advice, when asked, about everything, both
internal and external; and here it may be interesting to our own people
to know some of the problems which confronted the Supreme Governor. The
Japanese question was the first. General Rosanoff was Bolderoff's Chief
of Staff, and it was important to the Supreme Governor that he should
get the hang of outstanding matters and also make himself fairly
acquainted with the policy of the deposed Directorate. He interviewed
General Rosanoff and the Staff generally, and discovered that after the
fall of Samara the Bolshevik army moved rapidly towards Ufa, and the
Directorate became so alarmed that they demanded some definite policy
from the Commander-in-Chief as to how he proposed to deal with this
menace. Bolderoff never thought of effectively organising the new
Russian army, but suggested that things were so critical, and that
England, France, and America were so slow, that the only alternative was
to invite the Japanese to push their army forward to the Urals. This was
exactly what Japan wanted, but the Japanese Staff demanded as a _quid
pro quo_ to their advance to Ekaterinburg and Chilliyabinsk that they
should be placed in absolute possession of the railway and telegraph
lines to those points. Bolderoff and the Directorate boggled at this for
a time, but as the Bolsheviks began to get close to Ufa, and also
concentrated an army of about one hundred thousand men for an offensive
towards Ekaterinburg, the situation became so pressing that the
Directorate gave way, and a few days before the _coup d'etat_ Bolderoff
had sent word to the Japanese that their terms were accepted.

The Japanese had made all preparations to move when Koltchak took the
reins in his own hands. He asked my advice. I advised him to say to the
Japanese that the change of Government had also involved a change of
policy, and that it would be inadvisable for the Japanese to advance
beyond their position at Chita until the subject had been further
discussed. They made him many tempting offers of help, both arms and
money, but he refused them all, and they were unable to move him from
the position he had taken up.

A subject that led to unfortunate bickerings between Admiral Koltchak
and the French was the appointment by the Allied Council of Paris of
General Ganin as the Commander of the Allied and Russian Forces in
Siberia.

It is too important an item in the general failure of Allied policy to
pass over witho