won for England, as no other man had done before him, the love of
Russia. The rulers of Russia trusted him. He was their friend in a
darkness which had begun to alarm them, a darkness which made them
conscious of their country's weakness, and which brought to their ears
again and again the rumbles of approaching storm. Lord Carnock,
sincerely loving these people, received their confidence as one friend
receives the confidence of another. His advice was honourable advice. He
counselled these friends to set their house in order and to stand firm
in the conviction of their strength. Their finances were a chaos, their
army was disorganized; let them begin in those quarters; let them bring
order into their finances and let them reorganize their army.

While he was at St. Petersburg, after a wide experience in other
countries, he twice saw Russia humiliated by Germany. Twice he witnessed
the agony of his Russian friends in having to bow before the threats of
Prussia. Remember that the rulers of Russia in those days were the most
charming and cultivated people in the world, whereas the Prussian as a
diplomatist was the same Prussian whom, even as an ally of ours in 1815,
Croker found "very insolent, and hardly less offensive to the English
than to the French."[1] The Russians felt those humiliations as a
gentleman would feel the bullying of an upstart.

Lord Carnock was at the Foreign Office in July, 1914. He alone knew that
Russia would fight. For the rest of mankind, certainly for the German
Kaiser, it was to be another bloodless humiliation of the Russian Bear.
Admiral von Tirpitz wanted war: Bethmann-Hollweg did not. The great
majority of the German people, in whom a genuine fear of Russia had
increased under the astute propaganda of the War Party, hoped that the
sword had only to be flashed in Russia's face for that vast barbarian to
cower once again. Few statesmen in Europe thought otherwise. Sir Edward