I was a senator in those days, and a member of the commission that met in Paris in 1898 to negotiate the treaty that came to bear that city’s name – not the first such treaty and, I’m certain, not the last. But a treaty that ends a war on decent terms is a good treaty, even if it borrows a name from treaties that have gone before.

What were your first impressions of Mogilev?

Well, the railroad station was a pleasant enough building, built of stone with arched windows, but there was little around it. There were porters waiting to escort us to a row of carriages lined up outside, and McCully dealt with them in his more than passable Russian. I had a phrasebook that I had studied on my journey, but was prepared for little more than pleases and thankyous – pozhaluysta and spasibo. The porters’ greatest attention, though, was paid to a group of our fellow passengers, maids of the Imperial Household, who had brought new gowns for the grand duchesses – the daughters of the Emperor – to wear when they arrived in Mogilev two days later. It required two carriages to transport all those dresses into town.

The road, I recall, was rutted with the wheels of carriages and automobiles. There had been rain but it was dry when we arrived, dry but with heavy cloud cover. The buildings around the station were unremarkable but, after a short time in the carriage, I could see the towers of churches and the town hall in the distance.

The Hotel Bristol was a substantial building taking up much of a city block. It stood on a cobblestone street, with Jewish businesses opposite. McCully dealt with the formalities and saw that my trunk was taken to my room. There was a package for me at the desk containing my ‘visiting card’ issued by Stavka and permitting me to attend its premises. That was my status: visitor. I was not formally the United States representative at Stavka, as the United States could not be represented there at that time.

McCully undertook to escort me to the Stavka buildings before returning to the station and his duties in Petrograd. I was to present my credentials to the Russian Chief of Staff, General Vasily Gurko. McCully explained that it was a short walk, and I was glad to take it, as I felt in need of fresh air after my time in the railcar. As we approached our destination, he pointed out a man and a boy, both in uniform, kicking a ball on an adjacent empty lot. He identified them as none other than Major-General Sir John Hanbury-Williams, head of the British mission at Stavka, and the Tsarevitch Alexei, son and heir to the Russian Emperor. This was not a sight I had expected to see!