nion Jack, to denote the British
Headquarters, on the dirtiest and most dilapidated second-class
contraption that could be found on the line. But of course we meant
business; we were not out for pleasure.

I was advised before I started from Vladivostok that Nikolsk, the
junction of the Manchurian and Central Siberian Railways, was the most
important strategical point on the South Siberian end of the line, and
that though the position on the Ussurie was pretty hopeless and
retirement might take place at any moment, we were not in any
circumstances to retire below Nikolsk. The place to which we were to
retire and take up a new position had been already decided--a line just
below Spascoe, with Lake Hanka on the left and a line of forest-covered
mountains on the right.

We arrived at Nikolsk in the early morning, but the platform was crowded
with inhabitants and two guards of honour, Czech and Cossack, with band,
which mistook "Rule Britannia" for the National Anthem. I was introduced
to all the officers, the British Vice-Consul, Mr. Ledwards, and his
energetic wife. Breakfast was served to the men by the other corps, and
my officers received the hospitality of the good Consul and Mrs.
Ledwards. Then a march through the town, to show the inhabitants that
the long-sought-for Allied assistance had really arrived at last.

It appears that a very sanguine French officer had travelled over the
line some months previously and had made lavish promises of Allied
support, which accounts, perhaps, for my previous orders received at
Hong-Kong towards the end of 1917. The Allies had decided to make a much
earlier effort to reconstruct the Russian line against their German
enemies, but, like all Allied efforts, their effective action had been
frustrated by divided counsels and stupid national jealousy.

It was the prospect of Falkenhayn, with the huge army of half a million
men, flushed with its recent easy victory over Rumania, being freed for
employment on the French front, that caused our hurried over-late
expedition to Siberia. If the effort had been made at the right time the
Russian people and soldiery would not have become so demoralised and
hopeless as they had when I arrived, and millions of lives would have
been saved from untold tortures. A famous statesman once sternly
admonished his colleagues for their fatal policy of doing nothing until
it was too late; in this case he himself is open to the same censure.

At Nikols