His exposition of the sensitive and dangerous situation on the Empire’s western border contains matters of consequence to the whole world. The relations he discloses, between Russia, on the one hand, and Austria and Germany on the other, are important in the extreme. Within a fortnight these two latter countries could throw two million men across the Russian frontier, and a war would result much more colossal than that just finished with Japan.
KUROPATKIN’S FORTY YEARS OF SERVICE
General Kuropatkin has had an education and a career which eminently qualify him as a judge and critic of the Russian nation. For forty years, as an active member of its military establishment, he has watched its development, from the viewpoint of important posts in St. Petersburg, Turkey, Central Asia, and the far East.
Kuropatkin was born in 1848 and was educated in the Palovski Military School and the Nikolaiefski Academy of the general staff in St. Petersburg. From there he went at once into the army, and, at the early age of twenty, took part in the march of the Russian expeditionary force to the central Asian city of Samarkand. He won 366 distinction in the long and difficult march of General Skobeleff’s army to Khokand. In 1875 he acted as Russia’s diplomatic agent in Chitral, and a year or two later he headed an embassy to Kashgar and concluded a treaty with Yakub Bek.
When the Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1877, he became General Skobeleff’s chief of staff and took part in the battle of Loftcha and in many of the attacks on Plevna. While forcing the passage of the Balkans with Skobeleff’s army, on the 25th of December, 1877 (O.S.), he was so severely wounded that he had to leave the theater of war and return to St. Petersburg. There, as soon as he recovered, he was put in charge of the Asiatic Department of the Russian General Staff, and, at the same time, was made adjunct-professor of military statistics in the Nikolaiefski Military Academy. In 1879 the rank of General was conferred upon him and he was appointed to command the Turkestan rifle brigade in Central Asia. In 1880 he led a Russian expeditionary force to Kuldja, and when the trouble with the Chinese there had been adjusted, he was ordered to organize and equip a special force in the Amu Daria district and march to the assistance of General Skobeleff in the Akhal-Tekhinski oasis. After conducting this force across seven hundred versts of nearly waterless desert, he joined General Skobeleff in front of the Turkoman fortress of Geok Tepe, and in the assault upon that famous stronghold, a few weeks later, he led the principal storming column. After the Turkomen had been subdued, he returned to European Russia, and during the next eight years served on the General Staff in St. Petersburg, where he was entrusted with important strategic work. In 1890 he was made Lieutenant-General and was sent to govern the trans-Caspian region and to command the troops there stationed.
He occupied this position six or eight years, and then, shortly after his return to St. Petersburg, was appointed Minister of War. In 1902, while still holding the war portfolio, he was promoted to Adjutant-General; in 1903 he visited Japan and made the acquaintance of its political and military leaders; and in 1904, when hostilities began in the Far East, he took command of the Russian armies in Manchuria under the general direction of Viceroy Alexeieff. Besides, he has written and published three important books.
No man perhaps, is better equipped, by education and experience, to explain Russia’s plans and movements in Asia; to tell the true story of the Japanese war. And probably never, at least in this generation, has an international matter of this magnitude been treated with such frankness by a person so thoroughly and eminently qualified to discuss it.