The regulations regarding fortresses should be revised, and the occasions upon which a fortress is allowed to surrender should be absolutely cut out, for fortresses may be taken, but should never, under any circumstances, surrender. Commandants of fortresses who surrender them, captains who surrender their ships, officers in command of units that lay down their arms, should be considered as forfeiting all rights, and should be condemned to be shot without trial, and all those not in command who surrender unwounded should be deprived of their military rank from the day of their surrender. During the war the Press did much to undermine the authority of officers in command, and to lower the _moral_ of the men, by indiscriminate revelations. In the next war only such events should be allowed to appear in the newspapers as may help to encourage the men. When active operations are over, the circumstances are changed, and it is then essential for the good of the Service to have a thorough investigation into all shortcomings. But it is not sufficient that all ranks of the army should be imbued with the spirit of fighting on till victory is won; it is necessary that the whole nation should have the same feeling, and to the best of their ability assist towards a happy issue of the struggle being carried on by the army. In our state of backwardness (especially as regards railways) we are doomed in our next war to a slow concentration, and therefore to a protracted campaign. Being unable at once to put large forces into the field, and to seize the initiative, we may again be compelled to bear the consequences of our unreadiness—frequent reverses, and retirement; but we must, without wavering, firmly believe in eventual success, however unfavourable the conditions at the start. The moral and material resources of Russia are immense, and the fixed determination on the part of the army and the whole nation to win is our principal guarantee of victory. CHAPTER XII SUMMARY OF THE WAR I have already reviewed[53] (in Chapters VIII., IX., X., and XI.) the causes of our failure. They can be summarized in three groups: 1. Those causes independent of the War Ministry. 2. Those dependent on the War Ministry, for which officers in the field had no responsibility. 3. Those for which officers in the field were alone responsible. The first group comprises— (_a_) The absence of any diplomatic arrangement which would have enabled us to despatch and distribute our whole army freely as circumstances dictated (similar to that which in 1870–71 made it possible for the Prussians to move the whole of their armed forces against France). (_b_) The subordinate part played by the fleet during the war. (_c_) The inferiority of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways. (_d_) The internal disorders in Russia, which affected the spirit of the army. The second group comprises—