managed institution. It enjoyed
the good fortune of being under charge of an experienced Civil
Servant, Sir E. Wyldbore Smith, who had one or two of the same sort to
help him, although the bulk of the staff were of the provisional type;
and, as the various foreign delegations dealing with supplies were
housed under the same roof, this was manifestly the proper place for
us to be. We were in close touch with the people we actually had to
deal with. The foreign delegates could always look in on us and could
discuss points of detail with us on the spot, thereby avoiding
misunderstandings and friction. Consisting, as they did, for the most
part of officers, they liked to have officers to deal with. A foreign
officer of junior rank will take "no" for an answer from a general and
be perfectly happy, whereas he may jib at receiving the same answer
from a civilian or from an officer of his own standing. Points of that
kind are apt to be overlooked in a non-military country like ours.

My branch had an extremely busy time in connection with the supply of
the munitions which were promised to the Russians on the occasion of
that mission of theirs which was sent to England just at the time that
I took over charge, and which is mentioned on p. 287 in the last
chapter. These munitions included war material of all kinds, but
particularly field-howitzers and heavy artillery. The Russian
delegation were quite ready to leave all the arrangements for getting
the goods to Archangel from wherever they were turned out in this
country, to the C.I.R. and us, working in conjunction with the Naval
Transport Department of the Admiralty at first and afterwards with the
Ministry of Shipping. They recognized their own administrative
shortcomings and wisely left such matters under British control. Some
difficulty did, however, arise in respect to the apportionment of
tonnage space, as between the armament supplied by the War Office and
commodities of other kinds which the delegates procured more or less
direct from the trade through the C.I.R. Some regrettable delay
occurred in the winter of 1916-17 in getting armament shipped which
had been hurried from the factories to Liverpool, owing to its being
shut out by goods of much less importance. It was imperative to get
heavy artillery out as soon as possible in view of the coming
campaign, and it was exasperating to have valuable howitzers idle at
the docks which our own army in France would have welco