AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
In the first three volumes[5] of my work accounts are given of the three principal battles of the war—Liao-yang, the Sha Ho, and Mukden. Though compiled from the best information obtainable, it is impossible for such a book to be entirely free from inaccuracies; for not only is our knowledge of what was done by the Japanese extremely limited, but it is derived from unofficial sources. At the time these volumes were written, moreover, there were few reports available from our own individual corps and armies, and what we had were sketchy in character. The most complete information, on the whole, was that given in the regimental reports, upon which we almost entirely depended; but even these were far from perfect. Commanding officers naturally have a soft spot in their hearts for their own troops, and the separate narratives gave very different accounts of what was done by units of one and the same division or army corps. Great importance has therefore been attached to such documents as copies of written orders for operations, dispositions and marches, casualty lists, and ammunition returns. Not that the latter could be accepted without careful scrutiny, as the ammunition lost on the march was often included in the total rounds fired. But, in spite of the admitted incompleteness and the partiality of the sources of information, the facts narrated in my first three volumes present ample material whereby to gauge the moral, the tactical fitness, and the armament of our troops—in short, to judge of the readiness of our army for war.
The account of the battle of Liao-yang was written in Manchuria by Colonel Ilinski, of the General Staff, who was then on my staff, and was sent in November, 1904, to headquarters in St. Petersburg. This narrative, supplemented by additional material from the pen of the author, forms the first volume. The second, “The Battle of the Sha Ho,” was drawn up under my guidance in Manchuria by Colonel Bolkhovitinoff, of the General Staff. The third, “The Battle of Mukden,” and the fourth, “The Summary of the War,” I wrote myself, the former in Manchuria and the latter at my country home. For the collection of material, the compilation of statistics, and most of the cartography for the third volume, I am indebted to Colonel Sivers and Lieutenant-Colonel Havrilits, of the General Staff, whilst Lieutenant-Colonel Krimoff, of the same branch, has undertaken this work for the fourth volume. Without the able and unremitting efforts of these officers, the completion and printing of this book, consisting of 2,000 pages, with plates, maps, and plans, would have dragged on for years.
Although the ordeal of war through which our country and our army passed in 1904–1905 is now a matter of history, the materials so far collected are insufficient to enable us to estimate fairly the events which preceded the war, or to give a detailed and complete explanation of the defeats that we sustained. It is essential, however, that we should take immediate advantage of our recent experience, because it is only by ascertaining the nature of our mistakes and the failings of our troops that we can learn how to improve.
In times past, when wars were carried on by small standing armies, defeat did not touch the everyday interests of the whole nation so profoundly as it does now, when the obligation to render military service is general, and most of the soldiers are drawn from the great mass of the people. If a war is to be successful in these days, it must not be carried on by an army, but by an armed nation. In such a contest all classes are seriously affected, and failure is more acutely felt than it was formerly. When the national pride has been humiliated by defeat, attempts are usually made to ascertain the causes and persons responsible. Some attribute failure to general, others to specific, reasons; while some blame the system or the régime, others blame the individual. Discontented political factions are quick to make use of a national disaster as a weapon against the Government, and so with us the party hostile to the Russian Government not only strove to injure it after the war, but did so—much to the disadvantage of our arms—during the actual course of military operations. This party would indeed have been genuinely glad to see us suffer defeat, as there would then have been a hope of undermining the prestige of the Government, and so bringing about a revolution. Their motto was, “The worse things are—the better,” and hundreds of thousands of proclamations were distributed among the troops going to the front—especially those from the west—urging the soldiers on to defeat, not victory. In Russia many journals, though not the organs of the above party, contributed materially to its success by abusing both the army and the Government. Again, many of the correspondents at the front, ill-informed as to our own operations, and worse informed as to the enemy’s, did not scruple to despatch reports founded on entirely unreliable information, and so, by exaggerating the importance of every reverse, shook public confidence still more. Many officers, too, wrote home from the field,[6] and tried to show their smartness by hasty criticism, by making inaccurate statements, and by discussing affairs in a pessimistic tone. Little was written of what really happened in the actual fighting-line—of the deeds of those many heroes who lay face to face with the enemy for months together, and fought on without losing confidence in eventual victory. The gallant private soldiers, modest young officers, commanders of companies, squadrons, batteries, and regiments, did not write—they had no time to scribble of their labours and exploits—and there were few pressmen who elected to witness their deeds: it would have entailed sharing their hardships and their dangers.
Of course, there were brave men among the correspondents, and men who were genuinely desirous of rendering assistance; but, lacking as they were in the most elementary military knowledge, their efforts were, not unnaturally, of little value where complicated operations were concerned. The persons really most capable of forming a judgment upon what they saw, and of putting matters in their proper light before the reading public, were the foreign military attachés. Many of them were in every sense picked men. They were interested in our soldiers, shared all their dangers and hardships, and, in return, gained their affection and respect. But while none of their reports were seen in Russia for a long time, many of our Press correspondents, who stayed in the rear and saw only the reverse side of war, revelled in harrowing accounts of the orgies and dissipation that went on in Harbin, and presented to the public an absolutely distorted picture of the life of the army. The result was that our Press to a great extent played into the hands of our foreign and domestic enemies; instead of which, it might have called into being with the news of our first defeats a wave of patriotism and self-sacrifice, and, as the difficulties at the front grew thicker, might have appealed to the Fatherland for fresh efforts, cheered the faint-hearted, and summoned all the best of the country’s manhood to fill the gaps in our ranks caused by the enemy. What it did accomplish was to instil a hatred of the war into the masses, depress those departing for the front, undermine the private soldier’s confidence in his officers, and weaken the authority of those in command. Truly the army had little encouragement to issue victoriously from its difficulties. On the contrary, the troops sent forward from Russia carried with them the seeds of fresh disaster in the seditious proclamations with which they were loaded.
