The events which happened in the Far East in 1904–05 can, owing to their historical importance and their significance for Russia and the whole world, be placed alongside those through which Russia passed in the early years of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the struggle with Charles XII. and Napoleon the Russian people was at one with the Tsar, and bravely bore all trials and sacrifices, strengthening and improving the army, treating it with kindness, believing in it, wishing it well, and profoundly respecting it for its gallant deeds. The people realized the necessity for success, hesitated at no sacrifice, and were not troubled by the time required to gain it, and the harmonious efforts of Tsar and people gave us complete victory. The way to victory is in the present day by the same road which our ancestors followed in the early years of the last two centuries. If mighty Russia, headed by the Tsar, had been permeated by a brave and single-minded desire to defeat the Japanese, and had not stinted the sacrifices and time necessary to preserve Russia’s integrity and dignity, our glorious army, supported by the trust of its ruler and a united people, would have fought until the enemy had been vanquished. APPENDICES APPENDIX I THE ROYAL TIMBER COMPANY[105] Among the first questions suggested by General Kuropatkin’s narrative and the editorials, reports, and official proceedings that he quotes, are: Who was State Councillor Bezobrazoff? How did he acquire the extraordinary power that he evidently exercised in the Far East? Why was “everybody”—including the Minister of War—“afraid of him”? Why did even the Viceroy respond to his calls for troops? and why was his Korean timber company allowed to drag Russia into a war with Japan, apparently against the opposition and resistance of the Tsar, the Viceroy, the Minister of War, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Port Arthur Council, and the diplomatic representatives of Russia in Peking, Tokio, and Seoul? No replies to these questions can be found in General Kuropatkin’s record of the events that preceded the rupture with Japan, but convincing answers are furnished by certain confidential documents found in the archives of Port Arthur, and published at Stuttgart,[106] just after the close of the war, in the Liberal Russian review _Osvobojdenie_. Whether General Kuropatkin was aware of the existence of these documents or not I am unable to say; but as they throw a strong sidelight on his narrative, I shall append them thereto, and tell briefly, in connection with them, the story of the Ya-lu timber enterprise as it is related in St. Petersburg.