THE RED REIGN

The author and his brigand guide and interpreter

THE RED REIGN

THE TRUE STORY OF AN
ADVENTUROUS YEAR
IN RUSSIA

BY
KELLOGG DURLAND
AUTHOR OF “AMONG THE FIFE MINERS,” ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1908

Copyright, 1907, by
The Century Co.
——
Published, September, 1907
THE DE VINNE PRESS

TO
MY MOTHER

The author desires to make cordial recognition of the fact that some of the material used in Chapter IX was also used in articles which appeared in Harper’s Weekly and Colliers Weekly; that certain passages in several other chapters were used in letters to the New York Evening Post and the Boston Evening Transcript; that part of Chapter XI appeared in the Independent. At the same time he would express his grateful appreciation to Mr. Hamilton Holt, of the Independent, for the courtesy of supplying him with credentials of representation which were exceedingly useful on several occasions.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Importance of movement called Russian revolution—Its varied aspects—Inevitableness of revolution in Russia—Causes—The disease of autocracy—Insincerity of manifesto of October, 1905, seen in gradual withdrawal of constitutional rights then guaranteed—Elements of disintegration in Russian state—Ninety per cent. of Russian people now oppose existing régime—Startling record of killed and wounded in 1906—Compared to French Terror—Length of Russian struggle compared to other revolutions in history—Author’s qualifications for present undertaking—Varied experience among Cossacks, terrorists and peasants.

The Russian revolution is one of the vital issues of the world to-day. The political revolt, presenting, as it does, so many unique and dramatic developments, tends to distract the attention of the world from the broader, deeper, and certainly not less important, phases of the movement which are found in the social and economic upheaval. The working out of these forces—political, social, economic—in one stupendous movement, constitutes one of the great revolutions of history.

Revolution implies absolute change. Whether civil war, or intense parliamentary struggle, or both, is the method of accomplishment, is of small consequence. The ultimate outcome is the same. The present movement of the Russian people toward a changed condition of life is but the manifestation of underlying forces of history and destiny to which all nations must yield. Revolution in Russia during the first quarter of the twentieth century is as inevitable as the bursting of a Pelée or a Vesuvius; as inexorable and pitiless as an earthquake, or the passing of ancient empires.

Revolutions are not made. They are not built upon the propaganda of a political or economic cult. They do not depend upon the will of men—whether rulers or parliaments—as do wars. Revolutions are the result of internal unwholesomeness—disease rooted in the body politic, too deep to be poulticed out by ameliorating reforms. The Russian revolution would be viewed as a world catastrophe were it not that the disease, of which the revolution is but a symptom, is infinitely more of a world menace. That disease is autocracy. Autocracy is a system of government incompatible with twentieth-century civilization. Reforms which are reconcilable to Russian autocracy are inadequate to meet the present needs of the Russian people, and the meeting of these needs necessitates reforms of such far-reaching and radical a nature, that autocracy cannot admit them and continue to exist. Further, certain reforms and fundamental requirements are now so demanding and so acute that autocracy cannot much longer stand out against them. The period of transition from autocracy to constitutionalism, republicanism, or whatever the ultimate form of government accepted in Russia shall be, we call revolution. The word has no arbitrary meaning. It simply designates a period of national upheaval and struggle. In this sense the Russian revolution may be said to have come to a head on “Bloody Sunday,” January 22, 1905, and will culminate only with the capitulation, or overthrow, of autocracy. The abyss toward which the Russian government is now tending is but the Nemesis of history.

The constitution which was wrung from the hands of the emperor on the 30th of October, 1905, when the rising tide of revolution threatened the very palace gates, is being gradually modified and withdrawn piecemeal, and if the emperor has his way not a vestige of it will long remain. The fundamental rights of men, which it pretends to guarantee the Russian people, are as non-existent in the Russia of 1906 as they were in 1806, before the first faint mutterings of the coming storm had been heard. Not one, but all, of the guaranteed rights of that manifesto have been withdrawn under so-called “temporary” laws and regulations, and under the cloak of military law. The rights of free speech, writing, assemblage, inviolability of person and home, still remain utopian dreams of a distant day. This manifesto clearly and unequivocally guaranteed “freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of public assembly, and real inviolability of personal rights.” And yet of the approximately 486 members of the first Duma—the chosen representatives of the Russian people—one (Professor Hertzenstein) has been murdered by the “Black Hundred”; one priest excommunicated; two members have been beaten; ten are in hiding; five have been exiled; twenty-four are in prison; thirty-three have been arrested and searched; and one hundred and eighty-two are under indictment on the charge of treason.[1] An obviously anomalous situation.

“If a strong, central government becomes disorganized, if inefficiency, or idleness, or above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling place in it, the whole government body is diseased.”[2] No modern state, save Turkey, is more universally honeycombed with official inefficiencies and corruption than Russia, and even Turkey’s central government to-day represents more solidity than the Russian. The only possible justification for despotism of any character is in its actual power, and in its fruits. Military despotism in Russia not only broke down, but was hopelessly shattered by the inglorious and ignominious war with Japan. The hold that autocracy once maintained on the Russian people then loosened. It has been steadily weakening ever since Tsushima and the fall of Port Arthur, followed by the shadow of Mukden, which passed westward across the empire. Dishonesty and corruption stamps every one of Peter’s fourteen bureaucratic ranks. The war disclosed an enormous extent of thievery in all departments of the service. Especially sensational revelations came to light in connection with the Red Cross, where the funds were most flagrantly misappropriated—a portion of the spoils even going to the grand dukes. So recently as January, 1907, the Assistant Minister of Interior, Gourko, was involved in one of the most outrageous scandals in all the annals of Russian corruption—namely, the misappropriation of a large per cent. of one of the all too inadequate appropriations of money for the relief of the starving peasants.

A state eaten with official rottenness; an emperor attempting not only to rule but to do the thinking for 142,000,000 of people; an economic condition of such a character that annual famine falls like a pall over vast areas (in the winter of 1906-7 taking within its grasp 30,000,000 of men, women, and children); an army spotted with disaffection; a navy almost chronically mutinous; a people held in artificial tranquillity, through the terrorism of martial law, which now spreads over four fifths of European Russia; a critical financial situation, impending bankruptcy within and the largest foreign loan in history to eventually meet,—these are some of the elements of the Russian situation of the present time which must be met by reforms involving changes so complete as to amount to revolution.

At the beginning of 1907 probably 90 per cent. of the people of Russia were opposed to the present government, for during the past two years even the peasants have had opinions of their own, based on their loss of faith in the “Little Father.” But reigning circles have all of the organized armed force of the country at their command, and so peculiarly effective is the system of discipline employed, that against the unarmed population even of overwhelming superiority in point of numbers, this position is tenable for a surprising time. On the other hand, a trifling incident might turn the scales in a night. In a phrase used by Professor Miliukoff, the Russian situation to-day presents: “An incompetent government opposed by a thus far incapable revolution.” The government, unable itself to administer or to rule, is yet able to disorganize the ranks of revolution and to terrorize into inactivity a large portion of the country. The revolution, at the same time, while unable to muster open organization of fighting strength sufficient to overthrow the government, is able to harass and embarrass the government at every point and gradually to force it further and further into an impasse from which it can never emerge.

During the year 1906, according to official figures, more than 36,000 people were killed and wounded in revolutionary conflict; over 22,000 suffered in anti-Semitic outbreaks, most of which were promoted by governmental agents; over 16,000 so-called agrarian disorders occurred. Political arrests were so constant that during at least two months of the year—January and July—the aggregate number of men and women dragged from their homes and imprisoned or exiled was estimated at 25,000 per month. Late in the summer of 1906 Premier Stolypin inaugurated the drumhead field courts-martial, which became immediately so active that according to an official statement issued on March 5, 1907, 764 persons had been executed—an average of five daily.

These figures loom large indeed when it is recalled that in France, during the Terror, only 2,300 heads fell from the guillotine block, and that during the entire French Revolution only about 30,000 lives were sacrificed.

Here is clear indication of constant activity on both sides. In spite of this loss of life, this spent and often misspent energy, unnumbered crimes against generations unborn, it must be admitted that the progress of revolution is never comparably swift to the movement of wars. By the very nature of revolutionary struggles they must drag. In England the Revolution lasted from 1640 to 1689; in France twelve years of constant conflict and struggle were followed by decades of unrest and periodic disturbance; in Italy the fight dragged on from 1821 till 1870; and so will the Russian revolution be prolonged. Compared with the revolutionary movements of history, however, Russia is making rapid progress. The stupendousness of the Russian situation, with a heterogeneous population of 142,000,000 of people scattered over an empire which includes one sixth of the territory of the world, makes an almost unreckonable problem—infinitely more vast and more complicated than the situation in France in 1789.

There are many available books in English, French, and German which present the conditions of Russia on the eve of revolution. The task which I assume is to present a picture of Russia in revolution. The year 1906 may be accepted as a typical revolutionary year. Between January and December of that year I traveled through every section of European Russia, Poland and the Caucasus, and a part of western Siberia. Of the spectacular and dramatic events which characterized the year, I witnessed not a few, but the really significant features of the year are the not less intense phases of the social and economic disturbances, and these I aim to make clear to the average reader.

In thus attempting to present, as it were, a cross section of the revolution, I undertake not so much a difficult task, as one which demands peculiar opportunities and advantages. To forestall natural queries, therefore, I may be permitted to state that my own point of view has been uniquely varied. Shortly after my arrival in St. Petersburg influential friends, affiliated with the court, made it possible for me to join a group of fourteen Cossack officers who were about to journey through the Caucasus. Most, if not all, of these men had formerly been officers of guard regiments and had been temporarily assigned to a Cossack regiment for the war, in order that they might have opportunity to distinguish themselves, thus paving the way for speedy promotion. The commander of the regiment, who was the chief of our party, was an aide-de-camp to the Czar. My particular host was a Georgian prince who has since rejoined his regiment, which is attached to the person of the Empress. To be an officer or even by birth a member of the court party does not naturally preclude liberal or even revolutionary sympathies, but it so happened that all of the officers who made up this little company were staunch supporters of the Czar and of autocracy. All that I witnessed of race clashes; of the pacification of insubordinate villages; the devastation of districts which should have been fertile and prosperous; of pillage, and loot, and the violation of the laws and customs adopted by civilized nations for international warfare, I witnessed, as it were, from the inside. Protected by the officer’s uniform which I wore, I rode with the Cossacks, entered their barracks freely under circumstances where any ordinary traveler would not have been permitted to have passed the lines. I was even accorded the privilege of using my camera at will. Through Great Russia and the provinces I passed as an ordinary traveler, provided with the usual letters of sanction, and permits from central and local authorities, but without special introductions.

In St. Petersburg and Moscow during the session of the first Duma I cultivated the acquaintance of the “intellectuals” who at that time bade fair to be a dominant force in Russia. Men of the type of Professor Paul Miliukoff, Maxime Kovalevsky, Dr. Loris-Melikoff, and other thinkers and scholars who would, if they could, lead Russia through her period of regeneration and reorganization by confining the struggle to the halls of Parliament, dreading as they do, and distrusting bloodshed and civil war. After the dissolution I affiliated almost entirely with the avowedly revolutionary parties. I cultivated members of the military organization and with them visited the barracks at Kronstadt and elsewhere, where I witnessed conspirative revolutionary meetings of soldiers and sailors. Through the courtesy of a local governor I was permitted to visit in prison the most noted terrorist of the year in Russia, Marie Spiradonova; and later, through my revolutionary connections, I established communications with the more active fighting organization known to the world as “The Terrorists.” With their introductions as well as with the introductions given me by the constitutionalists of the Duma, in the late summer and early autumn I traveled eastward through Great Russia, across the tremendous famine belt, passed the Urals and entered Siberia, returning to St. Petersburg across Perm, Vyatka, and Vologda,—provinces of northern Russia. My sole aim during all these journeyings was to acquire as nearly as I could an accurate picture of Russia in revolution. My purpose now is to present as nearly an accurate and truthful a picture of what I saw and of what I learned as possible. When one has witnessed at close quarters the devastations of villages by the army; when one has seen with his own eyes unarmed men, women, and children of tender years shot by soldiers, torn and maimed by swords and bayonets; when one has acquired absolutely an overwhelming proof of official responsibility for massacre; when one has seen homes burned indiscriminately and merely “suspected” revolutionists exiled without even the forms of a trial, one cannot speak with any degree of sympathy for the government which stands behind all of these things. Yet I strive to the uttermost to be fair to that side and to present as cogently as one can the elements of truth to which the government still clings. The point of view throughout is that of an American who is not unmindful of the dramatic elements of the fight nor of the picturesque; and frequently romantic environments of the struggle; at the same time it is of one whose deepest interest lies in the social and economic causes which lie at the bottom of the whole vast movement, and whose previous training has fitted him to watch with a clearer perception perhaps than is usually given to the casual traveler, or newspaper correspondent, the progress of the social and economic development through this period of storm and stress.

