CHAPTER XIII
MORE ABOUT GEORGIA
After three interesting and informing days spent in Tiflis, a city beautifully situated upon many hills, we left for a ten days’ excursion into various parts of the country. The first trip was to Kasbec in the Caucasus Mountains.
Eight automobiles, with a complete camera and moving-picture equipment and a couple of newspaper men, drew up in front of our door at 7 o’clock one morning. The rain poured in torrents. The air was hot and sultry. We were advised, none the less, to take with us the warmest wraps we possessed, as we were to climb several thousand feet before the end of the day and sleep in the mountains. I made an entente cordiale with two of the Frenchmen in order to exercise my French, and we three packed ourselves into one of the roomy cars very comfortably; and off we went.
Despite the weather, it was a gay cavalcade which dashed along the great military highway, one of the finest engineering feats in the world. The rain became steadily less persistent after the first half-hour. The clouds began to disperse and the sun to peep out at us. About two hours’ distance from the city we were hailed by a brown shaggy figure standing in the middle of the road. On either side of the road was a group of picturesque peasant folk in their rough, homely garb. The men were on one side, the women on the other. An ancient priest was amongst them. The chief peasant advanced to the first car bareheaded, carrying bread and salt. His companion held a large horn of sour, strong wine. We were invited to break bread, to eat salt and to taste the wine, all of which we did punctiliously. Their faces broadened with happy smiles as they passed from car to car. Huge bunches of grapes followed. The women threw flowers to us. The lips of the bearded priest moved as if in prayer, and his hands were raised to bless. The little children broke from the side of their mothers and clapped their tiny hands. At last the horn sounded, the signal for departure was given, and to the roar of cheers, the waving of hands, the curtsying and the smiling, we left this patriarchal scene full of thoughts of early Bible lessons and the pictures of the shepherds of the East. Some of the young men wore curious yellow wigs of unsewn sheepskin, which looked like a mass of tangled blond curls, contrasting sharply with their laughing black eyes. One young giant, wearing a sheepskin wig and carrying a heavy stick, suggested the traditional Esau tending his herds and flocks.
On we flew, through richest scenery hourly becoming more mountainous. The road continued admirable. The sun broke dazzlingly through the mists. The aspect of the country was that of a soft, delicate patchwork in shades of green and gold. There were no hedgerows. There were no glittering scintillations of light and atmosphere, no hardness of outline as in Switzerland. All was soft, suggestive, seductive. Little wooden houses perched upon the rocks and ledges. Large patriarchal farm-houses lay in the valleys. Bright rivulets flashed in and out of the sedge. Occasionally we passed a broad stream or a lake, or paused to drink from a sparkling waterfall. Higher and higher we climbed, the sweet air growing rarer, the habitations less numerous. Eagles screamed aloft. An ancient castle or faded monastery, incredibly old, stood out here and there upon the landscape. Everything spoke of a peaceful, happy, peasant life, of rich flocks and autumn plenty.
At intervals the cars were stopped for some radiant welcome of us by happy villagers. Sometimes we made little speeches to them, which were translated by a young Georgian officer. Bread and salt, wine and fruit, song and dance, merry words and gentle prayers and fierce patriotic vows—it was all very wonderful and very moving to the men and women from the West. A tiny peasant boy danced for us shyly at the little town where we lunched, and imagination removed that boy to the Opera House in Petrograd or to the Alhambra in London, there to delight the sophisticated city folk with his mountain-born grace and incomparable agility. The Georgians are a race of dancers. Their feet and hands move instinctively to a gay tune. The lilt of the song is in my ears as I write:
Georgian Dance Song (to be sung to the clapping of hands)
Vigorously.
On and on we went, higher and yet higher. The sun was beginning to go down. Should we reach Kasbec before it quite set? Should we see the great peaks before darkness came down upon us? We wished that we might. We wrapped our furs more closely around us. It was really cold now. Our faces were sore with alternate cold wind and hot sun. We chaffed one another on our personal appearance, our red noses, suggestive of a certain want of sobriety! The peaks grew higher. Round first one and then another, we dashed at the maddest pace on those narrow roads. Up and up we went. Now the road narrowed dangerously, the valleys darkened, the gloom gathered on the hills. The solitary peasant at the head of the pass stood gazing after us with astonished eyes, leaning upon his staff. Round the last corner we panted, our machines steaming their protest, when suddenly there burst upon our awestruck gaze Kasbec, the prince of mountains, its immense snow-covered peak glowing rose-pink in the last rays of the setting sun. One glorious instant, and it was gone, shrouded in shadow and mysterious gloom. Up one more slight incline, and then began our descent. It was quite dark by this time. We settled down to quiet reverie upon the majesty of the mountains and the beauty of the starry night.
