History for ready reference, Volume 7
part 3, chapter 2
(Maunsel & Co. Dublin, 1908)._
Public meetings have been held in Ireland during the past year (1909) to support the demand of the Gaelic League "that the Irish language, both oral and written, and Irish history be made essential subjects for matriculation in the new national University, and that proper provision be made for the teaching of Irish in all its colleges."
IRELAND: A. D. 1901 (March). Census
"4,456,546 Persons (2,197,739 Males and 2,258,807 Females) were returned in the Enumerators’ Summaries as constituting the population of Ireland on the night of Sunday, the 31st of last March—thus showing a decrease since 1891 of 248,204 persons, or 5.3 per cent.—the decrease in the number of males was equal to 5.2 per cent., and in the number of females to 5.3 per cent.
"There was during the decade a decrease of 41,297 persons, or 3.5 per cent. in the Province of Leinster; 98,568, or 8.4 per cent. in the Province of Munster; 38,463, or 2.4 per cent. in the Province of Ulster; and 69,876, or 9.7 percent, in the Province of Connaught."
In 1841 the population enumerated in Ireland as a whole had been 8,196,597; in 1851 it had been 6,574,278; in 1861, 5,798,967; in 1871, 5,412,377; in 1881, 5,174,836; in 1891, 4,704,750. Excepting in 1861 the showing is a steady decrease, and this latest census finds the island almost half depopulated.
"According to the Summaries furnished by the Enumerators, 3,310,028 persons returned themselves as Roman Catholics, this number being 237,279 or 6.7 per cent under the number so returned in 1891; 579,385 were returned under the head of ‘Protestant Episcopalians,’ being a decrease of 20,718, or 3.5 percent., compared with the number tabulated under that head in 1891; 443,494 were returned as Presbyterians, being a decrease of 1,480 or 0.3 per cent. compared with 1891; the number of Methodists returned on the present occasion amounts to 61,255, being an increase of 5,745 or 10.4 per cent, on the number returned on the Census Forms in 1891."
In Dublin City, as extended under the Dublin Corporation Act of 1900, the population enumerated in 1901 was 289,108, being a gain of 20,521 since 1891. With the Urban Districts of Rathmines and Rathcar, Pembroke, Blackrock and Kingstown added, the total population of Dublin and suburbs was 373,179,—an increase in the decade of 27,220.
The following table shows the population of the 14 towns in which more than 10,000 inhabitants were found: compared with the enumeration of 1891.
Towns. 1891. 1901.
Belfast 273,079 348,965 Cork 75,345 75,978 Limerick 37,155 38,085 Londonderry 33,200 39,873 Waterford 26,203 26,743 Galway 13,800 13,414 Drogheda 13,708 12,765 Newry 12,961 12,587 Dundalk 12,449 13,067 Lisburn 12,250 11,459 Wexford 11,545 11,154 Lurgan 11,429 11,777 Kilkenny 11,048 10,493 Sligo 10,862 10,862
Total 554,446 637,222
IRELAND: A. D. 1902 (February). Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman at issue on the Home Rule question.
In a speech delivered at Liverpool in February Lord Rosebery pronounced a most positive funeral oration on what he assumed to be the death and burial of the Irish Home Rule question in British politics. A few days later Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, speaking at the annual meeting of the General Committee of the National Liberal Federation, took occasion to resurrect the supposedly buried issue and take it under his protection, as one of the responsibilities of the Liberal Party. {333} Home Rule, he said, was often spoken of as if it were "a strange, fantastic, almost whimsical and mad-cap policy, rashly adopted in a random way, to secure the Irish vote. It is to be easily and lightly dropped at any moment when an equal amount of support can be obtained from any other quarter! Not a very noble view of the case! Not, in truth, a very creditable or even a decent view of the case, but intelligible enough if there were in the way no principles and no facts." One such fact he found in the "fixed constitutional demand of the Irish people"; and Sir Henry concluded that the "old policy" remains "the sole remedy for the condition of Ireland, which is the most serious weakness in the whole British Empire and the most grave blot upon its fame."
By these two sharply opposed utterances the Liberals of the United Kingdom were called to decide which leading they would follow—that of Lord Rosebery or that of Sir Henry. Not being in power, however, nor measurably within reach of it, decision of the party did not need to be made in haste.
IRELAND: A. D. 1902-1908. Conditions in the matter of Disorder and Crime.
In the course of a debate in the British Parliament on conditions in Ireland, which took place on the 24th of February, 1909, Lord Percy, charging the Liberal Government with responsibility for an increase of disorder and crime since it came into power, brought statistics in evidence as follows: "Take the indictable offences against property and firing into houses. In 1906 the total number of these offences was 20; in 1907, 29; in 1908, 80. Outrages on the person by the use of firearms, agrarian and non-agrarian, were:—In the first 11 months of 1906, 20 agrarian and 36 non-agrarian; in 1907, 56 agrarian and 53 non-agrarian; in 1908, 128 agrarian and 65 non-agrarian. In addition to these open outrages there was the system of boycotting and intimidation. In cattle-driving—a new offence unheard of before the days of the Chief Secretary—there were 390 cases in 1907 and 681 in 1908. The number of persons under police protection on January 31, 1907, was 196; in 1908, 270; and in 1909, 335. The cases of boycotting had risen from 162 on November 30, 1905, to 874 on January 31, 1908. An impression prevailed that the cases of boycotting were ‘minor cases,’ and of no great importance; but the Lord Chief Justice, at the Clare Spring Assizes on one occasion, referring to these so-called minor cases, pointed out that no one dealt with or spoke to the boycotted person, and that he had to go 20 miles to Limerick for the necessaries of life. People also had to go to mass and to weddings protected by police; and he asserted that the Government could not point to a civilized country in Europe in which the Government would tolerate a large section of its population living daily and hourly under the shadow of a terror like this."
The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Birrell, retorted with the following: "For the purpose of making a comparison between the condition of Ireland to-day and as it was when the Government was led by the right honourable gentleman the leader of the Opposition, when they introduced and made permanent their Crimes Act, we must consider what was the state of things in 1886 as compared with what it is now. I will give the House the figures. Murders in 1886, seven; in 1908, one; manslaughter in 1886, three; now, none; firing at the person, 16; now, 15; firing into dwellings—and here is a most formidable addition, I admit—43; now, 66; incendiary fires and arson, 103; now, 54; killing, cutting, and maiming cattle—a horrible and brutal crime—73; now, 22—far too many; riots and affrays, nine; now, 13; threatening letters or notices, 434; now, 233; intimidation, 92; now, 57; injury to property, 150; now, 89; other offences, 136; now, 26; showing in 1886 a total of 1,056, and now a total of 576. On January 1, 1886, there were 175 persons wholly boycotted, and 716 partially boycotted—a total of 891. In those days, I admit, the police made no distinction between partial and minor boycotting. In 1887 there were 145 persons wholly boycotted, and 763 partially boycotted, making a total of 908. On January 1, 1909, there were 15 wholly boycotted, 10 partially boycotted, and 172 cases of minor boycotting, making in all 197. Persons under constant police protection on December 31, 1887, numbered 252, and those under protection by patrol, 704—a total of 956. On December 31, 1908, there were 74 persons under constant protection, 270 under protection by patrol, a total of 344 against the total of 956. I leave the House to draw their own inference from those figures."
An official return to Parliament, from the Royal Irish Constabulary Office, Dublin Castle, of the number of cases of boycotting and of persons boycotted throughout Ireland on the 31st day of January, 1908, and on various days in several preceding years, showed 5 cases of entire boycotting, affecting 26 persons, and 9 cases of partial boycotting, affecting 39 people, on the date mentioned in 1908; 4 cases of entire boycotting, affecting 20, with seven cases of the partial boycott, affecting 35, on the 31st of July, 1907. On the 31st of July, 1903, there had been 4 cases of entire and 21 cases of partial boycotting affecting 25 and 131 persons respectively; while the cases on the 31st of March, 1902, of entire boycotting had numbered 5, the partial cases 46, and they were directed in the first instance against 26 people, and against 275 in the second.
IRELAND: A. D. 1905. Defective working of the Land Purchase Act of 1903. Inadequacy of its financial provisions. Baffled in the Western Counties by cupidity of landlords.
The first two years of the working of the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903 sufficed to show that the splendid promise of that measure could not be realized satisfactorily without fundamental changes in its plan. By that time the agreements effected between landlords and tenants for transfers of land from the former to the latter called for purchase payments far in excess of the sums which the Act had provided for supplying at so early a stage of the operation. The process of transfer was checked and the feelings that helped it on were chilled by increasing delays in the completion of transactions when begun.
But this was not the worst disappointment in the working of the Act. Another more serious is charged to the cupidity of landlords in the poorer counties of the west. In the article by Mr. Thomas W. Russell from which a quotation is given above he explains it as follows:
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"It was quite impossible to apply the same rule to Connaught and to other similar areas as to Ulster, Leinster, and Munster. In the west the holdings are small and hopelessly uneconomic in their character. Parliament felt, and rightly so, that to make the occupier of a five-acre bog holding an owner was to do him no good. Such a feat in statesmanship merely freed the western landlord from a risky security and transferred the risk to the state. It was, therefore, enacted that the large grass holdings which abound in that region,—and which are held by graziers on a tenure of eleven months, the object of the term being to avoid the creation of a tenancy, —should be bought and wherever possible should be distributed among the small holders, thus rendering a decent living possible. And in several cases this has been successfully done by the congested districts board, with the very best results. … The landlords as a whole professed at the land conference and in Parliament their entire willingness to sell, provided they received a price equivalent when securely invested to their second-term net income. To enable this to be done the bonus of £12,000,000 was sanctioned by Parliament. The whole thing was a bargain—a clear case of contract. And what the western landlords have been guilty of is a simple breach of faith. They are quite ready to sell the bog holdings, the barren mountain tracts out of which a decent living cannot be had, demanding for this wretched land in many cases more than is being asked in Antrim and Down for the best land in these counties. But the grass ranches they refuse to part with. And so the whole plan of the act,—the whole scheme for the re-settling of the land, and raising the station of the small holder,—has been brought to naught.
"In this connection another difficulty has arisen. When the western sections of the act were being passed, Mr. Wyndham,—who was in grim earnest about these poor people,—provided for the sale of congested estates to the estates commissioners or to the congested districts board. Special inducements were given to sales under these sections. The cost of sale was borne almost entirely by the state, and the commissioners were authorized in such cases to spend money upon the improvement of the holdings. The policy was excellent. But the landlords have ruined it. They quickly discovered that if they sold to the estates commissioners the land would be inspected by an expert valuer, and its price would depend upon its value. This was not their idea of how things should be done. They preferred to sell to the tenant direct, against whom they could use the screw of arrears of rent, and from whom they could exact a higher price. Hardly a case of sale to the estates commissioners has taken place under these well-meant sections. And for the reasons stated. … The fact is, compulsory powers of purchase in all such cases ought to have been frankly given. But to mention the word compulsion to the then chief secretary was to send him into a fury. He would not hear of it."
_T. W. Russell, Workings of the Irish Land Purchase Act (American Review of Reviews, November, 1905)._
IRELAND: A. D. 1905. Formation of the Sinn Fein Party.
"While the outside world was looking to the Irish Parliamentary Party as the guardian of the national conscience of Ireland, a Young Ireland Party, determined, virile, thoughtful, idealistic and, strange though it may seem, practical, was gradually forming, becoming a power, sweeping away outworn ideas, preaching new and putting them into practice, and working wonders in the revival of a genuine national spirit throughout the country. … Naturally, and very gradually, the various units gravitated toward one another; and, less than two years ago, under the guidance of a Dublin boy named Arthur Griffith, they elected a National Council, and formed themselves into a party known as the ‘Sinn Fein Party,’ which included probably three-fourths of the national thinkers in Ireland. Since its inception, the Sinn Fein Party has been rapidly gaining power, raising itself upon the ruins of a fast crumbling Parliamentary agitation, and eventually leaping into greater popular prestige when, recently, the ludicrous Irish Councils Bill was submitted to the nation as the fruits of a generation of Parliamentary agitation.
