Amongst much in this book which gives food for thought there are two or three matters described by the author which are truly extraordinary. For instance, it is difficult to believe that when, after so much threatening, the storm eventually burst and war broke out, Port Arthur--that outpost of the Russian Empire--was so far from being ready that on January 14, 1904, only eight guns of the allotted armament were mounted on the land defences. And yet there is official authority for this statement (see Appendix II.). It is also remarkable that even before the place was finally cut off by complete investment in July, 1904, the troops had to be put on short rations; this seems to have been caused by the subordination, even in war, of the military to other requirements. General Fock's theory also upon fortress warfare (p. 227) is strangely at variance with the practice of his great countryman Todleben, who defended Sevastopol for 349 days, and his reasoning is difficult to follow. Finally, the action of the senior officer of a beleaguered fortress, in disobeying and concealing the official messages which ordered his recall and appointed his successor, seems inconceivable. Undoubtedly, if a proper organization had existed upon the outbreak of hostilities instead of the inadequate product of a nation's false economy, Port Arthur might have held out for a considerably longer time than it did; but speculation upon the possible results of this is beyond the scope of this preface. Without labouring the morals pointed by this siege, it is clear that policy should wait on military preparedness, that now as of old the internal jealousies within an army are as dangerous to it as the enemy, and that it is still the moral factor that counts most. In the translation there has of necessity been some abridgement; but an endeavour has been made all through to convey the writer's meaning and, wherever possible, to use his exact words. The chief interest of the work for British readers seems to be in the picture presented of the general conduct of the defence and of the state of affairs in the Fortress rather than in the more technical accounts of the actual fighting, which are very like each other. To those not engaged, the description of an attack on one point bears much resemblance to the descriptions of attacks on other points. It is with this feeling that the necessary curtailment has been made. Some, also, of the author's picturesque writing, which would probably appeal less to the Briton than it would to the Slav, has been eliminated.