T HE dismissal of General Kuropatkin from the supreme command of
the Russian armies in the Far East has produced much sharp criticism of a Government which has ventured, in Mr. Lincoln's phrase, to " swap horses while crossing the stream." As regards the method of dismissal the criticism is obviously just. The General, though probably not a great strategist, is admitted to be a good tactician, who rescued his army after the terrible defeat of Liao-yang by his personal skill. Through a whole twelvemonth of campaigning in a most difficult country, against troops who not only proved superior to his own, but unexpectedly superior—a fact which affects the adequacy of every combination—worried by orders from distant St. Petersburg, and aware of weakening depression among both officers and men, General Kuropatkin exhibited marvellous patience, immovable determination, and much, though inadequate, military capacity. He ought, therefore, when removed to have been treated with perfect courtesy and consideration, as one who had done his best for his Sovereign and the State, and had suffered at least as much from misfortune, or from mismanagement at the centre, as from any failure in himself. These arguments are unanswerable in the particular case, especially if there was any conflict as to special action between the General and his superiors ; and the argument from permanent policy is even stronger. It is the interest of the State that a great command in the field should be the highest ambition of the most competent soldiers in its service ; and it will not be so if the few men among whom choice must lie regard those commands as " dangerous " appointments, expect to be criticised overmuch by civilian superiors, and feel with _misgiving that original plans will not be understood at home. For the roughness of General Kuropatkin's treat- ment, therefore, we see no excuse, even if, as is hinted, the Czar had become convinced that the powers of the weary man, worn out by continual disappointment, had given way under the protracted overstrain,—an hypothesis partly contradicted by his appointment to the subordinate command of the " First Army " out of the three within his original jurisdiction. As regards the question of dismissal or supersession, how- ever, it is much more difficult to decide, for the facts essential to just decision are not known. Clearly the Czar was bound to think of the welfare of his State before he thought of any personal claims which General Kuropatkin might have. If, for example, his Majesty knew that the 'powers of the Generalissimo had failed under the twelve months of continuous misery, he was bound to supersede him. No consideration could justify him in entrusting such an army in such a crisis to a man whose energy had disappeared, or who could no longer be trusted by his great subordinates. That, it is said, was suspected by Napoleon's Marshals during the Russian campaign ; and though the splendid genius of the great condottiere flamed out again in his campaign of 1814, it may have been temporarily true. His belief in his " star " was certainly shaken, and he may have fallen into the belief which some Russian generals say has destroyed• Kuropatkin's moral nerve, the belief that his enemy was unconquerable, and victory' therefore hopeless. In such a case, about the occurrence of which only the Czar could judge, for only he could collate all sources of information with Kure- patkin's secret despatches, the autocrat would, we think, be justified in taking on himself the enormous responsi- bility of the supersession. And, finally, we think his Majesty also justified if, with all information before him, he felt that, whatever General Kuropatlin's,merits, a change in the supreme command was necessary to revive the spirits of the Russian soldiers, dismayed by continuous and unbroken defeat, and not perhaps con- tented with their rations. Russian troops are supposed to be drilled to a machine-like obedience which renders them incapable of criticism ; but that is probably a false deduction ; and one must not forget that the most visible trait of the Slav mind, as revealed in literature, in music; and even in the special form of his endurance, is a pessimistic melancholy. Change may be good in Russia when it would not be good elsewhere ; and we shall never understand the autocracy, and never weigh rightly its chances of survival, if we start with the preconceived opinion that those who guide it, and who certainly wish to make it successful, are simply stupid men. Some of them are close thinkers, though they all mistake bulk for greatness and despotism for energy.
Whether General Linevitch is a well-chosen alternative can be proved or negatived only by the event. He is under- stood to belong to the generals of the Suvoroff or Skobeleff type,—that is, to the generals who absorb themselves in their end, and are indifferent to the means used or wasted in attaining it. Russians like that type, partly because it has two or three times in their history proved successful, and partly because they are accustomed to think of their Empire and its resources as practically limitless. They have a trace of megalomania in their thoughts which a Suvoroff gratifies. General Linevitch, however, is an old man (seventy-one) for Suvoroff's work ; he is unaccus- tomed to control great armies ; and the idea that he must surpass Kuropatkin may make him rash. In any case, it is not proved that his task is not an impossible one. Russia, with her vastness, her multitudes, and her autocratic organisation, weighs on the Western imagina- tion till even now we half forget that in Manchuria Japan is actually the stronger Power. She can, while the sea is open, produce more men than Russia on any given spot, and those men must be accepted, on the evidence of the war itself, to be the better soldiers. They are not, perhaps, braver than the Russians—though this, we believe, was not the opinion of those who defended Port Arthur—but they are at least as brave, they obey as perfectly as their rivals, and they possess an élan in which the Russians are deficient. Moreover, they are distinctly better marksmen with big guns, a fact hitherto unexplained. It is very doubtful if any genius for battle short of that possessed by an Alexander or a Napoleon, which is not ability, but a gift like that of some great executants in music, can make up all the difference,—whether, .for instance, Todlebon could • have saved. Port Arthur. The superiority in numbers must always remain with the Japanese, unless, indeed, their command of the sea is wrested from them ; and also the superiority in patience, for they have not to think of the effect of delay upon the position of their Mikado. We cannot blind ourselves to something deserving, of respect in the obstinacy of the Romanoffs, but we see no reason for believing that their staying-power, now the only hope for Russia in the conflict, is equal to that of the. Japanese. If it is not, the dismissal of Kuropatkin, and the selection of Linevitch to succeed him, are only incidents in a struggle which will be decided by other things than generals' ability. Even the genius of Napoleon was only reckoned by a great master of soldiership as the equivalent of ten thousand men, and Napoleons are not produced, even in national emergencies, to order.
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