Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/125

 inborn refinement of the Russian. His small, blinking eyes are less kind but more sharp than those of Alexeieff. His glance is proud and keen; only the redness of the eyelids displayed traces of fatigue. The forehead is high and narrow, the nose aquiline, the thin lips, surmounted by a small grey moustache, are compressed; all that denotes energy. He is of slender, muscular build, his athletic form well displayed in his close-fitting uniform. He is one of those men of steel who seem to be born to command.

Broussiloff received us immediately after his arrival at the chief General Headquarters, his knowledge of French enabling us to dispense with an interpreter. With regard to the great Galician offensive of 1916, on which we complimented him, he did not hide that he believed he had been the victim of treason on the part of the Government. Without that, he told us, the offensive, which had cost the enemy 408,000 prisoners and 800,000 killed and wounded, would never have been stopped. But the Government, at the decisive moment, uneasy, doubtless,