"'_Sinn Fein_' is Gaelic for 'Ourselves.' The doctrine of the Sinn Fein Party is that the salvation of a nation is to be wrought out by the people and upon the soil of that nation, and it holds that ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ It asks Ireland to cultivate, what for a long time it neglected, self-reliance, and aims at regenerating the Irish nation, not merely politically, but also linguistically, industrially, educationally, morally and socially. Almost all preceding national movements made the grave mistake of considering politics coincident with patriotism; the Sinn Fein policy provides for all-round upbuilding of the nation, and is successfully working along many lines on which no political movement touched before."
_Seumas MacManus, Sinn Fein (North American Review, August, 1907)._
IRELAND: A. D. 1905 (December). Change of Government.
On the change of government which took place in the United Kingdom in December, Mr. Balfour resigning the Premiership and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman forming a Liberal Ministry, the Earl of Aberdeen was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Mr. James Bryce Chief Secretary for Ireland.
IRELAND: A. D. 1907. Effects of the Land Purchase Act as seen by a revisiting Irishman.
Notwithstanding the defects in the working of the Land Purchase Act, as described above, Mr. T. P. O’Connor, the well-known Irish journalist in London, on returning from a visit to Ireland in the spring of 1907 after a somewhat protracted absence, wrote enthusiastically to the New York Tribune of the happy wakening he had found in the country to a new life. "You are seeing in Ireland," said a lady to him, "not merely a revolution but a renaissance," and he found her characterization to be true. He concludes, too, that there was no exaggeration in her further remark, that "so much is going on in Ireland now that you dare n’t leave it even for a month." "Everybody," writes Mr. O’Connor, "seemed to be doing something and something new for Ireland"; with Catholics and Protestants working together, as they have never worked before. And the main cause of this "renaissance" is traceable to the working of the Land Purchase Act of 1903. Already, says Mr. O’Connor, under the working of this splendid measure, nearly half the soil of Ireland has changed hands, and "the second half will be transferred at a much accelerated speed."
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"For seven centuries there has been a continual, a bloody, a desperate war in Ireland between two races, and the prize for which they fought—was the land. … And now, at last, before our own eyes, in this generation of men to which we belong, this secular struggle is at an end; the battle has been fought and has been won; the land belongs again to the ancient Celtic race from which it was stolen centuries ago. … If you want to realize further what all this means, do not forget that these people who are now brought into full liberty are able to appreciate it the more from the fact that the greater part of them were born into slavery, and know all that slavery means. I myself, though no septuagenarian, can remember the time when the Irish farmers were driven to the polls to vote for their landlords like so many cattle. I remember the poor, wretched, cringing slaves which they had to be in those not very far off days; how they bowed and cried, ‘Yer Honor,’ at every second word; and how, in fact, they revealed by their outward bearing the knowledge that when they stood in the presence of the landlord they were confronted by the master of their life or death.
"The despair of the impossible situation in the Ireland of 40 or 50 years ago was worse almost than the servitude. There was no room left for hope in a system which permitted the landlord to rob the tenant of every addition the latter made to the wealth of the soil; and there could be no hope or prospect in a system which kept the tenant liable to eviction from his holding whenever the landlord wished to do so. And now realize that on half the soil of Ireland the people never see a landlord or a landlord’s representative; that every year brings them nearer to the time when they will be the absolute owners of their holdings; but they know that their children will secure full possession and complete ownership if they do not, and you can understand what a new strong tide of hope and exultation there must be in the breasts of these people."
IRELAND: A. D. 1907. The Evicted Tenants Act. The healing of an Irish Sore of Twenty Years.
"The passing of the Evicted Tenants Act in the recent session, defective though it may be in one respect, is an admission on the part of all parties in Parliament that a long pending Irish controversy must be closed, and that the demand persistently and pertinaciously made by the great majority of the Irish members and people for over twenty years for the reinstatement of a large body of evicted tenants must be conceded. …
"The wholesale evictions of tenants, whom it is now decided to reinstate, were primarily due to the agricultural crisis of 1885, when the great fall of price of Irish farm produce commenced. This averaged not less than 20 to 30 per cent. in respect of cattle and dairy produce, the main sources of income to Irish farmers. Tenants for the most part paid their rents in that year, hoping for better times, but many who lived from hand to mouth, with little or no margin, fell into arrears. The position was far worse in the following year, when it became clear that the fall of prices was a permanent one. The Land Court recognised this by fixing judicial rents at 18 to 20 per cent. less than those fixed between 1881 and 1885. An universal demand consequently arose on the part of all other tenants for a reduction of rent in proportion to the new range of prices. They claimed this not only in the case of yearly tenancies, but of holdings where judicial rents had been adjudicated before 1885, and of holdings under leases. The majority of Irish land-owners in 1886 recognised the justice of the claim, and allowed rebatements of rent, averaging between 20 and 30 per cent. in respect of all classes of holdings. The claim of the tenants was not for the forbearance of the land-owners, but was founded on right, on the traditional claim to a property in their holdings—a claim to which the Land Act of 1881 had given Parliamentary and legal sanction. That great agrarian Act had in fact established Dual Ownerships of land in Ireland. It secured to the occupiers a property in their holdings by enabling them to appeal to a Land Court for the settlement of rent, and by giving them fixity of tenure and the right of bequeathing or assigning their interests. Beneficent and generous as the Act was, it had serious defects. …
"As a result of these defects the Land Act of 1881, great as it was in principle, did not afford a sufficient remedy in the crisis caused by the great fall of prices in 1885-1886. A minority of Irish landowners refused to follow the example of the larger and better class of owners, and to make rebatements of rent in 1886. They justified their refusal on the ground that since the Act of 1881 the tenants had no longer a claim for forbearance in respect of rent. They insisted, therefore, on full payment, and began to evict on a large scale those in default. …
"Numerous combinations of tenants were formed to refuse full payment of rent and to resist evictions to the utmost. With the object of assisting and strengthening resistance of the tenants, a new form of combination was devised by Mr. T. Harrington, M. P., known as the ‘Plan of Campaign.’ The essential feature of it was the payment by the tenants of an estate adopting it of 50 per cent. of the rent due into a common fund, to be administered by a committee of tenants for the purpose of resisting eviction, and supporting the evicted families. The fund thus created was beyond the reach of the landowners and of the individual members of the combination. It afforded, therefore, great security for the maintenance of the combination.
"The tenants, before adopting the plan, were advised to offer arbitration of their rents to their landlords. If evictions took place the tenants were to stand by one another, and not to come to agreement with their landlords, except upon terms that the evicted men were to be reinstated in their holdings. Those taking farms from which tenants were evicted were to be rigidly boycotted.
"The plan thus devised was commended to the tenants of Ireland, where landowners refused reasonable abatements of rents, by many of the Irish members, such as Mr. Dillon, Mr. W. O’Brien, and others. … Mr. Parnell held aloof from it, not so much from disapproval of its method, as from fear that it might injure the Home Rule cause with English constituencies. Many of the Catholic Bishops expressed their disapproval. It was denounced by the Government as a fraudulent and dishonest attempt to break contracts. They prosecuted Mr. Dillon and other leaders for conspiracy under the ordinary law. The Irish judges pronounced the scheme of combination to be a criminal conspiracy on the ground that it subjected landlords to unlawful pressure. …
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"By the commencement of the session of 1887 the Royal Commission appointed by the Government to report on agricultural prices and the claim for a revision of judicial rents, presided over by Lord Cowper, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, reported in favour of all that had been contended for by Mr. Parnell in his Bill of the previous year. They emphatically affirmed that a great and permanent fall of prices had taken place. They advised that judicial rents, fixed before the year 1885, should be revised and reduced, and that leaseholders should be admitted to the privileges of judicial rents. The Government, at the instance, as it is believed, of Mr. Chamberlain and the Liberal Unionists, were compelled to legislate in accordance with this report. …
"This measure, which so greatly extended the Act of 1881, was accompanied by a new Coercion Act dispensing with trial by jury in agrarian cases, and enabling resident magistrates—mere nominees of the Government—to try and convict in such cases. …
"The Act of 1887, by providing a legal alternative, put an end to further combinations of tenants. The Plan of Campaign was not adopted in any fresh cases. It had been put in force on 111 estates where the owners refused general abatements of rent. In 94 of these it had the effect of inducing the owners to come to terms with their tenants for reductions of rent of a reasonable character and sufficient to avoid further trouble. In seventeen estates only the owners were obdurate, and declared war against their tenants. …
"After the passing of the Coercion Act wholesale evictions were resumed on the Campaign estates, and were supported by all the forces at the disposal of the Government. … In 1891, a great step was taken by the late Government in the direction of a more conciliatory attitude to the evicted tenants. In the Land Purchase Act of that year a clause was inserted enabling the Land Commissioners to admit the evicted tenants as purchasers of holdings, where their former landlords agreed to their reinstatement. The clause was to have effect for one year only, and very few transactions took place under it. …
"Nothing more was done till 1903. Meanwhile this Irish sore remained unhealed. The evicted men continued to live in temporary dwellings near to their former homes, patiently expecting reinstatement at some future time. Nor have they been mistaken in this respect, though many of them had to wait nine more years, and the remainder still longer.
"In 1903 it became advisable for the Tory Government to bid for the support of the Irish Nationalists for Mr. Wyndham’s measure aiming at an universal scheme of land purchase in Ireland—a scheme offering very great inducements to landlords to sell to their tenants. It was again provided in this Act that the evicted tenants might be reinstated, not as tenants, but as owners by purchase of their former holdings, Provision was made for the advance of money from an Irish fund for buying out the Planters, for rebuilding the houses of the evicted men, for restocking their farms, and for buying untenanted land on which to replace the evicted men, where it was not possible to reinstate them in their former farms. … As a result, however, all the remaining Campaign estates except two were dealt with under this Act, and nearly all the men evicted from them were reinstated on the most favourable terms. …
"The Act of 1903, however generous and successful so far as it went, failed to deal with the whole case. It is wanting in backbone—in coercive power as against a residuum of landowners. Two Campaign estates—the Clanricarde and the Lewis estates—remained undealt with, and about 2000 tenants evicted from other, not Campaign, estates were left out in the cold. It was to supply coercive power for dealing with these remaining cases that the recent Act was passed."
_Eversley, The Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act (Fortnightly Review, December, 1907)._
IRELAND: A. D. 1907 (May). Proposed Bill for the creation of a Representative Council. Rejected by the National Party. Abandoned by the Government.
A Bill proposing half-way progress toward Home Rule for Ireland was introduced in the British Parliament by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Augustine Birrell, in May, 1907. Its main feature was the creation of a Representative Council, not to be legislative in function, but having large administrative powers. This Council was to consist of 107 members, eighty-two elected by the Irish householders (including peers and women), and twenty-five nominated by the crown. Eight of the existing Irish departments, including agriculture, public works, congested districts, and the registrar’s office were placed under its control and a new one, the education department, created. In addition to the $10,000,000 of annual expenditure controlled by these departments, the bill provided for an increase of $3,250,000 to be spent on public works and "general improvement." The provisions of the Bill did not extend to the constabulary, the courts, the prisons, or the Land Commission. The Lord Lieutenant was to have general supervisory control.
Apparently the Liberal Ministry had been led to expect that Mr. John Redmond and other leaders of the Irish National Party would accept this measure, as an installment of the self-government they claimed for Ireland. If so, then the leaders who encouraged that expectation were overborne by their followers, for the Bill was denounced and rejected, on motion of Mr. Redmond, at a convention of the National Party, in Dublin, on the 21st of May, and was therefore withdrawn.
