General Knox had hardly begun to perform this duty when the French agents in Siberia became alarmed for their own position.  Cables were dispatched to Europe pointing out the danger to French prestige which General Knox’s mission entailed.  If the English were to be made responsible for the reorganisation of the Russian Army, and were successful, this would tend to make New Russia rely more upon the English than the French, as had been the case hitherto; that it would be better to leave Russia without an army than have it organised under such influence.  These senseless fears of our French friends found willing listeners in Paris.  General Knox had already made some selections of officers and the business was well under way when a message from the Allied Council in Paris put an extinguisher on all his work.  His orders were cancelled, and he was told to do nothing until a French commander had been appointed, whose name would be forwarded later.

By this uninformed Allied interference a well-thought-out scheme of army reorganisation was hung up for four of the most precious months to Russia.  By the time General Ganin arrived the time for the project had passed and the whole business had been taken out of Allied hands.

The Russian situation at that time was such that four days’ delay would have been fatal, and if nothing had been done for four months we should have been hunted out of the country.

Finding Allied jealousy so great as to render all their efforts impotent, first General Bolderoff and then his successor, the Supreme Governor, began to organise armies on their own for the protection of the people and their property.  These armies were ill-equipped and badly disciplined—­not the kind of armies which would have been raised had General Knox’s plans been allowed to develop—­but they performed their duty, they captured Perm, and had increased to over 200,000 before General Ganin appeared on the scene.

When General Ganin reported himself to the Supreme Governor with the Allied Council’s orders to take over the command of the Allied and Russian forces in Siberia, he was met with a blank refusal from the Omsk Government.

I was consulted upon the question, and I am therefore able to give the reasons for their objection.  The Omsk Government’s position was a very simple one:  “Had General Knox or any other Allied commander organised, paid, and equipped the new Russian army he would have naturally controlled it until such time as a Russian Government could have been established strong enough to have taken over the responsibility.  The French would not allow this to be done, and we ourselves therefore undertook the duty.  Having formed our own army in our own country, it is an unheard of proposal that we should be forced to place it under the command of a non-Russian officer.  It would be derogatory to the influence and dignity of the Russian Government and lower the Government in the estimation of the people.”