With startling suddenness wild shrieks tore the air, and the mad clattering of innumerable horses’ feet coming towards us along the pass. We sat up startled. What on earth could it be in that solitary place? It was not the screaming of eagles, nor the roar of wild animals in pain. That steady patter of feet growing ever louder was of horses ridden by human beings. We were within a few miles of the Russian frontier. Perhaps this was a raid of hungry Bolsheviks. If so, what were we to do? Unfortunately for our safety, the Georgians carried arms. At one of our pleasant stopping-places they had practised their arms on improvised targets. The picturesque Mayor of Tiflis, for a wager, had hit the bull’s-eye at thirty paces, the target being a piece of white handkerchief on the branch of a tree. There would certainly be fighting in the event of a collision with the Bolsheviks. And then—what?
The foremost emotion was curiosity, not fear. Renaudel stood up and peered into the blackness. Marquet mounted the seat. I hung out of the car at the side. We could discover nothing. The sounds were coming nearer. They came from either side as well as in front. Shots rang out. Wild whoops added to the mystery and the clamour. Suddenly from out of the mountains on both sides, almost into the cars where we sat, leapt ferocious horsemen, black and bearded, by the score. They were dressed in native peasant warrior style, with swords and pistols, curved scimitars and studded shields. Their head-dress was of various kinds, round astrakhan caps or the captured peaked caps of the enemy across the border. The heads of most were uncovered. Broad, spreading square-shaped astrakhan capes, a family inheritance perchance, covered the more sober riders.
They rode hardy mountain horses or shaggy ponies, and rode them with amazing skill, picking up their dropped swords as they galloped and performing other feats of astounding dexterity. They were of several tribes, these peasant soldiers of Georgia, of terrifying aspect, wild and untamed, but withal the merriest, most engaging lot of black-eyed brigands that ever stepped outside a cinema show. We were out of the modern world and had moved back through a thousand years of history.
This gallant company had assembled to conduct us into Kasbec, the most original guard of honour that ever took charge of the guests of a Government. At their head galloped a particularly attractive ruffian carrying a red flag on a long wand. How he contrived to carry this heavy pole in one hand, holding it perfectly erect, and to control his spirited horse with the other, was one of the wonders at which we marvelled greatly. It seemed as easy as falling off a log to him. He led the procession in the three-mile gallop to Kasbec. On either side of the cars ran torch-bearers on horseback. The fifty attendants grew to a hundred as we neared the city, the hundred to two hundred, the two hundred to three, four, five hundred. In addition were women and children in the town, waiting to help with the songs and the dances.
The old church in which the address of welcome was to be delivered was too small for the company assembled. We held the meeting in the churchyard and spoke to the people from the top of a broad wall. I never heard Mr. Macdonald speak better than he did to those grim but simple mountain warriors, reminiscent as they were of the shaggy Highlanders of his native Scotland three centuries or more ago.
I cannot write about the hotel in Kasbec. It was unbelievably awful in its primitive arrangements and its dirt. The food was abundant and of good quality, and the host was more than kind. To make us feel more at home and more secure, exuberant young warriors during the whole night at intervals flashed past the hotel on horseback, firing shots as they galloped! And towering high and white in the risen moon, like a stern but indulgent father, was Kasbec of the everlasting snows.
On the morrow morning we took a trip to the Russian frontier to pay our respects to the Bolshevik guards and to give some of our friends the satisfaction of saying they had set foot in Russia in defiance of Lenin and Trotsky. There the poor fellows stood, in frayed uniforms with the red star in front of their peaked caps, looking dull and lonely and tired. They were very pleased to see us, and our cigarettes and chocolates gave them great satisfaction. “Poor devils!” said a sympathetic delegate. “They must have an awful time in this lonely, God-forsaken spot.” No attempt was made to engage them in argument nor to weaken in any way their adherence to their Government, but one young fellow volunteered to us in excellent French as we parted: “Nous ne sommes pas communistes; mobilisées!”
