and British were striving hard to influence every
party in Russia, and were even believed to harbor designs on certain
provinces, such as the Caucasus and Siberia. Color was imparted to these
misgivings by the circumstance that the Allied governments were openly
countenancing the dismemberment of the country by detaching non-Russian
and even Russian elements from the main body. It behooved the Allies to
dissipate this mistrust by issuing a statement of their policy in
unmistakable terms, repudiating schemes for territorial gains,
renouncing interference in domestic affairs and complicity in the work
of disintegrating the country. Russia and her affairs must be left to
Russians, who would not grudge economic concessions as a reasonable
_quid pro quo_.

The proposal further insisted that the declaration of policy should be
at once followed by the despatch of two or three well-known persons
acquainted with Russia and Russian affairs, and enjoying the confidence
of European peoples, to inquire into the conditions of the country and
make an exhaustive report. This mission, it was added, need not be
official, it might be intrusted to individuals unattached to any
government.

If a satisfactory answer to this proposal were returned within a
fortnight, an armistice and suspension of the secret _pourparlers_ with
Germany would, I was told, have followed. That this compact would have
led to a settlement of the Russian problems is more than any one,
however well informed, could vouch for, but I had some grounds for
believing the move to be genuine and the promises overdone. No
reasonable motive suggested itself for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the
overture disclosed two important facts, one of which was known at the
time only to the Bolshevist government--namely, that secret
_pourparlers_ were going forward between Berlin and Moscow for the
purpose of arriving at a workable understanding between the two
governments, and that the Allied troops at Odessa, Archangel, and
Murmansk were in a wretched plight and in direr need of an armistice
than the Bolsheviki.[263]

I mentioned the matter summarily to one of the delegates, who evinced a
certain interest in it and promised to discuss it at length later on
with a view to action. Another to whom I unfolded it later thought it
would be well if I myself started, together with two or three others,
for Moscow, Petrograd, Ekaterinodar, and other places, and reported on
the situation. But wee