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our Consul-General of my impression and my observations he pretended to ascribe my „state of mind“ to the result of a „nervous fatigue“, advising me to take rest, employing at the same time the following expression which I shall never forget; „This intervention for which we have been working, which, to a certain extent, is our work, has been launched: it is necessary that it should give good results: in politics there is but one, method of not committing an error, that is to persist to the end in the line of conduct one has adopted after carefully weighing the pros and the cons“. And, almost as though to aid one to see things in this light and, doubtless, to „brace up“ nervous people, an abundance of news arrived during the next few days which was all later on belied by facts.—The rapid advance of the Japanese army of 200,000 men towards Irkutsk which would be occupied in not later than a fortnight,—the irresistible advance of troops landed at Archangel and (ten days later), the announcement of the imminent occupation of Vologda. On the other hand, the temporary check in the advance of the Czecho-Slovaks on Nijny and Moscow was due, as they claimed, exclusively to the reinforcement of German regular troops which had been sent to support the Bolsheviks,—a check, moreover, of no importance at all, for detachments, of Czecho-Slovak cavalry had already penetrated into the Government of Vladimir and an insurrection was expected at any moment.
Is it possible to do otherwise than to compare this campaign of systematic lying, intended only to inspire „our friends“ with courage and, probably, to incite them to some new Yaroslavl
