Troops operating in Transcaspia.” He obtained full powers to prepare and execute military operations, to negotiate with the neighbouring native states, and to organise the administration of conquered territories. Skobeleff knew that Orientals attach an exaggerated importance to artillery. “To conquer,” he said, “is to astonish.” Nothing has so marked an effect in Asia as the thunder of great guns and the havoc wrought by shell-fire. He stipulated for ten pieces of artillery for every 10,000 of numerical strength. Lomakin’s abortive attack on Dangil Teppe had demonstrated the power possessed by dense masses of felt-covered kibitkas to resist artillery fire. Skobeleff asked for and obtained a large supply of shells charged with petroleum, which masters the least inflammable materials. Lastly, a plentiful supply of water is essential in a tract where the heavens are clear for many consecutive months. A complete distillery was established at Krasnovodsk, and it supplied no less than 750,000 gallons daily to the troops. But the personal equation overrides the most complete material equipment. “In war,” said Napoleon, “men are nothing; a man is everything.” The general bethought him of one who had been the chief of his staff in the recent struggle with Turkey, and had shown in the darkest days of Plevna the noblest form of courage--that which stands undismayed in the presence of disaster. This was Colonel Alexis Kurapatkine, who is now Minister of War at St. Petersburg. He was resting at Samarkand from the fatigues of a recent campaign in Kulja, on the Chinese frontier, but he hastened to obey his loved master’s call. Starting from Samarkand in November 1880, with a detachment 500 strong, he hurried through Bokhārā to Charjūy, barely three days’ ride from the Tekke lair at Merv; then, fetching a long détour by way of Khiva to avoid the Tekke bands with which the desert swarmed, he joined headquarters on 24th December. Well might Skobeleff say of him, “Kurapatkine is the only man capable of performing so dangerous a mission.” The general’s staff was strengthened by other great authorities in Central Asian warfare--Petrusevitch, unrivalled for his knowledge of the Turkomans; Grodekoff, and Leokovitch, professor at the War Academy. Meantime Skobeleff had reached Chikisliar in May, and after a general survey of the situation had pushed forward to Bami, a Turkoman post at the entrance of the Akkal oasis, which commands the route by way of Chikisliar and Krasnovodsk, and is only seventy miles from the capital, Geok Teppe. He occupied this stronghold on the 10th of June, and on the 13th of the following month advanced at the head of 1000 men to reconnoitre the enemy’s central settlement. Arriving on the fourth day at Egman Batir, a Tekke village six miles from Geok Teppe, he formed an entrenched camp there and sallied forth to inspect the Tekkes’ position. He found them crowded into three camps, surrounded by clay ramparts.