Review of Reviewg, lJ2$/dS. 



Character Sketch. 



GENERAL TREPOFF. 

 AN UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER IN RECENT HISTORY. 



So General Tiepoff has gone! The one strong, 

 capable man in all Russia ! I sincerely deplore his 

 loss. I am one of the few Englishmen who had the 

 pleasure of the personal acquaintance of the deceased 

 General. I always spoke of the man as I found him, 

 and have been freely denounced in consequence by 

 sympathisers with the Russian Revolution. Now 

 that he is dead, the Radical papers, which de- 

 jioiinced me as his tool and ^'neni provocateur, are 

 ■compelled to pay tributes to L honesty, his liberal- 

 ism. I venture to hope that some at least of my 

 nialigners may remember with shame the abuse thev ■ 

 heaped upon me for speaking up for a man to whose 

 true character 1 testified when to speak a good word 

 for General Trepoff brought down upon you the 

 major excommunication of the Liberals of Russia. 



I.— INTRODUCTION. 



I met General Trepoff twice, and wrote to him 

 many times. 1 ne\er published any report of my 

 interviews with him, although I naturally was com- 

 pelled to refer to the substance of his communica- 

 tions. 1 \oluntarilv assured him that I would not 

 publish (lur con\ersation until he had revised my 

 notes, as it seemed to me the importance of the sub- 

 ject justified mv taking every precaution against any 

 misapprehension or misunderstanding as to the views 

 which he expressed on that occasion. Only the 

 week before his death 1 was discussing with Pro- 

 fessor Milyukoff the best way of securing the revision 

 of my MSS. by General Trepoff. His death renders 

 this impossible. 



In justice to his memory I deem it not only justifi-' 

 able, but necessary, to put on record the notes of a 

 conversation which at one time promised to bear 

 good fruits in the shape of a pacified and liberated 

 Russia. Although my notes are unrevised, the whole 

 of the conversation was burnt so deeply into my 

 memory I have no doubt as to their accuracy. Nor 

 will General Trepoflf's friends — and he had many 

 friends — resent the publication of notes of a conver- 

 sation which, I venture to think, reveal more clearly 

 than anything yet printed the man as he was. 



TEEPOPF'S ORIGIX. 



Before jjrinting this record of our interview, it may 

 be well briefly to sketch the career of the man who, 

 more than any other, was regarded bv friend and foe 

 as the incarnation of Power. General Trepoff was 

 the remarkable son of a remarkable father. Eighty 

 years i\<i • a new-born babv was found on the door- 



step of a respectable family in St. Petersburg. The 

 practice of leaving unwanted children about the 

 streets is more common in Russia than in other coun- 

 tries, and in no other country is such lavish provision 

 made for the upbringing of these foundlings. In the 

 great State foundling hospitals the infant mortality 

 is atrocious. Trepoff pcrc's chance of survival was 

 greatly improved that he fell into the hands of a 

 Russian householder, who educated him and started 

 iiim in the world so successfully that before he died 

 his unknown foundling had become Prefect of St. 

 Petersburg, and one of the most powerful men in the 

 Empire. He became notorious throughout Europe 

 from the attempt made to assassinate him by Vera 

 Sassonlitch, who was triumphantly acquitted bv a 

 jury who would probably have been much more en- 

 thusiastic if she had been successful. 



HIS CABEER. 



Dmitri Feodoritch Trepoff, the youngest son of 

 Vera's target, was bom in 1855. He was there- 

 fore but fifty-one when he died. He went 

 into the Arniy, and was regarded as a fairly 

 average stupid subaltern, who read no books, 

 and enjoyed life as Russian officers do. When 

 he was twenty-two he went with his regi- 

 ment to the Balkans. He fought with characteristic 

 courage, was wounded, and went back to the camp 

 trom the hospital. When peace was made he came 

 hack to Russia, and bv degrees rose to a colonelcv 

 in the Horse Guards. He remained with his regi- 

 ment until rSpd, w^hen he was made Police Master 

 of Moscow. There he remained till the outbreak of 

 war with Jajian, w^hen he was gazetted to the com- 

 mand of a brigade in Manchuria. The outbreak of 

 revolutionary violence in .St. Petersburg deprived 

 him of any chance of distinguishing himself in the 

 Far East. He was appointed Governor-General of 

 St. Petersburg, with fu!l control of the police of the 

 Empire. When I reached the Russian capital at 

 the end of August, 1905. I found General Trepoff 

 the man on horseback. St. Petersburg was as quiet 

 as London. Even the disgust excited bv the signa- 

 ture of peace was not allowed to cause a ripple of 

 discontent upon the sullen and stagnant pool of St. 

 Petersburg opinion. 



HIS POSITIOX IN ST. PETEESBCEG. 



At the Court and at the Embassies everyone swore 

 b\ General Trepoff ; and although in the workshops, 

 in the newspaper offires, and in the lower revolu- 



