I had expected to be put through an examination in the Russian language, and a questionnaire as to what I knew about Russian politics and the Russian army… instead, there were a few conventional words… a searching look and a nod to say that while it was not much of a job, I could have it if I wanted it.15
The job firstly involved going out to Petrograd to review the working of the British Intelligence Mission there, which was then being run by Major C.J.M. Thornhill, and secondly to assess the effectiveness of the Russian blockade on trade with Germany. After undertaking the usual intelligence course, Hoare left London for Russia in March 1916 and eagerly set about his task. Although his verdict on Thornhill’s stewardship of the Mission was hardly a flattering one, it seems clear that he was completely unprepared for the inevitable consequences that would follow C’s receipt of his report. Not only did C decide to dismiss Thornhill as Head of the Mission, he chose Hoare to succeed him, granting him the rank of temporary lieutenant-colonel in recognition of his new posting.
Hoare’s appointment clearly created friction within the Intelligence Mission. It would seem that many of the officers under his command not only resented the appointment of a man who was seen as being responsible for the removal of the universally popular Thornhill, but more to the point was perceived as a politician with neither the military nor the intelligence expertise for the job in hand.
Alley, Thornhill’s second in command, was in many ways the obvious person to step into his shoes, but he was overlooked on this occasion, although he was to remain as deputy to Hoare. Perhaps he was considered rather a loose cannon. He had certainly offended the Ambassador, as a terse note dated 15 March 1915 indicates. It is an explanation, point by point, to a third party of an internal row. (It may well be, in view of the style, that the third party was C in England; it reads like a telegram.) He and a Captain Simpson had been hauled over the coals by Sir George Buchanan one Friday afternoon. ‘We were both rather hurt unsympathetic attitude which however caused us show extra deference. Ambassador requested me bring copy my instructions certain hour Saturday afternoon.’ He goes on:
d) Saturday I was several hours Russian War Office renewing acquaintance various officers expecting finish in time appointment; but Chief of General Staff suddenly fixed unexpected hour receive myself Major Ferguson clashing Embassy hour. Telephones temporarily out of order sent deferential letter fully explaining asking Ambassador if he would postpone appointment until later hour but leaving barely time ensure punctuality.
e)Interview Chief of General Staff closely followed by General Leontieff unavoidably kept us until few minutes past our appointment. This was less than 15 minutes appointment. Meanwhile greatest possible speed I fetched my instructions drove to Embassy.
f) Near Embassy caught sight Ambassador excitedly hailing from pavement. Sprang out and ran towards him. Without waiting to hear any expression of regret, loudly assailed me with great violence action and with imprecation. Starting apologise he cut me short exclaiming he did not care damn what I had to say. Asking what I should do with paper in my hand I obtained no comprehensible reply. Then with further strong language he upbraided me for chucking appointment with Ambassador for Chief of Staff. Then he turned his back on me and walked away.
If Alley was in any way put out by Hoare’s appointment, he never showed it. In fact, in another sense, the newcomer’s appointment was tantamount to giving him a free rein, because Hoare was not worldly enough to perceive the subtleties of which some of his staff were capable.
Major Stephen J. Alley MC, as he later became, gets just one mention in Hoare’s account of his year in Petrograd. Sir Samuel and Lady Hoare had a female cook who went berserk in their flat and held up Sir Samuel’s soldier-servant at knifepoint. Hoare was bedridden, at the time, with a fever. (Never a well man, he would live to be seventy-nine.) The Hoares gave the cook notice, but she refused to leave, as under wartime regulations she was entitled to do. They must get rid of her, but could only shudder and discuss legal action until Stephen Alley introduced a visitor: the local Police Commandant. The policeman, who in the nature of his work had grasped the principle of direct action, unceremoniously booted her out of the back door in return for a twenty-rouble note. Local understanding had its uses.
Alley was a military man, not a socialite, but he understood the Russian ruling class because he had known them since he was born. Bruce Lockhart would probably have said he was ‘incapable of forming a reliable political judgement’, but his upbringing and experience of work in Russia would have helped him to recognise the disaster that Russia’s war effort was fast becoming. Even Hoare, whose local knowledge was so much more superficial, could see the problems of social injustice and failing morale that had been intensifying since the war began. And even Hoare heard the stories of dark forces around the imperial household, misguiding them in the direction of defeat.
The Tsar and Tsarina believed ‘the people’ were fired with personal loyalty to them – naturally, for were not the Romanovs rulers by divine right? The Tsar believed so, and this self-righteousness was at once his only strength and his greatest weakness. With Western Europe becoming increasingly secular, Russia – and the imperial couple in particular – clung to the medieval religious outlook of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its political expression was feudal. The Tsar, not by nature a tyrant, had been brought up to believe that the vast mass of his subjects were a resource, like his land and rivers and mines, to be used for the benefit of Russia. And as his wife said ‘The Tsar is Russia’.16 The peasants were out there like fish in the sea. If men were lost in war, there were always more men, and in the Tsar’s mind they so loved the monarchy and all it stood for that they would feel honoured to serve.
He persisted as far as he could in ignoring change. Perhaps change was easy to ignore because it had been so very slow. The serfs had been liberated in the nineteenth century. There had been some land reform. Soldiers and sailors had mutinied after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and revolution had threatened to spread; in October of that year the Tsar had been forced to grant Russia a constitution in order to pre-empt it. A constitution meant an elected government, the bi-cameral Duma. That had been instituted over a decade ago. But there was no universal suffrage and ministers were appointed by the Tsar. To a great extent government still operated by petition and dispensation, like a tribal society in which petitioners must queue for days to ask favours of a potentate.
Rasputin understood the system. He was the arch-fixer, and when, from 1915 onwards, the Tsar was at the Stavka, far from the capital, it was Rasputin, in his stuffy apartment in Gorokhovaya Street, whom people would queue to see, and Rasputin who would listen, and scrawl a note to whoever could give them what they wanted.
That the Duma had been emasculated, and that the workers were discontented and always striking, that there was a new urban middle class they did not understand at all and that soldiers at the front were deserting in droves, did not shake the imperial couple in their belief that the Tsar knew best. The Tsar’s reaction to constructive criticism was not to listen or even to confront but to shut out challengers; to send them out of the room as would a vexed schoolmaster. Right-wing aristocrats would have had him do a lot worse, but he was temperamentally inclined to avoid confrontation.
Still worse, he was impressionable. Orders were issued and countermanded, ministers arrived and departed, with disconcerting frequency, as new arguments won him over.