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THE GRINDING MILL
Reminiscences of War and Revolution in Russia, 1913-1920
By
PRINCE A. LOBANOV-ROSTOVSKY
Author of Russia and Asia
The Grinding Mill was originally published in 1935 by The Macmillan Company, New York.
A new Postscript has been added to The Grinding Mill describing later events in Lobanov-Rostovskys lifehe eventually became an American citizen and had a long and distinguished teaching and research career at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.)
* * *
TO MY SONS
Igor and Oleg
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER
FOREWORD
This narrative is based upon a diary which I kept during the World War and the greater part of the Russian Revolution. The fate of the diary itself serves as an illustration of the troubled years which it covers. I started writing it at the time of the general mobilization in 1914 and later during my stay on the front I recorded faithfully the events I witnessed, following a method which proved to be most practical for me. I kept a small notebook with me when we were in action and jotted down a few words whenever I found it possible, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a trench, occasionally under fire. During periods of rest, whether a days rest during a march or a longer period while in reserve, I expanded these disjointed notes into a continuous narrative. Thus the events were recorded in two stages and never later than a month after they had occurred. For the sake of keeping the diary safe from curious eyes it was written in French. During my stay in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 I copied the whole diary but upon leaving for Salonika I decided to leave this copy for safe keeping in a trunk in Petrograd, as the journey to Macedonia appeared to me very hazardous. I took with me, however, the original copy books, and by an irony of fate these have remained in my possession whereas the copy I left in Russia has been lost together with all my other personal things as a result of the Soviet upheaval. Before returning to Russia in 1918 I left my diary with my mother in Nice. The conditions in the White Army did not permit me to continue keeping a personal record of events. Hence the last chapters of the book have been written from memory corroborated by whatever documents, personal papers, and letters are still in my possession. For sixteen years this diary has been lying idle as I had to overcome a natural reluctance to publish what I considered an intimate record of my life. However, I have been encouraged to believe that my notes may have some interest, for, though a very minor character in the great historical drama which I witnessed, fate has allowed me to tramp along some byways of the War and the Revolution which have been relatively less explored. I should like to say, further, that the views and opinions given in this book are strictly those I held at the time the diary was written. I have been careful to exclude any opinions which may have been influenced by the subsequent development of events or my own changing attitude toward them. I have thus hoped to preserve whatever value as a human document this narrative may possess.
In conclusion I should like to express my thanks to Professor M. Ewing of the University of California at Los Angeles and to Mr. Carl A. Sauer for valuable suggestions concerning style. My wifes advice and indefatigable labor have helped me greatly in the preparation of the manuscript.
A. LOBANOV-ROSTOVSKY.
PART I
CHAPTER I WAR IS LOOMING
The spring of 1913 found me in Nice with a difficult problem to solve: should I carry on my studies or do my military service, which was due then unless I asked for an extension of time? I had just arrived in Nice after passing the winter in St. Petersburg, and was staying with my mother in her villa on the Promenade des Anglais. But first, I had to decide what I was going to become. I had two clear-cut desires: one to enter diplomacy, and the other to become a concert pianist. Though practically self-taught I passed many hours at the piano, and the height of my achievement was attained when I managed to thump through Griegs Concerto. But there were all-powerful conventions. Certain things simply were not done. The only careers open to me were civil service, army and navy, and diplomacy. So diplomacy it had to be. Thus I would follow a family tradition several centuries old. Indeed, a Lobanov negotiated peace with Poland and Sweden in 1656; another Lobanov signed the Treaty of Tilsit with Napoleon in 1807; my granduncle, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs, was responsible for the Li-Lobanov Treaty with China in 1896. My grandfather on the maternal side was at the Congress of Berlin. By intermarriage with foreigners for some generations my family had close relations in England, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, all of whom were either in the diplomatic or in the consular service. Besides, I had a genuine interest in history, and I remember that at the age of eleven my greatest pleasure was to be allowed in my fathers study where I used to wade through the voluminous collection of treaties by Martens, finding special pleasure in the sound of such names as Metternich and Nesselrode.
However, the immediate question was military service. As my health was very poor from overstudy, the doctor advised doing it then. But here also my choice had to follow conventions. Only the Guards in St. Petersburg were acceptable. The rest of the armythat is to say, 95 percent of itsimply did not exist. In the Guards, too, there were all kinds of subdivisions of social importance. First in standing came the First Division of the Cavalry, then the Guards Mounted Artillery, then the Preobrazhensky Regiment of Infantry and then the Fourth Rifles. The other units followed in decreasing importance. The Guards Sapper Battalion, being a technical unit and having no social pretensions, was in a class by itself. Also, it had the reputation of being an intellectual regiment. A cousin of mine had been an officer there, and furthermore a great friend of my childhood, Count Alexander Bobrinsky, had completed his service in that regiment. These were sufficient reasons for me to select the Guards Sapper Battalion, though I had no aptitude for engineering or practical things. As I see myself at that time, I was a sensitive, delicate, ill-looking youth with very white hands; I was passionately sentimental and idealistic, fearful of effort and generally unfitted for life. I have no right to grudge my fate, whatever the vicissitudes of war and revolution have been. They have put me on my feet both morally and physically.
My stay at Nice is one of the happiest memories of my life. The beautiful Riviera springtime and four lovely Italian cousins accounted for this. Then came the sad moment when I started off to join my regiment.