THE RED REIGN

“Nous ne supposons
rien, nous ne proposons
rien, nous exposons.”

THE RED REIGN

CHAPTER I
INTO THE SHADOW

The white terror—My first conspiracy—A frontier episode—A mixed company—“Vive la Revolution!”—The “Quiet Capital”—A courtesy to Americans—A friend’s narrow escape—A midnight incident—Early bewilderment—Witte “more a stratagem than a man”—The ministerial crisis—The deposed minister—Significant telegrams from the provinces—Off to the Caucasus.

HE wave of revolution which swept over Russia in the year of grace 1905 culminated in a series of insurrections during that week of December which is celebrated throughout the western world in sacred memory of the birth of the Prince of Peace. As the dawn of 1906 crept reluctantly across the torn and disintegrating empire of the czars, there was inaugurated a reign of reaction unparalleled since the melancholy days of ’81 which followed the assassination of Alexander II. Russia named this period of shadow The Repression. The people called it the White Terror. Into this lugubriousness, whatever it be called, I was about to enter. In Berlin I lingered a day or two. Even when a bright northern sun fell not unkindly upon the German capital I could not wholly shake off the disquieting feeling that I dare say most foreigners experience when about to cross the Russian frontier for the first time.

Hordes of Russians were pouring into the city. It seemed that every family who could spare the railroad fare was sending its most beloved members across the borders of the Land of Ominous Promise. According to the Berlin police-records as many as ten thousand sometimes arrived in a single day.

The good Herr proprietor of the Gasthaus where I was quartered came to my room to implore me to reconsider entering the country at so disturbed a time. In his hand he brought, for my edification, and as a warning, a copy of the following notice which was being posted throughout a certain district I would pass on the way to St. Petersburg, commanded by one Colonel Jablonsky. A fleeing Russian had smuggled it out to help him dissuade rash travelers about to enter his country:

I, the manager of the movements of troops, request that energetic measures be taken. Bullets and bayonets must be widely used without any fear for the consequences, if any agitators be seen. If the workmen do not let the locomotives go from the “depot” shoot them. Traffic must be established by evening. I repeat again, do not spare bullets and bayonets.

The machinists who live at the government quarters are to be asked three times to accompany the locomotive, and if they only open their mouths to demur, shoot them on the spot and turn their families out into the street.

Manager of the movements of troops,

(Signed) Jablonsky.

There may have been more bark than bite to this Jablonsky; yet his proclamation suggested anything but a peaceful railway journey.

Toward ten o’clock that evening my luggage was transferred to a cab, and as I appeared in the hotel doorway my friend, the Herr proprietor, once more came forward.

“To-day it is quiet, yes. But to-morrow—,” and the expressive shrug of his fat German shoulders eloquently vouched for his genuine concern for my welfare—or his pocketbook—who shall say which?

The luxurious comfort of the wagon-lits soon dispelled the nervousness created by my stay in Berlin, and the next forenoon, as we rattled across the snow-screened plains of the north, I serenely accepted the counsel of a Russian fellow-traveler and deliberately ripped off the binding of a certain “forbidden” book which I carried, that I might wrap the printed pages about my body, next to my underclothing, to escape its confiscation. The book was Peter Kropotkin’s “Russian Literature,” which I thought I might find a useful book of reference.

The last station in Germany was passed at noon. From here on our speed was noticeably lessened. We rolled noisily past the frozen fields which lie in the narrow strath that marks the dividing-line between the two countries. An ice-bound creek running through the strath was crossed by a small trestle. Close by this miniature bridge a Russian soldier in the characteristic coarse brown coat presented arms. As I looked out upon him I laughingly touched my cap in salute, and his peasant face broke into a broad grin that fairly beamed of friendliness. That smile softened my crude, preconceived notion of Russian soldiers many degrees, and during the thousands of miles that I was presently to travel in the Frozen Kingdom, I always remembered the smile that greeted me when first I crossed the border, and it was rarely indeed that I did not find a cordial response where I spoke a friendly word, or extended a friendly hand.

At Wirballen we changed trains, passed the customs, surrendered our passports for examination and viséing, and submitted to whatever other routine the officers required. Gendarmes swarmed everywhere. The prominence of their arms excited my interest. Swords clanked noisily at their heels, striking the ground with each step they took, large revolvers were attached with threatening convenience to their belts, and always outside of their handsome, gray, winter coats.

The delay here was characteristically tedious. Hours were consumed in despatching business which after all was slight in bulk, but unduly weighted by red tape. Aside from the “dangerous” literature which was securely fastened about my body, I had nothing dutiable, so I thought I could safely expedite the examination for myself in order that I might be an unharassed spectator on this, my first, Russian scene. To accomplish this I innocently offered a Customs Inspector a small piece of silver, which was vehemently refused. Mr. Inspector informed me in a loud voice that he could not think of taking money from an individual for doing what the government paid him for doing. A moment later his back was turned, and a thin ugly hand stole between two of my grips and the half-closed fingers twitched expressively toward the palm. The man’s eyes were on his superior. I dropped a modest coin into his hand, and the same instant a Russian standing next me dropped a much larger coin—gold in fact—into the same palm. The man started in visible surprise and excitedly snapped shut my bags without so much as glancing at them. As he did so he muttered something to me under his breath, in Russian, which I could not understand, but my

Moscow barricades

neighbor—he of the lavish tip—said, sotto voce: “Take two of my bags along with yours.” The meaning of this was not at the moment clear to me, but I meekly complied with the request, and ingenuously submitted the stranger’s grips to the checking officials as if they were my own. Had the man been an absolute stranger I might not have followed his directions so readily, but he was the same man who had showed me how to carry my book so as to escape detection.

Not till the train had actually left the Wirballen station did the man come to claim his luggage. Then he lingered to talk awhile and we became friendly to the point of confidence. Darkness had settled deeply down over the outside world before he left my compartment, and we were running across wide, open fields occasionally broken by forests of fir, into which the engine belched bright sparks from the soft sticks that in Russia are burned instead of coal. My companion watched the sparks scattering against the trees and settling on either side of our steel pathway, and made some allusion to the sparks of liberty that even then were scattering across all Russia, settling around and in every town and village from the Baltic Sea to the waters of the Orient. The man’s eyes flashed, hardly less bright than the darting flecks of flame outside the window. He found a sympathetic listener, and it was then we warmed toward each other and he told me the contents of the bags that I, so innocently, had smuggled safely into the country. They contained hand-grenade models, phials of high explosives and several innocent Browning revolvers. I cannot say that I regretted then, or have I since, this, my first humble service to the revolution.

On this train destined for St. Petersburg there was no other American traveler, but there were several Russians who spoke in English and any number who understood French, so that I had intercourse with many of my fellow-passengers in addition to the revolutionist who now called me “comrade.”

The French Revolution brought into popular usage the word “citizen,” but the Russian revolution has popularized the word “comrade”; and comrade is surely the warmer, the heartier, and the more inspiring.

“What do you think about the plans for the Duma?” I asked of an army surgeon who spoke English.

“I do not think,” was the reply. “The Dutch have a proverb, ‘Nothing thought, nothing done.’ I have learned not to think in this country.”

Later on I succeeded in drawing another man into conversation on the subject. In the midst of the discussion a gentleman entered our carriage, and as he sat down directly opposite us, I thought to include him in the conversation, so told him the drift of our talk. He stared blankly at me a moment and said: “Is there good sledging in Petersburg now, do you think?”

I saw the point and changed the subject. A few minutes later he leaned close to me and said: “I should beg your pardon, but I left the adjoining carriage because the passengers began to talk about politics. Once I was in a theater in Petersburg witnessing a performance of Hamlet. I had a seat in one of the galleries. Two peasants presently came in and sat near me. They removed their greatcoats and their boots. They made themselves comfortable for the evening. But when Hamlet was trying the blade of his sword for the duel, one peasant said to the other: ‘To-morrow morning at five o’clock we leave Petersburg to return to our homes. Is it not so?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the other. ‘Then we must get out of this,’ added the first, ‘for see, they are going to fight. They

RUSSIA; Mr. Durland’s Route of Travel

now have their swords out, and if we do not get away we shall be held as witnesses.’ And they left the theater. Those peasants were wise.”

Having an American passport I did not feel it necessary to be as wary as the peasants, and, being anxious to get as many expressions of opinion as possible, I soon went into the adjoining carriage to occupy the place left by this man who had told me the story. In the carriage I found a Polish opera-singer, a fiery young man in the uniform of a student of jurisprudence, a merchant of Archangel, an attaché to a Russian Embassy in a European capital, and an army officer. I had not been long there when the opera-singer and the student grew very free in expressing their determination to spare no effort to overthrow the present government.

“Now the time is not quite ripe,” they said. “Not to-day, but soon. The Duma? There will be no Duma. There cannot be a Duma. The government has not the money, and even if it had it could never be. Russia will be aflame before the Duma meets.”

The student was a very intense fellow. His voice fairly rang with the determination of a man consecrated to a cause.

“My word,” said the officer to me, “these two will be arrested this very hour if the gendarme appears. That student chap cares not whether he dies to-day or to-morrow.”

“Bravo!” I cried, curious for the officer’s reply. Instantly his face sobered.

“Hush, man! Do you forget you are now in Russia?”

I laughed unbelievingly, and the attaché who was sitting next to me and who had been listening said: “Let me tell you a little story. Once I was in a village church when an old woman suddenly made a scene in the gallery. She was carried down-stairs and into the air, where a crowd gathered about her. ‘What is it?’ ‘What is the matter?’ we all asked her. Amid her tears and with shortened breath she said: ‘I was in the gallery. I had no prayer-book, so I asked the sexton to give me one. He went down-stairs and handed one up to me from below.’ ‘Well?’ ‘He stood on the floor and handed me the book—and I was in the gallery.’

“‘That would be impossible, woman,’ we said. ‘No man could reach that distance.’

“‘But I say he did. He did hand it to me,’ protested the woman. At last an old body on the edge of the crowd exclaimed: ‘It could not be the churchman. It was surely the devil.’

“The excited one grew calm then, and after a minute said quietly: ‘Perhaps it was. It is so hard, sometimes, to tell who is man and who is devil.’

“Remember that, sir, as long as you are in Russia—it is hard to tell who is man and who is devil.”

The discussion raged hot till near midnight. Only the officer remained silent. He could not speak. He dared not—then. He listened intently and his eyes often glistened with interest. At last he took from his grip a bottle of liquor and a traveling drinking-cup. Filling the cup he held it high above him and in a voice that sounded to me full of hollow mockery shouted: “Vive la Russie!” The carriage suddenly fell silent. The student evidently hesitated whether to speak his defiance or not. I felt confident that the officer was heart and soul with the sentiments of the student, so I ventured to murmur, distinctly, but not too openly: “Vive la Revolution!”

The glass was near his lips, but at my words he paused, and, leaning toward me, whispered:

Moscow barricades

“That is better, but not so loud, please.” And then, this man, the Russian wearing the uniform of the Czar, drank to the toast—not of “la Russie”—but “la Revolution”!

Punctually at eight-thirty the next morning we rolled into the so-called Warsaw station in the “Quiet Capital,” and I drove directly to a hotel where friends awaited me. Outwardly, St. Petersburg preserved that appearance of calm which makes the city one of the most charming in Europe.

I arrived on Sunday. The bells of St. Isaac’s and the Kazan Cathedral and a score of lesser churches (but not lesser bells) clanged and boomed through the crackling frosty air. Myriad little sledges drawn by little horses scurried through the streets, and on the Morskaia that afternoon aristocracy drove—as madly, as carelessly, and as undisturbed as it drove that memorable Sunday just one year before when in the Winter Palace Square, just close by, Father Gapon’s procession of unarmed working-men were fired upon by the troops of the emperor—their “Little Father!”—as though they were an enemy upon a battle-ground. Impending doom may have dimmed, but it did not darken, the brightness of the city. Whatever of foreboding may have possessed the hearts and minds of the people, there was an outward show of gaiety that was a revelation to me—until I remembered the ball at which French officers danced on the eve of Waterloo; and the festivities of Port Arthur which continued even after the little yellow men had begun to pelt the fatal hand-grenades straight to the heart of Russia’s military prestige.

