Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/121

 the military authorities whom we met in Russia a disposition, surprising to those of us who were accustomed to the systematic reticence of our general staffs in the West, to hide nothing from us that they knew themselves regarding the military situation. Three weeks before the offensive in Galicia, for instance, we had been shown all the plans and given the date. Everywhere that we went we found similar proofs of this communicative disposition. Certainly its adoption might be open to criticism as a general rule of conduct in the direction of military operations, but it merely appeared to us in this instance as another proof of the touching and cordial hospitality of the Russian, for whom the stranger is indeed a brother, and with whom he is ready to share even his secrets.

It was such hospitality as this that we found awaiting us on our arrival at the Stavka, the great Russian General Headquarters, which is eighteen hours' railway journey south-west of Petrograd.