He had served on first joining the army in an infantry regiment,
his first campaign having been in 1877-1878, after which he passed
successfully through the Military Academy, serving later during the
Manchurian war as Q.M.G. and then Chief of the Staff to one of the
armies.
He had all the appearance of a professor, with the keenness and
alertness of a soldier, an excessively quiet and courteous manner,
being rarely perturbed or dismayed, and if he was - failing to show
it. A real glutton for work, which, to be critical, led to his
overcentralising, insisting on seeing personally every telegram
that arrived, whatever the hour of day or night, and thus putting
such a strain upon himself that the inevitable breakdown finally
caused him to take sick leave shortly before the Revolution.
On the appointment of the Emperor as Commander-in-Chief in the
field, Alexeieff was made Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
He had received great credit for the early success of the 1914
operations in Galicia when serving under Ivanoff, and confirmed the
high opinion held of him when in 1915 he commanded the armies on
the N.W. front. To him, indeed, it was due that the Germans got no
farther than they did at a time when the Russian armies were so
badly crippled by want of munitions and guns.
I have already referred to the high opinion in which he was held
by the Grand Duke Nicholas, an opinion which extended pretty well
throughout the armies.
His responsibilities, as may easily be imagined, were pretty
heavy, the direction of affairs being left so much in his hands
that he was Commander-in-Chief in all but name. Failure on his part
would react against his Sovereign, and the moment at which he took
over the post from Yanuskevich, who had acted up till that time in
the same position with the Grand Duke Nicholas, was one of grave
danger for Russia, with the enemy almost thundering at the gates of
Petrograd.
With all these weighty anxieties on his hands, and constant
visits from ministers and other officials, including the naval
operations which came indirectly to him, the C.-in-C. being
C.-in-C. by sea as well as by land, it was but little wonder that
we chiefs of Allied missions found it difficult to reach him when
we wanted an interview. We were a large and mixed body, and his
fixed determination to let no one answer for him prevented one from
opportunities of talking over matters as often as one would have
wished.
Probably other Chiefs of General Staffs felt the same about a
crowd of Allies hungry for news, and possibly acted in the same
way, but when one did accomplish it, I always found him, even at
the late hour of the night which was generally chosen for the
interview, clear, most friendly and anxious to fall in as far as
lay in his power with other views which had to be laid before
him.
He was very quiet in manner, spoke low and slowly, and kept as
far away as possible from the luncheon and dinner crowd which
surrounded the Emperor, preferring a shorter and quieter meal both
morning and evening with the Staff Officers' Mess.
It was but rarely that he could get away on a visit to the
armies, and until his health failed and his wife joined him he
practically lived and slept at his office.
No wonder the strain eventually broke him down for a short
period, which he personally would very likely have shortened had it
not been for his full confidence in General Gourko and General
Klembovsky, who acted for the latter during the interAllied
conference in 1917.
On his return to Headquarters I went down to the station to meet
the man for whom we all had so much respect, and found him looking
so much better that one felt cheered by the prospects for the
future, but alas! he was hardly back before the trouble ending in
revolution began.
There have been various opinions expressed as to his attitude
then. It has been said that he should have acted in time to stop
it, that he did not show loyalty to the Emperor by remaining on to
serve the new Government.
Such opinions are unjust and unfair to a man who unfortunately
is no longer able to speak for himself.
My own view of Alexeieff's action at this time is that he did
the best to warn his Emperor of the dangers around the throne, but
that, unfortunately, other views overmastered his.
Nothing will alter the opinion I hold that he was loyal to the
Emperor throughout, intensely loyal to the Allied cause and to his
country. It was, I believe, the Emperor's personal wish that he
remained at his post, and continued to do so later as C.-in-C. when
the 'no Romanoff' order came into effect.
The continuation of the war till the defeat of the enemy was his
wish, his anxiety and, so far as lay in his hands, his
determination.
But he found that the master he had to serve later on, Kerenski,
imbued no doubt with a desire for victory, but imbued,
unfortunately, with an absolutely ignorant idea as to the necessity
of stern discipline as a factor to that end, held views with which
Alexeieff found himself totally unable to work.
Later on when the opportunity arose to render further service to
his country, then suffering in the toils of that Bolshevism which
broke the hearts of so many of our loyal Russian Allies, he again
took the field.
What had he to gain? People have said that he was not
sufficiently loyal to the Emperor. That I do not believe. He fought
to the end, ashamed no doubt that the Russia he loved should give
cause for the idea that she had failed her Allies, and to us as
well as to his own land I assert that he was loyal to the end.
I only wish that he were still alive to say so himself.