The establishment of the Viceroyalty in the Far East was for me a complete surprise. On August 15, 1903, I asked the Emperor to relieve me of my duty as Minister of War, and after the great manœuvres I was granted long leave of absence, of which I availed myself, expecting that my place would be filled by the appointment of some other person. In September, 1903, the state of affairs in the Far East began to be alarming, and Admiral Alexeieff was definitely ordered to take all necessary measures to avoid war. The Emperor expressed his wish to this effect with firmness, and did not, in any way, limit or restrict the concessions that should be made in order to avoid a rupture with Japan. All that had to be done was to find a method of making these concessions as little injurious as possible to Russian interests. During my stay in Japan, I became satisfied that the Japanese Government was disposed to consider Japanese and Korean affairs calmly, with a view to arriving at an agreement upon the basis of mutual concessions. The Emperor’s definitely expressed desire that war should not be allowed to take place had, for a short time, a tranquillizing effect on Far Eastern affairs. In view of the disturbing situation in the Far East, I cut short my leave of absence, and, in reporting to the Emperor for duty, I gave this threatening state of affairs as my reason for returning. On October 23, 1903, the Emperor made the following marginal note upon my letter: “The alarm in the Far East is apparently beginning to subside.” In October I recommended that the garrison at Vladivostok should be strengthened, but permission to reinforce it was not given. Meanwhile there was really no re-establishment of tranquillity in the Far East, and our relations with Japan and China were becoming more and more involved. On October 28, 1903, I presented to the Emperor a special report on the Manchurian question, in which I showed that, in order to avoid complications with China and a rupture with Japan, we must put an end to our military occupation of Southern Manchuria, and confine our activity and our administrative supervision to the northern part of that territory. At the time when this report was presented, and later—in November—the negotiations that Admiral Alexeieff was carrying on with Japan not only made no progress, but became more critical, the Admiral still believing that to show a yielding disposition would only make matters worse.