The General Staff Academy assisted me in my work, Colonel Mishlaivski helping in the history, Major-General Zolotareff in the military statistics, and Colonel Gulevitch in the administration. Information on strategical matters was furnished by the General Staff. This analysis was completed and submitted to the Tsar in the spring of 1900, and a few copies—with the secret strategic matter omitted—were, with his permission, sent to the Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and the Interior, to the State Comptroller, and a few selected officials. The programme for the period 1898–1902 was framed by me upon the conclusions drawn from this statement. In 1903 a general report of all that had been carried out by my department during the previous five years was printed and submitted to the Tsar. This document showed the funds available, the total requirements which had been carried out, and those left undone owing to the lack of money. Later on in the same year a programme for the period 1904–1908 was submitted and approved. Thus, for the twelve months immediately preceding hostilities work was carried out according to a strictly defined programme, from the printed record of which the results attained can be judged. In the same way that we in the War Ministry were forced to have recourse to the lessons of the past when framing our programme for the future, so in this work is it necessary, in order to explain properly what was done in the years 1898–1904, to refer to the conclusions upon which the programme for this period was based. My fourth and last volume consists of twelve[8] chapters. In the first chapters I shall include some necessary extracts from my analysis of 1900, and my report of 1903 upon the work of the War Ministry for the quinquennium 1898-1902, omitting, of course, confidential matter. The last chapters will be based on papers relating to the recent war, on my diaries, and on articles that appeared in the Press. I have been so intimately connected with the important events in the Far East, and have been so largely responsible for the failure of our military operations, that I can hardly hope to take an entirely dispassionate and objective view of the men and matters that I shall deal with in the present work; but my object is not so much to justify myself by replying to the charges that have been brought against me personally, as to furnish material that will make it easier for the future historian to state fairly the reasons for our defeat, and thus enable us to avoid similar misfortunes in the future. FOOTNOTES: [5] [Of these only portions of the Introduction and Conclusion of Volume III. have been translated.—ED.] [6] The motives of those who started writing upon their return to Russia, also, were not entirely above suspicion. [7] The money put aside by the Treasury for the War Department is not allotted annually, but for quinquennia periods. [8] [Chapters I. to XII. in the following translation.—ED.]