This belief was destined to be further strengthened by the controversy which raged around Russian finances as soon as the patriotic Premier and Finance Minister had been relieved of his duties. M. Kokofftseff had accomplished much as Minister of Finances and also as Premier. But he was cordially disliked by the Germans, whose plots and intrigues he had seen through and baulked. He had never allowed himself to be cajoled by German flattery or hoodwinked by German wiles. The alliance with France and the good understanding with Great Britain lay at the foundations of his policy. And he made no secret of his convictions. On his fall, which was hailed as a triumph by the Germans, his home critics analysed his financial policy, and some of them charged him with niggardliness towards the army. To my knowledge, however, it was he who arranged for the extraordinary credit to be allotted to the Russian War Office, which M. Sukhomlinoff received last March. But the gravest count in the wide indictment against M. Kokofftseff turned upon his financial operations and their alleged effect upon Russia’s foreign policy, and her ability to uphold that policy by force of arms. It was asserted, as I have already said, that the free reserve of gold which was fondly supposed to be safe in the Imperial Bank, ready for any national emergency, had been dissipated for the time being and was immobilized. This enormous sum had, it was stated, been lent out by the Bank to private financial institutions throughout the Empire. One milliard and fifty million roubles! And these institutions in turn had distributed this money among private individuals, doubtless on good securities, but for unjustifiably long terms. Now, if a national crisis were to break out while these terms were still running, all that money would be locked up, the Tsar’s Government would have at its disposal at most a miserable pittance of sixteen millions sterling, and the Empire would be confronted with bankruptcy.