Perhaps in some respects the most amazing reception we received was at Koutäis, the ancient capital of Georgia. Literally the whole city turned out to receive us. Masses of people assembled outside the station. Beautiful white-frocked children, with wreaths in their hair, lined the road from the railway cars to the carriages, throwing flowers in our paths. The streets were lined half a dozen deep for the mile and a half to the public park where the great demonstration was held. Here there was an enormous concourse, and we had a great time with these happy folk.
Börjom is perhaps the most beautiful of all the cities of Georgia. It is in the very heart of the mountains and is famous for its mineral springs. The surrounding country suggests Switzerland, with this difference, that for nine months of the year there is a warm and sunny climate and a profusion of sub-tropical fruits of the greatest variety. As we wound through the woods and climbed the great hills on the mountain railway we felt a regret that Georgia and its beauties are not better known and more accessible to European and American travellers after health and pleasure. Otherwise it could not fail to attract thousands of people content with lesser beauties at a greater cost.
At a place called Ikan, about three versts from Börjom, is the palace of the Grand Duke Michael Nicolaivich, whose ancient and impeccable servitors, long-bearded and profound, ministered to our needs during the whole of a long summer’s night. Of this I have already written.
The port of Poti we saw through a flood of rain which filled the streets with miniature lakes and roused to malignancy a veritable plague of mosquitoes. These vile insects made the hours in Poti a time of intolerable torture; but the ladies of Poti were most kind in their ministrations, and made matters as easy as they could. In an immense church which had not then been consecrated, reminiscent in size and austerity of St. Paul’s Cathedral, we held a meeting, beginning in the early afternoon and continuing until the light had faded and the fitful gleam of torches lit up the faces of the speakers to ten thousand eager, patient, curious spectators of a dozen nationalities—Turks, Armenians, Jews, Tartars, Russians and native Georgians; Christians and Mussulmans; soldiers and peasants; princes and workmen; women with and without veils, little children on their mothers’ laps, all congregated to see and hear the strangers from the unknown lands of the West.
Our practice was to travel all night and speak and visit during the day. Sometimes we did not leave the train but spoke to the people from the steps of the railway carriage. Sometimes the platform was placed in a field adjoining the railway station, to save the time of the delegation. Often carriages were in waiting to take us into the larger towns, where we were shown the more important of the civic institutions. Frequently we spoke four, five, six, or seven times in one day. I think the minimum number of speeches was four. And always there were bouquets of flowers and baskets of fruit as a reward. The Georgians are indeed “given to hospitality” of the most generous sort.
Amongst the interesting experiences they gave us was a visit to the manganese mines. Georgia has some of the richest deposits of manganese in the world. There are already mined vast quantities of this mineral waiting the restoration in Europe of the amenities of trade and travel for shipment abroad. In the case of this important industry the principle of nationalization has not been adopted. A heavy percentage on profits is paid by the companies to the Government. The managers of the mines are of several nationalities—Belgian, German and English. The Englishman we met appears to be a favourite with the men. The Belgians were less popular. The German overseer of coal mines with whom we spoke gave the usual impression of very great efficiency, and obviously commanded respect. The rich coal deposits need capital for their adequate working. The two thousand miners to whom I spoke appeared to enjoy the novelty of a woman speaker.
But to say everything that might be said about this gallant little Socialist Republic, or even one-half of what we ourselves saw during our two weeks’ visit, is out of the question. The impressions formed need time for their ripening, but on certain matters we formed very clear and definite judgments.
The Republic of Georgia, about the same size as Switzerland and with the same population, is equally beautiful if it is not even more lovely. It has a good soil, very fertile, with useful deposits of valuable minerals and a rich supply of oil. Its industries might be made very productive if modernized and supplied with the necessary capital. Foreign capital is shy, however, since the Russian Revolution. It fears confiscation by even the moderate Socialist Government of Georgia, and is certain of it if Georgia comes to be Bolshevized either by Lenin from the outside or revolutionaries from within.
Georgia needs peace and security for her happiness. There is no immediate prospect of either. From the Turks on one side and the Bolsheviks all round she is in constant danger.
I had the very strongest impression when in Georgia that the population was overwhelmingly against Bolshevism, and that their support of the Social Democrats was founded on the love of the peasants for the land and the fear of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy that a worse fate might befall them. I believe it to be true of Georgia, as of other countries whose ancient orders have been overthrown, that the vicious terms of the various Peace Treaties have united all classes in support of a party which has not failed in government because it has never been tried, and which stands for the national existence against a world of foes combined. In other words, there is a thick streak of nationalism running through every Socialist Movement of Europe, not excepting the Russian, whose chief leaders only, and not the rank and file to any extent, are believers in that anti-nationalism they falsely parade before the world as internationalism. Surely there can be no internationalism unless there are nations out of which to make it.
