eir friends, demoralisation and decomposition began at the head,
rapidly filtering down to the lowest strata of society.

If the Allied cause was deserted, it was the desertion of a ruling
class, not of a people or its army. German treachery wormed its way in
at the top, and so destroyed a great race it never could have conquered.

Having disorganised the Russian military machine, Germany sent her
agents to continue the disorder and prevent recovery. She secured the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and made a levy of several hundred millions
sterling upon her bailiffs, whom she put in possession of her
neighbour's property. Lenin and Trotsky found anarchy the most effective
weapon to further the interest of their masters and protect their
Eastern flank. A peace which virtually extended German conquest to the
hinterland of Tsing-Tchau was dangerous to every civilising influence in
the Far East.

The Bolshevik treaty was not less dangerous to Europe herself, since it
brought a war-like population of one hundred and eighty millions within
the sphere of German military influence.

The British Expeditionary Force was ordered to Siberia in June, 1918, to
assist the orderly elements of Russian society to reorganise themselves
under a national Government and to resurrect and reconstruct the Russian
front. Firstly, to enable Russia to resist German aggression; secondly,
to weaken German military power on the Western front, where at that time
she was again delivering hammer-blows at the gates of Paris. This
expedition was approved by every party and patriot in Britain, and the
only criticism offered at the time was that it should have been so long
delayed. Soviet power under German and Austrian direction had released
the German and Austrian prisoners of war, armed and organised them into
formidable armies to perform the double task of maintaining their
creatures in power at Moscow and extending their domination over a
helpless friendly Allied Power.

There was every reason for treating the Dictatorship of Lenin and
Trotsky as a mere side-show of the German military party; they were, in
fact, a branch of the military problem with which the Allies were bound
to deal. Under Entente direction anti-Bolshevik Governments were
established, and were promised the unstinted help of the Allies to
recover their territory and expel the agents of the enemy who had so
foully polluted their own home. It was on this understanding that
Admiral Koltchak,