My residence behind the front also enabled me to realise how much the country was suffering from the war. The weariness and privations were causing general discontent. As a result of the increasing shortage of rolling-stock, fuel, which had been cruelly scarce in the winter, continued to be unpurchasable. It was the same with food, and the cost of living continued to rise at an alarming rate.
On August 11th I returned to G.H.Q. thoroughly perturbed at all I had seen and heard. It was pleasant to find the atmosphere at Mohileff very different from that at Petrograd, and to feel the stimulating influence of circles which offered so stern a resistance to the “defeatist” spirit at work at home. Yet the authorities there were very concerned at the political situation, although that was not so obvious at first sight.
Alexis Nicolaïevitch gave me a very affectionate welcome when I came back (he had written to me regularly while I was away), and the Czar received me with exceptional kindness. I could thus congratulate myself on the result of leaving my pupil for some time, especially as it might have been a false step, and I took up my duties again with renewed energies. My English colleague, Mr. Gibbes, had meanwhile joined us, and as M. Petroff remained with us, the Czarevitch’s lessons could proceed practically regularly.
At the front the fighting had gradually died down in the northern and central sectors. It continued only in Galicia, where the Russians were still driving the Austrians before them, and their defeat would long since have become a flight if they had not been supported by a large number of German regiments.
The campaign of 1916, however, had convinced the Russian General Staff that they would never break the resistance of the enemy and secure final victory so long as they suffered from so great a lack of artillery. Their inferiority in that respect prevented a thorough exploitation of the successes gained by the courage of the troops and their numerical superiority at the beginning of each attack. There was nothing for it but to wait until the material promised by the Allies, the delivery of which had been delayed by difficulties of transport, was ready and available.