That night, in company with an American friend, I dined at Palkine’s restaurant on the Nevskii Prospekt. A Rumanian orchestra in native dress was playing a wild, gipsy air when we entered, but as we sat down the music, in a great burst of ecstatic sound, ceased. My companion remarked: “We are already recognized as Americans—now watch.” Almost instantly the swarthy players began the familiar strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and followed it with the stirring tune of “Dixie.” At the close we acknowledged the attention of the orchestra and the leader made us a proper bow. American airs are always popular in Russia, and Americans were being especially courted at that moment. Talk of an “impending bankruptcy” was in the air. Negotiations were then under way for floating a new loan in Europe, but these had not progressed far enough for any one to be sanguine. Indeed, the revolutionists and the liberals were still hopeful that the government would find a new loan in Europe impossible, consequently, in official circles the possibilities of finding money in America were being considered. There were not above twoscore Americans all told in St. Petersburg at that time (1906), counting the diplomatic corps, correspondents, and business men, so it was an easy matter to treat all with rare courtesy.

“Why do they not play the Russian national hymn?” I asked of my friend before we left the table.

“Because the national air of Russia, like the ‘Marseillaise,’ is prohibited,” he replied. And thereupon he told me of how, a little while before, he had been one night in a famous St. Petersburg restaurant called “The Bear,” when, during the playing of the national hymn, a guard officer had shot and killed a man ostensibly because he lolled over the back of his chair instead of standing erect, squarely on both feet. The police authorities, fearing further disturbance of a similar nature, immediately prohibited the playing or singing of the national air!

It was nearly midnight when my friend and I returned to our hotel, but there we found other friends still up. Hardly had we laid off our greatcoats when the door was thrown open and in rushed a common acquaintance—a Russian—tremendously excited, but radiant. He had been with a group of intellectuals in a home just around the corner. Suddenly the police appeared and placed all present under arrest. Only our friend escaped, and he through some clever ruse. While he was still relating to us his experience we heard the sound of singing, in the street below, and as we went to the window caught the words of a favorite revolutionary hymn. My blood stirred in my veins when I learned that the singers were being led away to prison, and I thought then, as I often thought later, after wide experience in Russia, that few things on earth are more thrilling than the sound of voices under such circumstances—brave men and women marching through frozen streets, often half-clad, to prison, or tied to Cossack saddles being dragged to tortures, and fearlessly, gloriously singing the words of freedom.

Sleep was slow in coming to my pillow that first night I spent in St. Petersburg. My mind was in a whirl in the vain endeavor to shake free of the conceptions of Russia gained before ever I crossed the frontier. Already I realized that, while Russia might be just as bad as most foreigners think it, it is bad in a different way. And whatever dangers may exist for the traveler in the interior, St. Petersburg, at least, was as secure (to the stranger) as Berlin, Paris, or New York.

One week later the confusion of impressions was even greater. Reports had come in, during these seven days, of clashes between the military and the people in forty-eight provinces. The atmosphere of uncertainty was more intense. Conditions seemed to be ripe for almost any kind of a disaster—imperial insolvency, barricade fighting in the streets, army or navy mutiny, general insurrection—and yet nothing of consequence actually happened. The cabinet crisis grew more acute, it is true. Witte—who has been called “more of a stratagem than a man”—was said to be in perpetual deadlock with M. Durnovo, his unscrupulous minister of interior, and those who had access to the premier told of how this greatest of Russian political adventurers would sit at his desk, in silent despair, toying with his glasses, frequently snapping them in two—sometimes a dozen pair a day.

The second morning after my arrival I was accorded an interview with M. Timirassiroff, whose demission was just announced, because of his liberal tendencies.

M. Timirassiroff had been for many years an admirer and supporter of Count Witte—whom he several times spoke of to me as “a great man”—but he now believed that Witte’s secretiveness, and lack of decisiveness, even of ordinary courage, was ruining his power and perhaps blasting his career.

“A Bismarck goes straight through his difficulties to the goal he has before him. Count Witte goes around his,” said M. Timirassiroff.

The deposed minister also dwelt upon the impractical method of administration then in vogue. Under the existing system each minister reports directly to the emperor, and the prime minister has no way of learning the character of the report of his individual ministers unless they choose to tell him—which in the case of Witte they seldom did. Witte, consequently, preserved a holy silence before his ministers in regard to his own policies. A premier who persistently declines to share with his cabinet information upon which he bases his policies naturally fails to obtain unanimous support.

“I would say to Count Witte,” said M. Timirassiroff, “how can I subscribe my name to that which I know nothing about?”

“You, sir,” the premier would reply, “are occupied with your own department, your own ministry, you cannot know all the cards.” (A favorite phrase with Witte.)

“If I do not know all the cards, then show them to me. I am not merely head of my ministry, I am also a member of your cabinet.”

This Witte never would do. And in the attitude of mutual suspicion, each member at sixes and sevens with the premier and with the other members of the cabinet, all working individually and often at cross-purposes; in this blind but truly Russian way the Witte ministry staggered on—to its fall. Similarly is Russia as a whole reeling toward the abyss. A ministry falls a thousand times more easily than a dynasty, but a dynasty following the same mad tactics that wrecks ministry after ministry must sooner or later collapse also. Follies that pass understanding are laid to the door of the house of Romanoff, and after the revolution had once broken over Russia, every serious person knew that the time element was all that remained as a subject for speculation. This is a big factor, however. The moment marked by this X stands elusively in the distance and between the present and it are weary miles that a nation must tramp, miles marked by many a mirage which like the vision of the oasis in the desert cruelly deceives the faint and exhausted traveler.

One week in St. Petersburg was enough for me to realize all this. The beginning of the end might be to-morrow. Or, with equal likelihood, it might be years away. The temper of the people was such that nothing would be a surprise.

St. Petersburg seemed to reflect the atmosphere of Moscow, which still cowered and quivered from the severe and bloody repression that followed the magnificent fight her mere handful of armed citizens maintained on the barricades for nine days against disciplined troops. Suggestive messages, distorted and censored by government officials, kept coming in from different parts of the empire, the most disquieting, perhaps, from the Baltic provinces, for there General Orloff, “the butcher,” was pressing on with his expedition of “pacification.” Telegrams from Riga and other Baltic towns which leaked through the censor were one mournful chronicle of the “pacification”:

At the Staro-Gulben 20 peasants are shot dead, at Tirsen, 6, and at Sipolena, 2. At Novo-Pebalge an estate is burned down. At Staro-Pebalge a beautiful school building has been destroyed by shells. At the Volosts of Saukin and Noutt, 13 people were shot dead by the dragoons, and 20 peasants were whipped by the “Rozgie.” Troops set fire to the Library of one landlord and all the books were burned, he himself arrested, and his daughter punished by “Rozgie.”

In Wender district, when the people were burying a number of the “Volost” who had been shot by the dragoons, the cemetery was surrounded by the troops, and about 100 peasants taken and punished by “Rozgie.”

In the government of Kurland, 20 estates are burned down,—the inhabitants of which are mostly arrested. In Assorski Volosta, a teacher, M. Stapran, a student and an organist, and an officer—a deserter—were arrested. The first three were shot and the latter sent to Jacobstadt.

In Wenden the shooting of members of the new “Volostny Pravleny” is still going on, though the chief of the Wenden army, General Schiff, absolutely declared to the members of the “Volostny Pravleny” that none of them will be shot any more, without trial.

The “Volksguard” of Salisburg

In the spring of 1906 the revolutionary movement had so far progressed in the Baltic Provinces that independent states were declared by the people in several places. In Salisburg the officials of the independent government and the People’s Guard were so confident of continued independence that they had themselves photographed. Later the troops of the Czar stamped out this revolt and a copy of the above photograph fell into the hands of the police who, through it, were enabled to run down all of these revolutionists and wholesale executions followed.

However, at Pebalga the troops shot 20 men and burned 10 estates.

At Bausk the dragoons shot Messrs. Blankenstein, Pitz, Rassman, and Friedman. They had orders to shoot in all 16 men, and hang a woman dentist, Rachel Wolpe. Not finding her at home the dragoons destroyed all her property. When they did not find Mr. Michelson, they tortured his wife. The latter took her baby in her arms and declared that she was prepared to die, but the dragoons left her alone and came the next day to torture her again for hours. However, they could not force the unfortunate victim to tell them where her husband had hidden himself.

And so on, through a column, sometimes through two columns.

Especially significant telegrams were daily pouring in from the Caucasus. There the wildfires of revolutionary activity were fiercely sweeping from the Black Sea to the Caspian; there the Cossacks—the bulwark of czarism—were in constant action.

One week to a day after my arrival in St. Petersburg I met in the Cave La Grave (a French restaurant much frequented by foreign newspaper correspondents) a friend, a gentleman of the court, who inquired:

“Are you interested in Cossacks? Would you like to visit the Caucasus with a party of Cossack officers?”

The infinite possibilities that such an opportunity as this offered fairly overcame me. My friend continued:

“My officer-brother’s regiment, whose commander is an aide-de-camp to the emperor, has just returned from Manchuria. Fourteen of the officers, with a proper escort, are about to make a long journey through the disturbed country in connection with the disbandment of their regiment, which had been drafted for war service only. If you care to join them I will telegraph them to wait for you.”

The telegram was sent. That night found me speeding south toward the unconquered and unconquerable Caucasus, where the flower of the Russian army was hopelessly struggling to quench the flames of revolt with blood—the blood not only of men, but of women and children.

CHAPTER II
AMONG OFFICERS OF THE CZAR

Welcomed by officers of the guard—Being Cossackized—An interrupted sleep—Presentation to the governor-general—An amusing interview—The general’s vanity and how it was tickled—The story of the Cossacks—An Ingoosh brigand—An expedition into the mountains.

RINCE ANDRONNIKOV, some time lieutenant in the Terskoi-Koubansky Cossack regiment, presently attached to the person of the empress, received me in Vladikavkas with a graciousness known only in the East—charming formality blended with cordial warmth—and I at once felt at home.

The prince was in the uniform of the Cossacks of the mountains. A kilted outer garment of gray, loose-fitting, but well cut, offered a pleasing background for what was to me a startling array of side-arms—a saber, a dagger, a revolver, and a row of rifle cartridges across the breast.

“You will be one of us across the Caucasus?” he said in exquisite French. “Our regiment is indeed honored.”

It was the noon hour when I presented myself to Prince Andronnikov, and the officers of his regiment were about sitting down to lunch. I was introduced to a score or more of them, charming fellows all, scions of some of the noblest families in Russia. The commander of the regiment was Count Schouvoleff, who bore the distinction of being an aide-de-camp to the czar.

Russian officers enjoy the privilege of maintaining their headquarters in the hotels—if such there be—in the vicinity of the place where their troops are stationed. The hotel accommodations of Vladikavkaz being somewhat better than of the average town of similar size, I found my officer companions all most comfortably quartered. I was received with profuse cordiality and the charm of personality of all of them possessed me from the first moment. They all spoke excellent French and several perfect English—one, indeed, spoke English absolutely without accent and with a vocabulary far richer than my own. They apparently looked upon my joining them as school-boys look forward to a frolic. For, of course, my advent was celebrated in true Russian military fashion, by a dinner, which, to my still un-Russianized stomach, seemed to go on and on, rivaling the famous brook of poetry. When I had wrestled to master the names of my companions and had told them all the incidents worth recounting of my journey from St. Petersburg, a captain, Count Scherematiev, carried me off to a military tailor to have me measured and fitted for the Cossack uniform I was to wear on that long and eventful journey through the mountains. This uniform is extremely picturesque and far more comfortable than any military uniform I know, although its quaintness and exaggerated ferociousness suggests a time long gone by. A long, loose undergarment called a bishmet, tight-fitting around the neck, clinging to the body, and ending with a kind of short skirt effect at the bottom; above, another loose garment called a tcherkaska; riding trousers, and loose Circassian boots made of goose-skin. The color of the cloth used in this uniform depends entirely upon the taste of the wearer. I chose black, though the Russians frequently prefer crimson, or gray, or brown. The hat surmounting this uniform, called a papakha, is made of lamb’s wool somewhat coarser than astrakhan, with a top of cloth colored blue or red according to the regiment to which the officer belongs. Our color was blue. Across the breast of the tcherkaska is a line of cartouches which ordinarily are of metal, and, being purely for ornamentation, are empty. Originally, however, this was the regular rifle cartridge belt and the soldiers to this day carry their cartridges here. The invariable accompaniment of the Circassian uniform is a dagger worn suspended from the belt exactly in the middle of the body. These daggers are often highly and beautifully ornamented with silver and gold hand-work by the Circassians of the Caucasus. At the left side hangs the Cossack saber, which differs somewhat in form from the swords worn by officers in other branches of the army. The handles of these sabers as well as the scabbards are, like the daggers, generally richly ornamented with carvings and beaded metal work. On the right hip the revolver is carried. Although these Cossack officers spend most of their lives on horseback, they wear no spurs.

