The New Europe/Volume 7/Number 84/Review

by Harold Whitmore Williams

Review

The Eclipse of Russia: Dr. E. J. Dillon. (J. M. Dent and Sons.) Dr. Dillon has chosen an apt title, but he has written a very tantalising book. It might have been such a good book. Dr. Dillon has lived through so much in Russia, has observed events so closely, has known so intimately many of the chief actors in the tragedy of the last 30 years that any ordered statement of his view of the present sad plight of Russia would be of great and permanent value. But The Eclipse of Russia is anything but an ordered and coherent statement. It consists of rambling reminiscences, set down with very little regard to chronological sequence, and interspersed with reflections of a kind that the author would, perhaps, describe as historico-philosophical. There is an abundance of interesting anecdotes and shrewd judgments, and if Dr. Dillon could only have disentangled the competent observer that is in him from the meshes of his cumbrous and artificial style and from a certain excessive susceptibility to ephemeral emotions, the book would have gained much in force and cogency. There is a curious lack of steady perspective, due mainly perhaps to the author’s somewhat naïve persistence in putting himself in the foreground of events and in vindicating the accuracy of his forecasts. Quorum pars magna fui is the dominant note, and after all one would prefer descriptions of scenes or men to the reiterated assurances that Dr. Dillon saw them or knew them. And as for Witte, with whom Dr. Dillon was so closely associated, and whom he describes, not altogether justly, as “Russia’s unique statesman,” the book contains so many interesting sidelights on his work and character that one wishes Dr. Dillon could find time to write a complete biography of that really remarkable man.

In spite of these defects of presentation The Eclipse of Russia is enlightening in many respects; most of all, perhaps, in its detailed and pitiless analysis of the character of Nicholas II., whose direct responsibility for the catastrophe that befell Russia is still insufficiently realised in Great Britain. The description of the political structure of Russia under the old régime is adequate as a criticism of the admininstrative apparatus, though it fails to do justice to the real elements of permanence in the Russian State. The analysis of the Russian mind is acute but insufficiently sympathetic. Dr. Dillon’s account of the agent provocateur, Azev, and the system he represented, corresponds to the terrible facts, and his estimate of Rasputin’s influence is fair and sound. Most interesting is the account of the ex-Tsar’s suicidal policy in the Far East, and of the diplomatic entanglements leading to and from the Manchurian war. The circumstances under which the Secret Treaty of Björke was signed and annulled are related in considerable detail, and a curious light is thrown on the relations between Nicholas II. and the German Emperor. One marvels that a Europe containing two such monarchs did not plunge into a world-war years ago. Dr. Dillon left Russia before the war, and his account of recent events is necessarily brief and superficial. His aim is to elucidate the origins. Students of Eastern Europe will delve in his book and extract from it much valuable material.H. W.