there in the station, and I had also managed to get the aides-de-camp of the General involved in a puzzling telephone conversation with the next station to the north just before the train from the south was due, so that I snatched the poor man off by himself and brought him to you."
On the following day, after Batianoff had already been despatched westward from Manchouli, I learned that our arch-enemy, General Ivanoff, was tearing his hair in his anger at having been kept in ignorance of our reception of General Batianoff and over his inability to have assisted this great dignitary with so much influence at the Tsar's Court. The moment his spies had uncovered for him all the details of our management of the General's itinerary, he hurried a cipher telegram to St. Petersburg, accusing General Linievitch of complicity in the plot against the "venerable and meritorious General."
Unfortunately this report made a very distinct impression in St. Petersburg and reacted upon us in a most undesirable manner; for, as the evacuation of the army was now nearly completed, Linievitch was recalled to the capital and General Ivanoff made the senior commanding officer in Manchuria.
As soon as old Linievitch, who took a very friendly leave of us, was well away, Ivanoff at once began to use his authority against us. One of his first acts was to free his namesake, the anarchist Ivanoff whom I had arrested, which he followed by ordering the officers who had been members of the Vladivostok Revolutionary Committee to appear before the military court.
The anarchist Ivanoff left Harbin this same day and, as a final courtesy, wrote to me and to the other members of the former Central Committee, assuring us that he would honour us with his presence when the tribunals
