I have drawn up this sketch of the late Emperor Nicholas and of some of the persons and events connected with him partly in diary form because as such it gives the true impressions which I gathered from time to time during the years of war which I spent with the General Headquarters of the armies in Russia. I probably saw him oftener and knew him more intimately than most others, outside his immediate entourage,' during the period of his command in the field, when his long absences from the capital made it also necessary for me to be the intermediary on other than purely military matters.