In offering this plan of government the English Liberals had turned back to what was the original Gladstone project of Irish home rule, contemplated and discussed, without result, by the Liberal cabinet in 1885. As Mr. Morley relates in his Life of Gladstone, there were two main opinions in the cabinet at that time: "One favored the erection of a system of representative county government in Ireland. The other view was, that besides the county boards, there should be in addition a central board for all Ireland, essentially municipal and not political; in the main executive and administrative, but also with a power to make bye-laws, raise funds, and pledge public credit in such modes as parliament should provide. {337} The central board would take over education, primary, in part intermediate, and perhaps even higher; poor law and sanitary administration; and public works. The whole charge of justice, police, and prisons would remain with the executive."
This defines, practically, a measure of home rule within the same limits that Mr. Birrell proposed. It appears to have been suggested to Mr. Gladstone by Mr. Chamberlain and to have been accepted by the premier, with the understanding that it would satisfy Mr. Parnell, for the time being, at least. It was not acceptable, however, to a majority of the Cabinet, and, when rejected, Gladstone remarked bitterly to one of his colleagues: "Within six years, if it please God to spare their lives, they will be repenting in sackcloth and ashes." The wearing of the sackcloth was not postponed so long.
IRELAND: A. D. 1909. Amended Land Purchase Act.
The defects which have been noted above in the very promising Land Purchase Act of 1903 raised increasing difficulties in the operation of it, until the pressing need of amendatory legislation was acknowledged by all parties. Wide differences of view, however, between different interests involved made the attainment of such legislation no easy task. A Bill for the purpose, brought forward in the autumn of 1908, by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Birrell, was pushed over into the next session, and reintroduced in March, 1909. Mr. Birrell then reviewed the circumstances which had rendered amendments of the Act necessary, stating that "28 millions had now been advanced for land purchase, and that there were pending agreements involving the advance of 56 millions. The total acreage of the land sold and agreed to be sold exceeded 7,000,000 acres. The country was now in the very middle of this great agrarian revolution. Mr. Wyndham, the author of the Act of 1903, thought that £100,000,000 would suffice to carry this revolution through, but already £84,000,000 had been accounted for and there was every reason for supposing that Mr. Wyndham’s estimate should have been £183,000,000. With regard to the loss on the flotation of land stock, he expressed the opinion that for a decade, at any rate, it would be unsafe to assume that a higher issue price would be obtained than £85, and he calculated that if nothing were done a charge of £855,000 annually would eventually have to be made good by the ratepayers. It was impossible to expect them to bear this enormous burden, and if the law were not amended the scheme of land purchase must break down. His proposal in regard to the bonus was that, instead of fixing it at 3 per cent., it should be paid according to a scale under which the lower the price given for the land the higher would be the bonus. For this at least £3,000,000 would be required over and above the original £12,000,000. By this Bill the Exchequer was assuming, everything considered, a total capital liability of about £30,000,000. Calling attention to the principal provisions of the Bill, he reminded the House that landlords were empowered to take payment partly in cash and partly in stock at 92. He then mentioned the steps that were being taken to accelerate the work of the Estates Commissioners and stated that advances to the amount of £10,000,000 were never likely to be exceeded in one year; they now had reached £8,000,000."
On a question arising as to one part, called a "bonus," provided for in the transaction of purchase, Mr. Wyndham, who had been Chief Secretary in 1903, and author of the original Act, said. "Some honourable members sitting for English constituencies might think that the bonus was not necessary. They might think that if the State lent its credit, landlord and tenant could come to terms, and that the bonus was something thrown in as a sop to the landlords. If the transfer of land in Ireland were sporadic, he agreed that landlords might sell without the assistance of a direct bonus from the State. The question to be solved in Ireland, however, was that of the general transfer of ownership of land throughout the country, and that, broadly speaking, could not be effected unless the present owners received an equivalent to the income which they now enjoyed. In the past nearly all the cases of the sporadic transfer of ownership of land had been got rid of, and there were now left those cases which could not be dealt with unless a bonus were given. It had been generally recognized by all parties that a bonus should be given rather than that the land difficulties in Ireland should continue, and six years ago the decision arrived at was supported by the unanimous opinion of all parties in the House. Now it was proposed that the method of giving a substantial bonus at a uniform rate should be set aside in such a way as to increase the discrepancy between pending and future agreements. Already by altering the rate of instalments in future agreements, and by giving stock instead of cash, they had created a wide difference between the two classes. On the top of that they were now going to do away with the bonuses and apply a method which he thought he would be able to show would prove most injurious; and if it did prove injurious, it would touch the cardinal point in the whole matter."
Mr. Wyndham opposed the new Bill on this point, apparently without success. Strong opposition to a grant of the power of compulsory purchase which the Bill embodied was raised, in the House of Commons, as well as ultimately in the House of Lords. Its contemplated changes in dealing with what are called "congested estates" and "congested districts," being those in which the holdings of tenants are too small to yield a decent living, were also a subject of criticism and opposition.
The Bill received some amendment in the House of Commons, before having its third reading and passage on the 18th of September. In the House of Lords it met with harder treatment, and was returned to the Commons with amendments which the latter rejected _in toto_. Informal conferences brought about an accommodation of the differences between the two Houses and placed the Act on the statute book. The peers yielded on the question of compulsory purchase, as well as with regard to the tribunal which should have a deciding authority in the matter, these being the two points most in dispute.
IRELAND: A. D. 1909 (January). Disclosures of Poverty by the Old Age Pensions Act.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.
IRELAND: A. D. 1909 (October). Organization of the two new Irish Universities.
See (in this Volume) Education: Ireland.
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IROQUOIS THEATER, Burning of the.
See (in this Volume) CHICAGO: A. D. 1903.
IRRIGATION.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
ISLE OF PINES: United States Supreme Court Decision concerning.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1907 (APRIL).
ISTHMIAN CANAL.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL.
ISVOLSKY, Alexander: Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. His Aide Memoire on Macedonian Affairs.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
ISVOLSKY, Alexander: Convention with Great Britain.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
ITAGAKI, Count.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
----------ITALY: Start--------
ITALY: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.
ITALY: A. D. 1901. The First Year of the Reign of King Victor Emmanuel III. Greatly improved conditions. Restored Liberty of Speech and Meeting. Neutrality of Government in Labor Disputes. Zanardelli and Giolitti in the Ministry.
In the early months of 1901, when Volume VI. of this work went to press, Italy was in an uncertain and anxious state. It had not recovered from the shock of the assassination of King Humbert, and could not foresee what length the sobering effects of that tragedy would have. It had hope that the new reign just beginning would quiet the dreadful disorders that had become rife in Parliament and in the country at large, but fear to the contrary was more than equal, perhaps, to the hope. Happily it was the hope that found justification within the passing year, as will be learned from the following report of conditions, published in the last month of 1901:
"Those who expected that King Victor Emmanuel III’s reign would be coincident with a marked improvement in Italy, have so far been amply justified. Few ventured to hope that his Liberal Ministry under Signors Zanardelli and Giolitti would weather a Parliamentary session. As it is, despite some weakness and a few mistakes, it has come out triumphant. Compared with eighteen months ago, Italian politics have undergone what is little less than a revolution. The closing months of the last reign saw the most dangerous constitutional crisis that United Italy has known. A reactionary Government was threatening Parliamentary liberty; the Liberals and Socialists were making a desperate stand, which at all events preserved the Constitution, and perhaps saved Italy from revolution. Now the signs of danger have almost passed. The Crown is fast getting back its popularity. Parliament is asserting itself as it has not done for many years, and is able to give its time to quiet, useful work. The Extreme Left, stubbornly obstructionist last year, is giving an independent but fairly cordial support to the Ministry. Outside Parliament Italians have for once a government ‘which allows them to breathe and move and speak.’ For the first time since Crispi introduced coercion, seven years ago, there is liberty of speech and public meeting. Still, occasionally, the unteachable censorship suppresses an issue of some democratic paper. But there is no prosecution for political speeches, no arbitrary political imprisonment, no harrying of cooperative or benefit societies from empty fear of political designs or at the bidding of shopkeepers.
"But this is of small account beside the altered attitude of the Government towards labour questions. Hitherto its influence had been always more or less on the side of the employers. Trade Unions were dissolved and sometimes their members arrested; their organisers were imprisoned for ‘exciting to class-hatred,’ and under the military courts of 1898 it was an offence to plead, however moderately, in defence of the claims of labour. When the agricultural labourers of the lower Po valley struck for a living wage, the Government sent soldiers to reap the crops. Suddenly and radically all this has changed. At last the law is observed, and Trade Unions are allowed the legal sanction which nominally they have had for years. The Government has announced its neutrality in labour disputes, so long as there is no violence or interference with individual liberty. The result has been an epidemic of strikes. The Italian working man, long cowed by his powerlessness before the alliance of employer and Government, is using his new freedom to raise his miserable wage. Signor Giolitti estimated in the middle of last June that since the beginning of the year there had been 511 strikes, affecting 600,000 workmen (a number almost unparalleled even in England) and resulting in an increase of wages by nearly £2,000,000, a huge sum in poverty-stricken Italy. Probably by now the total of strikers has reached a figure which has never been equalled within a year in any European country. … Thanks to the vigorous advocacy of arbitration by the Chambers of Labour, the urban strikes have generally been short, and, so far as I know, except for some not very serious trouble at Naples, there has been no case of disorder in them."
_Bolton King, The New Reign in Italy (Contemporary Review, December, 1901)._
ITALY: A. D. 1902 (June). Renewal of the Triple Alliance.
See (in this Volume) TRIPLE ALLIANCE.
ITALY: A. D. 1902-1904. Coercive Proceedings against Venezuela concerted with Great Britain and Germany. Settlement of claims secured. Reference to The Hague.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
ITALY: A. D. 1903 (March). General Strike in Rome. See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
ITALY: A. D. 1903 (October). Change of Ministry.
Signor Giuseppe Zanardelli, President of the Council, or Premier, since February, 1901, gave his resignation to the King in October, 1903, on account of ill-health, and a new Ministry was formed by Signor Giolitti, who had been Minister of the interior in the administration of Zanardelli, and who still retained that portfolio after assuming the presidency of the Council.
ITALY: A. D. 1903-1905. Initiation of the International Institute of Agriculture by the King.
See (in this Volume) AGRICULTURE.
ITALY: A. D. 1904. Tokens of a Disposition to bring the Church and the State into better Accord.
Several marked tokens of a conciliatory disposition on both sides of the long break in relations between the Papacy and the Government of the Kingdom of Italy appeared in the course of the year 1904. The Government brought in a bill for increasing the public salaries of curés. Its diplomatic agents in South America were instructed to give attention to a Papal nuncio who travelled thither on a mission from the Vatican as though he represented the King. The King conveyed a piece of ground to the Pope which enlarged his domain. A Cardinal took part in a reception to the King at Bologna and sat at table with them. These were such amenities between the royal and pontifical courts as had not been seen for a generation, and they seemed to bear much significance; but little came from them in the end.
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ITALY: A. D. 1904 (October-December). Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. The Government sustained in the Elections. Increased Participation by the Catholics.
The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved by royal decree on the 17th of October, and elections appointed to be held on the 6th and 13th of November. The canvass was more animated than usual, Catholics taking part in it, and in the subsequent voting, more numerously than hitherto. The Ministry of Premier Giolitti, representing the Liberals and Moderates in politics, between groups of the extreme Right and Left, secured a strong majority. Those of the Left lost a number of seats, though the Socialists claimed to have made large gains in the popular vote.
ITALY: A. D. 1905. Effect of the Russo-Japanese War on the Triple Alliance.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.
ITALY: A. D. 1905. Action with other Powers in forcing Financial Reforms in Macedonia on Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
ITALY: A. D. 1905 (September). Earthquake in Calabria.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES.
ITALY: A. D. 1905-1906. Illness and Retirement of Premier Giolitti. The Fortis and Sonnino Ministries. The Demoralized Railway Service. Catholic Abstention from Politics relaxed. Return of Giolitti to Power.
