Commanding officers in the Siberian military districts reported, as early as February, that detachments of supernumerary troops and reservists had plundered several railway-stations, and later on regular troops, on their way to the front, were guilty of similar bad conduct. The drifting to the rear of large numbers of soldiers—especially the older reservists—while battles were in progress was due not so much to cowardice as to the unsettling of the men’s minds, and to a disinclination on their part to continue the war. I may add that the opening of peace negotiations at Portsmouth, at a time when we were preparing for decisive operations, unfavourably affected the _moral_ of the best in the army. M. E. Martinoff, in an article entitled “Spirit and Temper of the Two Armies,” points out that “... even in time of peace, the Japanese people were so educated as to develop in them a patriotic and martial spirit. The very idea of war with Russia was generally popular, and throughout the contest the army was supported by the sympathy of the nation. In Russia, the reverse was true. Patriotism was shaken by the dissemination of ideas of universal brotherhood and disarmament, and in the midst of a difficult campaign the attitude of the country toward the army was one of indifference, if not of actual hostility.” This judgment is accurate, and it is evident, of course, that with such a relation between Russian society and the Manchurian army it was impossible to expect from the latter any patriotic spirit, or any readiness to sacrifice life for the sake of the Fatherland. In an admirable article, entitled “The Feeling of Duty and the Love of Country,” published in the _Russki Invalid_ in 1906, M. A. Bilderling expressed certain profoundly true ideas as follows: