Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE WAR MINISTER AND HIS FRIENDS THE trial of Gen. Souhomlinoff was the great justification of the Revolution. It tore the fine trappings off the Old Regime, and laid bare all its pitiful realities. Without this remorseless exposure, it might still have been possible to defend the autocracy on principles of political philosophy. The Souhomlinoff trial proved irrefutably that the Old Regime no longer had anything whatever to do with principles or philosophy, but was merely a sham and an imposture. After the evidence given here, it stood condemned, not so much because it was an autocracy, as because it was hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. Souhomlinoff was no ordinary and average servant of the Crown. Outside the Imperial household, he was the special favourite and confidant of Nicholas II, and for six years he had more personal power than any other Minister. .. Under Stolypin, Kokovtsoff and Goremykin," said Alexander Goutchkoff, " Souhomlinoff was the most influential member of the Cabinet, for he knew how to work on all the Tsar.s weaknesses, and especially on his antipathy to the Duma." Two of the.three Ministers-President named fought him in vain. When Stolypin wns dying at Kieff, he gave his successor the key to the portfolio containing the reports prepared for immediate presentation to the Tsar. Kokovtsoff found among them a paper marked with his own name and that of Souhomlinoff. He asked what it was about, and Stolypin told him that it had been his intention to try to get rid of Souhomlinoff, making use for this purpose of the chronic conflict between the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Finance. " The national defence," said the dying Minister, " is in the hands of an unworthy man. He is untrustworthy, and cannot inspire the necessary respect. The d...