The Italian Premier, Signor Giolitti, was forced by illness to withdraw from office early in the year, and Signor Fortis was commissioned by the King to form a new Ministry. He did not succeed, and Signor Tittoni was then required by the King to take the lead in Government with the late colleagues of Signor Giolitti. Tittoni soon resigned, however, and Fortis was again called, late in March, to form a Cabinet, which he now found himself able to do. In the following December, however, a reconstruction of the Fortis Ministry occurred, the King requiring the Premier to retain his place, while his colleagues were partly changed.
Throughout the year the Government and the country were greatly troubled by a general demoralization in the management and service of the railways. Travel and freight transportation were exasperatingly delayed; accidents were of constant occurrence, and strikes, having no result but the public affliction, were repeated again and again.
Early in the summer an encyclical on the attitude to be taken by the faithful in political controversies was addressed to the Italian bishops by the Pope. Not distinctly, but by inference, it was taken to be a relaxation of the policy of abstention from politics, and to prompt political action by Catholics, but always under clerical guidance and advice.
The Fortis Ministry held its ground in the Government, against much attack, until February, 1906, when it lost the support of a majority in the Chamber, and gave place to a coalition Cabinet formed by Signor Sonnino, which conducted the administration till the following May, when, on a question of the purchase of the Southern railways, it suffered defeat. Whereupon Signor Giolitti returned to power, in the face of a threat from the employees of the railways that they would proclaim a general strike if he took up the reins again. The strike did not occur, and a notable access of vigor and activity of Government appeared.
ITALY: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ITALY: A. D. 1906 (April). Violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS.
ITALY: A. D. 1906-1909. The Giolitti Administration. Its recent resignation.
The Giolitti Ministry was maintained in the direction of the Government for nearly four years, by virtue of the energetic and efficient administration it conducted. Its capabilities were demonstrated somewhat notably before the close of 1906, by the conversion of the Italian rentes (Government bonds) from 4 to 3 per cent.,—a financial operation which had been discussed and fumbled over, apparently, for a long time. Premier Giolitti brought the question to a determination in the Chamber after less than one day of debate; and the conversion of 8,000,000,000fr. of national debt was so readily accepted by the rente-holders that only 1,700,000fr. needed to be paid off.
Relations between the Government and the Papacy were improved by the breach of the latter with France, which led to the substitution of Italy for France as the protector of Catholics and Catholic interests in the Empire of the Turks. This was not, however, agreeable to Austria, and began a coolness between these two of the parties to the Triple Alliance which all the disturbing occurrences in the Near East have tended since to increase. The Alliance with Austria and Germany had been renewed in 1902; but there have been several occasions within the past three years on which Italian ill-feeling toward the former has flamed out quite threateningly in Press and Parliament, and sometimes in popular demonstrations.
A disturbing agitation of the question of religious instruction in the schools occurred in 1908, bringing demands from anti-clerical parties for its prohibition; but the Government was upheld in refusing such action. A disturbing excitement in Sicily was produced that year by the conviction, after a much prolonged and sensational trial, of Signor Nasi, ex Minister of Public Instruction, on charges of embezzlement of public moneys. The convicted Minister was a Sicilian, and his fellow-countrymen resented the prosecution of him as an indignity to themselves. To pacify them, Signor Nasi, after a short detention in his own house, had the remainder of his sentence of imprisonment remitted.
The Giolitti Ministry came to its end somewhat unexpectedly on the 2d of December, 1909. It had brought forward, not long before, a Bill embodying proposals for the reform of taxation, avowedly to transfer some larger proportion of its burden from the poor to the rich, especially by death duties and income taxes. When the election of a committee to deal with the Bill occurred December 2, the opponents of the Government secured a majority, whereupon Premier Giolitti and his Cabinet resigned. A new Ministry was formed, under Baron Sonnino, the leader of the Opposition. The parliamentary support it must depend on is said to be made up of extremely contradictory elements.
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ITALY: A. D. 1908. Falling off in Emigration.
See (in this Volume) IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: ITALY.
ITALY: A. D. 1908 (December). The Awful Destruction of Messina and Reggio by Earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
ITALY: A. D. 1908. Election of a Jewish Mayor of Rome.
Whether specially significant or not, the election in Rome, in 1908, of Ernesto Nathan, a Jew and an ex-Grand Master of the Order of Free Masons, to be Mayor of the City, was an event which excited wide interest and remark. Mr. Nathan’s birth, and his education partly, were in England, but he acquired citizenship in Italy, and rose in reputation and influence at Rome, until he had become the leading figure in the hard fought municipal election of the winter of 1908, which defeated the Church party and elected sixty Radical members out of eighty composing the City Council. The Mayor is elected by the Council, and it gave the office to Nathan.
ITALY: A. D. 1909. Church Movement of Agricultural Labor Organization.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
ITALY: A. D. 1909. Tardy Construction of "Dreadnoughts."
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
ITALY: A. D. 1909 (March). Parliamentary Elections. Socialist, Republican, Radical, and Catholic Gains. Conservative Losses. Large, but Reduced Majority for the Government.
Extensive changes in the representation of the numerous parties in Italian politics resulted from the Parliamentary elections held in March, 1909. As finally reported, after seventy four second ballots had been taken, the outcome was as follows:
From seven Deputies the Catholics rose to 24. The Socialists went up from 26 to 42, the extreme Radicals from 32 to 42, and the Republicans from 19 to 24. The parties of the Extreme Left had thus risen from 77 to 108. The Moderate Liberals, or Constitutional Opposition, as they call themselves, declined the most, numbering between 60 and 70. But the gains made by the parties of the extreme Left had only recovered for them the ground they had lost in the election of 1904.
"An interesting feature of the elections is that the Pope’s supporters are said to have taken a more active part than they have done since the beginning of united Italy. The Papal inhibition against going to the polls was removed in seventy-two constituencies, or one-seventh of the whole number voting. The result has been no gain in Rome, where the Anti-Clerical bloc repeated its victories of the preceding year, and a fairly slight gain in the rural districts. In general, it may be questioned whether the Papal _non expedit_ has really kept Catholics out of politics to a very considerable extent. If we take the enrolled electors in Germany, we find that they constitute 20 per cent. of the entire population; in France the ratio is nearly 24 per cent.; in Italy it is less than 8 per cent. At first sight that would indicate that an enormous number of Italians boycott the polls. We find, however, that the Italian franchise demands not only the ability to read and write, but a certain degree of additional elementary education. At the same time we find that in 1901 nearly 44 per cent, of all males over twenty years of age were illiterate. This at once nearly doubles the electoral ratio. Add the fact that there are very considerable property qualifications for the franchise, and we get for Italy a ratio not far removed from Germany’s 20 percent. It would follow that the number of Italians who refrain from availing themselves of their electoral rights is not very large."
_New York Evening Post, March 8, 1909._
ITALY: A. D. 1909 (May). Proposed Payment of Members of Parliament.
A Press despatch from Rome, May 9, 1909, reported:
"Leave was asked yesterday to introduce in the Chamber of Deputies two Bills for the payment of members of Parliament. According to the first Bill, proposed by Signor Galli, all Deputies and Senators would receive £240 a year; the second Bill, proposed by Signor Chimienti, would make a payment of 24s. for every sitting attended. Signor Giolitti said that the idea of the payment of members of Parliament was evidently gaining ground, and that the Government would not oppose the introduction of the Bills. On the other hand, he deprecated the contention which had been advanced, that the non-payment of Deputies was in any way responsible for a scanty attendance, and earnestly recommended the Chamber to give the question its very careful consideration before committing itself either way."
ITALY: A. D. 1909 (November). Naval strength.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
----------ITALY: End--------
ITO, Prince Hirobumi: Visit to the United States. Mission to St. Petersburg.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904.
ITO, Prince Hirobumi: President of the Japanese Council. His Party.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (June).
ITO, Prince Hirobumi: Resident-General in Korea.
See (in this Volume) KOREA: A. D. 1905-1909.
ITO, Prince Hirobumi: His assassination.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).
J.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1906. Harmony of relations between the White minority and the Colored majority of inhabitants. How explained.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: JAMAICA.
JAMAICA: A. D. 1907. Destructive Earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: JAMAICA.
JAMES, Professor William: Plan for ending War.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904.
JAMESON, Dr. Leander S.: Premier of Cape Colony. His Continuance of the Policy of Cecil Rhodes.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
JAMESON, Dr. Leander S.: At the Imperial Conference of 1907.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
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JAMESON, Dr. L. S.: In Movement for South African Union.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
JAMESTOWN TERCENTENIAL EXPOSITION.
The three hundredth anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America was celebrated on the site of the settlement, at Jamestown, Virginia, by an Exposition which was opened by President Roosevelt on the 26th of April, 1907. The advantages of the place for naval display tempted Congress to give that character, in the main, to so much of the celebration as was organized under national auspices that other features were quite eclipsed. As an illustration of three centuries of progress from the beginnings of civilized life in the United States it cannot be said to have had much success. But the show, from many nations, of battle ships and the paraphernalia of naval war was superb.
JANNARIS, Professor, Imprisonment of.
See (in this Volume) CRETE: A. D. 1905-1906.
----------JAPAN: Start--------
JAPAN: A. D. 1901 (July). Unveiling of a Monument to commemorate the Advent of Commodore Perry.
A monument to commemorate the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan, in 1853, was unveiled with imposing ceremonies, at Kurihama, on the 14th of July, 1901, that being the forty-eighth anniversary of the event. Commodore Rodgers, with three vessels of the Asiatic Squadron of the United States, attended to represent the United States officially in the ceremonies of the day. The monument was erected by the Japanese "America Association of Japan."
JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904. Persistent occupation of Manchuria by the Russians. Japanese negotiations and demands, without satisfaction.
"In spite of repeated promises to evacuate the points seized and held by Russian forces when, after the relief of the Legations, these forces were withdrawn from Peking and Chili, to be concentrated in Manchuria [see Manchuria, in Volume VI.], and in disregard of the interests of the other allies, the policy of keeping all that she had gained, and of gaining more as far as possible, was steadily pursued by Russia. … It was the probable effect of a continued occupation of Manchuria by Russia upon their business interests which led Great Britain and America to wish that the repeated Russian assurances of good faith toward China and toward all foreign nations should manifest themselves in works. The case could not be wholly the same with Japan. Her interests of trade were, indeed, if not at the time so large, more close and vital than those of any other nation outside of China. But her other interests were incomparable. So that when Russia failed to carry out her engagements, even under a convention which was so much in her favor [see, in this Volume, China. A. D. 1901-1902], there was a revival of suspicion and apprehension on the part of the Japanese Government and the Japanese people. Manchuria and Korea both pointed an index finger of warning directed toward Russia.
"It was to further a peaceful adjustment of all the disturbed conditions of the interests of Russia and Japan in the Far East that Marquis Ito went, on his way home from his visit to the United States, at the end of 1901, on an unofficial mission to St. Petersburg. The failure of the overtures which he bore discouraged those of the leading Japanese statesmen who were hoping for some reconciliation which might take the shape of allowing Russian ascendency in Manchuria and Japanese ascendency in Korea. It also strengthened the conviction which prevailed among the younger statesmen that the St. Petersburg Government regarded Manchuria as not only its fortress in the Far East, but also as its path to the peninsula lying within sight of Japan’s shores. ‘The Japanese Government,’ says Mr. D. W. Stevens, ‘at last felt that the vital interests of Japan might be irrevocably jeopardized in Korea as well as in Manchuria, if it continued to remain a mere passive spectator of Russian encroachments; and in August, 1903, it resolved to take a decisive step. In the most courteous form and through the usual diplomatic channels Japan intimated at St. Petersburg that her voice must be heard, and listened to, in connection with Far Eastern questions in which her interests were vitally concerned.’ The answer of Russia was the appointment of Admiral Alexeieff as Viceroy over the Czar’s possessions in the Far East, with executive and administrative powers of a semi-autocratic character. … Negotiations having in view the peaceful adjustment of the conflicting interests of Russia and Japan in the Far East, which were begun by the latter country in the summer of 1903, were further continued. Mr. Kurino, the Japanese Minister at St. Petersburg, was informed by Baron Komura, who was then Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the recent conduct of Russia at Peking, in Manchuria, and in Korea, was the cause of grave concern to the Government at Tokyo. ‘The unconditional and permanent occupation of Manchuria by Russia would,’ said Baron Komura, ‘create a state of things prejudicial to the security and interests of Japan. The principle of equal opportunity would thereby be annulled, and the territorial integrity of China be impaired. There is, however, a still more serious consideration for the Japanese Government; that is to say, if Russia was established on the flank of Korea it would be a constant menace to the separate existence of that empire, or at least would make Russia the dominant power in Korea. But Korea is an important outpost in Japan’s line of defence, and Japan consequently considers its independence absolutely essential to her own repose and safety. Moreover, the political as well as the commercial and industrial interests and influence which Japan possesses in Korea are paramount over those of other Powers. These interests and this influence Japan, having regard to her own security, cannot consent to surrender to, or share with, another Power.’
