TREACHERY AND TREASON

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 9 November 1917, Page 1

TREACHERY AND TREASON

e HOW GENERAL SOUHOMLINOFF '- FELL. o "THE-WOMAN IN THE CASE." d o Tho cabled information that General 's Souhomlinoff, a former Minister of War, it has been convicted, after a" long ti'ial in h Petrograd, of -treason, and sentenced to n imprisonment for life, invites attention to the career of this notorious individual.

In au intensely interesting article in the August number of / the 'Fortnightly Heview,' E. H. Wilcox discusses events leading up to the appearance of General Sonhonilinoff as Minister of .War, an event which came about in 1909. Prior to that Alexander Goutchkoff' had taken, part, in the Manchuriau War as head of one of the Red Cross detachments, and had discovered that the failure of the .campaign had been mainly due to disorganisation;, corruption, and inadequacies of equipment and supplies, inevitably resulting from an obsolete and rotten system. . Later Goutchkoff secured a seat in the Duma,-'and was elected chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on National Defence. His facts and arguments convinced the Duma, aud it passed a resolution pronouncing the plans and methods of the administration for the supply of material a danger to the country. "If," says the writer of the article, "this warning had been listened to much might have turned out differently in the present war, but, unfortunately, it passeo unheeded." / Upon Souhomlinoff becoming Minister of War Goutchkoff speedily satisfied himself that all attempts at serious reform would be in vain so long as this man remained in control of the department iesponsible for the efficiency of the army. Even to-day nobody in Russia seems prepared to dispute that Souhomlinoff had been an able soldier and administrator. There are officers of hich position who will tell you that at his primes—he is now nearly 70, and a broken man—he had one* of the best military heads in the country. Down to his appointment as War Minister his career had been a brilliant one. From 1898 to 1904 he had been Chief of Staff to General Dragomiroff at Kieff, and he had then succeeded that distinguished tactician as Commander-in-Chief and Gover-nor-General of the Kieff -military district, which included the Governments of Volhynia and Podolia. But while he was at Kieff an event occurred in his domesticlife which threw a shadow over his military activity and career. The second Madame Souhomlinoff is a gifted and attractive Jewess of obscure origin. She had come to Kieff as the wife of a school inspector, who had found her teaching in a village school, and had succumbed to her charms. At Kieff she met Souhomlinoff, whom she also succeeded in captivating. Her first husband was an obstacle, but he was removed in a manner typical of how the strict letter of the law could be mitigated under the old regime. The Orthodox Church nominally did not recognise divorce, but it was not inflexible to the persuasions of money and " protection." An influential official of the Holy Synod was "approached," and the school inspector, who was unsuspectingly taking a holiday abroad .fqr_.his health, received the quite unexpected intimation that his marriage had been dissolved and that his. wife had become the second Madame Souhomlinoff. THE TOLERANT RUSSIANS.

A scandal such as that would have put mi end to the career of a, prominent public man in this country, but the Russians are very tolerant in such matters, and it was' not so much Sonhomlinoff's second marriage as its sequel which shocked, public opinion. Kieff is one of the • principal centres of anti-Semitism, . and no doubt Madame Souhomlinoff at first found her position in the aristocratic military circle there rather a difficult one. Perhaps that is one reason why her salon became the centre of a nondescript cosmopolitan circle, -which included several German ;ind Austrian subjects. Another of the fre' quenters of her house was Colonel Sergei Miasoyatloff. Tt soon became common talk in Kieff that people of this kind were no fit intimates for a man occupying i;iie of the chief military posts in the Empire, and rumor did not stop short at generalisation. Tt is difficult to say how such ideas get abroad, but the story eventually became current that the Souhom'lim>ff circle- included a clique of spies, whose sole object in frequenting it was to obtain possession of Russia's military secrets. Tn particular, suspicion fastened on Colonel Miasoyedoff, who about that time held the command of the frontier guard at Wirballen, where the main line from Germany crossed into Russian teritory, and where his special duties were to stop the passage of contraband persons and goods. Here he had many opportunities of becoming acquainted with Germans and of making himself agreeable to distinguished passengers of all nationalities. Madame Souhomlinoff made her regular trips, "beyond the frontier," as

the Russians put it, and it would be no injustice to Miasoyedbft to believe the

story that he was very helpful to her in

passing through the Customs the large stocks of Parisian toilettes > and millinery with which she always returned from her wanderings abroad. "He was then placed "at the disposal :: of General Souhomlinoff, by whom he was entrusted with the execution of a number of confidential and important missions.

-MET,BIS DESERTS. . Miasbyedoii, who was suspected, of treachery of the basest kind, was subeqnently caught red-handed, and, after a trial that Jasted several months, duly executed. Several of his friends were sentenced to long terms of penal servitude, whilst his widow was banished to Siberia. HELPING GERMANY. The revelations at the first of these " trials would, it mast be assumed, have proved fatal to Souhornlinoffs tenure of the War Ministry, even if they had not been immediately, followed by the complete breakdown of the military supply of the Russian armies. His association with and persistent 2Jatronage of a man who had been proved to have been betraying Russia systematically lor years! was a slur on his reputation which his official career could not have long survived. One of the points in the "incriminatory material" against him (continues the writer of the article) charges hirn. however, with having, in contravention of his ■■ official duties, between September. 1911, and the end of April, 1912, communicated -to Miasoyedoff secret information '" as to the results of the observation of foreign espionage by the counter-espionage department of the chief' administration of the General Staff, and as to the developments of the revolutionary movement in our army."' Another point ciiarges him with having,- on June 11, 1914, in a letter to Miasoyedoff, " who to his knowledge had taken part in treacherous activity against Russia and to the advantage of Germany," certified the absence on his own part" to any objections to the .employment of the latter in the active army. "Some 'of the Russian'.papery have also mentioned a charge in connection with a paragraph inserted at Souhomlinoffs instance in the 'Russky Invalid/ the semi-official military organ, immediately after the Goutchkbfl'Miasoyedoif duel. This paragraph stated that Miasoyedoff had not had acess to anv coniidential information within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War or the General Staff. His " connection with Miasoyedoff was not, however, the onlv fact detrimental to Souhomliuoif, which was divulged in the course of these proceedings. Souhomlinoff, in the' recent charge, was accused of having, between March,24, 1909, and the middle of April.. 1314, communicated to him the substance of his reports to the Emperor on the state of tlnr national defence, and the steps which it was proposed to take to strengthen it. ' THE WOMAN IN THE CASE. At the trial, of Miasoyedoff the question was raised how men of'his type had been able to establish themselves in the house, of one of tho chief military officers of the .Empire on the footing of'trusted friends, and the evidence suggested that the answer was to be found in the devotion of Souhomlinoff to his young and charming wife. She is now accused of having aided and abetted him in the offences with which he is charged, and, in particular, of having taken an active part in the cultivation of liis intimacy with Miasoyedoff and Altschiller. In the passionate days of the acute conflict between the old Government and tlie Duma. Souhomlinoff was frequently referred to in the Chamber as "that traitor, 1 ' but it would be" unfair to prejudge him on this point. \So far no proof hiis been advanced that he had cognisance 'of Miasoyedoffs true character, or that he was guilty of more than that confiding insouciance towards accepted friends which' the paradoxical Russian often combines with an excessive suspicion towards everybody else. With the other charges against him, which refer to his failure to make proper provision for the carrying 0!1 0 f the war, both before it broke out and after its earlier stages had revealed all the inefficiencv of the Russian equipment, we are not concerned here.