Some, at least, of the difficulties and delays experienced in operation were undoubtedly due to developments of that _interference by individual officers_ with the working of the railways of which we have already had striking examples in the case of the American War of Secession and the Franco-German War of 1870-71. Colonel Waters writes on this subject:-- It is interesting to note how the working of the line was interfered with by those who should have been the first to see that no extraneous calls were made upon it when the organisation of the army and the strengthening of Port Arthur were of vital importance. The chief of the Viceroy's Staff was the intermediary between Admiral Alexeiev and General Kuropatkin, the former being at Mukden and the latter at Liao-yang, thirty-seven miles distant. Frequent conferences took place between Kuropatkin and this officer, who always used to come in a special train to Liao-yang. This necessitated the line being kept clear for indefinite periods of time and dislocated all the other traffic arrangements, as the then chief of the railways himself declared. In the first days of May, 1904, the Viceroy and the Grand Duke Boris were at Port Arthur, and wished to leave it before they should be cut off. I heard that they actually took three special trains to quit Port Arthur, namely, one for each of them, and one for their baggage and stores. This entirely upset the troop train, supply and ammunition services, at a time, too, when the scarcity of heavy gun munition in the fortress was such that, within a week, Kuropatkin called for volunteers to run a train-load through, which was done a few hours only before the place was definitely invested. There were, throughout 1904, plenty of other instances of special trains being run for, and siding accommodation occupied by, various individuals, so that the organisation and maintenance of the army was considerably hampered thereby. These experiences simply confirm the wisdom of the action which other countries had already taken (1) to ensure the efficient operation of railways in time of war by staffs comprising the military and the technical elements in combination, and (2) to prevent the interference of the former in the details of the actual working by the latter. Russia was, in fact, distinctly behind Western nations in these respects in 1904-5, and the need for placing her military transport system on a sounder basis was among the many lessons she learnt--and acted upon--as the result of her experiences in the war with Japan. FOOTNOTES: [48] "The Russo-Japanese War. The Ya-Lu. Prepared in the Historical Section of the German General Staff." Authorized Translation by Karl von Donat. London, 1908. [49] "Official History of the Russo-Japanese War." Prepared by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. London, 1910.