With the Die-hards in Siberia

Excerpt: ... they were to be quietly bayoneted in the night, as shooting would attract attention. I was also certain that Koltchak knew nothing about this. The whole business was in the hands of an Officers' Revenge Society, a body who had sworn an oath to kill just the number of Bolshevik Revolutionaries as there had been officers murdered by Trotsky's and Avkzentieff's people. Both parties had similar combinations which left the marks of their foul deeds on the streets every night. The state of affairs was such that only by a dictatorship could the most rudimentary order be maintained. I, a democrat, believing in government of the people by the people, thought I saw in the dictator the one hope of saving the remnants of Russian civilisation and culture. Words and names have never frightened me. If circumstances force on me a problem for solution, I never allow preconceived notions and ideas formed in the abstract, without the experience of the actual then existing facts, to warp my judgment in deciding the issue; and I am vain enough to believe that, had the same situation presented itself to Englishmen generally, nine out of ten would act as I did. I merely "carried on." The traditions of our race and country did the rest. Having, in my talk with the admiral and the report I made, accepted his position of Supreme Governor, I did not mean that he should be left to fight his way unaided against the enemies who surrounded him. In other words, while outwardly remaining neutral, I constantly made representations and gave advice, when asked, about everything, both internal and external; and here it may be interesting to our own people to know some of the problems which confronted the Supreme Governor. The Japanese question was the first. General Rosanoff was Bolderoff's Chief of Staff, and it was important to the Supreme Governor that he should get the hang of outstanding matters and also make himself fairly acquainted with the policy of the deposed Directorate....