Other abuses were rife. The commissariat, though costing enormous sums, yet failed to supply soldiers as well as officers with the most necessary things. The men had warm clothes in summer and no furs in winter. Shoes were for the most part of so abominable a quality that the infantry preferred to walk barefooted. The means of transport were such as to cause the most dreadful tortures for the victims destined to travel for weeks on a railway line badly built, and in carriages devoid of the most elementary comforts. The trucks in which the army was forwarded to Manchuria were so old that one can only wonder by what miracle they did not fall to pieces on the road. Yet, according to the reports presented by the War Office, everything possible had been done to transport the troops quickly to the field of action.
The Emperor was assured that his army was ready, and that the Japanese army was in a most weak condition, quite unprepared for a struggle of any serious kind. It has even been maintained by some that this report constitutes one of those crimes which no nation can ever forgive to its author. The then War Minister had gone to Manchuria with the avowed purpose of examining for himself what chances of success there were for an aggressive policy on the part of Russia. He was given the utmost freedom for his own ideas; he had been told to study carefully the resources of Japan, its desires, and its aims. He had been well received by the Mikado and by his Ministers, and with true Slav laziness had believed all that he had been told, and only looked at what had been shown to him. Warnings had not failed him; officers whose duties lay on that distant Manchurian frontier had reported to him the enormous preparations made by Japan, and drawn his attention to the care with which all our armaments had been studied by competent Japanese officers. Their misgivings had not been entertained by Kouropatkine, who upon his return to Russia addressed a long report to the Emperor, in which, among other things, was said:
“Japan at the present moment is reorganising its army and navy, and proceeding very slowly with this task. Japanese officers, though they have studied at our academy as well as in military schools in Germany, have not mastered the various workings of European tactics. They are still savage and untrained, and their army could not very well at present engage in any conflict with us. It is true that they are ambitious, and that the annexation of Korea is their earnest desire, but they have no means of satisfying that ambition. If we want to strike at their military or naval organisation, we could not select a more favourable moment than the present one, when everything is still in a state of chaos, and when Japan, having ceased to be an Asiatic nation, is nevertheless far from resembling a European one. As regards ourselves, we are perfectly ready, and could in the space of thirteen days have four hundred thousand men on the Japanese frontier, which is three times as many as would be needed to repulse the army of our adversary. The war would be a simple military promenade, and no necessity could even arise of moving any of our troops from the German or Austrian frontier or to diminish the garrisons in Poland.”