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"In view of these reasons, Mr. Kurino was instructed to present the following note to Count Lamsdorff, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs:
‘The Japanese Government desires to remove from the relations of the two empires every cause of future misunderstanding, and believes that the Russian Government shares the same desire. The Japanese Government would therefore be glad to enter with the Russian Imperial Government upon an examination of the condition of affairs in the regions of the extreme East, where their interests meet, with a view of defining their respective especial interests in those regions. If this suggestion fortunately meets with the approval, in principle, of the Russian Government, the Japanese Government will be prepared to present to the Russian Government their views as to the nature and scope of the proposed understanding.’
"The consent of Count Lamsdorff and the Czar having been obtained, on August 12th articles were prepared and submitted by the Japanese Government which it wished to have serve as a basis of understanding between the two countries. The essential agreements to be secured by these articles were:
(1) A mutual engagement to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Chinese and Korean empires, and to maintain the ‘ open door’ in these countries; and
(2) a reciprocal recognition of Japan’s preponderating interests in Korea and of Russia’s special interests in Manchuria.
These demands were not altered in any very important way by Japan during all the subsequent negotiations. It was their persistent rejection by Russia, together with her long delays in replying while she was meantime making obvious preparations of a warlike character, which precipitated the tremendous conflict that followed some months later."
_George T. Ladd, In Korea with Marquis Ito, chapter 10 (copyright, 1908, C. Scribner’s Sons)._
JAPAN: A. D. 1902. Defensive Agreement between Great Britain and Japan.
An agreement of great importance, in the nature of a defensive alliance, between Great Britain and Japan, was concluded at London on the 30th of January, 1902. On the publication of the Treaty, a few days later, it was accompanied by a communication from the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Marquis of Lansdowne, to Sir C. MacDonald, the British Minister at Tokyo, in which the actuating motives of the Agreement were set forth, as follows:
"Sir: I have signed to-day, with the Japanese minister, an agreement between Great Britain and Japan, of which a copy is inclosed in this dispatch.
"This agreement may be regarded as the outcome of the events which have taken place during the last two years in the Far East, and of the part taken by Great Britain and Japan in dealing with them. Throughout the troubles and complications which arose in China consequent upon the Boxer outbreak and attack upon the Pekin legations, the two powers have been in close and uninterrupted communication, and have been actuated by similar views. We have each of us desired that the integrity and independence of the Chinese Empire should be preserved, that there should be no disturbance of the territorial status quo either in China or in the adjoining regions, that all nations should, within those regions, as well as within the limits of the Chinese Empire, be afforded equal opportunities for the development of their commerce and industry, and that peace should not only be restored, but should, for the future, be maintained.
"From the frequent exchanges of views which have taken place between the two Governments, and from the discovery that their Far Eastern policy was identical, it has resulted that each side has expressed the desire that their common policy should find expression in an international contract of binding validity. …
"His Majesty’s Government have been largely influenced in their decision to enter into this important contract by the conviction that it contains no provisions which can be regarded as an indication of aggressive or self-seeking tendencies in the regions to which it applies. It has been concluded purely as a measure of precaution, to be invoked, should occasion arise, in the defense of important British interests. It in no way threatens the present position or the legitimate interests of other powers. On the contrary, that part of it which renders either of the high contracting parties liable to be called upon by the other for assistance can operate only when one of the allies has found himself obliged to go to war in defense of interests which are common to both, when the circumstances in which he has taken this step are such as to establish that the quarrel has not been of his own seeking, and when, being engaged in his own defense, he finds himself threatened, not by a single power, but by a hostile coalition."
JAPAN: Agreement between Great Britain and Japan, signed at London, January 30, 1902.
"The Governments of Great Britain and Japan, actuated solely by a desire to maintain the _status quo_ and general peace in the extreme East, being moreover specially interested in maintaining the independence and territorial integrity of the Empire of China and the Empire of Corea, and in securing equal opportunities in those countries for the commerce and industry of all nations, hereby agree as follows:
"Article I. The High Contracting Parties having mutually recognized the independence of China and of Corea, declare themselves to be entirely uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies in either country. Having in view, however, their special interests, of which those of Great Britain relate principally to China, while Japan, in addition to the interests which she possesses in China, is interested in a peculiar degree politically, as well as commercially and industrially, in Corea, the High Contracting Parties recognize that it will be admissible for either of them to take such measures as may be indispensable in order to safeguard those interests if threatened either by the aggressive action of any other Power, or by disturbances arising in China or Corea, and necessitating the intervention of either of the High Contracting Parties for the protection of the lives and property of its subjects.
"Article II. If either Great Britain or Japan, in the defence of their respective interests as above described, should become involved in war with another Power, the other High Contracting Party will maintain a strict neutrality, and use its efforts to prevent other Powers from joining in hostilities against its ally.
"Article III. If in the above event any other Power or Powers should join in hostilities against that ally, the other high contracting party will come to its assistance and will conduct the war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement with it.
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"Article IV. The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the interests above described.
"Article V. Whenever, in the opinion of either Great Britain or Japan, the above-mentioned interests are in jeopardy, the two Governments will communicate with one another fully and frankly.
"Article VI. The present agreement shall come into effect immediately after the date of its signature, and remain in force for five years from that date. In case neither of the High Contracting Parties should have notified twelve months before the expiration of the said five years the intention of terminating it, it shall remain binding until the expiration of one year from the day on which either of the High Contracting Parties shall have denounced it. But if, when the date fixed for its expiration arrives, either ally is actually engaged in war, the alliance shall, ipso facto, continue until peace is concluded. In faith whereof the undersigned, duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this agreement, and have affixed thereto their seals."
In August, 1905, the above Treaty was replaced by a fresh Agreement of similar tenor.
See, below, JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (AUGUST).
JAPAN: A. D. 1902 (August). Success of Prince Ito’s Party in the Parliamentary Election.
"Thus far parties, so called, have been magnetized around men. They have not crystallized along the axes of principles. Marquis Ito, ultra-conservative in politics but radical and reformer in things social, is at one pole. Count Okuma, radical in politics, sternly conservative of social life and the traditionary ethics, is at the other.
"The August elections of 1902 show apparently at least that the day of party government has dawned, for now and for the first time Marquis Ito leads in the Lower House a host of the friends of the Constitution (_Rikken Seiyu Kai_) that has an overwhelming majority of seats and in time of a ‘division’ nearly if not wholly a plurality of votes. The returns are just in and the table stands about thus:
Seiyu Kai (Constitution Friends) 193 Progressists 106 Independents 56 Imperialists and others 21
"It was a smart stroke of policy for Ito, two years ago, to unite in one organization [see in Volume VI. of this work, Japan: A. D. 1900 (August-October)] the Radicals under Hoshi Toru and his own following of ‘clansmen, capacities and young statesmen.’ It was the union of the strong and the subtle, taking the name not of a party but of an ‘Association,’ with a purpose of upholding the constitution (in the Prussian sense), in order to control both the educational and the economic policy of the country, to complete the radical transformation of the Japanese into a modern man, and ‘to screen Japan’s Western evolution against all possibility of reaction.’"
_W. E. Griffis, in The Independent._
JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (June). The Marquis Ito accepts Presidency of the Council to strengthen the Government.
To strengthen the Ministry of Count Katsura in the Diet, the Marquis Ito, powerful head of the Rikken Seiyu-kai (Association of the Friends of the Constitution, foreseeing trouble to come from the proceedings of Russia in Manchuria, consented in June to accept the post of President of the Council, and was joined in the Council by Marquis Yamagata and Count Matsukata. The Government was thus greatly reinforced for dealing with the difficulties that now approached very fast. A section of the Seiyu-kai seceded from it, however, and formed the Doshishukai (Assembly of Fellow-thinkers), under Count Itagaki.
See (in Volume VI.) JAPAN: A. D. 1900, AUGUST-OCTOBER.
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (February-July). War with Russia. Sudden opening of Hostilities. Occupation of Korea. Battles at the Yalu. The Armies in Manchuria. Movement of General Nogi on Manchuria.
Simultaneously with the rupture of diplomatic relations with Russia, on the 6th of February, 1904, the Japanese Government dispatched from Sasebo a fleet of 7 battle-ships, 18 cruisers, and flotillas of torpedo boats and destroyers, under Vice-Admiral Togo, with transports conveying troops, to open operations of war. The transports were convoyed to Chemulpho, the port of Seoul, Korea, by 4 cruisers and a number of torpedo boats, under Rear-Admiral Uryu; while Admiral Togo proceeded with the remainder of his fleet to Port Arthur. The troops sent to Chemulpho were landed on the 8th, and Admiral Uryu, the next day, attacked a Russian cruiser and gunboat in Chemulpho harbor with such effect that they were destroyed by their commanders. On the night of the 8th Togo’s torpedo boats were sent against the Russian fleet at Port Arthur and crippled it to a serious extent. A second body of 14,000 troops was landed at Chemulpho on the 15th.
The Japanese had now a strong footing in Korea, with Seoul securely in hand, and the First Japanese Army, under General Kuroki, was ready to begin its northward advance. Phyangyang was occupied on the 20th, after which further troops could be landed at Chinampho, saving a long march. By the end of March there were about 45,000 men in the force moving toward the Yalu. The first encounter with the Russians was near Chengju, where 600 of the latter’s cavalry were driven back. On the 4th of April the Japanese advance guard reached the Yalu, which forms the boundary between Korea and Manchuria, and occupied Wiju, near its mouth, the opposing cavalry having been withdrawn to the opposite bank of the river on the preceding day. The main body arrived at Wiju April 20. The Russians, on the other side of the Yalu, were then concentrating a force of about 25,000 men, with Liaoyang and Fenghuangcheng for its first and secondary bases.
For ten ensuing days both armies were busy in preparations and manoeuvres, the one for attempting to force a crossing of the Yalu, the other to resist it. How their preparations compared in effectiveness is described by an experienced correspondent, David Fraser, who accompanied the Japanese and wrote the story of the campaign, publishing it subsequently in a book entitled "A Modern Campaign." The difference that Mr. Fraser saw between the painstaking, the thoughtfulness and the carefully acquired knowledge which went into the Japanese preparation for their attack,—the concealment of their forces, the masking of their batteries, the obscuring of all that they did,—and the contrasting carelessness of the Russians in the same particulars, was the difference that gave success to the one and brought defeat on the other. {344} Before the Japanese moved they knew everything they needed to know,—the fordable places on the streams they had to cross, the points of advantage on every mile of the ground to be traversed, the positions of the enemy,—and the Russians did not. And the Japanese were able to repeat much of the same feinting and maneuvering by means of which they had forced the passage of the Yalu at the same place, against the Chinese, in 1894.