When I had been amply measured, had selected the materials for the different garments of the uniform and bought a pair of goose-skin riding-boots, Captain Scherematiev took me to an arms shop to buy me a saber. Here we met with a piece of rare good fortune. The proprietor brought out a beautiful Circassian hand-worked Cossack sword that had been made expressly for a certain Cossack officer who had been killed only the day before! He would sell me the weapon at a reasonable price. I bought it with avidity, being indeed fascinated by the exquisite workmanship of the ornamentation and the excellent temper of the blade. I had speedy assurance that I had made no mistake in purchasing it, for that very night an officer offered me exactly double what I had paid for it.

That night I dined alone, by preference, for I wanted a simple meal, and retired early, to rest from my long journey across the empire from St. Petersburg. About one o’clock in the morning a vigorous pounding at my bedroom door startled me into instantaneous wakefulness; lighting a candle I turned the key and opened the door to a police officer accompanied by several gendarmes. With profuse apologies in voluble French, the officer begged me to grant him the permission of examining my luggage and my papers. With all the graciousness I could master I assured my visitor that the unaccustomed privilege of a midnight search was a pleasure and a joy. I begged him to permit me to assist him in any way I could. After a superficial survey of my really innocent documents, he turned suddenly and said, “Now, monsieur, where is your revolver?” “I have none, sir,” I replied. The officer looked incredulous for a moment, then said in surprise: “Do you mean you have come to the Caucasus without a revolver?” “Yes,” I replied, “I have. Though as I am soon to adopt Circassian dress, I presume I shall be equipped with a revolver.” The officer was puzzled at this until I showed him my credentials and explained to him my reasons for coming to Vladikavkaz. Immediately his manner toward me changed completely and in a tone of real concern he told me that I must permit him to loan me one of his own revolvers until I secured one of my own, for he should feel very badly if any harm were to befall me while I was the guest of their city, especially as I was to travel with the officers of the Terskoi-Koubansky regiment.

Taking a 38-caliber American revolver out of an inner pocket he laid it on the table and very courteously said:

“I know it is late, monsieur, but may I trouble you to accompany me to my office that I may give you extra cartridges?”

“Extra cartridges!” I exclaimed. “But this weapon is loaded. Surely I shall not be needing more than seven bullets before morning!”

“Pardon, monsieur. You are now in the Caucasus. It is always best to be prepared for anything. You will return here in half an hour, and you shall have an escort.”

To me the idea of getting out of bed at 1 A.M. to visit police headquarters for extra cartridges seemed preposterous, but I was gently coerced into assent. A mounted escort surrounded our carriage all the way to the headquarters, and when I returned with the cartridges, the escort clattered behind my cab.

Early next morning Andronnikov called for me to present me to the governor-general of the territory of the Terek—the ataman, as the chief of a Cossack district is called. This interview was one of the oddest experiences I had ever had. The roomy reception-hall of the official residence was crowded with people, mostly peasants, awaiting an audience with the ataman to present one or another grievance. The acting aide-de-camp recognized my friend and we were received without delay. The general was an oldish man with a brief gray beard, and metallic gray eyes whose glitter was emphasised by the strong glasses he wore. He was thick-set and heavy, not above medium height.

The prince was received with marked respect, and when he had made his formal salutations he presented me as an American correspondent. He got no further. The general pushed back his chair, and, stepping toward me, asked in apparent anger if I knew a Mr. S——, an American merchant in a certain town in Siberia. I had never heard of the gentleman.

“Americans are not white!” he exclaimed. “They are not true.” Just what the general’s grievance was against Mr. S—— I could not discover, but his tirade against Americans in general and Mr. S—— in particular was heartfelt and prolonged, and neither Andronnikov nor I seemed able to turn the general to other topics. Suddenly he paused in his wrath and, looking me straight in the eye, asked: “You are a correspondent?” I replied affirmatively. “That is bad!” he answered emphatically. “You remember Mr. —— of the ‘London Times’?” The name was familiar to me, for this man had been asked to leave Russia for his plain speaking. The general then vented his feelings in regard to this man, and toward correspondents in general. Poor Andronnikov, my host, grew more and more confused and embarrassed till I suffered for him.

Suddenly, for a third time, the general changed the subject. This time he hurled his invectives against the Jews. “The Jews are at the bottom of all of Russia’s troubles,” he cried. “If we could settle the Jews we would tranquilize Russia.” I hastened to assure him that I was not a Jew, though in America there were many people who welcomed the Jews from Russia.

“You are not a Jew. No. But have you a courier?” I told him no, but I expected to secure one that day. “Then don’t get a Jew!” he warned. “If you do you will both be killed!” As he went on, in his bitterness I realized again how deep-rooted is this hatred of the Jew in the minds and hearts of certain Russian officials, and why the responsibility for Jewish massacres is so seldom fixed. The general strode back and forth like a caged tiger. Twice he came so near to me that his breath was on my cheek. My discomfort was great and I was beginning to lose my temper. I wished heartily I had not come. At last I had an inspiration. Interrupting the general without apology, I exclaimed: “Your excellency is quite right. The problem of the Jew is a tremendous one. The firm and courageous way that you, sir, look at this vast question and the strength with which you approach it fills me with admiration. I shall tell the people of America about you, sir. America knows how great is Russia’s problem. I pray your excellency permit me to send a photograph of yourself to America—a photograph in this uniform, sir, with those medals on your breast—”

“This uniform?” put in the general. “You like this? Ah! But you should see me in my other uniform!”

“I would I might!” I replied with feeling. “I pray your excellency to permit me to come when you are wearing it!”

“Wait!” he shouted as he disappeared from the room. For a quarter of an hour the prince and I waited. Then the door was opened by an orderly, and the general entered, clad in a magnificent uniform. It was Circassian in style, and in color a rich royal purple. The prince and I both spent ourselves in admiration till the general resumed his seat and began to discuss the object of my visit. His whole attitude was altered and from this on I found him most kind, affable, and courteous. He did all that any man could to help me and make easy my journey. He expressed satisfaction that I was interested in the Cossacks, when I asked him to tell me about this branch of the service. Who were the Cossacks? What were they? I did not know, although no word is more commonly on the lips in connection with Russia.

“Cossacks are the bravest, the truest we have,” he said. “It is a source of regret to all who know the Cossacks that so little is known about them in their home life, for the stories of the pogroms, the massacres, give so false a view of the Cossack as he really is.”

“I want to know him as he really is,” I replied; “that is why I have come so far at this time, and why I am so eager to travel with a party of Cossack officers through this marvelous country of the Caucasus.”

“If you will wait until I have received some deputations I will tell you much about them and then plan a trip to some of their villages for you,” said the general.

Andronnikov and I were both intensely relieved at the general’s change of manner, and I was deeply grateful for the opportunities he presented to me. Long afterward when Andronnikov and I would sometimes meet—in St. Petersburg and elsewhere—we would always have a hearty laugh over our reception at the hands of this crotchety old general, and of how he melted into winsome affability when we played on his ridiculous vanity.

While the deputations were being presented Andronnikov and I remained in an adjoining room, Andronnikov examining the various war trophies with which the room was stored, souvenirs for the most part of battles in the long, not-yet ended war to subdue the tribes of the Caucasus and bring the many peoples of that extraordinary region under the Russian yoke. I was silently framing questions about the Cossack that I would put to the general when I got back to him. In regard to this strange friend of the czars I suppose I knew about as much as the average reader, but certainly no more, and my notions were all vague and shadowy. I had heard war critics condemn him as practically useless in battle, though useful for scout duty and skirmish work. I had heard it said that he makes a skilful artilleryman, but with a rifle is a notoriously poor shot. But then he is not a proper military man. Scientific soldiering is not his métier. “Irregular” cavalry, military people call him when he is mounted. Regular Cossack officers are apt to be snubbed and looked down upon by other officers because they are not subject to the same rigid tests that regular army officers must submit to, and the discipline which is traditional with soldiers has never been imposed upon the Cossack.

The Cossack is not a soldier, in the ordinary sense, though he is the main prop of the army. He is not a proper, thoroughbred Russian, though he is a loyal servant of the Czar. Cossack life and Cossack government is entirely independent, and the only official in the bureaucracy whom the Cossack recognizes is the minister of war.

The Cossack has all (and more) that the most radical revolutionists in Russia desire. The Cossacks, perhaps, are the largest body of practical communists in the world. Their land, their hunting-grounds, their fishing-preserves, their timber-tracks, are held in common, and no Cossack may fish or shoot or cut wood save by the order and permission of his community. At the same time his individual freedom is beyond that of any people living under the protection of civilization. Exempt from every obligation except one—service in arms. Their service is unique in system as well as in kind.

Popularly the Cossack is a modern Caliban. To the world at large he is pretty much an enigma, but mostly a thing of evil. To the muzhik and the Jew the very name, Cossack, is a synonym of horror, a word instinct with terror, with plunder, rape, massacre; the looting of shops a game by the way and the burning of houses a night’s sport.

To the Czar and the government of Russia the name Cossack is very different; a word almost sacred. The Cossack is the bulwark of czarism, the guardian of autocracy. Without the Cossack, reactionary mandates would long have been impotent. Where there is a dangerous frontier to guard, the Cossacks are employed. Where martial law is prescribed, the brunt of the enforcement is left to Cossacks. Where a province or town is in revolt, the Cossacks are sent. And where people are shot down and cut down in numbers—unarmed men, women, and children—it is generally the Cossack who is charged with the responsibility.

Because the Cossack is so important to the Russian government, because he is so feared by the people at large, because of the uniqueness of his past in history and in modern life, and the originality of his mode of living, I wanted to form his near acquaintance. I wanted to know him, not merely as the war correspondent knows him, in the saddle, in the field, in the barracks; this, but this and much more—in his stanitza; in his home, among his fellows and his neighbors. With the officers of Terskoi-Koubansky regiment I would doubtless see a good deal, and from the inside, but I desired much more than this, and the old general in suggesting that I visit some of their villages gave me just the opportunity I desired.

When Andronnikov and I were recalled to the audience-room I inquired of the general as to how long the Cossacks had been in the territory which he at present administered. He gave us a clear and concise account of Cossack history, telling us who they were, their several branches, and concluding by an extravagant recital of their virtues. The general spoke in French and I made no notes while he was speaking, but what he told me was full of interest. As nearly as I could remember it the general’s narrative was as follows:

The origin of the Cossacks dates back to the latter Middle Ages. The dominions of the kings of Poland and czars of Muscovy were not sharply defined, and between the territories was a wide stretch of “debatable” land. Here settled various bands of people who were, for one reason or another, wanderers on the face of the earth—some were outlaws and brigands—some were temporarily Bedouin—some were poor—all were in the nature of “squatters.” They either took the name or were dubbed “Kazak,” a word which in Tartar means freebooter, and in Turkish light-armed soldier, and the modern Cossack is largely a combination of these elements.

As the population of these debatable lands along the Dnieper increased, they spread out and took possession of other rivers, the Don and the Volga. In due course a system of simple government developed among them as a matter of convenience and necessity. This form of government has been perpetuated in nearly its original form almost to the present day, and much of it is still preserved without change.