Since the writing of the above I have received this letter from Paris. President Jordania is there, in exile. He writes in French, but I have translated the letter:
Paris,
April 9th, 1921.
DEAR MADAM:
I enclose the manifesto signed by my comrades and myself and addressed to all the Socialist parties and workers’ organizations. You will find in it in detail the latest events in Georgia. This exact document gives in brief amongst other things, the purpose of our action in Europe: it is to expedite the evacuation of Georgia by the Bolshevik troops.
The war is not yet finished in Georgia, but it has taken a new form: it is no longer the Republican army which desperately resists the invaders, it is the whole country which fights against the armies of occupation as it has formerly fought against the power of the Czar.
The issue of this conflict depends very largely upon the attitude of the workers of the world. Each voice of protest raised against the invaders of Georgia strengthens the power of resistance of the Georgian democracy and quickens the day of its deliverance.
In thanking you warmly for all you have done for the cause of Georgia I count upon your support, dear madam, in this new campaign.
Socialist greetings,
N. JORDANIA.
Madame Snowden,
London.
It is a thousand pities that the enclosed manifesto, signed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Gueguetchkori, the President of the Constituent Assembly, M. Tcheidze, and the Minister of the Interior, M. Ramichvili, in addition to President Jordania, cannot be reproduced in full, for it is interesting and valuable history; but in the fears for Georgia already expressed I had foreshadowed only what has unhappily come to pass.
The substance of the document can be given in a few words. It begins by pointing out the importance of Georgia in Bolshevik policy in the Orient and of the desire in Moscow to accomplish its conversion to Bolshevism. For a long time it was hoped to do this by subsidized propaganda from the inside. In spite of a wealth of money poured into the country, this plan failed. Then came an attempt to do so by force. This also failed. A Russo-Georgian Treaty secured the recognition of Georgian independence by Russia on May 7, 1920. In November of the same year Trotsky, speaking to the assembled secretaries of the Communist Party, declared: “The establishment of the Soviet in Armenia is the end of Georgia.” The Russian General Hocker was asked to present a report on the number of soldiers and equipment required for the conquering of Georgia. This was in December. The general pointed out that it could be done only with the co-operation of Angora; but from this moment began the massing of Bolshevik troops on the Georgian frontier, notwithstanding the vigorous protests of the Georgian Foreign Minister. Although it had been clear for long that the Russians meant to attack Georgia, they sought to find some excuse that would satisfy exterior public opinion by discovering a quarrel between Georgia and Armenia over some disputed territory. Part of the Bolshevik army attacked from the Armenian side, Armenia having been compulsorily Sovietized also in the interests of Bolshevik policy in the East. This enterprise was undertaken at the very time when M. Chavordoff, the Armenian Bolshevik, declared his willingness to negotiate with Georgia the disputed districts. Another section of the Russian army began to close in from the side of Azerbaijan. Instructions were sent to the Bolshevik representative in Tiflis to join his agitation to the efforts of the army in the hope of counter-revolution within. Tiflis was occupied after valiant resistance. The Turkish Kemalists, assisted by Bolsheviks, attacked and captured Batoum. The whole country was given over to its enemies, who cared nothing for treaties when something crossed their path.
Since all this, a treaty between the Turks and the Russians has been signed at Moscow, in which the Bolsheviks are recognized as the masters of Georgia. The Kemalists renounce their aspirations after Batoum, receiving for themselves the two disputed districts of Middle Georgia, Artvin, and Ardahan, and a part of the province of Batoum.
Lenin is making a great effort to reconcile the people of Georgia. He has urged his representatives in Georgia to find a way of reconciliation and a common platform with President Jordania and his friends. But so far the Georgian people have shown no sign of going over to the enemy and forsaking their old leaders and elected representatives. And Jordania, an exile, writes from Paris.
As I write my mind travels first to Russia and the dying population of Petrograd, then to the merry Georgian peasants with their cakes and honey in the fields on the way from Kasbec, and finally to the unforgettable national song which poured from a thousand throats when patriot-soldiers swore to defend their country’s liberties with their blood, like the loving sons of every land.
