Originally written for the private use of my sons in case I did not
return, this narrative of events connected with the expedition to
Siberia must of necessity lack many of the necessary elements which go
to make a history. I wrote of things as they occurred, and recorded the
reasons and motives which prompted the participants. Many things have
happened since which seem to show that we were not always right in our
estimate of the forces at work around us. Things are not always what
they seem, and this is probably more evident in the domain of Russian
affairs than in any other. It would have been comparatively easy to
alter the text and square it with the results, but that would have
destroyed the main value of the story.

The statesman and the soldier rarely write history; it is their
misfortune to make it. It is quite easy to be a prophet when you know
the result. You can, as a rule, judge what a certain set of people will
do in a certain set of circumstances, but where you deal with State
policy which may be influenced by events and circumstances which have
not the remotest connection with the question involved, it is impossible
to give any forecast of their conduct on even the most elementary
subject.

The recent tragic events played out in the vast domain of Siberia are a
case in point. It is certain that Admiral Koltchak would never have gone
to Siberia, nor have become the head of the constitutional movement and
government of Russia, if he had not been advised and even urged to do so
by the Allies. He received the most categorical promises of
whole-hearted support and early Allied recognition before he agreed to
take up the dangerous duty of head of the Omsk Government. Had these
urgings and promises been ungrudgingly performed a Constituent Assembly
would be now sitting at Moscow hammering out the details of a Federal