Having, in my talk with the admiral and the report I made, accepted his position of Supreme Governor, I did not mean that he should be left to fight his way unaided against the enemies who surrounded him.  In other words, while outwardly remaining neutral, I constantly made representations and gave 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 without mention.  From the very nature of the case the main Allied effort was the formation and organisation of a new Russian army.  Our policy was not to prop Russia on her feet, but to enable her to stand by herself.  Major-General Knox had been sent out by the War Office to accomplish this purpose, and no more able or competent officer could have been appointed for the task.