Had the Japanese got possession of our communications, a catastrophe unprecedented in military history might have resulted. Without any victory in the field, the mere destruction of the railway in our rear, combined with the cutting off of local resources, would have threatened us with starvation—and disaster. Such were the unfavourable conditions under which we fought for fifteen months, and our army was not only _not_ completely defeated, but grew in strength, while our communication with Russia gradually became better secured and more efficient. We had always recognized the possibility of being driven back to Harbin and beyond; but this never happened, and we held on to Hsi-ping-kai. The situation could only have been improved in one way—by a rapid concentration of sufficient troops for, and an assumption of, an offensive all along the line. While these troops were collecting, each fight—quite independent of its actual result—would have really helped us if it had at all weakened the enemy. But our departure from our accepted plan of operations began at the commencement of the war, when, instead of fighting a rearguard action, General Zasulitch got seriously engaged against the whole of Kuroki’s army at the Ya-lu, and was defeated. In May, when the 3rd Siberian Division[12] had alone arrived at Liao-yang (besides the troops of the Pri-Amur Military District), the Viceroy, fearing for the fate of Port Arthur, instructed me to assume the offensive towards the Ya-lu against Kuroki’s army, or southwards for the relief of the fortress of Port Arthur. But the inadequate force with which General Shtakelberg pushed forward, owing to ignorance of the fact that the Japanese were in superior strength, got drawn into a serious engagement at Te-li-ssu, and was defeated. With the arrival of all the units of the 4th Siberian Corps and one division of the 10th Army Corps, it seemed possible to contain Kuroki’s army, to concentrate fifty to sixty battalions rapidly in the direction of Ta-shih-chiao, and to attempt to hurl back Oku to the south. It seemed as if our army had a splendid chance of operating on interior lines. The enemy was strung along three lines of advance—Dalny, Kai-ping, Ta-shih-chiao (Oku); Ta-ku-shan, Hsiu-yen, Ta-ling, Hai-cheng (Nodzu); Ya-lu, Feng-huang-cheng, Fen-shui-ling, Liao-yang (Kuroki). We occupied the central position—Liao-yang, Hai-cheng, Ta-shih-chiao—with advance guards thrown forward on to the Fen-shui-ling heights. We might have been able, by containing two armies and deceiving the enemy by a demonstration, to strike the third army in force. A blow delivered at Kuroki or Nodzu did not promise success, owing to our lack of training in, and unpreparedness for, hill warfare [we had no mountain artillery, our baggage was heavy, and we were uncertain of receiving supplies, owing to the insufficiency of transport material]. The only other course was to strike at Oku, who was based on the railway, but such an