As they increased in numbers, they found an occupation. From time immemorial the Tartars have invaded the provinces of what is known to-day as southeastern Russia, and so to protect their agricultural population along the steppe borders the kings of Poland and czars of Muscovy established military cordons, buildings, forts, and palisades, from which to beat back the invading bands. It was soon learned that the “Cossack” people who occupied the steppes beyond these cordons best knew how to cope with these semi-civilized Tartars. And so the forts and redoubts were manned by Cossacks who lent their services for pay, to the kings of Poland or the czars of Muscovy, without prejudice. Thus their organization and their independence gained recognition. Thus, too, guerilla warfare early came to be their regular occupation. Being given to a degree of lawlessness themselves, they were, at times, not averse to mingling in friendly intercourse with the peoples whom at other times they were paid to fight.

Though originally the Cossacks came mostly from Moscow province and from Poland, they have mixed with the surrounding races till they have little ethnological unity. It was once common for the Cossacks to kidnap Tartar and Caucasian women, and thus there were introduced dark streams of blood which are still visible in the race. They have also mixed with the Mongolian Kalmuks from the country east of the Volga and taken on many of their characteristics. Nevertheless, they have all continued to call themselves Christians and to nurture enmity against the Mohammedans.

When the czars of Russia became supreme the Cossacks pledged their allegiance to them. If, however, it better suited their conveniences to disregard the wishes of the czar, they consulted only their own inclinations. They did not contribute to the royal coffers, but became allies rather than subjects,—allies who served for pay. On the other hand, the czars were not eager to claim them for subjects, and when the Cossacks on the Turkish frontier enkindled the wrath of the sultan, Russia repudiated them altogether and they were left to make their own defense against the Turks.

The Cossacks of the Dnieper and the Cossacks of the Don were the first of the large bodies of semi-military communities to gain the recognition of Poland and Russia, and the Cossacks of the Don still maintain preëminence over all the others. In spite of their treaties with other states having regularly organized and disciplined armies, the Don Cossacks never troubled to introduce military organization among themselves. They lived by shooting, fishing, trapping and marauding. To foster the martial spirit of all, agricultural pursuits were prohibited on penalty of death. As war is scarcely a perpetual occupation, laziness and drinking came to be fixed habits adopted in the interims of peace and maintained as deep-rooted characteristics.

The Dnieper Cossacks, or Zaporovians, as they were called from a word meaning people living “beyond the rapids,” lost their holdings during the reign of Catharine II, for very excellent reasons. During Peter’s wars with the Swedes these people allied themselves with the army of Charles XII of Sweden. The government thought to punish them by depriving them of their independence. The Dnieper people resisted until Catharine forcibly broke up their communities. Some fled to Turkey. Others were given the territory of the Kuban. The Volga Cossacks, who had also sold their services to the enemies of Russia, were less obstinate and accepted the dictum of Russia and removed to the Terek, where the original “mountain” or “border” Cossacks were already established. Here Catharine assured them they would be left free and unmolested as long as they served Russia’s interests against the marauding tribes of the Caucasus. And from this time to the present these Cossacks of the Caucasus have rendered signal service along this most difficult frontier.

The general concluded his story with a tremendous eulogy of the virtues of Cossacks—all of which I listened to but reserved my judgment upon.

As we were about to take our leave I ventured to ask the General if I might not bring a photographer with me when next I came to photograph him in his magnificent purple uniform! For an instant I almost regretted having said this, but the childish delight of the man at the suggestion banished my fears. An hour was set for the next forenoon and with this Andronnikov and I left. The remainder of the day I spent with my officer friends in convivial leisure. In the early evening I went to my room to make arrangements with a man who spoke several of the languages of the district, to serve as my orderly and courier.

About nine o’clock we were interrupted by a rapping at the door, followed by the entrance of a handsome young fellow in Circassian dress. Suspended from his belt was the usual dagger, beautifully ornamented with silver. There was an attractiveness about the fellow that completely captivated me before he had spoken a word. There was a clearness and frankness of expression in his bright, brown eyes that inspired immediate trust. He was not tall, but he carried his shoulders well, and one felt the dashing spirit that must live under his dark, though scarcely swarthy skin. He bowed with that graceful dignity which sometimes characterizes Eastern peoples. I motioned him to a seat. He bowed again, thanked me, but remained standing. My courier talked with him for some minutes, then turning to me said: “This man is an Ingoosh who has come to you on a strange errand. It seems that in his village he has won the title of champion sword-dancer. He says he can do remarkable things with swords and daggers; passing through town to-day he heard that an American was here, and so he has come to you.” “Yes, I am an American,” I replied, “but what can I do for the champion sword-dancer of an Ingoosh village?” My interpreter smiled as he replied: “He says he has heard that in America there are café chantants where sword-dancing would be paid for very well; he wanted to know if this is true and if you will tell him the way to New York.” From the threshold of Asia to the vestibule of America seemed a long, long way to me that night, but instantly it occurred to me that this man offered the very opportunity I had been looking for—to explore the Ingoosh, the Circassian, the Kabardine and Ossetine villages that lie among the mountains, at the same time I was visiting the Cossack villages. So I told my interpreter to tell him that if he would take me safely through the district which I indicated and bring me back to Vladikavkaz, I would outline the journey to New York with the probable cost, and that I would provide him with adequate introductions to people in the city who would befriend him upon his arrival; also I would pay him well, five rubles a day, for his services, and a bonus at the end of the trip if all went well. There was no doubting the man’s keenness to get to New York; and money in anything like the amount I offered him seldom comes to a

The Governor-General of the Terek

Circassian of his station—at least earned money. That the man hesitated and appeared in doubt as to whether he would accept my proposition or not, aroused my wonder. At last he spoke: “He says it is very perilous,” my courier translated. At that I knew I could rely upon him; if he considered my risk in view of the offer I made him, I was confident of his sincerity. Of course I had explained to him that I would assume the complete disguise of the Circassian and that I would assume all of the risks of the journey, provided he did all that I could reasonably expect him to do, to forestall unnecessary danger. After further pondering my interpreter translated: “He would like to see you in Circassian dress before he answers.” We thereupon procured a complete outfit, which I put on. The man surveyed me critically from all sides, and finally, smiling broadly, came toward me with extended hand. His grasp was warm and firm, and had any lingering suspicion of the man remained in my mind, it would have then vanished. It was decided that we should not go on horseback, but rather in a wagon, as it would probably be simpler for them to screen my identity if I were reclining in a cart than if I were astride a horse. My Ingoosh from this moment on was fertile in suggestion. He knew just where to procure the horses. In telling me where they were to be had he related the following incident:

There is a custom among the Circassians, still in vogue, that when a man chooses a wife and the match fails to meet with parental approval, the bride is stolen in the night. My Circassian friend had found a girl in a neighboring village, the queen of all the girls he had ever seen. He determined to take her to wife. The girl had already told him that he was her prince. But the family would not sanction it. Therefore my friend had scoured the country for the swiftest horses in all the region. A friend, a driver in the town, had four horses that he vowed could not be overtaken. In the night they drove into the village where lived the Circassian bride to be, and, pausing before her house, my friend had rushed to where he knew she was awaiting him, and gathering her in his arms sprang to the wagon, and the four horses were urged to their utmost. In twenty minutes they had put eight versts between them and the village. And I might have these same horses and the same driver, for my expedition!

The following day my interpreter, whose caution seemed to me quite excessive, begged me not to depend too absolutely on my brigand friend. He believed him to be honest, but it might be as well not to have this driver. And instead he suggested a man whom he knew was the assistant ataman, or sub-chief, of a Cossack stanitza remote in the territory of the Terek, and to reach this stanitza we would pass through the Circassian and Ossetine villages I desired to visit. Our final arrangement was made with him.

We rumbled out of Vladikavkaz the second morning after I made the acquaintance of my brigand-guide—for he was a brigand. The road selected led directly into the mountains; Kazbek, higher than Mount Blanc, rose immediately before us. At the outset we started through a valley running southeast and northwest and at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the east of the famous Route Militaire de Georgie, which crosses the Caucasus from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis. After ten versts the road became a mere trail, and as we ascended and passed the snow limit, even this was lost to my eye. Several times that day we passed through villages of Circassians. Mere hamlets, a handful of houses in each. One street of

stone and mud, whitewashed, built with the usual roof of thatch and mud. Back of these houses another row, and back of these scattered huts. Cattle and pigs roamed familiarly in the spaces which separated the huts. The most striking feature of the Ossetine villages were the large curious-shaped water jugs carried by the women, seemingly fashioned of pewter. These jugs are large and are carried on the backs of the women to and from the springs and rivulets which are their water sources. There was nothing to attract the notice of the people in a springless cart jolting along the rough road, an armful of hay spread over the board bottom and three men, apparently natives, sitting thereon. The dress of the people in all of these villages was invariably characteristic. The silver handiwork of the Circassians is full of individuality and famed throughout southern Russia. The belts of both men and women, the bracelets and ornaments of the women, the daggers and other arms of the men, were all noticeable.

The bride of my brigand friend and guide interested me greatly when we finally came to visit his home. She was nineteen and did not look a day older. She spoke no Russian; only her native dialect. She proudly exhibited a mat worked with silver and golden thread, and a little wall watch-pocket of elaborate design, which were intended as gifts to one of the chief men of her village—the chief of one of the brigand bands, my guide explained to me. I was also shown a pair of baby slippers which she had worked for the youngest born of another important villager. She herself was buxom and attractive, and it was in nowise difficult to understand why my guide had set out upon his nocturnal expedition to capture her.

Sometimes we stopped for refreshment at houses where either my brigand-guide or our Cossack driver was acquainted. At these places the food given us was generally coarse, as might be expected, but on the whole not bad. Coarse black bread; a kind of bread made of maize which tasted wholesome enough, and a pastry which consisted of two crusts, similar to a New England pie crust, but soggy and filled with raisins and preserved grapes. This seemed to be a delicacy highly appreciated, for there was evident pleasure and satisfaction on the part of the housewife who had made this pastry when we appreciated it by consuming many helpings.

In dress, in manner of living, the Circassians are perhaps the most pronounced types of any of the peoples inhabiting that polyglot district. A Caucasian will never suspect a Circassian of belonging to another tribe or race. If nothing else, the ornaments, and the manner of wearing them, distinguish them. The belts, for example, which are almost universally worn, are rich with silver ornamentation and hangings, and often washed in gold. These things offer a striking contrast to the poverty of the lives of the people. But in the Caucasus silver has small value.

During the next two days we traversed a rough and rocky road. More than once we forded streams full with water. Once the old roadway had entirely disappeared. Apparently it had been washed away by a recent freshet. There was naught for us to do but drive into the stream and follow its course for close on to a hundred and fifty yards. The flow of water was strong and swift and it was deep to the body of our cart and flush with the horses’ bellies. The water was straight from glaciers, and cold, like snow water.

The swift-running tawny Terek had been left far below and to the west. The trail passed into the forest, where the chill of winter struck at our marrow, and we closed our bourkas tighter about us. Suddenly the forest ended abruptly and the open revealed the high valley and the snowy mountain, now overtopping us. “Here the Cossack country begins,” shouted my Cossack driver as we passed on to the plateau. As if in joy at coming once more unto his own, he lifted his rifle and, pointing to a tree fifty yards behind us, fired. The bullet sped true. Presently the trail forked with another trail, and the two became a rough road. A verst farther on the road passed under a crude wooden arch supported by gate-posts and entered the village—a Cossack stanitza, the first Cossack village I had ever visited, and, as it happened, this particular village had never before within memory of the oldest Cossack there been visited by any stranger.

CHAPTER III
AT HOME WITH COSSACKS

A Cossack village—An exhibition of horsemanship—An accident—How Cossacks are trained for service—Cossack local government—Basis of Cossack loyalty—Their attitude toward massacres—Cossacks of the Caucasus, like other tribes of the mountains, still unconquered—Back to Vladikavkaz.

HERE is nothing straggling about a Terek Cossack stanitza. The houses run as a line, east and west, north and south. A paling defines the line. Without the pale is the steppe and the forest, within is the village. There are no scattering houses to mark that the village is near. The fence surrounding the village like a kraal is broken at either end of the village by a huge double gate.

A sentry stood by the right gate-post as we entered the village of Terek, in the Province of Terek.

Over under the arch the wood seemed lost in a stretch of bog. Mud, black and oozy, tempted heavy pigs from the house yards, where they are wont to wallow. Pigs are not confined to pens in Russia: they run loose like dogs and chickens. But this is Russian and not characteristically Cossack. Narrow paths edged the house fences and people passing on foot worked slowly along this less muddy marge, sometimes clinging to the fence lest a misstep land them in muck, ankle deep, or, not improbably, knee deep.

