“The firing-line of the 1st Army was in August last stronger than it was at the beginning of the war, before the September battles on the Sha Ho, and, thanks to the great exertions of those in command, and the unselfish work of the medical services, the health of the army remained excellent throughout. It was, indeed, fortunate, for if any great sickness had broken out we should, owing to the few drafts then arriving, only have had very weak cadres for the field. It was absolutely essential, therefore, that no expense or efforts should be spared in order to keep every man fit for the ranks, and I am happy to say that our common efforts met with unusual success, for our losses from sickness were less than in killed and wounded. In the 1st Manchurian Army we had lost up to August 14, 1905, 2,218 officers and 66,785 other ranks killed and wounded in action, and 2,390 officers and 58,093 other ranks from sickness. I draw your attention to the fact that while the percentage of losses from action should naturally be higher among the officers than the men, they ought, on account of their better living, to lose less from sickness. The converse was the case with us, which shows that our officers were not sufficiently hardy, and did not know how to preserve their health. To this we must pay particular attention. “In material matters the army was also excellently situated in August. Clothing and equipment of all sorts were on the spot and plentiful, while all technical supplies had accumulated. Never have we been such a formidable force in every sense as we had become by the summer of 1905, when we were suddenly informed of the unhappy negotiations at Portsmouth, and that peace had been concluded. Doubtless this was necessitated by the state of the interior of Russia; but it was heart-breaking for the army. I remember with what grief the news was received by all ranks. Life seemed to die out of our bivouacs, and all our minds were filled by one sad thought—that the war had ended before the enemy had been beaten. Looking back on the trials we have recently gone through, we can find consolation in the feeling that we have done our duty to Tsar and country as far as has lain in our power; but for many reasons the time given us has turned out to be insufficient. These reasons we must fearlessly search out, and discover what—beyond mere numerical inferiority—prevented our success before peace was concluded. Before all others, I, your senior commander, am guilty because I did not succeed in rectifying our many moral and material defects during the war, and in making the most of the undoubted strong points of our troops. The material defects are known to all of us—the small number of rifles in the firing-line per company [partly owing to lack of care to put as many men as possible into action], the insufficiency [at the beginning] of mountain artillery, the lack of high explosive shells, of machine-guns, and of technical stores of all sorts. By last August