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point of view of a struggle against German Imperialism, began to lose its whole raison d'etre, began to shape itself in a manner that had not been foresseen, by me. It seemed, in fact, that it must reduce itself more and more and more, especialiy from the side of the Far East,—to the occupation of certain parts of Russian territory which, from the point of view of Russian internal policy, as well as from the point of view of the war against German Imperialism, could not be justified at all. Practically, it seemed that intervention would have to restrict itself almost exclusively to Japanese military action in Siberia and in spite of endeavours to circulate the legend of a direct German menace to Siberia, it was clear that such intervention appeared much more dangerous, not only for the bolsheviks, but also for Russia herself than for Germany.
Later on, there came the Czecho-Slovak affair. The duplicity with which it was prepared, under the care of our diplomacy, impressed me very painfully. First of all I saw in it, as in the Yaroslavl intervention a manoeuvre to provoke intervention even at the risk of dragging us into an adventure, and of retaining contingents of French troops on Russian territory, for which the French command was clamouring on the French front.—This clamour our diplomacy cooly described as a „misunderstanding“. Secondly, this affair appeared, in a very bad light from the Russian point view. If it was really the commencement of our intervention, why did they not say so? If really the Bolsheviks were, as I had believed, and on the basis of calumnious assertions continued to believe, German
