Note 204 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

It is not very clear, however, that the Russian Government, though doubtless discredited by the failure, regarded it as “a fatal enterprise.” Russia had a double game to play. In the familiar language of the turf, she “hedged.” Whether the Persians won or lost, she was sure to gain something. The views of Russian statesmen have been thus set forth, not improbably in the very language of one of them: