With the exception of General Linievitch, our army commanders were unnecessarily sensitive to interference with their powers, and in cases where orders would formerly have been issued to corps commanders it now became necessary to reckon with the personal opinions of army commanders, and to guard against offending their susceptibilities. After the pomp and parade of General Grippenberg’s departure from the army, the relationship between the army commanders and the Commander-in-Chief became still more strained. How jealously they looked after their rights, and how strangely they interpreted their own powers, is illustrated by the following incident: On February 19 I sent for the three army commanders and their chief staff officers, in order to ascertain their views as to the plan of operations which should be undertaken under the unfavourable conditions brought about by the fall of Port Arthur and General Grippenberg’s unsuccessful operations at Hei-kou-tai. The following courses were open to Nogi’s army, no longer required in the Kuan-tung Peninsula: it might join the four armies already in the field against us; it might, together with the divisions formed in Japan and the troops in Korea, form a force of seventy to eighty strong battalions for operations against Vladivostok, or, landing at Possiet Bay, it might march against Kirin and Harbin, so as to outflank our position at Mukden. I had also been continually receiving reports from General Chichagoff to the effect that the enemy had invaded Mongolia, and, aided by numerous bands of Hun-huses, had begun to attack the railway in our rear, which had forced me to weaken the army by detailing an infantry brigade and four Cossack regiments to reinforce the railway guard and safeguard our position. In spite of these reports, Generals Linievitch and Kaulbars expressed the opinion that we ought not to change our plans, and should carry out the orders I had issued on January 25—namely, to fall on the enemy’s left flank. But when my Chief of Staff asked the officer commanding the 2nd Army—who was to commence the operation—how he proposed to employ his cavalry, Kaulbars,[22] looking upon the question as an interference with his authority, became annoyed, and said much that was unnecessary and quite beside the point. As it turned out, the Chief of the Staff had every reason to be anxious as to the employment of this Army, for its work in the battle of Mukden was anything but satisfactory.