Realignments in Russian military intelligence before and after the Battle of Mukden

On 19 October 1904, Nicholas II dispatched his customary letter to the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II or, as the tsar called him in private correspondence, ‘dearest cousin Willy’. The message incorporated a notable phrase: ‘I will continue the war to the end, that is to the day when the last Japanese will be dragged out of Manchuria.’2