Frontispiece.

D

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

OF

GENERAL SKOBELEFF

BY

V. I. NEMIROVITCH-DANTCHENKO.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY

E. A. BRAYLEY HODGETTS.

With Portraits of the General and his Father, and a
Facsimile of Skobeleff's Handwriting.

LONDON:

W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE,
PALL MALL, S.W.

PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE.

1884.

(All rights reserved.)

HARVARD

COLLEGE

PREFACE.

My book is not a biography of Skobeleff, but a series of reminiscences and fragments written down whilst the sense of the heavy loss which we have sustained in this remarkable man's death is still fresh

in

my mind. There will be found in these pages details which some may, perhaps, consider too trivial for notice. But to understand fully a character so composite and many-sided as Skobeleff's, it seems to me that the most minute particulars should be taken into account. I have here and there quoted the opinions of the deceased on subjects of national importance. These views may not always be shared, but they should be published. I greatly regret that the conditions under which Russian writers are forced to work do not permit me to render Skobeleff's convictions in all their completeness; they would have the effect of considerably altering public opinion concerning him. In preparing this work I have been forced to refer to my "Diary," and to quote entire pages from it; this was inevitable.

THE AUTHOR.

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