highest degree advantageous to
Russia, had the conditions not undergone a complete metamorphosis
owing to the outbreak of the Revolution in Petrograd a very few days
after they landed, sanguine and reassuring, in this country on their
return journey.

Had it not been for the _Hampshire_ disaster, had Lord Kitchener
succeeded in carrying out his mission in the summer of 1916, it is
conceivable that, in virtue of that almost uncanny intuition that he
possessed, he would have pieced together the realities of the
situation, and would have managed to teach his colleagues in our
Cabinet to understand them on his return. His personal influence might
have made