The distance of the territory now attacked and the desire of the Tsar to maintain peace were the causes of the impossibility of preparations for war being made a long time in advance. Not only, too, was the seat of war 5,000 miles away, and not only was a single-track ill-equipped line of railway the only practicable means of sending troops and war material there by land, but an exceptionally great obstacle to traffic had to be met owing to the interruption of rail communication by Lake Baikal. Having a length of 380 miles, a breadth ranging from eighteen miles to fifty-six miles, a mean depth of 850 feet (with a maximum, in parts, of no less than 4,500 ft.), and a total area of over 13,000 square miles, _Lake Baikal_ ranks, next to the great lakes of the United States and Central Africa, as the largest fresh-water lake in the world; though it should, in reality, be regarded less as a lake than as a great inland sea. As it happened, also, this vast expanse of water stood in the direct line of route of the Trans-Siberian railway, and the crossing of it by the Russian reinforcements going to the Far East constituted a seriously defective link in the chain of communication. At an elevation of 1,360 feet above sea level, the lake is subject alike to severe gales, to heavy fogs, and to frosts so intense that in mid-winter the water may be frozen to a depth of ten feet. From the end of April to the end of December troops and travellers arriving by rail at one side of the lake crossed to the other by passenger steamers. Goods wagons were taken over by ferry-boats which, also, acted as ice-breakers early and late in the winter season, so long as the passage could be kept open. When, in the winter, the ice was strong enough to bear, traffic was conducted by transport sledges; but when there was sufficient ice to stop the ferry-boats, though not sufficient to permit of the sledges being used--conditions which generally prevailed for about six weeks in the year--the traffic had to be discontinued altogether. The question will naturally be asked,--Why had not the constructors of the line avoided these disadvantages by carrying it round the lake? The reply is that this had not been done, prior to the outbreak of war, owing to the formidable nature of the work involved from an engineering point of view.