'"The surrender of Fort No. 2 struck at the root of the principle that a fort 'dies, but does not surrender'--a principle preached and reiterated by myself and all those in command. By the example of the surrender of this fort the garrisons of the others were shaken in their belief that forts are 'holies of holies,' only to be captured after the death of the whole garrison defending them, and were led to consider them as just ordinary fortified positions which can be freely abandoned as soon as their defence becomes difficult. This was proved by the abandonment within ten days of Fort No. 3." 'Only when I became aware of this Note of General Smirnoff's did I understand the drift of the question put to me by the Commission; it was not hard then to see the connexion between the two. It was evident, therefore, that in this important question, as in those which had preceded, the Commission was being guided more by this memorandum of the late Commandant of the Fortress than by the desire for an impartial inquiry into facts.' Though well on in years, General Fock apparently did not know, and was astonished to hear, that 'forts die, but do not surrender,' that 'the bones of a regiment should surround its fallen colours,' that 'a gun must be fought till not a man is left,' etc. Fock did not know this; he had not seen it laid down in any official text-book! Naturally he did not and could not know it. Knowledge of the sacredness of duty is not acquired by the perusal of manuals and regulations any more than an honourable feeling is acquired by reading books of a high moral tone. The duty and honour of the citizen soldier has no written code as its guide, but only the long, brilliant list of great deeds extending from far-off olden times to the present day. Upon these legends, matured by time, nations, their armies, and individuals are brought up. A sense of duty and honour is not obtained by reading, but is imbibed with the mother's milk and developed by later teaching. I doubt if there could be found in any European army (naturally not in the Japanese, where officers and generals are brought up on the ethics of the chivalrous spirit 'Bushido') a general officer who would be surprised to hear that a fort should not surrender. How could a Russian general be ignorant of it? Surely such an assertion is a stain on all the general officers of the Russian army! No, it is not so. For General Fock's ignorance of the rudiments of military duty one must seek deeper reasons. He was, it appears, in the _Gendarmerie_--where the duties were somewhat different to those of the army--for almost five years. Their atmospheres are totally opposed: the work of the one is to fight an external foe: of the other to fight an internal enemy.