He counselled these friends to set their house in order and to stand firm in the conviction of their strength.

Their finances were a chaos, their army was disorganized; let them begin in those quarters; let them bring order into their finances and let them reorganize their army.
While he was at St.Petersburg, after a wide experience in other countries, he twice saw Russia humiliated by Germany.

Twice he witnessed the agony of his Russian friends in having to bow before the threats of Prussia.

Remember that the rulers of Russia in those days were the most charming and cultivated people in the world, whereas the Prussian as a diplomatist was the same Prussian whom, even as an ally of ours in 1815, Croker found "very insolent, and hardly less offensive to the English than to the French."[1] The Russians felt those humiliations as a gentleman would feel the bullying of an upstart.
Lord Carnock was at the Foreign Office in July, 1914.

He alone knew that Russia would fight.