A large number of valuable works upon different subjects suggested by the late war have appeared, many of them written with a sincere desire to do justice to the army; but, owing to ignorance of what really happened, they contain numerous and serious mistakes. Passions are now calming down, and it is possible to separate into different categories the charges levelled at our forces and their representatives during and after the war. These accusations, in so far as they refer to the War Department, were mainly as follows:
That the army was not ready for war with Japan.
That, having taken insufficient steps to prepare for war, the War Department did not attempt to prevent it.
That the leaders of the army did not make the best use of the men and material placed at their disposal during its course.
I shall endeavour in my fourth volume both to refute these accusations conclusively and to emphasize the principal lessons for our future guidance to be drawn from the campaign.
The work of the War Ministry of an Empire like ours ought not to be of a haphazard nature. Its success must depend on the amount of money allotted to military needs and the manner of expenditure of these funds. The country spends large sums on the army, thus starving numerous other urgent demands, and an unsuccessful war naturally leads to the conclusion that this expenditure has been thrown away. But, before forming any judgment, it is necessary to be in possession of full details of what had to be undertaken, and of the financial means available. The problems which confronted our War Department were the inevitable result of the policy pursued by it in former years; they were, so to speak, the legacy of the nineteenth century to the twentieth. That the size and cost of an army must be in direct proportion to the growth of a nation and the military activity of its neighbours, is a fact that cannot be ignored if we wish to rest assured of the safety of our Empire. To us, in our comparatively immature state of civilization, the burden of the armed peace necessitated by the immense growth of armaments in Europe seems almost unbearable, and our available funds are inadequate to meet all the initial and recurring financial demands. It has only been possible to satisfy the most urgent. To decide which were most important among such things as the re-armament of the artillery, the construction of fortifications and barracks, the accumulation of reserves, and the improvement of the condition of the troops, etc., was a complicated and difficult enough matter for the War Department; but the decision upon larger questions, such as which frontiers were most in danger of attack or on which side our policy of expansion called for another forward step, was beyond its scope. The solution was dependent on the general political programme, and this was, in its turn, the result of the policy followed in former centuries, and the outcome of the internal condition and needs of the Empire.
On January 1, 1898, when I took over the duties of War Minister, I found many schemes actually in progress, and numerous others—worked out and marked as urgent—for the execution of which money had not been available. Thanks to the ability and energy of my predecessor, the army was in a high state of efficiency as compared with former years, and I thus found myself in a favourable position to draw up a scheme of work for the next quinquennium.[7] But, as has been explained, the policy of my department was bound up with that of the Ministries of the Interior, of Finance, and of Foreign Affairs, and there had been a difference of opinion between the late War Minister and his colleagues on some most important points. As there was no co-ordinated programme between the War and Navy Departments, I was forced to spend my first two years in office in framing an exhaustive statement for our guidance. In this I traced out and summarized the achievements of Russian arms and what the tasks before them had been in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, showed which had been finished and which had been left over for completion to the twentieth century, and pointed out the sacrifices made by the nation towards this result. I reviewed the condition of each of our frontiers, indicated the numbers and organization that would be necessary for military operations in the different probable theatres of war, and estimated the power of offence of our most likely adversaries. Having thus arrived at some logical conclusions as to what had to be faced in the coming century, it remained to draw up definite proposals for the improvements necessary in the organization for war of the army.
The General Staff Academy assisted me in my work, Colonel Mishlaivski helping in the history, Major-General Zolotareff in the military statistics, and Colonel Gulevitch in the administration. Information on strategical matters was furnished by the General Staff. This analysis was completed and submitted to the Tsar in the spring of 1900, and a few copies—with the secret strategic matter omitted—were, with his permission, sent to the Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and the Interior, to the State Comptroller, and a few selected officials. The programme for the period 1898–1902 was framed by me upon the conclusions drawn from this statement. In 1903 a general report of all that had been carried out by my department during the previous five years was printed and submitted to the Tsar. This document showed the funds available, the total requirements which had been carried out, and those left undone owing to the lack of money. Later on in the same year a programme for the period 1904–1908 was submitted and approved. Thus, for the twelve months immediately preceding hostilities work was carried out according to a strictly defined programme, from the printed record of which the results attained can be judged. In the same way that we in the War Ministry were forced to have recourse to the lessons of the past when framing our programme for the future, so in this work is it necessary, in order to explain properly what was done in the years 1898–1904, to refer to the conclusions upon which the programme for this period was based.
My fourth and last volume consists of twelve[8] chapters. In the first chapters I shall include some necessary extracts from my analysis of 1900, and my report of 1903 upon the work of the War Ministry for the quinquennium 1898–1902, omitting, of course, confidential matter. The last chapters will be based on papers relating to the recent war, on my diaries, and on articles that appeared in the Press.
I have been so intimately connected with the important events in the Far East, and have been so largely responsible for the failure of our military operations, that I can hardly hope to take an entirely dispassionate and objective view of the men and matters that I shall deal with in the present work; but my object is not so much to justify myself by replying to the charges that have been brought against me personally, as to furnish material that will make it easier for the future historian to state fairly the reasons for our defeat, and thus enable us to avoid similar misfortunes in the future.