But it is not sufficient that all ranks of the army should be imbued with the spirit of fighting on till victory is won; it is necessary that the whole nation should have the same feeling, and to the best of their ability assist towards a happy issue of the struggle being carried on by the army. In our state of backwardness (especially as regards railways) we are doomed in our next war to a slow concentration, and therefore to a protracted campaign. Being unable at once to put large forces into the field, and to seize the initiative, we may again be compelled to bear the consequences of our unreadiness—frequent reverses, and retirement; but we must, without wavering, firmly believe in eventual success, however unfavourable the conditions at the start. The moral and material resources of Russia are immense, and the fixed determination on the part of the army and the whole nation to win is our principal guarantee of victory.
CHAPTER XII
SUMMARY OF THE WAR
I have already reviewed[53] (in Chapters [VIII.], [IX.], [X.], and [XI.]) the causes of our failure. They can be summarized in three groups:
1. Those causes independent of the War Ministry.
2. Those dependent on the War Ministry, for which officers in the field had no responsibility.
3. Those for which officers in the field were alone responsible.
The first group comprises—
(a) The absence of any diplomatic arrangement which would have enabled us to despatch and distribute our whole army freely as circumstances dictated (similar to that which in 1870–71 made it possible for the Prussians to move the whole of their armed forces against France).