General Kuropatkin has had an education and a career which eminently
qualify him as a judge and critic of the Russian nation. For forty
years, as an active member of its military establishment, he has
watched its development, from the viewpoint of important posts in St.
Petersburg, Turkey, Central Asia, and the far East.
Kuropatkin was born in 1848 and was educated in the Palovski
Military School and the Nikolaiefski Academy of the general staff
in St. Petersburg. From there he went at once into the army, and, at
the early age of twenty, took part in the march of the Russian
expeditionary force to the central Asian city of Samarkand. He won
distinction in the long and difficult march of General Skobeleff's
army to Khokand. In 1875 he acted as Russia's diplomatic agent in
Chitral, and a year or two later he headed an embassy to Kashgar and
concluded a treaty with Yakub Bek.
When the Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1877, he became General
Skobeleff's chief of staff and took part in the battle of Loftcha and
in many of the attacks on Plevna. While forcing the passage of the
Balkans with Skobeleff's army, on the 25th of December, 1877 (O.S.),
he was so severely wounded that he had to leave the theater of war and
return to St. Petersburg. There, as soon as he recovered, he was put
in charge of the Asiatic Department of the Russian General Staff, and,
at the same time, was made adjunct-professor of military statistics in
the Nikolaiefski Military Academy. In 1879 the rank of General was
conferred upon him and he was appointed to command the Turkestan rifle
brigade in Central Asia. In 1880 he led a Russian expeditionary force
to Kuldja, and when the trouble with the Chinese there had been
adjusted, he was ordered to organize and equip a special force in the
Amu Daria district and march to the assistance of General Skobeleff in
the Akhal-Tekhinski oasis. After conducting this force across seven
hundred versts of nearly waterless desert, he joined General Skobeleff
in front of the Turkoman fortress of Geok Tepe, and in the assault
upon that famous stronghold, a few weeks later, he led the principal
storming column. After the Turkomen had been subdued, he returned to
European Russia, and during the next eight years served on the General
Staff in St. Petersburg, where he was entrusted with important
strategic work. In 1890 he was made Lieutenant-General and was sent to
govern the trans-Caspian region and to command the troops there
stationed.
He occupied this position six or eight years, and then, shortly after
his return to St. Petersburg, was appointed Minister of War. In
1902, while still holding the war portfolio, he was promoted to
Adjutant-General; in 1903 he visited Japan and made the acquaintance
of its political and military leaders; and in 1904, when hostilities
began in the Far East, he took command of the Russian armies in
Manchuria under the general direction of Viceroy Alexeieff.
Besides, he has written and published three important books.
No man perhaps, is better equipped, by education and experience, to
explain Russia's plans and movements in Asia; to tell the true story
of the Japanese war. And probably never, at least in this generation,
has an international matter of this magnitude been treated with such
frankness by a person so thoroughly and eminently qualified to discuss
it.