Passing along this wonderful panorama for some hours we arrived at Baikal.  The maps supplied to me show the railway as making a bee line from the south of the lake to Irkutsk.  This is not so; the line does not deviate an inch from the western shores of the lake until it touches the station.  Baikal is reached nearly opposite the point at which the railway strikes the lake on the eastern side.  The lake is fed by the River Selengha, which drains the northern mountains and plains of Mongolia.  No river of importance enters it on the north except the short, high Anghara; in fact, the rivers Armur and Lenha start from quite near its northern and eastern extremities.  It is drained on the west by the famous River Anghara, which rises near Baikal, and enters the Polar Sea at a spot so far north as to be uninhabitable, except for the white bears who fight for the possession of icebergs.

Baikal had been the scene of a titanic struggle between the Czecho-Slovak forces and the Bolsheviks, who had in case of defeat planned the complete and effective destruction of the line by blowing up the numerous tunnels alongside the lake, which it must have taken at least two years to repair.  The Czechs moved so rapidly, however, that the enemy were obliged to concentrate at Baikal for the defence of their own line of communication.  Before they had made up their minds that they were already defeated a lucky Czech shot struck their store of dynamite and blew the station, their trains, and about three hundred of their men to smithereens.  The remainder retreated off the line in a southerly direction, and after many days’ pursuit were lost in the forests which form the chief barrier between Siberia and Mongolia, to emerge later on an important point on the railway near Omsk.

We stopped at Baikal for water and fuel, and examined the damage done by the explosion.  The great iron steamer which used to be employed to convey the train from one side of the lake to the other was almost destroyed, its funnels and upper works being wrenched and twisted beyond repair.  But out from every crevice of her hull and from every broken carriage came German and Austrian prisoners of war dressed in every conceivable style of uniform.  There was no guard of any description, but they all appeared to be under the direction of a young German officer, who saluted very stiffly as we passed.  No doubt existed amongst these Germans (so I heard from our men later) that we were tramping towards Germany and certain death.  Not one would believe but that Germany would win the war, and destroy not only England, but also America.  They had no feelings about France, nor would they consider her as other than an already half-digested morsel.  Quartermaster-Captain Boulton put it to one prisoner:  “But suppose Germany were defeated?” “Then,” said the prisoner, “I would never return to Germany again.”  We fell in with thousands of German prisoners who all held a most perplexing view of ourselves.  They described us as the only real and bitter enemy of their country.  But the same men would volunteer to work for us rather than for any other Ally, because they said we treated them fairly and behaved to them like men, and listened to their grievances.  That is something at any rate.