A Cossack house

Interior of the above

Our wagon clung to the narrow pathway also. A wheel once sunk in the soft, black depths of the road would be difficult to free. Turning to the right near the center of the village we approached the great square, which, so I soon learned, is invariably the heart of the villages of the Mountain Cossacks. The distance from side to side was fully two hundred yards. In the square, somewhat to one side, the church. A large, white church with domes and turrets painted green, and these surmounted by crosses of gold which caught the glint of the sun and seemed to crackle with flashes of golden light, like some heliograph left exposed, but uncontrolled. The largeness of the square in so small a village amazed me. And I wondered why so large a free space was left. There was no paving here, but the earth was hard and trampled as by the hoofs of many horses. As we drew nearer, a neat iron railing, painted green, set upon a brick foundation and encircling the church, caught my eye. A furious clanging of bells, wild, loud, disordered, proved distracting. Then the church doors seemed to belch forth people—women and girls mostly, with a few old men. The girls were bedecked with color, as bright and varied as girls in an Italian village. Gaudy yellows and deep oranges, startling reds and soft blues. Kerchiefs, scarfs, and aprons. The horses were stopped that I might watch the procession. It was a pretty sight. Twenty or more came in a party toward the street where we were halted, and I hastily made ready my camera. They passed us within a few yards and I stepped to the ground, that I might gain a better focus. As I looked into the finder, a piercing shriek from one of the girls startled me, and looking up I saw the entire group start madly down the road. Whether they mistook my camera for an infernal machine, I do not know, but their alarm was genuine. Some young Cossacks who were standing near laughed boisterously and pursued the girls and brought them back. When they had been made to understand what it all meant, they were highly pleased, and they stood round in all kinds of groups to be photographed. When I secured as many pictures as I wanted we continued across the square, and passed two high, heavy, wooden doors that barred the entrance of a yard. This was the home of my guide. A comely buxom girl of about seventeen, with red cheeks and eyes as blue as my guide’s, threw open the great doors, and we drove into a confusion of sledges and carts, broken hayricks, horses, cattle, pigs, and dogs. A more untidy yard I never saw. Cows and pigs adjusted themselves according to inclination. Mud, filth, straw, littered the whole place.

The yard was a small enclosure. A paling ten feet high on the side where we entered. On the right a house of stone and mud, whitewashed, with a thatched roof, an ornamented ridge pole and elaborate gables. A singular place to look upon. On the left a similar house. Immediately ahead, opposite the entrance, a crude shed with simple plank and railing stalls for horses and cattle. Two strong housewifely women stood on the porch of the house in the light, watching our entrance. Their sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, and their arms were folded—heavy, muscular arms, developed by constant toil. They greeted us kindly, even warmly, and bade us enter. Within I started in veritable surprise. The little kitchen with its Russian oven and sleeping box above for the young and the aged in one corner, a home-fashioned bed in another, was as clean as a drawing-room. Scrubbed, dusted, polished. The big brass samovar on the table shone like a door plate. Three icons were secured to the wall in one corner, next to the ceiling. Before them the perpetual light was burning, the oil cup suspended from a nail driven into the ceiling. After the filth and mud of everything in the yard, and the village, the cleanliness of the three simple rooms which made up the house was marvelous. They were models of household industry.

If it had developed that this condition was due to any special reason, or was in any way exceptional, it would not merit this notice. But our coming was not announced. In the afternoon I visited many houses in the village with my guide, who was now my host, and in nearly every one I found a similar degree of cleanliness. During the following days I visited homes in other stanitzas and cleanliness within the house, if not universal, was at least the rule. Since then I have been in so many Cossack homes that I know a typical one. Of the Terek and Kuban Cossacks my host’s house was fairly representative. In design and arrangement, in cleanliness, in the food we ate, it was neither better nor worse than the average. It was typical. Hence the minute details of my visit here may be taken as a description of an average household. In nearly every Cossack house in the Don country, as well as the Caucasus, one room is set apart as a sitting-room, or living-room. This room is left spotless. Flowers brighten the windows through the winter, and often tidy muslin draperies screen, or partially screen, the beds. Icons, elaborate according to the riches of the household, adorn the walls, one invariably across one of the corners and close to the ceiling, and others on the walls on either side of the center-piece. The ever present samovar with its cheery companionableness is always in evidence.

An hour after our arrival my host and all his family were transformed by a change of costume. The rough, home-made coat and worn shirt and the ancient cartridge-belt all disappeared, and instead he donned a cream-white tcherkaska, trimmed with blue. It was a very long garment, and hung to his ankles. This was evidently reserved for very special occasions. Indeed it could not be worn many times without becoming hopelessly soiled. He also brought out a special dagger and attached it to his belt. It bore an elaborate ornamentation in hand-worked silver of Circassian design and workmanship. Most of the arms worn by the Mountain Cossacks are obtained from their Circassian neighbors.

In the afternoon my curiosity regarding the great square was appeased. My host sent for his friend, the riding-master of the Cossack recruits, and he, desirous of doing what he could for the stranger, proposed a “jigitoffka,” or exhibition of horsemanship. At this I expressed my interest, and a messenger was sent to summon the young Cossacks left in the stanitza. They are famous horsemen, the Cossacks, and from their very cradles are trained to the saddle. The dexterity of some of the riders was quite remarkable. The first exhibition was a so-called “attack.” The riders divided into two ranks and charged each other at full gallop, separating just before they met, barely enough for the ranks to go through each other. Once two of the horsemen miscalculated and the horses came fairly together, one of them going over like a horse of wood. The riders remounted and continued their sport. After the men had got well limbered they went on to more difficult feats—leaping from the saddles, while the horses were going at full gallop, and then remounting; springing from one horse to another; riding double; one rider carrying another who was supposedly wounded. Snatching up coins from the ground, while a crowd of men, women, and children

stood by urging the horses to greater speed. The interest in these performances soon became most intense and I found myself, quite unconsciously, cheering as lustily as if it were a Varsity football match.

One trifling incident revealed a trait of Cossack character that would scarce find approval in England or in America. A young Cossack, reaching for a coin on the ground, almost succeeded in grasping it, but he lost his balance and fell to the ground amid the loud jeers of the people. Jumping to his feet he ran back to where the coin lay, picked it up, and ran off with it. The crowd laughed uproariously at this and did not call to him to come back with the prize thus unfairly captured. A moment later another rider failed completely in snatching at another coin which was thrown down, and he threw himself from the saddle and secured the money. This was a little strained, it seemed to me, so I asked a man near me why the crowd did not protest, and he answered: “Once a Cossack gets his fingers on money he never lets go. It does not matter how he gets it.”

There were several accidents. In no case was the slightest sympathy manifested toward the injured man. Once, when a man fell from his horse and was stepped on, the crowd laughed and even jeered as he dragged himself off. In another instance a young fellow of not more than twenty lost his balance while reaching for a coin on the ground. As he fell his foot slipped through one of the stirrups, and he was dragged several yards, and in full view of us all the horse stepped squarely on him. The crowd laughed uproariously at this and one old woman toddled up to him and handed him a rag with which to wipe the blood from his face. But she did not offer to assist him. The poor fellow was left quite by himself and after a few minutes I saw him climb slowly on to his horse and canter off. That evening I inquired about him and was told that he was all right. The men expressed surprise that I should have thought of him. About nine o’clock, however, he was brought in to me. “He is much worse than we thought,” said the men who brought him, “and there is no doctor within twenty versts.” They laid him on the bed, and upon examination I found the print of a hoof clearly on the man’s face, his nose being crushed flat to his cheeks. He complained of his chest, so I loosened his clothing and found another hoof-print. This one not so clearly outlined, nor was the skin bruised, but there was swelling and inflammation, and, as nearly as I could discover, two ribs broken. The nose I could do little about. It looked to me as if a very considerable amount of skill, and certainly instruments, would be needed to set it right. The ribs I was able to set, however, and, with poultices and massage, to reduce the inflammation and relieve the sharper pain. I found this injured Cossack every bit as susceptible to human pains as the rest of men, and every bit as appreciative of the little relief which I was able to give him. Their games are of the roughest and thus are they trained to that bigger game which is their life, the war game, but their feelings and sufferings prove them normal. The government of the country, as well as their local customs, encourage the most brutal sports, and roughest treatment of men, for the crueler and more callous they are the better soldiers do they make.

Each Cossack stanitza is provided with a government riding-master, who drills young Cossacks in rough riding. All young Cossacks eligible for military service are obliged to spend one month each year in rigorous training, so that when the call to arms comes to them they shall not be like new recruits. A Cossack soldier is never a recruit, really. He enters the service hardened by the experience of much training—and with the blood and spirit of the Cossack free and easy soldiering urging him to meet the expectations of his masters.

During the two days that I lingered at this village I found the meals were jolly times, though the food was neither delicate nor varied. The women did not sit at table with us, though in other houses I sometimes saw the women and men eating together. Nor did the children have places with us. The season being Lent, when a strict fast is prescribed, there was no meat on the table. Black bread, cakes of maize and chopped cabbage were the chief foods, followed by a kind of pie or tart. This consisted of an upper and lower crust with preserved grapes between. Tea was drunk freely. Likewise a light beer. Before meals, vodka. It must not be gathered from this, however, that moderation in drinking is the rule. When I asked several men if they were fond of drink, they laughed and replied: “We drink vodka at a birth, at every feast, during every fast, at every marriage, and every meal.” There appear to be no sentiments whatever with regard to temperance. There is a famous Cossack ballad ascribed to a Cossack leader named Davidoff, which runs,

Happy he who in the strife
Bravely, like a Cossack, dies.
Happy he who, at the feast,
Drinks till he can’t ope’ his eyes.

One man explained to me, when I was questioning him about Cossack massacres of Jews, that when the Cossacks were called upon to do particularly disagreeable work, that it was customary for them to get drunk first. Vodka looks like simple water or gin. The taste, to me, is of wood alcohol. It is gulped rather than drunk, as is an ordinary beverage, consequently vodka drinkers seek only the effect. It is slightly warming, though not so strong as whisky, being only forty, or little over forty, per cent. alcohol. The effects are marked. First a warming, then a numbing, dulling sensation. In excess it produces wild hilarity and jocularity, and intensifies the passions. In later stages it besots. Vodka drinkers soon become overpowered by sleep. This is why so many drunkards in Russia lie about the streets. Overcome by drowsiness they sink into sleep wherever they fall. The Cossack looks upon excessive drinking as his prerogative. Drink and plunder were what his ancestors fought for and in this the Cossack of to-day has not much altered. In the Don country the Cossacks are of distinctly inferior race to the Mountain Cossacks. There I saw excessive drinking among women as well as men. In the Terek and Kuban I saw none. This does not mean that it does not exist, but simply that I did not see it, and, therefore, it is probably less common.

In the late afternoon my Cossack host announced that it was time for him to attend the local Duma meeting, and I was invited to accompany him. It was held in a small building at one corner of the great square, and was attended by all the males resident in the stanitza, and then at home. There are always many young men absent from the Cossack stanitza, owing to the military obligations which fall upon them all.

The meeting was conducted not in the building but in the yard behind. As nearly as I could follow the proceedings they were as follows: The ataman, or chief, who is elected by popular vote, stood upon the steps of the building and addressed the “meeting,” which was gathered about him. The ataman announced the topic to be

Cossack women on frontier duty in the Province of Assouri

discussed and stated his views. He then retired and little knots of men discussed the matter with greater or less vehemence. Standing apart, the scene looked like a score of little meetings in one. After a lengthy wrangle a vote was taken and the matter ended. It was all very primitive, but very like a New England town meeting. In main features and principles I could discover no difference.

One matter that came up for discussion was the cutting of wood from the stanitza forests. My host was one of those elected to do this work.

The land belongs to the stanitza. When a lad becomes of age he is given his share. This may be used by him as he chooses, either for agriculture or grazing. The lands owned by the Cossacks originally were so vast that each Cossack had more than enough for his needs. But of late the stanitzas have been growing more rapidly and there has begun to be complaint from the Cossacks that they have not enough land. The average amount held by each Cossack is several times greater than that held by the common peasants, or muzhiks, but in many places the stanitzas have been obliged to re-allot the land and to cut down the individual allotments in order to supply those just coming of age. In some sections the land thus allotted is held through life, and at death it reverts to the stanitza, though provision is made for the widows. In other places it is re-allotted at the end of every few years, or even annually. Greater system exists among the Terek and Kuban Cossacks owing to the penalty of death which was long imposed upon the Don Cossacks for engaging in agricultural pursuits. This was many generations ago and only the effects are now found in the economic organization of the Don Cossack life. When the Don Cossacks were increased by serfs and others who fled, or emigrated, from Russia, people who had been accustomed to till the soil, this old idea gave way and more and more the Cossacks of the Don have been engaging in husbandry. To-day there is a large export of grain from the Don country as a result of the cultivation of the steppe by the Cossacks.