On the 25th of April the Japanese were ready to bring their preparations into use, and on that and the next two days they drove the Russian outposts from the islands they needed to occupy, and began building bridges at night. In the end, ten bridges were built, some of them invisible to the enemy. Many signs of Japanese movement down the river were then exhibited to the Russians. A Japanese battery became busy at a point some distance below Wiju; gunboats and other vessels were collected in that direction; troops were in motion in the same direction; but quiet reigned at and around Wiju, the batteries behind which had not yet betokened their existence. That quiet in this part of the Japanese line was broken suddenly at midday on the 29th, when a pontoon train, with accompanying troops, was hurried to the river, the pontoons launched, manned and paddled to the opposite bank. A Russian outpost which fired on these invaders drew the first revelation of a hitherto hidden and silent Japanese battery, and fled from its shells. Possession of the further shore was thus secured for sufficient time to enable the construction of the pontoon bridge, which the strong current in the river made a difficult task. It was ready, however, for the crossing of the river that night by the infantry of the entire 12th division of the Japanese Army.
The thrilling episode of the battle of the next two days was the opening of fire from the hitherto hidden and unsuspected batteries of Japanese heavy guns. Mr. Fraser tells us that the Russians had believed it impossible to bring heavy artillery over the Korean roads, and were in consternation when the howitzers belched forth their shells in a fairly overpowering way. "The trees," he says, "screened the flashing of the Japanese guns from the Russian eyes. There was no smoke to indicate their whereabouts. The indirect fire of the howitzers was as deadly as if it had been aimed point-blank. The Russians, on the other hand, fired at random into the belt of trees; they had been able to locate only two of the Japanese guns. Their fire had little or no effect upon the well-protected Japanese gunners. In ten minutes the Russian shooting grew wild. … After twenty-five minutes both batteries were silenced."
It is the testimony of all witnesses of the fighting on both days of the battle, especially on the 1st of May, that the Russians showed desperate courage; but every advantage, of position, of equipment, of numbers, and, above all, of generalship, was in favor of the Japanese. They drove the enemy from all his entrenchments, and entered Manchuria, to pursue there an equally successful campaign, for the same reasons, of superior ability and more thorough preparation.
The reported loss of the Japanese in the conflicts on the Yalu was 5 officers and 218 men killed, 33 officers and 780 men wounded. They captured 22 field guns, 8 machine guns, a quantity of rifles and ammunition, and took 628 prisoners, including 18 officers. General Zasulich, the Russian commander, reported 70 officers and 2324 men killed, wounded and taken prisoners. Another Russian report of losses gave 28 officers and 564 men killed, 38 officers and 1081 men wounded, and 6 officers and 679 men missing.
The Russians retreated on Fenghuangcheng, but made no stand there, and the Japanese, who followed, occupied the place on the 6th of May. The advance of the latter was halted at that point until late in June, waiting for operations in other parts of the field.
Meantime, between the 4th and the 22d of May, the Second Japanese Army, General Oku commanding, had been landed near Pitsewo, on the western coast of the Liao-tung peninsula, and this began a general advance on the 25th. It fought a severe battle on the following day, at Nanshan, or Kinchou, from which the Russians fell back. The victory of the Japanese cost them heavily, their reported loss being 739 killed and 5455 wounded; while General Stössel, the Russian commander, reported a loss of 30 officers and 800 men killed and wounded.
On June 6th this Second Army was divided into two, one of which, passing to the command of General Nogi, became the Third Japanese Army, and was marched presently toward Port Arthur, to open the famous siege of that stronghold. General Oku, retaining about 50,000 men in the Second Army, and starting northward on the 15th, was opposed by Russian forces under General Stackelberg. The first important conflict was on June 15 at or near Telissu station, which gave the battle its name. Again the Russians were forced back, with a loss of 103 officers and about 2600 men, killed and wounded, besides a missing list of 764. The Japanese loss was 50 officers and 1113 men killed and wounded. Hard fighting occurred again between the 6th and 9th of July, on the approach of the Japanese to Kaiping and the Kaiping River, beyond which their opponents were driven. "The occupation of Kaiping and the country immediately to the north placed General Oku’s army on the edge of the Liao Valley, opened the way to the Yingkon and Newchwang, and facilitated his further advance to the north by allowing supplies to be received from the sea, thus shortening his line of communications."
A Fourth Japanese Army, under General Nodzu, had now been landed at Takushan, on the eastern coast of the Liao-tung peninsula, and was reconnoitering toward Oku’s forces, as well as toward the First Japanese Army, which had remained in the vicinity of Fenghuangcheng until the 24th of June, waiting for these cooperative masses of troops to be got into place. It was now being moved in three columns, one of which was soon in touch with the Fourth Army (Nodzu’s), and the two began working to the west and northwest. The Russians gave up Fenshuiling, and by the 9th of July, when Oku, with the Second Army, occupied Kaiping, the three Japanese armies in the northern part of the Liao-tung peninsula—the First, Second, and Fourth—"were united on a front from Kaiping east to Fenshuiling, thence northeast through Motienling, with covering detachments of Kobi troops eastward at Saimachi, Hsienchang and Huaijen. {345} The Russians were concentrated in the Liao Valley at Tashihchiao, Haicheng, Anping and Liaoyang." On the 6th of July Field Marshal Oyama had left Tokyo to take active command of this united army, and the great operations of the Manchurian campaign were about to begin.
_Epitome of the Russo-Japanese War, United States War Department, Second [Military Information] Division, General Staff, Number 11._
At this time General Nogi, with the Third Japanese Army, was fighting his way slowly toward Port Arthur, against obstinate resistance, not arriving at the front of the land defences proper until the 14th of August.
The Russians had evacuated Dalny (formerly called Talienwan), with its fine harbor, on Talienwan Bay, thirty miles distant from Port Arthur, and the Japanese had occupied it on the 30th of May. This was an acquisition of great importance to them.
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (February-August). The War with Russia: Siege of Port Arthur. The Naval Surprise. Unreadiness of the Defence. Naval operations of the six months. Fate of the Russian fleets in the East.
Mr. E. K. Nojine, "accredited Russian War Correspondent," who went through the whole experience at Port Arthur, from first to last of the war, and who wrote what he entitles "The Truth about Port Arthur," opens his severely critical narrative with the following statement:
"When, one hour before midnight on February 8, 1904, our warships began to belch fire from their many steel mouths, and the seaward batteries suddenly thundered forth their angry death-dealing tidings, no one dreamed that the noise was War, for no one had taken the constant rumors of the rupture of diplomatic relations and of approaching hostilities at all seriously. … Although the sky in the East had for weeks been blood-red with the menace of immediate war, yet when it came the surprise was absolute, its horror intensified by our complete unreadiness."
What this writer tells of the unreadiness, and of the slowness with which the serious need of more readiness was comprehended by the controlling authority at Port Arthur, during the weeks that passed before the stronghold was fully invested, goes almost beyond belief. He writes bitterly and contemptuously of General Stössel, who held command of the district, and admiringly of General Smirnoff, Commandant of the fortress, whom Stössel could overrule. He seems to have been sustained in his judgment by the court-martial which subsequently condemned Stössel to death.
The sound of midnight battle on its sea-front (February 8-9) which announced a beginning of war to the surprised garrison of Port Arthur came from the attack of Admiral Togo’s torpedo boats on the Russian fleet in the harbor. Three of the Russian ships were crippled, but not seriously. The next day Togo made a general attack with his whole fleet of fifteen vessels, including five battle-ships, and did some damage to four more of his enemies’ vessels; but a fortnight is said to have repaired them all. The general result of the two operations was "to insure the at least temporary immobility of the Port Arthur fleet," so that "the transport of the army from Japan to Korea might go on without fear of molestation." A squadron was then detached to look after four cruisers at Vladivostock, and that harbor was cannonaded for the same purpose on the 6th of March. Meantime, on the 9th of February, a Russian cruiser and a gunboat, attempting to leave Chemulpho harbor, were driven back, and were then destroyed by their Russian commander.
The main Japanese fleet hovered constantly near Port Arthur, not only maintaining a strict blockade, but making frequent close approaches, to sink vessels and plant mines in the entrance channels of the harbor; to harass the Russian fleet with torpedo attacks, or to come boldly within range of its shore defenses and give battle to them, as well as to bombard the fortress and town. There were heavy bombardments on the 10th and the 22d of May. The Russian fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Makaroff, made retaliatory sorties, in returning from one of which, on the 13th of April, the admiral’s flag-ship, the Petropalovsk, struck and exploded a line of floating mines. The huge battle-ship was so shattered by the explosion that she sank in two minutes, carrying down the admiral, the famous painter, Verestchagin, who was his guest, and 550 other officers and men. Of all on board only 85 were saved.
In the course of the next month the Japanese suffered several of the same disasters, two of their battle-ships, the Hatsuse and the Yashima, and two other vessels of less importance, being blown up by the explosion of mines. Of the crew of the Hatsuse nearly 500 perished, while all on board the Yashima were said to have been saved. By collision in a fog one of the Japanese cruisers was sunk, with all but 90 of her crew. And the three most calamitous of these happenings, to the two battle-ships and the cruiser, occurred on the same day—the 15th of May. Admiral Togo’s fleet was weakened very seriously by these losses. Somewhat later the same fate befell a number of Russian ships, but the loss in them was less.
Though watched by a Japanese squadron under Vice-Admiral Kamimura, the Russian war-ships at Vladivostock were able to slip out for occasional cruises, in which they captured or destroyed Japanese transports and merchant ships. In more than one instance—notably that of the Kinshu-Maru—the soldiery on captured transports refused to surrender and committed "hara-kiri" in a body, or were engulfed by the sea. "It is quite true that the work done by the Vladivostock squadron was not great in amount, but they must have caused some inconvenience to the military forces of Japan engaged in the campaign."
On the 23d of June Rear-Admiral Vithöft, who had succeeded the late Admiral Makaroff in the naval command at Port Arthur, sailed out of the harbor with six battle ships, five cruisers and ten torpedo boats, apparently intending to offer battle to the Japanese. The Russians had repaired their damaged vessels and now seemed to have a fleet that was equal to Togo’s in strength, since he opposed only four battle-ships to their six. Nevertheless when the Japanese approached them they withdrew, returning to Port Arthur, pursued by torpedo-boats, and nearly losing the battle ship Sevastopol, which struck a mine and was disabled for six weeks.
{346}
Little occurred during that period on the naval side of the Port Arthur campaign. Then, on the 10th of August, it was reopened startlingly, to be ended with practical completeness within the next few days. On that morning the Port Arthur fleet and the Vladivostock squadron put to sea from their respective harbors, evidently attempting a junction. The Port Arthur fleet was the first to encounter its enemy, which it did the same day, when no more than 25 or 30 miles out from the port. Admiral Vithöft now had with him only five battle ships, having left one, probably disabled, behind. With these were the four cruisers, two gunboats and a number of torpedo craft. Admiral Togo brought against this force four battle-ships and four armored cruisers in the battle that ensued. It "took the form of a long-range engagement between the fleets, steering nearly the same course towards the east. … At a time which is variously reported, but probably about 6.15 p. m., a 12-inch shell … burst near the conning tower of the Cesarevitch [the flagship], killing Admiral Vithöft and wounding the captain of the ship. At the same time the Cesarevitch’s steering gear was damaged, the helm jammed, and she made a sudden sheer to port. This threw the Russian line into confusion. … The Russian formation was now broken up, and the ships fell into a confused group at which the Japanese directed a hot fire at the comparatively short range of 3500 yards. At times the Russian ships were hidden by the smoke of exploding shells, and about 7 p. m. their fire slackened perceptibly. One report states that a second-class battle-ship and two coast-defence vessels had joined the Japanese, besides another ship of a class not certainly known. The whole twelve Japanese ships concentrated their fire on the six Russian battle-ships and four unarmored cruisers till 8 p. m. Prince Ukhtomsk, who had succeeded to the Russian command on Admiral Vithöft’s death, then signalled to the fleet to follow him, and turned toward Port Arthur. All could not follow, and some made for shelter in other ports, harassed by torpedo attacks, but not otherwise pursued.
The result of the Russian sally from Vladivostock was much the same. The three armored cruisers from that port were not intercepted by the Japanese until the morning of the 14th, three days after the defeat of the Port Arthur fleet which they had hoped to join. They were then attacked by four armored and two unarmored cruisers. They fought obstinately and suffered frightful losses in officers and men,—415 wounded and 251 killed. One of the ships, reduced to helplessness, was sunk by its own surviving crew, most of whom were picked up by the Japanese. The other two escaped to Vladivostock in a wrecked state.
