May 8, 1919

One of his henchmen came in this afternoon and whispered that Petliura, the great partisan who had perplexed us all by fighting under so many flags and on so many opposing fronts, had, after escaping many dangers by land and sea, reached Paris and naturally was most anxious to get in touch with the Colonel. “But there is difficulty,” he explained. “There are many assassins wandering along the boulevards of Paris and many of these misguided men would not hesitate to shoot our noble leader on sight. In these circumstances, wisely I think, we have decided that he must not leave his hideout. Could you not visit him there and pave the way to a meeting with your chief, waiving the protocol and all those obstacles to fruitful intercourse?”

There was nothing I would have liked better, and perhaps personal contact would have cleared up many obscure points in the Ukrainian situation; but as in duty bound, I consulted my chief, and he vetoed the adventure, although he admitted that to him also it had many attractions. “Perhaps he will give us the key word to the enigma that has for so long evaded our researches,” I suggested. But the Colonel was adamant; he argued that these Cossack assassins are not sharpshooters; you might get in the line of fire. No! This invitation yon must pass up—and I did so, regretfully I admit. …

[1921. For months Petliura remained in his hideout, and the assassins must have been discouraged; but they hung on, and two years later a young Ukrainian Jew came up behind him on the Boule’ Mich and shot him in the back. He had the very German name of Schwartzbrod.

For many months after our failure to tackle the Ukrainian problem at Versailles, anarchy reigned throughout the Cossack lands. The murders and the other atrocities that persisted throughout 1919 and the first months of 1920 are said to have been without a parallel even in this unfortunate country until you reach back to the Cossack uprisings of the seventeenth century. By all accounts this rich and lovely land was again drenched with the blood of its children and of its invaders. Everyone was engaged in putting to death anyone they could lay their hands on. The so-called Whites went in for rather formal hangings, the Bolsheviki showed a decided preference for firing squads, and the peasants used their short, sharp knives very effectively on all invaders. The so-called Peace of Riga, celebrated in October, 1920, put an end to the anarchic conditions which had so long prevailed. For the most part the peasants were rescued from their Polish landlords, and outside of Galicia, at least, they settled down as a Soviet state closely affiliated with Moscow. It is clearly a temporary solution; but it is better, much better, than the anarchy that has so long prevailed.]