Russian generals boasted that they had still more than 15 million men at their disposal. They promised to send at least half a million men to France—and actually sent, in 1916, an insignificant 16,000 who were so undisciplined that they had to be interned. Neither then nor later had Russians any right to reproach the West with ingratitude. Rather would the Allies be entitled to reproach Russia for having failed to keep her promises. In the West, soon after the Russian defeats in 1914, this view was certainly expressed. It was recognized that Russia had gone into the war unprepared and as a gamble. This I heard more than once in Paris, London and Washington. Nevertheless, I admit that the goodwill of Russia cannot be gainsaid. At the beginning her promise to help Serbia was sincere. She invaded Prussia when Paris was threatened. Brusiloff began his offensive in order to relieve Italy; and Kerensky also wanted to help.
Russians often put forward the excuse that only the German clique at Court, led by the Tsaritsa, was guilty of treason. This is wrong. The Tsaritsa committed no treason. I have verified the stories told even by members of the Duma, and have come to the conclusion that she was no less loyal to Russia than were the Russians themselves. I do not say that there was no treason in her entourage, for she put blind trust in Rasputin who was in the hands of people cunning enough to take advantage of his relationship to the Empress—a fatal mistake. The Tsaritsa’s shortcomings lay in her lack of education, in her gross and morbid superstition and in the political incapacity which she combined with a domineering temperament. And her greatest shortcoming lay in her complete influence over the weakling Tsar, who believed in her as in a prophetess. Thus she became the strongest political power in Russia. She was a sworn foe of constitutionalism and of the Duma; and the Tsar shared her feelings. Not until February 1916, in the midst of the war, did he pay his first visit to the Duma! General Alexeieff wished to place her under arrest—but then it was too late.
The Tsar himself was loyal to the Allies. When Count Eulenburg, the Marshal of the German Court, put out peace feelers through Count Fredericks in December 1915, the Tsar would have nothing to do with them, just as he rejected the attempts made at the end of March 1916 by the Grand Duke of Hesse, the Tsaritsa’s brother. Not less was he against Witte’s pro-German agitation. In words, he wished the war to be vigorously waged, but he knew not how to wage it