These engagements "really ended the naval campaign of 1904. Of the ships [from Port Arthur] that got through the Japanese fleet, one battle ship, the Cesarevitch, and three destroyers were disarmed and interned at Kiachow (Tsingtau); one cruiser, the Askold, and one destroyer had the same fate at Shanghai, and another cruiser, the Novik, was destroyed … at Korsakovsk. A third cruiser, the Diana, was disarmed and interned at the neutral French port of Saigon. One destroyer had been seized at Chefoo by the Japanese for disregard of Chinese neutrality, and one was wrecked on the coast of Shantung. The rest of the fleet which got back to Port Arthur remained there only to be destroyed in nearly every case by their own crews, to save them from the fate of being surrendered to their enemy on the fall of the fortress. … The grand total of the Russian loss [of officers and men] in the six battle-ships and four cruisers amounted to 81 killed and 420 wounded. … The total Japanese loss, as reported at the time, was 61 killed and 124 wounded." Later statements brought the total loss up to 225.
_Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, The Naval Annual, 1905, chapter 7._
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (July-September). The War with Russia: Campaign in Manchuria. Japanese advances; Russian retreats. The great battle and Japanese victory at Liao-Yang.
On the 4th of July the Russians, who had given up Motienling to the Japanese five days before, made an attempt to recover it, but failed. They repeated the attempt on the 17th, and again without success. On the 10th a force from the Fourth Japanese Army (Nodzu’s), advancing from Fenshuiling toward Tomucheng, met with a repulse. The right column of Kuroki’s army (the First) fought a considerable engagement with the Russians at Hsihoyen on the 19th. Oku’s army (the Second), advancing from Kaiping, fought them at Tashinchiao on the 24th. Nodzu was engaged with them again on the 31st at Tomucheng, and Kuroki’s right column at Yushulingtzu on the same day; while the left column, simultaneously, expelled them from Yangtzuling. On the 2d of August the Russians retired from Haicheng and the Japanese occupied it the following day. The Russians had been steadily forced back to the vicinity of Liao-Yang, where they had prepared themselves for a determined stand.
"The front of the Russian forces at and in the vicinity of Liao-Yang extended from Anshantien through Lantzushan and the mountain range east of Anping to the Taitzu River. The Japanese front extended from Haicheng through Tomucheng and Yantzuling to Yushulingtzu."
_Epitome of the Russo-Japanese War, United States War Department, Second [Military Information] Division. General Staff, Number 11._
Both sides were now making ready for the first of the two most terrific battles of the war; but the month of August was near its close before the Japanese began their assault on the formidable works behind which the Russians awaited their attack. In the "Epitome" cited above the effective Russian force taking part in this struggle is estimated at about 140,000, commanded by General Kuropatkin.
Lord Brooke, Reuter’s special correspondent in Manchuria, in his book entitled "An Eye-witness in Manchuria," describes the battle of Liao-Yang as "the biggest artillery battle of which history has record." The Russians occupied a line of rocky hills south and east of Liao-Yang. Oku opposed their right and center; Nodzu the center and left; Kuroki was farther east, intending to force the passage of the Tai-tze-ho and reach the rear of their main body. Artillery on both sides opened the battle at dawn, August 30, and a terrible duel was fought for five hours. {347} Then, at half-past eleven, General Oku delivered the first infantry assault, which cost a fearful loss of life, and failed. Late in the afternoon a resolute turning movement on the Russian right was attempted by the Japanese and pressed until darkness came, with success only to the extent of driving the enemy from one village. Then a night attack on the Russian center was made, and that, too, was repelled.
The morning of the 31st brought a renewal of the artillery duel, followed by assault after assault from Oku’s indomitable troops on the Russian right flank, with the result of driving it back to the cover of the railway embankment. Meantime General Kuroki, whose army was on the extreme right of the Japanese line, had forced the passage of the Tai-tze-ho River, at a ford 26 miles east of Liao-Yang. This compelled Kuropatkin to withdraw some of his troops from the outer fortifications south and east of Liao-Yang and send them against Kuroki. The crisis of the struggle was now in the battles fought on the next two days with Kuroki, in vain attempts to cut him off from the river ford and crush his not large army. At the same time the Japanese were making a direct attack on Liao-Yang and endeavoring to cut Kuropatkin’s communications with Mukden. Neither Russians nor Japanese had success in these attempts, but the former were brought to a situation which compelled retreat. On the fourth of September they evacuated Liao-Yang and withdrew from the surrounding works. "As soon as the evacuation began," wrote Lord Brooke, "the Japanese guns opened fire on the Russians, who had for line of retreat only the railway bridge and the two pontoons across the Tai-tze-ho. Nevertheless the retirement was carried on with great coolness, and the loss sustained in crossing the river was comparatively small in view of the difficult position from which the Russians had to extricate themselves. All the artillery was got away. But if the evacuation of Liao-Yang was cleverly effected, the army of Kuropatkin was still in great danger, and the Commander-in-chief seemed really afraid that a large part of his force would be cut off. It was a reasonable apprehension, for General Kuroki’s army began the day with renewed vigor. … In a melancholy frame of mind the whole army marched northward, with Kuroki continually pressing its flank and the fear that Oku would ere long be on his heels."
Pursuit by the Japanese was given up on the morning of September 6th.
In the "Epitome" of the war, prepared and published by the American Army Staff, the total Russian loss in the Liao-Yang battles is given as reported to have been 54 officers and 1810 men killed; 252 officers and 10,811 men wounded; 5 officers and 1211 men missing. The Japanese reported a total loss of 17,539 officers and men, without details.
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (October). War with Russia: Quiet Aspect of Life during the War. Spartan Discipline of Japanese Feeling and Conduct.
"For all industrial civilization the contest is one of vast moment;—for Japan it is probably the supreme crisis in her national life. As to what her fleets and her armies have been doing, the world is fully informed; but as to what her people are doing at home, little has been written.
"To inexperienced observation they would appear to be doing nothing unusual; and this strange calm is worthy of record. At the beginning of hostilities an Imperial mandate was issued, bidding all non-combatants to pursue their avocations as usual, and to trouble themselves as little as possible about exterior events;—and this command has been obeyed to the letter. It would be natural to suppose that all the sacrifices, tragedies, and uncertainties of the contest had thrown their gloom over the life of the capital in especial; but there is really nothing whatever to indicate a condition of anxiety or depression. On the contrary, one is astonished by the joyous tone of public confidence, and the admirably restrained pride of the nation in its victories. Western tides have strewn the coast with Japanese corpses; regiments have been blown out of existence in the storming of positions defended by wire-entanglements; battle-ships have been lost; yet at no moment has there been the least public excitement. The people are following their daily occupations just as they did before the war; the cheery aspect of things is just the same; the theatres and flower displays are not less well patronized. The life of Tokyo has been, to outward seeming, hardly more affected by the events of the war than the life of nature beyond it, where the flowers are blooming and the butterflies hovering as in other summers. Except after the news of some great victory,—celebrated with fireworks and lantern processions,—there are no signs of public emotion; and but for the frequent distribution of newspaper-extras, by runners ringing bells, you could almost persuade yourself that the whole story of the war is an evil dream.
"Yet there has been, of necessity, a vast amount of suffering—viewless and voiceless suffering—repressed by that sense of social and patriotic duty which is Japanese religion. … The great quiet and the smiling tearlessness testify to the more than Spartan discipline of the race. Anciently the people were trained, not only to conceal their emotions, but to speak in a cheerful voice and to show a pleasant face under any stress of moral suffering; and they are obedient to that teaching to-day. It would still be thought a shame to betray personal sorrow for the loss of those who die for Emperor and fatherland."
_Lafcadio Hearn, A Letter from Japan (Atlantic Monthly, November, 1904)._
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (May-January). War with Russia: Operations against Port Arthur. Preliminary battles. Investment and Siege. The Defences. Desperate assaults in August. Story of Lieutenant Sakurai. The assault on 203 Metre Hill and its capture. Surrender of the Fortress. Trial and condemnation of General Stössel.
As stated heretofore, the Japanese began landing their Second Army, under General Oku, at Petsiwo, for operations against Port Arthur, on the 4th of May. Very quickly thereafter the railway was cut and Port Arthur was blockaded by land as well as by sea. On the 8th the last train from the north was brought in. By the 25th Oku was ready to advance, and on the following day he attacked the Russians at Kinchou (the battle bearing sometimes the name of Nan-shan), and expelled them from that position, the loss of which, according to the correspondent Nojine, sealed the fate of Port Arthur. {348} He accuses General Stössel of having boastfully assumed that the Japanese could never take Kinchou, denouncing as traitors all who questioned the sufficiency of its fortification and urged the strengthening of the works. The expulsion from Kinchou necessitated the abandonment of the important port of Dalny, which was done with great haste on the night of the 26th. "In Dalny," says Nojine, "there were numerous buildings, docks, and the most splendid breakwaters running out into the sea for a distance of one and a half miles. … Owing to want of time nothing except a few of the railway bridges was blown up. … Besides the numerous town, harbor and railway buildings, there was an immense amount of private house property, as well as large warehouses, stocked with food and stores of all sorts, both public and private. The enemy got possession of them all undamaged, just as they were. After the capture of Arthur the Japanese confessed that by not destroying Dalny we had assisted them enormously in their difficult task of disembarking their siege-train, and that the railway had enabled them easily to get it into position in the investing lines. …
"The enemy having now taken complete possession of Dalny, at once used it as their base. There, quietly and comfortably, without any interference from us, they carried out the landing of troops for the investment. Ten transports would arrive daily, bringing everything necessary for the concentrating army. The railway from Dalny and all the rolling stock was in perfect order; … our fleet did not hinder them in any way; they had command of both land and sea."
On the 6th of June Oku’s army was divided, that general leading part of it (still called the Second Army) northward, leaving the remainder, as a Third Japanese Army, under General Nogi, to conduct the investment and siege of Port Arthur.
At about this time, according to Nojine, Stössel was persuaded by Smirnoff to permit the latter to fortify some of the outer hills of the peninsula, which had been neglected hitherto; these were Kuen-san Hill, the Green Hills, Angle Hill, Wolf’s Hill, Ta-ku-shan and Sia-gu-shan hills. "The latter," says Nojine, "were of immense importance, as they were quite inaccessible, and protected the whole of the western front of the Fortress, but only so long as Wolf’s Hills were in our possession." On the 26th and 27th of June the Japanese attacked and captured Kuen-san and Green Hills. The latter were recovered by the Russians on the 4th of July, but they failed to retake Kuen-san. The loss of the latter was very serious; for the Japanese from its summit could look into the works on the Green Hills and, by telephone, direct the fire of their batteries on them.
Until the 26th of July not much occurred, as the assailants were busy strengthening the positions they had acquired. Then they began a determined attack on Green Hill, and continued it through two days. On the morning of the 28th the Russians gave up the position and drew back towards Port Arthur, to what is called the Wolf’s Hills line. They were driven from this on the 30th, and the close investment of Port Arthur began then.
_E. K. Nojine, The Truth about Port Arthur, chapters 11-22._
As described in the "Epitome of the Russo-Japanese War" prepared for the United States of America General Staff, the immediate "defences of Port Arthur, divided into eastern and western sectors by the valley through which the railway enters the town, consisted of permanent masonry forts whose gorges were connected by the old Chinese Wall, temporary works constructed just prior to and during the siege, and connecting and advance trenches. The west sector followed an irregular crest, with an elevation of about 500 feet, around the new town, and terminated on Laotiehshan, the highest point in the vicinity, with an elevation of about 1000 feet. The east sector encircled the old town at a distance of from two to two and a half miles, running along an irregular crest, about 350 feet in elevation, within which was an elevation (Wangtai or Signal Hill) of about 800 feet. The permanent forts were polygonal in trace and had ditches with caponieres and galleries. The gap between the two sectors was covered by the fort on Paiyushan (Quail Hill).
