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bear on the Governments of the Entente for an immediate conclusion of peace. But for ail that I did not want to give credit to the reports that they were carrying on negotiations with the German Ambassador at the same time as they were negotiating with us. The definite confirmation of this treachery came as a great surprise to me and the final proof of the visit made to Count Mirbach by some of the most prominent representatives of the Commercial and Industrial party, with Tretiakoff at their head, was a severe blow to my feelings. To make things worse, this visit had not even the excuse of being provoked by a direct or indirect action on the part of the diplomatic representatives of Wilhelm. It was spontaneous, it bore the character of a supplication to Count Mirbach to have Moscow occupied by German troops, in return for which the latter might count with the cooperation of the commercial and industrial groups for the constitution of a government which would submit itself to Berlin. It was after their bargain had been refused by the German Ambassador, as a proposition which did not interest his country,—seeing that the men of „order and industry“ („who had his complete sympathy“) did not dispose of a sufficiently large number of Russian bayonets in Russia, that these „prominent members“ of the „elite“ industrial and commercial circles in Russia came back to us to continue their negotiations, just as though nothing had happened. Here we have the cynicism, of Miliukoff's speech at Kieff, which was not at all the weakness of a moment, the excusable and quite comprehensible distraction which mo-
