e that it is a great mistake to mix Canadians and
British troops in one Brigade. Naturally, British soldiers carry out
orders; if other troops do not, then the British troops have to do all
the work. The situation produced is that the highest paid soldier does
no work and the lowest paid all the work. It soon percolates to the
slowest Sussex brain that discipline does not pay. Nothing but the
wonderful sense of order in the make-up of the average Englishman has
prevented us from becoming an Anglo-Canadian rabble, dangerous to
Bolshevik and Russian alike. I am told that Brigadier Pickford had done
his best to maintain order and discipline in his ranks; that he had been
compelled to make very awkward promises to his troops which having been
made had to be fulfilled. In all the circumstances it was generally
agreed that the proper thing to have done was to send the Canadians home
to their farms, and leave the few Britishers who were there to carry on.
We had established excellent relations with the Russians which it would
have been a thousand pities to spoil."

CHAPTER XV

MORE INTRIGUES

While the loyal Russian officers were being murdered in their beds,
other events not less important were happening. When Admiral Koltchak
assumed supreme authority the Directorate was surrounded by a party of
Royalist officers as turbulent and lawless as Trotsky himself. Private
code messages passed between these officers as freely as if they already
had the power in their own hands. The first intimation that Koltchak had
of these conspiracies was a code message from General Evanoff Renoff to
General Beloff, General Bolderoff's Chief of Staff, which unfolded many
of the aspirations of these men, and showed their objects to be
exclusively personal. I read these messages with great interest, as they
gave me an excellent insight into the mainsprings of the revolution and
incidentally into the character of the average Russian officer. General
Antonovsky, of the old Russian Military Academy, who also assisted in
the drafting of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with the Germans, was a
participant in the scheme, and was within an ace of becoming the
admiral's Chief of Staff. Everything was working splendidly, when the
cipher message from Renoff opened the ball. Beloff was sent to the east,
and Antonovsky to the south, and the Absolutists became broken up.

On February 1 my liaison officer informed me that as he waited in the
corridor of head