The splendid physique of the men, the strong wholesomeness of the women in my host’s stanitza, won my complete admiration. I have never seen a better average of the human animal. The weak, or sickly, if they existed, remained at home and out of sight. There was, too, a geniality, a cordiality, which little suggested the proverbial brutality of the Cossacks. On the Sunday afternoon the young people of the stanitza congregated together at one corner of the great square and sang folksongs. They have rare voices, the Cossacks, and from across the square the sound of their combined voices was thrilling. The picture they presented was a gay one, for the girls without exception wore dresses and scarfs of brightest colors.

My host was as good as his word in taking me to call among his friends. We went into houses in every quarter of the village, drank tea, and, through my interpreter, I told them about that far off place which to them was but a mysterious name—America. The stories of darkest Africa which were told me as a child never fascinated me more nor seemed more wonderful than did the things they heard about America seem to them. In every house I remarked upon the cleanliness of the interior. The floors in the crudest houses were scrubbed and polished, and the assortment of holy pictures near the icon was in some instances quite astounding. They were always pleased when I noticed their icon and holy pictures.

I tried never to lose sight of the fact that I was among “Cossacks,” but I must confess that this often required an effort. The kindliness of the men, the hospitality of the women, was constantly giving the lie to the traditions of these heartless people. Whenever I could I asked the men to tell me of their exploits—their soldiering, and of massacres and pogroms that they had taken part in. They would always relate these experiences in a matter-of-fact way, emphasizing that they did what their officers told them to do. Their disputes with their own neighbors—the Circassians, Ingoosh, and other Caucasian tribes—they viewed differently. These half-civilized people who live by brigandage and raiding they deemed it a mere matter of course to kill whenever they got the chance. On the other hand, they regretted that they were sometimes sent to massacre women and children, but, as the riding-master explained to me, it was the will of the Czar. That is one of the terrible things of czardom. In the name of the Czar are perpetrated the foulest deeds ever conceived by the diabolical minds of men. “It is a point of honor with us,” said the riding-master, “to obey. We are given our lands free. We have much freedom and many privileges—and in return we give our services. It is not our business, these massacres and pogroms. It’s the Czar’s. He gives us what we want and we in turn give him what he wants.”

“If your officers commanded you to run through school-children with your saber, would you do it?” I asked. The man colored perceptibly as he answered:

“Certainly. I would obey.”

Others in the room hastened to add that they would not do such things of their own accord, but only at the command of their officers, whom they were sworn to obey, or unless they were well plied with vodka.

The morning I left this stanitza a snow-storm was raging and our progress down from the Cossack plateau to the plain below was slow and labored. Part way down we passed another Cossack stanitza, and at the suggestion of my blue-eyed driver we halted here for a time to rest the horses and call on two or three of his friends. One man was building himself a new house. For the materials and workmen whom he was hiring he was paying five hundred rubles—two hundred and fifty dollars.

This brief experience among the Cossack villages I later followed up by visiting other villages in different parts of Russia—in the Kuban in the territory of the Don, in Orenburg, and in Siberia—and my conclusions in regard to Cossacks in general are summarized pointedly: The Cossack is a survival of medievalism, kept alive only by a government which finds it to its interest to employ medieval methods against its own subjects. After the Russo-Japanese war the Cossack will never again be relied upon in regular warfare. He won’t do. But as a particularly severe and drastic policeman, he is better than any one. Where there is an unarmed mob to quell, or crowd to disperse, where there is a village to “pacify”—there send the Cossack. If the job happens to present difficulties, dole out vodka to the Cossacks and they become dare-devils. But devil-may-care methods are no longer effective against a regular army. The Cossack is not scientific, and therein he fails. His hour has struck. Another generation will know him not. For several hundred years the Cossack has continued to maintain his own, but for such methods as his the twentieth century has no place.

I found the Cossacks of the Caucasus splendid raw material for the development of good citizens. They are physically strong and good. They have dash and daring. Their home life is clean. They have a superstitious

Orenburg Cossacks—a family group

(Not posed for the author)

loyalty to God and to the Czar—so long as the government continues to give them their land free, and attempts to exact no other tax from them than their military service, which they now render because it is a tradition among them.

The Cossacks are to-day as much of an unconquered people as the tribes of the Caucasus—or of Central Africa. But they are not of the same aggressive character as the other Caucasus people. They must be conquered by diplomacy. The Cossacks will not submit easily to a yoke, and not at all to a yoke which gives them no interest or occupation in life. To-day Cossack towns have neither mills nor factories. They are purely rural communities. They cannot subsist on this alone, and the young Cossacks who are ready for military service will not readily change their outlook and take up the peaceful pursuits of the farm. The wandering spirit is in his blood as much as in the blood of the gipsies. Yet he is so purely a survival of the past, maintained until the present time by so absolutely an unnatural system and combination of circumstances, that the continuance of his existence is unthinkable.

My observations would indicate that the Cossacks have all the elements of a strong and wholesome people. Their cruelty is the result of generations of encouragement, on the part of the Russian government. In one city, at the time of the barricades, a fear-crazed mob rushed forward with bared breasts, yelling, “Here we are! Strike us down!” and the Cossacks made answer, “Why do you taunt us? We also are men!” and rode past them without cutting down a single man.

The Caucasus Cossacks, I found, were not only men of manly feelings, but of exceptional physique. Surely they will lend themselves to civilization. Their land cannot be taken from them without a struggle. Submit to the regulations of civilized people immediately they never will. The problem is one that Russia’s next régime will have to work out. But the organization of the Cossacks, as perpetuated down to the present time, is without doubt one of the shrewdest and strongest pieces of interior administration ever adopted by a nation. If Russia were not torn from every center in the empire, the Cossacks would maintain peace indefinitely. Without the Cossacks, Russia, long ago, would have been overwhelmed. The Cossacks are the only branch of the army that can be relied upon absolutely, and they because they are now in possession of everything that the revolutionists are clamoring for. Freedom, liberty—all the shibboleths of revolutionism—are commonplaces in the life of the Cossacks. And when the time comes for this medieval institution to go under, it cannot be hoped that it will surrender without a struggle. So long as the House of Romanoff holds supremacy—and autocracy—the Cossacks will continue to flourish. If this régime is overthrown the next will have the Cossacks to cope with. The Cossacks will die hard. But die they must—or at least the institution of Cossackdom—and the Cossack must be saved to lend stamina and strength to the up-building of a strong state in Russia, whether constitutional monarchy or republic, and the individual Cossack turned into paths of productive labor.

During the two following days I passed through countless villages of the various tribes of the north Caucasus, and if this preliminary excursion did nothing more it, at least, disclosed to me the tremendous difficulties of civil administration in this wild region, and above all else the utterly blind, fanatical policies that have been pursued by the Russian government during the last twenty-five

A Cossack village—Province of the Don

A group of Don Cossacks at breakfast

years, which is the period when her armies just began their sanguinary march into this ancient corner of the world. What these people need is not military subjection, but education, enlightenment, and contact with civilization, and an administration based on the principles of humanity and the enlightenment born of learning and culture. But it is outside of my present purpose to suggest what ought to be or what might be; it is rather my restricted duty to give the picture of the scene as I found it unfolded before me—all these different villages of the many tribes of Caucasia, living in their backwardness and their idleness; knowing not the advantages of education, consequently craving it not; crude in their superstitions; quaint in their customs; bold and medieval in their attitude toward their fellow-men. On the south slopes of the Caucasus as well as here on the north slopes are these villages found; though instead of being Circassian, Kabardine, and Ossettes, they are Mingrelians, Kurds, Georgians, Gurians, Persians, Medo-Persians, Tartars, Armenians, and other tribes spilled out of Asia. The crying need universally throughout the region is for a wise administration, making for increased enlightenment and education, instead of which is maintained the brutal iron régime of militarism.

Upon our return to Vladikavkaz I donned my Cossack uniform, which was awaiting me, rejoined my friends the officers, and the second day thereafter we began our journey eastward to the oil city by the Caspian Sea. During the first days that f appeared on the streets in uniform I could not get over the sense of bewilderment and surprise occasioned by the salute I received from every soldier whom I met; for it is a rule of the Russian army that an officer shall be saluted at all times. Had any one of these soldiers stopped to speak to me, the hopelessness of my predicament would have overcome my wits, I am sure, for at that time I knew scarcely any Russian at all. I certainly could not have understood or answered a single sentence. I was saved the embarrassment of such a situation, however, through the fact that the discipline of the Russian army is such that no soldier would think of addressing an officer until he was spoken to. Secure in this knowledge, I did not hesitate to go among the men even when unaccompanied by one of my officer friends.

CHAPTER IV
UNDER MARTIAL LAW

The journey to the “Oil City”—First view of the Caspian—Armenians and Tartars—Russia’s monstrous misrule—Tiflis blood-stained and battered—How to wield a Caucasian dagger—Daily perils—Chiaroscuro of officers’ life—A stirring departure.

HE officers occupied the first-class compartments of two cars attached to a regular train, run from Moscow to Baku and Tiflis, and the escort of some forty odd Cossacks who accompanied our party were relegated to a fourth-class car somewhere at the rear of the train. The first two cars immediately behind the engine were filled with political prisoners who were being transferred from one prison to another. For the most part conversation among the officers was on topics very remote from the political situation of their country, remote even from the business in hand. Whenever I cared to bring up the subject, however, my questions were always readily and frankly answered. They accepted the revolutionary situation as unfortunate and unhappy, but a situation to be solved through military measures rather than through political concessions or altered civil administration.

I shared a compartment with a dashing young captain, the son of one of the most distinguished families in Caucasia. The father of my friend was at one time the viceroy of the region. In discussing with him his own personal sensations when combating the revolutionary activity, I was startled to have him tell me that “nowadays in shooting at a human being he felt precisely the same as he used to feel when, as a younger man, he used to shoot deer in the mountains.” “The people here,” he added, “are all deserving of what they get.” Thereupon he dilated upon the wicked ways of the Tartars and the Armenians, whose constant feuds were then spattering Baku and Tiflis, and much of the country which lies between, with crimson stains. This same officer who spoke with such carelessness of the taking of human life had all of the instincts and the fineness of a man of refined and poetic temperament. At night, for example, I found him sitting at the car window, hour after hour, entranced with the marvelous beauty of the night; the snow-capped peaks of the mountains, fast receding from us as we sped toward Daghestan; the glorious vault of blue studded with bright, but cold, metallic stars; and as I asked him why he did not sleep, he answered: “I am fond of sleeping but not in the night-time; this beauty attracts me more than my couch.”

The next morning I awoke before the sun. Our way lay close to the shores of the Caspian. My companion was up before me and insisted that I come to the window to watch the beauty of the scene about to be revealed. Presently the whole east was bathed in startling brightness; it was as though the sea tossed crimson waves out there where water met sky, and as the brilliant colors fell toward the dropping heavens, the atmosphere caught their gleams and held them. In another moment sky and sea were indistinguishable one from another, for over all was spread the increasing depth and height of color. Behind us still lay the ashen, somber light of dawn, reluctantly yielding to the brilliance of coming day. The degree of appreciation that I found in my friend of this perfect manifestation of Nature filled me with wonder and admiration. He was touched to the depth of his being by the glories of the beauty we beheld. Afterward I thought often of the man’s emotion at this time, when I came into contact with that other side of his character, which presented only adamant hardness when he turned to the restoration of order in that district which was then, as it had been for months past, in the throes of bitter conflict. “In my heart you see,” he remarked one day, “I am a soldier and I cannot look upon our political situation save from the standpoint of an officer.”

