“When, in December, 1903, the Japanese Government presented their proposals in reply to the draft agreement drawn up by Alexeieff, and described by him as ‘an honourable retreat for her from a position which she has herself created by her arrogant behaviour,’ he characterized these as being ‘equivalent to a demand that the Russian Government should formally acknowledge Japan’s protectorate over Korea.’ Indeed, he considered the requests made by her ‘so presumptuous that we should at once reject them.’ In presenting such requests, he said, ‘Japan exceeds the limit of all reason,’ and he consequently felt that no concession was possible, and that it would be better to break off negotiations, after clearly explaining that in her proposals Russia ‘had reached the extreme limit of concession.’ Then, when the Japanese began to occupy Korea at the end of December, 1903, Alexeieff represented most strongly that ‘for self-defence corresponding steps should be taken to maintain the balance of power upset by the occupation of Korea’—_i.e._, that the lower reaches of the Ya-lu should be occupied, and the mobilization of the Far Eastern districts and the province of Siberia should be carried out. He was of opinion that Japan’s final proposals, received in the middle of January, 1904, were ‘in tone and substance still more pretentious and bold than before,’ and he insisted on the negotiations being broken off, asserting that their continuation ‘could not lead to a settlement of mutual interests,’ and that ‘any display of yielding on our part would lead to a great loss of dignity to Russia and to a corresponding augmentation of the prestige of Japan in the eyes of the whole East.’ “This was three weeks before the diplomatic negotiations were broken off. Has Russia’s dignity not yet suffered in full measure? “Finally, our last answer to Japan—despatched only a few days before the declaration of war—which contained a refusal to consider a neutral zone, and admitted Japan’s right to predominate in Korea, was stated to be ‘an exhibition of generosity beyond which Russia could scarcely go.’ “After three or four days—_i.e._, on February 6, 1904—diplomatic relations were broken off by Japan, and so began that awful war which might have been prevented without loss of dignity to us if the Viceroy’s policy had been a little less ‘firm,’ and—it must be added—a little less eccentric.” My opinions with regard to the relative importance of the tasks which confronted our War Department made me a convinced opponent of an active Asiatic policy.