From this position they never retreated, but Allied bungling had landed General Ganin, who is himself an able and excellent officer, in a not very dignified position.

Bolderoff, as I have stated, was at the Ufa front when Koltchak assumed supreme power.  He remained there in consultation with the Czech National Council and the members of the old Constituent Assembly for five or six days without a word as to his intentions.  It was a critical position for Koltchak, who did not know what he was doing or intended to do.  Hot-heads advised immediate action, but I suggested caution.  The subject-matter of Bolderoff’s conferences or whether he had any we do not know, but we do know this:  General Dutoff, who commanded the Russian armies south of Ufa, had some proposals from Ufa put before him, and replied advising caution, as he had it on unimpeachable authority that the English were behind Admiral Koltchak.  This statement, I was told, fell like a bombshell among the conspirators at Ufa, and soon after General Bolderoff returned to Omsk.  There he interviewed Koltchak as Supreme Governor, and made satisfactory statement relative to his absence.  He was offered a post, which he refused, stating that he wished to leave the country, as he did not believe that a dictatorship could help Russia out of her difficulties.  His request was granted, and so ended a very different interview between these two men from that at Petropalovsk a few days before.

Some time after this the Japanese representative at Omsk made a request to be informed whether General Bolderoff had been forced to leave the country, or had left voluntarily.  This was answered in a definite way in accordance with the facts.  In the same note the Japanese also demanded to be informed whether the British Army had supplied the train and guard which had taken the exiled Social Revolutionary Members of the Directorate to Chang-Chun, on the Chinese frontier.  This question was not answered quite so definitely, but the interest of the Japanese in these men shows how far the coup d’etat had upset their plans relative to the occupation of the Urals.

The Supreme Governor issued definite orders to the different isolated sections of the Russian forces.  All commanders obeyed these orders more or less except one, General Semianoff, whose headquarters were alongside that of the Japanese at Chita, from which he sent insolent refusals to recognise Koltchak’s authority.  Koltchak prepared to deal with this mutinous and buccaneering officer.  The Japanese at once plainly informed the Omsk Government that General Semianoff was under their protection, and they would not allow the Russian Government to interfere with him.