an officer of the General Staff; he could not, as a rule, read a map himself, much less teach those under him how to do so. This was especially the case at the beginning of the war, and had considerable influence on the conduct of operations, as regiments often either arrived late at their rendezvous or went to points where they were not wanted. The lack of eye for country is partly explained by the fact that our officers were quite unused to hills. Though this defect certainly became less marked as time went on, it was still perceptible in the operations round Mukden, and even afterwards. Though the officers lacked a proper military spirit, they were generally good in other ways, particularly those of the regular army. The best proof of their gallantry is furnished by the number of losses sustained by the 1st Army from November, 1904, to September, 1905, from which it will be seen that their proportion of killed and wounded was considerably higher than that of the men. +-------+-------------------+-------------------+ | | Officers. | Rank and File. | +-------+--------+----------+--------+----------+ | | |Percentage| |Percentage| | |Numbers.|to Average|Numbers.|to Average| | | | Strength.| | Strength.| +-------+--------+----------+--------+----------+ |Killed | 167 | 4·1 | 4,779 | 2·5 | |Wounded| 905 | 23·8 | 27,425 | 14·6 | |Missing| 89 | 2·1 | 5,684 | 2·9 | | +--------+----------+--------+----------+ | | 1,151 | 30 | 37,888 | 20 | +-------+--------+----------+--------+----------+ The losses in this army for the whole period of the war were somewhat higher: Officers. Rank and File. Killed 396 10,435 Wounded 1,773 56,350