I went to Siberia entirely biassed in favour of this admittedly wonderful people. I took care to instruct my soldiers to salute every Japanese officer and to be most polite to every Japanese soldier, and they carried out my instructions to the letter; but my attention was called to the fact that only on rare occasions did a Japanese officer take the trouble to return the salute of my men, and still more rarely did a Japanese soldier salute an English officer. He was much more likely to give an insulting grimace. I say quite frankly that I admire the workmanlike way the Japanese go about their soldierly duties, but it is impossible to ignore their stupidly studied arrogance towards those who are anxious to be on terms of peace and amity with them. It is unfortunately true that they were misled into believing that Germany was ordained to dominate the world, and, believing this, they shaped their conduct upon this awful example. They quite openly boast that they are the Germans of the East. Let us hope that they will read aright the recent lesson of history. During my stay in the maritime provinces I never saw or heard of a single act or order from the Japanese Headquarters which would help in the slightest degree in the administrative reorganisation of the country. On the contrary I saw many things which convinced me that the Land of the Rising Sun was at that time more concerned in maintaining disorder as the surest way of fostering her own ambitious designs. At this stage the other Allies were without a Far-Eastern policy. Their sole object was to push back as far as possible the German-Magyar forces, which were carrying out the sinister policy of Teutonic penetration under the guise of Bolshevism. Bolshevism in the Far East at this date was an attempt to reduce to a system the operations of the Chinese robber bands of the Mongolian border. Mixed with and led by released German and Magyar prisoners of war, they became a formidable force for destroying all attempts at order in Russia and resisting the possible reconstruction of the Russian front against the Central Powers. Previous to the Bolshevist régime these Chinese bands had lived by murder and loot; it was their trade, though hitherto considered illegal, and sometimes severely punished. No wonder they joined the Soviet crusade when it declared robbery and murder to be the basis upon which the new Russian democracy must rest. This German-Magyar-Chinese combination was bound to meet with remarkable initial success. The Chinese got his blood and loot in a legal way without much danger, and the German prisoner played an important part in the defence of the Fatherland and the destruction of its enemies. If Germany lost on the Western Front, and by means of this unnatural combination still retained her hold upon the potential wealth of the late Tsar's dominions, she had indeed won the war. This was the reason for our presence in Siberia, but it was not the reason for the presence of Japan.