“Information that reached us from Japan showed that the sources from which she had been drawing the men for her armies were drained dry, that her finances had been completely exhausted, that discontent at the long-drawn-out war was already making itself felt among her people, and that for these reasons her army could not reckon on further success against our superior numbers. Therefore, the most searching and exhaustive study of all our weak points cannot shake the belief prevalent in the army that our troops in Manchuria would have been victorious if only the war had been continued. “It will be for the future historian to decide whether the troops we put into the field before March, 1905, would have sufficed for victory. “Nowadays, with the complicated machinery of modern armies, the personality of the supreme commander is less important than it was. Without trusty, able, and energetic subordinates, without a spirit of initiative amongst all ranks, without a superiority in numbers, and, what is most important, without a military spirit amongst the troops and patriotism in the whole nation, the duty of a Commander-in-Chief is so difficult that it is far too much for a merely talented leader. It may be said that a military genius would have overcome the moral and physical difficulties we had to encounter. Possibly; but an Alexeieff, a Kuropatkin, a Linievitch, a Grippenberg, a Kaulbars, and a Bilderling were unable to do so. “I venture to remind Your Imperial Highness that, on receiving the orders appointing me to be Commander-in-Chief, I did not joyfully express my gratitude. I replied to the effect that it was only a dearth of commanders which led Your Majesty to select me. If I still firmly believed in victory after the Mukden battle, I had, indeed, good grounds for so doing.” The author of the cleverly written article entitled “All about Commanders” writes as follows: “The absence of initiative, the habit of always relying upon superiors, and only acting when ordered to from above, are characteristics of junior commanders which made the work of those at the head of the army more difficult. The value of the time element in war also was forgotten.” The modern theorist in strategy, Blume, says: “Even the greatest genius in a supreme commander cannot replace independent action by individual leaders.”