Note 46 — Chapter XIII · THE CZAR AT THE DUMA—THE CAMPAIGN IN GALICIA—OUR LIFE AT G.H.Q.—GROWING DISAFFECTION IN THE REAR (1916)

The very education of a sovereign makes him entirely unfitted for the task before him, and yet it is impossible to make good the defect afterwards. The larger the part he plays in government the less he knows of what is going on. To keep him away from his people he is given nothing but mutilated, distorted, and “cooked” reports. No one can realise the resisting power of those about a throne, the invincible apathy of a bureaucracy steeped in traditional observance and routine! Whatever strength of mind, whatever tenacity a sovereign may display in finding out the truth, does he ever really succeed? Napoleon had been through the school of life, and raised himself to a throne by sheer genius and audacity, but his fate was the same as that of other rulers. In the last years of his reign did he still know what was happening in France? Had he still a sense of reality?