§ LORD DORCHESTERrose to ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which he had given private Notice—namely, Whether there is any truth in the report of the marked discourtesy with which Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. Frederick Wellesley, of Her Majesty' s Coldstream Guards, when in discharge of his duty as Military Attaché to the British Embassy at St. Petersburg, has been treated by His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Nicholas, commanding the Army in Roumania of Her Majesty's ally the Emperor of Russia, or by his orders; and, if so, to ask what steps have in consequence been taken by Her Majesty's Government; and to move for the production of any communications upon the subject to be laid before this House. The noble Lord said it was not his wish to interfere with the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government, characterized as they had been with the utmost discretion, and he believed with firmness; but when it became a matter of notoriety that an officer of high rank in Her Majesty's 178 Forces had been openly insulted by the Commander of a foreign Army, he thought it incumbent that the people of this country should receive some explanation of the circumstance. When officers from Italy and Germany were encouraged to proceed to the front with the Russian Army it appeared to him to be a great reflection upon a British officer that he should be received in the manner in which Colonel Wellesley was; indeed, he could not, for a long time, believe that it was possible that a British officer should have been received and spoken to in the way in which that gallant officer was said to have been received and spoken to. Colonel Wellesley was the Military Attaché of Her Majesty's Embassy at St. Petersburg, and as such was encouraged by the Russian authorities to go to the front; but on arriving there he was received by the Grand Duke Nicholas in a manner the like of which he had never heard before. Nothing, he was sure, but the strict discipline of his early education, and that courteous manner with which all his friends knew him to be specially gifted, would have induced Colonel Wellesley to bear with the affront which it appeared had been offered to him. Colonel Wellesley was stated to have felt the reproof so strongly that he at once doffed his military uniform, put on plain clothes, and retired to Bucharest, whence he applied to superior authority for further instructions and orders. Those orders he had received, and His Imperial Majesty had placed him on his personal Staff. But he (Lord Dorchester) would submit to their Lordships that the position of being on the personal staff of the Emperor, and in the rear of the Army, was by no means the same as that of being in the front. If the report which had reached this country was correct, he desired to ask the noble Earl what steps have in consequence been taken by Her Majesty's Government, and also to move for the production of any communications which might have passed upon the subject.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYMy Lords, I am quite willing to give to your Lordships whatever information I possess relative to the affair to which the Question of the noble Lord refers. It is the fact that Colonel Wellesley presented himself at the head-quarters of the Grand Duke Nicholas upon the invitation of the Em- 179 peror himself; and that he was received by the Grand Duke in a manner certainly not marked with that courtesy which one would expect to be shown by an officer of his high position towards a foreign gentleman and officer who was specially commended to him. My Lords, I can only say as to that part of the matter, that so far as the conduct of Colonel Wellesley is concerned he seems to have acted with that good temper and good sense which, from his antecedents and his character, I should expect. I received the first intimation of this occurrence by telegraph. It was not accompanied, with sufficient details to enable me to take any steps; but as soon as I received a letter from Colonel Wellesley, three or four days ago, giving fuller details of what had passed, I immediately communicated in a private form with the Russian Ambassador in this country. I told him exactly what had been represented to me. He thereupon communicated with his Government; and the result of that communication was that a reply has been received from him, the tenor of which leads me to hope and to believe that this unpleasantness will be got rid of, and that the incident will be settled in a perfectly satisfactory manner. Probably your Lordships will not wish that I should go farther into the matter—and I am quite sure your Lordships will see that, the matter being in the position I have stated, it would be useless, and for obvious reasons undesirable, that any Correspondence should be laid on the Table—even if there were any Correspondence of an official character—which up to the present moment is not the case.