The Armenians in Baku, as indeed throughout this whole region, have small reason for loving Russia. Russia in her treatment of these people has builded herself a monument of ingratitude. Without the support of the Armenians, Russia never would have conquered, even nominally, the Caucasus. Not only did Armenians serve in the ranks, but some of the best generals Russia has ever had have been Armenians—notably General Loris-Melikoff, who was at one time the minister to Alexander the Second and who is popularly supposed to have drawn up the constitution which that monarch might have granted to his people at the time of his death. But having used Armenians to serve its own ends, Russia began, a few years ago, to alter its policy toward them. The changed policy began on the 25th day of June, 1903, when M. von Plehve issued a now historical decree, declaring that as the property of the Armenian church was badly managed and used for political purposes, the state of Russia must interfere and take control of that money. In view of the fact that this money belonged not to the Armenians alone but to the whole orthodox church of which the Armenian is a part, this was considered an affront to the entire church. This arbitrary, high-handed measure converted the whole Armenian population into Russian revolutionists at a single stroke. Prince Galitzin, the then viceroy of the Caucasus, maintained a régime of unprecedented severity toward the Armenians, arresting and punishing them by the hundreds and inaugurating an era of governmental terrorism which had never before threatened these people. From that day until now the Armenians have maintained a constant guerilla warfare against Russia and Russian soldiers. Added to this is the bitter race hatred encouraged by the Russian authorities between the Armenians and the Tartars, which has again and again been traced directly to the Russian administration, for where races are warring one against the other, a military régime finds the complete subjection of both peoples simpler.

Riot, destruction of property, bloodshed, murder, were all a part of each day’s work in Baku. The vast oil wells which are the mainstay of the city, were burned, the great tanks wrecked, and on every hand mountains of wreckage and debris were patrolled by Cossacks. Near to the station as we alighted from the train a murdered Armenian was lying in the gutter. Blood still oozed from his head. What immediately struck me was that no one gave him the slightest heed. Passers-by stepped over the corpse as if it were the carcass of a dog. My Armenian courier alone seemed troubled. He remarked: “The trouble, sir, here in the Caucasus, is all due to the Russian government. The Russian government first stirs up the fights and then it does not allow us to finish them as we would.” “How would you manage it?” I asked. “Manage it, sir?” he replied, “Give the Armenians guns, leave them alone and in ten days there would not be a Tartar left north of the Persian frontier.” Although naturally peaceful, the Armenians are good soldiers and strong fighters; they shoot well and are by no means cowards, although by nature they prefer the peaceful walks of life. In this respect they are different from the Georgians, their near neighbors, who are natural warriors, proud of their prowess and of the distinguished officers that from time to time their race has produced.

Not only was the Armenian church robbed of its treasure, but at the same time the Russian government deprived the Armenians of their national schools, thus treading upon the finest flowers of nationality, and forever engendering the hatred of the Armenian people. During the long and biased administration of Prince Galitzin the Armenians were constantly persecuted, while the Tartars were allowed greater liberties. The Tartars were not slow in appreciating this situation, and a depot for the importation of arms was established that they might prepare themselves for the uprising soon to take place. As nearly as can be gathered the plan upon which the Tartars were acting was to slaughter all of the Armenians in eastern Caucasia. The authorities unquestionably were aware of this plot, but did nothing whatever to prevent it during all of the preliminary stages. Indeed the authorities themselves frequently circulated reports that an Armenian-Tartar war would presently break out, and the Tartars were constantly spurred on to greater activity by the reports that were allowed free circulation—that the Armenians would one day attack them. That this plan did not culminate was due probably to the turn of events in the far East; for when Russia began its retreat, beaten at every point by the little yellow men of the Mikado, every nationality held in subjection by the Czar began to count anew upon the realization of the dreams of nationalism. The removal of Prince Galitzin from the Caucasus in July, 1904, doubtless saved the situation there, for Count Vorontzoff-Dashkoff, who followed as viceroy of the Caucasus, was a man without the strong prejudices of his predecessor, and did much to reconcile the Armenians, although it was under his régime that the frightful massacres of February, March, and May, 1905, occurred. The massacre of February 19, 1905, was only one of a whole series of massacres planned by the Russian administration. The details of this dastardly affair are still unforgotten, and inasmuch as no one knows when there may be another, the whole populace is kept in a state of almost perpetual panic.

Prince Nakashidze, a Georgian nobleman, one of the lieutenants of Prince Galitzin who had assisted in the confiscation of the Armenian church property, was at this time governor of Baku.

A group of Armenian Journalists waited upon the governor and heard from his excellency’s own lips a strange theory of a hypothetical feud between the Armenians and the Tartars which might result in a pogrom, or massacre. The dangers of such an outbreak, he declared, lay in the fact that he did not have troops enough at his command to suppress any such trouble, and that the police could not be relied upon, owing to the fact that so many of them were themselves Tartars. It was afterward pointed out that the report of the governor, of the outbreak which actually took place, corresponded almost word for word with the supposition advanced by Prince Nakashidze to the journalists previous to the massacre. The massacre actually occurred as a result

Arrest of suspected working-men—an hourly incident in Baku

Devastated oil-fields. Baku

of a trifling incident. The body of a murdered Armenian, named Babaieff, was being carried in funeral procession past the Tartar quarter of the city. The sight of this procession aroused the Tartars; and the incident which had led to the death of this man—a purely personal vendetta affair—was taken as an excuse for an attempt to massacre all the Armenians in the city. The Armenians defended themselves for a time, but owing to the fact that the Tartars were in superior numbers and much better armed, the casualties among the Armenians were very heavy. During this attack of the Tartars upon the Armenians, the authorities refused absolutely to bestir themselves or make the slightest effort to end the fight. Prince Nakashidze practically turned a deaf ear upon the delegation of Armenians who appealed to him for help, declaring he had no troops at his command, although there were two thousand men stationed near by, which could easily have been employed to quell the disturbance in its early stages.

According to the stories gathered at the time and which have never been contradicted, it appears that the governor himself took pains to openly encourage the Tartars and to stimulate them to greater activity in the fight. The massacre went on for four days, until both sides were ready to quit through sheer exhaustion. In the meantime some three hundred and fifty men and women had been killed and very many wounded. Although it was recognized everywhere that the government was directly responsible for this massacre, the amount of race hatred which was occasioned by this attack has not to this day subsided, and probably will not disappear for years to come. Periodic outbreaks occurred from that time on, and at the time that our party passed through Baku and around the easterly spur of the Caucasus, and turned our faces toward the Nucha district and on to Tiflis, we passed through regions devastated and bare, now placed under military guard; heavy Cossack patrols guarding the piles of debris—for actually more attention was given to guarding the wreckage than had previously been given to guarding the lives of the people.

There was nothing to detain us in Baku. A condition of utter lawlessness prevailed so far as the people were concerned, and even more outrageous lawlessness on the part of the military. It is always so under martial law. A diary of daily events in the Caucasus for the five weeks I was there would fill a large book. I can only speak of significant events, and incidents, which throw light on the whole confused situation. Among ourselves—the officers of my party—there was ceaseless merriment and good fellowship. We lived comfortably, we dined well, we wined much, we were as happy and care-free as though we were on a holiday. About us were the most horrible conditions: dire poverty, distress, a veritable carnival of all the elements of wickedness and suffering of which this world knows.

For the hopeless people of Baku I envied the nomads of the Daghestan hills who tended their cattle and sheep along the steep hillsides, knowing nothing of, and caring nothing for, anything in the world save their own daily bread. At least they were not a part of the perpetual brawl of the town; at least they were not yet belabored by Russian police or military oppressors. Sometimes we saw long camel trains creeping across the sands of Nucha from Persia (lying just below the southern horizon). The dreamy leisureliness of the plodding camels, the calm indifference of the merchants, afforded an illusion of relief from the hostile atmosphere through which

Tiflis. Showing result of artillery fire on town

Note the wall pierced by a solid shell

we moved. From a hilltop out of Baku we looked strainingly through the haze to the snow mountains of the south Caucasus, one peak of which is called Ararat. No longer does the dove fly forth from this ancient mountain, to return with a sprig of olive. The waters of the earth no longer threaten this region, but the terrible tides of men—waves of oppression, oceans of misery, seas of shame—ever and always menace all who here pitch their tents. It is the oldest region of the world, if the Scriptures be true, yet in reality to-day it is the least civilized. Here Christianity first took root, yet to-day the entire region is given over to cruel and diabolical practices worthy of pagans and barbarians.

Tiflis lay torn and battered on both banks of the river Kur, revealed by the lifting of the early morning mists, as our train crept slowly down from the heights to the center of the town. Tiflis, the ancient capital of Georgia, has been the battle-ground of many a fight and conflict ever since it was first established by Vakhtang Goroslan, King of Georgia, in the fifth century. Occupying as it does a point of considerable strategic importance, commercially as well as geographically, it is one of the cities of the world which must ever remain a natural capital, whether vested with the rights of empire or not. It commands the highway from the Black Sea to the Caspian, the main route to Persia, and the only road which leads over the Caucasus to Europe.

The Tartar and Persian quarters of Tiflis were in a frightful mess. The Tartars, as Ivan, my indomitable Armenian courier, explained to me, had taken possession of a slight elevation near their section of the city, and begun firing upon the Armenians, whose quarter was a little way removed. Between the Armenian quarter and the hill occupied by the Tartars, was the Persian quarter. The innocent Persians, unhappily, received many of the bullets from both sides, with the result that most of the Persian merchants had fled in panic. The fighting continued for several days until the Russian troops came up and fired indiscriminately upon the three sections, using light artillery. I photographed some of the demolished houses, securing one or two interesting pictures of the walls of houses which had been burst through by solid shells.

All the time I remained in Tiflis Ivan was suspicious of my associates, the officers. “Bloody Russians,” he called them, and he had no use for them whatever. Being one of the race who had been victimized by Russian treachery so often since the confiscation of the church property, and the abolition of the schools in 1903, he could no more put faith in any man representing the government of the Czar. He was most thoughtful of me, however, and after we had got to know each other better, he proved himself measurably loyal. Early in our acquaintance, he had taught me how to use my dagger. For he insisted that since I carried a dagger, I should know how to handle it when occasion demanded. He told me how to grasp the handle with my hands and to thrust it into the bowels of my opponent, giving it the right twist so as to make short work of my enemy, after the manner of his own countrymen. “But, sir,” he added, “you are to use it this way only when you are forced to meet your man face to face. It is better for you to get behind your enemy and to plant your dagger between his shoulders when he is not looking.” Ivan’s fighting ethics were built upon a wholly practical basis. He knew no other standard. In this, he was like all the peoples of Caucasia.

Besides the demolished foreign quarters of Tiflis, there were evidences a-plenty of riot and revolt in all sections of the town; whole blocks of houses sometimes with windows broken, as a result of a recent bomb; telegraph lines down; traffic interrupted; streets torn up and day by day reports came in of clashes between the peoples, and sometimes between the populace and the authorities, and never a day without murder or assassination.

The streets of the town were never safe. A bomb was liable to drop in the vicinity of any official at any time, and robbery was a commonplace of the night. In Tiflis I found a state of actual and continuous guerilla war. Nothing spectacular or dramatic happened, but every day some one was killed, a building wrecked, a consignment of government money stolen. Political arrests were hourly scenes. Workmen were taken from their work; private citizens were snatched from their homes; newspapers that appeared one day were suppressed the next; officials who had to move from place to place were accompanied by heavy escorts. The atmosphere was electric with unrest. Tiflis quivers and cowers through miserable days and hideous nights—all because Russia’s civil policy is as it is, often in open violation of the usual customs of nations and of humanity. Tiflis, olden capital of ancient Georgia, Tiflis the lovely, the beautiful, the fair—I found a city of inquisition, of fire and blood, of despair. Yet through it all we—my officers and I—were established in the comfortable Hotel de Londres. At night we were merry, and oblivious to everything about us. Sometimes we went to a café chantant called the Bellvue, where lovely Georgian girls sang brisk American songs (done into Russian) and painted Armenian maidens danced languorous, lascivious dances....

For a time I was fascinated by this paradoxical life. How human beings could drink champagne through long nights when horrible starvation besieged every window and door; how the officers of the busiest army in the world could squander hours and days and weeks, when mutiny and sedition were daily eating into the ranks; how men of such excellent camaraderie spirit could look upon suffering with a cool shrug—all this was new to me, and made me wonder greatly. But after a time the reports coming in from Kutais, to the west of Tiflis, were so startling that I grew more and more impatient to witness what an army of “pacification” reveals. There in Kutais, the dreaded and hated General Alikhanoff was pushing forward the grim work of repression.

My good friend Prince Andronnikov secured for me the necessary permission, and one memorable Monday evening I ordered Ivan to be ready to start for Kutais that evening.