The next day I ordered 200 men to entrain from Spascoe to Kraevesk to act as a reserve.  They were to night march to Khamerovka, and occupy the place of my forward party, who would advance by night and join the Cossacks and Czech troops at Olhanka.  I would be with the advanced group and make a daylight examination of the post to be attacked, and be joined at night by my second detachment from Khamerovka.  By this means I should have had 400 British rifles, a machine-gun section of forty-three men with four maxims, a company of Czech infantry of about 200 men, and last, but by no means least, Ataman Kalmakoff with about 400 Cossack cavalry—­a total of about 1,000 men.  I ordered the two roads along which any reinforcements for the enemy post must pass to be patrolled at night and also closely observed during the day.

I had drawn up my plan of attack and the first stage of the operation had actually been executed, when I was brought to a sudden standstill by a piece of fussy interference.

There was no linguist in my battalion capable of speaking Russian sufficiently well for my purpose, hence I had to seek the services of an agent of the British Military Representative at “Vlady.”  This agent returned to “Vlady” directly the necessary arrangements for the attack had been completed.  I ought to have compelled him to remain with me, but as he appeared to favour the proposed forward movement I did not scent any danger to my purely defensive policy.  He did not wait until he had reported to the Military Representative, but when only half way telegraphed from Nikolsk warning me that in his opinion this forward movement should not take place, as he had already received important information which altered the entire situation.  I ignored this interference of an understraper, but a few hours later received definite instructions from the Political Representative, that I was to stand purely on the defensive, and not move an inch beyond my position.  I was compelled to accept the instruction, but was disgusted with the decision.  It proved to me in a forcible way what I had never realised before, how impossible it is for a man at a distance, however clever he may be, to decide a military problem, limited in locality and isolated, as was this case, from questions of public policy.  When the one purpose of a force is the protection or maintenance of a limited front, only the man on the spot can be the judge of what is necessary to accomplish that purpose.

My actual plan of operations was very simple.  Having assembled my force at Olhanka, I should at dusk have occupied the roads leading from Shmakovka to Uspenkie, and from Uspenkie to the monastery by cavalry, thus making it impossible for enemy reinforcements to reach the post to be attacked under the cover of night.  My own troops, together with the Czech company, would have approached the position from the south, and during the hours of darkness have taken up a line within rifle- and machine-gun range.