ABSTRACT
In the middle of 1898, Count Muravev, the minister of foreign affairs, with whom I had not been on good terms, came to ask my opinion about a matter that Kuropatkin had raised in a letter to him. It concerned the fact that Austria was strengthening her artillery at a time when we were reequipping our infantry at great expense and could not afford to spend enough to catch up with her artillery. Kuropatkin wanted to know if it were possible to persuade Austria to refrain from building up her artillery if we agreed to refrain as well or, failing that, could we persuade Austria to maintain the same pace in building up her artillery that we did.
