Generally speaking, illustrations of the meaning of non-intervention in the home affairs of other nations were numerous and somewhat perplexing.  Were it not that Mr. Wilson had come to Europe for the express purpose of interpreting as well as enforcing his own doctrine, one would have been warranted in assuming that the Supreme Council was frequently travestying it.  But as the President was himself one of the leading members of that Council, whose decisions were unanimous, the utmost that one can take for granted is that he strove to impose his tenets on his intractable colleagues and “lost the fight.”

Here is a striking instance of what would look to the average man very like intervention in the domestic politics of another nation—­well-meant and, it may be, beneficent intervention—­were it not that we are assured on the highest authority that it is nothing of the sort.  It was devised as an expedient for getting outside help for the capture of Petrograd by the anti-Bolshevists.  The end, therefore, was good, and the means seemed effectual to those who employed them.  The Kolchak-Denikin party could, it was believed, have taken possession of that capital long before, by obtaining the military co-operation of the Esthonians.  But the price asked by these was the recognition of their complete independence by the non-Bolshevist government in the name of all Russia.  Kolchak, to his credit, refused to pay this price, seeing that he had no powers to do so, and only a dictator would sign away the territory by usurping the requisite authority.  Consequently the combined attack on Petrograd was not undertaken.  The Admiral’s refusal was justified by the circumstances that he was the spokesman only of a large section of the Russian people, and that a thoroughly representative assembly must be consulted on the subject previous to action being taken.  The military stagnation that ensued lasted for months.  Then one day the press brought the tidings that the difficulty was ingeniously overcome.  This is the shape in which the intelligence was communicated to the world:  “Colonel Marsh, of the British army, who is representing General Gough, organized a republic in northwest Russia at Reval, August 12th, within forty-five minutes, General Yudenitch being nominally the head of the new government, which is affiliated with the Kolchak government.  Northwest Russia opposes the Esthonian government only in principle because it wants guaranties that the Esthonians will not be the stepping-stone for some big Power like Germany to control the Russian outlet through the Baltic.  If the Esthonians give such guaranties, the northwestern Russians are perfectly willing to let them become an independent state."[321]