"Of the works most intimately connected with the siege the Sungshushan, Ehrlungshan, North and East Tungchikuanshan, Itzushan, and Antzushan forts were strong permanent fortifications. The two Panglungshan forts, East and West, were semi-permanent redoubt-shaped fortifications; 203 Meter Hill and Aksakayama were semi-permanent works with two lines of advance trenches. Kuropatkin Fort was a strong field-work with deep ditch; the Shuishihyung lunettes were also provided with ditches, but not so deep. P. H., Kobu and Hachimakiyama were more in the nature of semi-permanent trenches with bomb-proofs."
_Epitome of the Russo-Japanese War, United States War Department, Second [Military Information] Division, General Staff, Number 11, pages. 28-29._
"In this fortress, for the first time, were utilised all those terrible agencies of war which the rapid advance of science in the past quarter of a century has rendered available. Among these we may mention rapid-fire guns, machine-guns, smokeless powder, artillery of high velocity and great range, high explosive shells, the magazine rifle, the telescopic sight, giving marvellous accuracy of fire, the range-finder, giving instantaneously the exact distance of the enemy, the search-light, the telegraph and the telephone, starlight bombs, barbed-wire entanglements, and a dozen other inventions, all of which were deemed sufficient, when applied to such stupendous fortifications as those of Port Arthur, to render them absolutely impregnable.
"The Russians believed them to be so—certainly the indomitable Stössel did. And well he might, for there was no record in history of any race of fighters, at least in modern times, that could face such death-dealing weapons and not melt away so swiftly before their fury as to be swept away in defeat. But a new type of fighter has arisen, as the sequel was to tell."
_Richard Barry, How Port Arthur Fell (Fortnightly Review, March, 1905)._
"The first bombardment from the land side began suddenly on August 7. … The bombardment continued all day, though doing little material damage. Next morning, from 2 to 5 A. M., we heard heavy musketry fire from the direction of Ta-ku-shan: the enemy leaving the town and the main defences in peace, were turning their attention to it. {349} This hill corresponded in the east to 203 Metre Hill in the west, and was equally important and equally unfortified. It and Sia-gu-shan, the natural forts of Arthur on the eastern front, had a bad time. In the first place they had not been made the most of, for in the original plan of defence of Port Arthur they had been thought to be important points and so had been neither fortified nor armed as their position with regard to the Fortress warranted, and Smirnoff had only recently succeeded in arming them to a small extent. In the second place they became, after the abandonment of Wolf’s Hills, open to flanking fire, and therefore untenable. The companies of the 13th East Siberian Rifle Regiment sent there went literally to their death, but, together with the gunners, they held on as long as possible."
Both of the hills were taken by the Japanese that night. The Russians immediately concentrated a heavy artillery fire on the new occupants, and the next day they attempted to retake Ta-ku shan by assault, but failed. On the 11th they repeated the attempt, with no better success. On the 16th General Nogi sent in a flag of truce, bearing the proposal of "a discussion of negotiations for the surrender of the Fortress," saying: "The Russians have given signal proofs of their gallantry, but Arthur will be taken all the same." The invitation was declined. On the 20th the Japanese gained Angle Hill and Pan-lun-shan redoubt; but the Russians recaptured the latter on the following night.
The Japanese now hoped to be able to take the Fortress by a general assault, and made the attempt with extraordinary determination on the 21st, 22d, and 23d. "On the night of the 23d," writes Nojine, "the Japanese made the most desperate of all their attacks so far. They made three separate and most determined assaults on Zaredoubt Battery, on the line between it and Big Eagle’s Nest, and on Ruchevsky Battery. Though temporarily successful at one or two points, they were finally driven back out of all with shocking slaughter." It is of this assault that Lieutenant Tadayoshi Sakurai tells the terrible story in one of the chapters of his book, entitled "Human Bullets: A Soldier’s Story of Port Arthur," from which the following is quoted:
"I gathered my men around me and said: ‘I now bid you all farewell. Fight with all your might. This battle will decide whether Port Arthur is to fall or not. This water you drink, please drink as if at your death moment.’
"I filled a cup with water that was fetched by one or two soldiers at the risk of their lives, and we all drank farewell from the same cup. Soon we received orders to advance to a point half-way up the side of Panlung. … This fortress of Panlung had been captured with the flesh and blood of the Ninth Division of the Seventh and Eighth Regiments of the Second Reserve, and was now an important base from which a general assault on the northern forts of East Kikuan and Wantai was to be made. This critical spot was finally taken after a terrible struggle and a valiant action by the men of General Oshima’s command. The sad story was eloquently told by the horrible sights of the ravine. While running through the opening in the wire-entanglement beyond, I noticed many engineers and infantry men dead, piled one upon another caught in the wire, or taking hold with both arms of a post, or grasping the iron shears.
"When we reached the middle of the side of Panlung, I saw the regimental flag that I used to carry, flying above our heads in the dark. My heart leaped at the sight of the dear flag. … As soon as we were gathered together the Colonel rose and gave us a final word of exhortation, saying: ‘This battle is our great chance of saving our country. To-night we must strike at the vitals of Port Arthur. Our brave assaulting column must be not simply a forlorn-hope ("resolved-to-die"), but a "sure-death" detachment. I as your father am more grateful than I can express for your gallant fighting. Do your best, all of you.’
"Yes, we were all ready for death when leaving Japan. Men going to battle of course cannot expect to come back alive. But in this particular battle to be ready for death was not enough; what was required of us was a determination not to fail to die. Indeed we were ‘sure death’ men, and this new appellation gave us a great stimulus. Also a telegram that had come from the Minister of War in Tokyo was read by the aide-de-camp, which said, ‘I pray for your success.’ This increased the exaltation of our spirits.
"Let me now recount the sublimity and horror of this general assault. I was a mere lieutenant and everything passed through my mind as in a dream, so my story must be something like picking out things from the dark. I can’t give you any systematic account, but must limit myself to fragmentary recollections. If this story sounds like a vain-glorious account of my own achievements, it is not because I am conscious of my merit when I have so little to boast of, but because the things concerning me and near me are what I can tell you with authority. If this partial account prove a clue from which the whole story of this terrible assault may be inferred, my work will not have been in vain.
"The men of the ‘sure-death’ detachment rose to their part. Fearlessly they stepped forth to the place of death. They went over Panlung-shan and made their way through the piled-up bodies of the dead, groups of five or six soldiers reaching the barricaded slope one after another. I said to the colonel, ‘Good-by, then!’ With this farewell I started, and my first step was on the head of a corpse. Our objective points were the Northern Fortress and Wang-tai Hill.
"There was a fight with bombs at the enemy’s skirmish-trenches. The bombs sent from our side exploded finely, and the place became at once a conflagration, boards were flung about, sand bags burst, heads flew around, legs were torn off. The flames mingled with the smoke, lighted up our faces weirdly, with a red glare, and all at once the battle-line became confused. Then the enemy, thinking it hopeless, left the place and began to flee. ‘Forward! forward! now is the time to go forward! Forward! Pursue! Capture it with one bound!’ and, proud of our victory, we went forward courageously. Captain Kawakami, raising his sword, cried, ‘Forward!’ and then I, standing close by him, cried, ‘Sakurai’s company, forward!’ Thus shouting I left the captain’s side, and, in order to see the road we were to follow, went behind the rampart. What is that black object which obstructs our view? It is the ramparts of the Northern Fortress. Looking back, I did not see a soldier. Alack, had the line been cut? In trepidation, keeping my body to the left for safety, I called the Twelfth Company.
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"‘Lieutenant Sakurai!’ A voice called out repeatedly in answer. Returning to the direction of the sound, I found Corporal Ito weeping loudly. ‘What are you crying for? What has happened?’ The corporal, weeping bitterly, gripped my arm tightly. ‘Lieutenant Sakurai, you have become an important person.’ ‘ What is there to weep about?’ I say, ‘what is the matter?’ He whispered in my ear, ‘Our captain is dead.’ Hearing this, I too wept. Was it not only a moment ago that he had given the order ‘Forward’? Was it not even now that I had separated from him? And yet our captain was one of the dead. In a moment our tender, pitying Captain Kawakami and I had become beings of two separate worlds. Was it a dream or a reality, I wondered?
"Corporal Ito pointed out the captain’s body, which had fallen inside the rampart only a few rods away. I hastened hither and raised him in my arms. ‘Captain!’ I could not say a word more. But as matters could not remain thus, I took the secret map which the captain had, and, rising up boldly, called out, ‘From henceforward I command the Twelfth Company.’ And I ordered that someone of the wounded should carry back the captain’s corpse. A wounded soldier was just about to raise it up when he was struck on a vital spot and died leaning on the captain. One after another of the soldiers who took his place was struck and fell.
"I called Sub-Lieutenant Ninomiya and asked him if the sections were together. He answered in the affirmative. I ordered Corporal Ito not to let the line be cut, and told him that I would be in the center of the skirmishers. In the darkness of the night we could not distinguish the features of the country, nor in which direction we were to march. Standing up abruptly against the dark sky were the Northern Fortress and Wang-tai Hill. In front of us lay a natural stronghold, and we were in a caldron-shaped hollow. But still we marched on side by side.
‘The Twelfth Company forward!’ I turned to the right and went forward as in a dream. I remember nothing clearly of the time. ‘Keep the line together!’ This was my one command. Presently I ceased to hear the voice of Corporal Ito, who had been at my right hand. The bayonets gleaming in the darkness became fewer. The black masses of soldiers who had pushed their way on now became a handful. All at once, as if struck by a club, I fell down sprawling on the ground. I was wounded, struck in my right hand. The splendid magnesium light of the enemy flashed out, showing the piled-up bodies of the dead, and I raised my wounded hand and looked at it. It was broken at the wrist; the hand hung down and was bleeding profusely. I took out the already loosened bundle of bandages, tied up my wound with the triangular piece, and then wrapping a handkerchief over it, I slung it from my neck with the sunrise flag, which I had sworn to plant on the enemy’s fortress.
"Looking up, I saw that only a valley lay between me and Wang-tai Hill, which almost touched the sky. I wished to drink and sought at my waist, but the canteen was gone; its leather strap alone was entangled in my feet. The voices of the soldiers were lessening one by one. In contrast, the glare of the rockets of the hated enemy and the frightful noise of the cannonading increased. I slowly rubbed my legs, and, seeing that they were unhurt, I again rose. Throwing aside the sheath of my sword, I carried the bare blade in my left hand as a staff, went down the slope as in a dream, and climbed Wang-tai Hill.
"The long and enormously heavy guns were towering before me, and how few of my men were left alive now! I shouted and told the survivors to follow me, but few answered my call. When I thought that the other detachments must also have been reduced to a similar condition, my heart began to fail me. No reinforcement was to be hoped for, so I ordered a soldier to climb the rampart and plant the sun flag overhead, but alas! he was shot and killed, without even a sound or cry.
"All of a sudden a stupendous sound as from another world rose around about me. ‘Counter-assault!’ A detachment of the enemy appeared on the rampart, looking like a dark wooden barricade. They surrounded us in the twinkling of an eye and raised a cry of triumph. Our disadvantageous position would not allow us to offer any resistance, and our party was too small to fight them. We had to fall back down the steep hill. Looking back, I saw the Russians shooting at us as they pursued. When we reached the earthworks before mentioned, we made a stand and faced the enemy. Great confusion and infernal butchery followed. Bayonets clashed against bayonets; the enemy brought out machine-guns and poured shot upon us pell-mell; the men on both sides fell like grass. But I cannot give you a detailed account of the scene, because I was then in a dazed condition. I only remember that I was brandishing my sword in fury. I also felt myself occasionally cutting down the enemy. I remember a confused fight of white blade against white blade, the rain and hail of shell, a desperate fight here and a confused scuffle there. At last I grew so hoarse that I could not shout any more. Suddenly my sword broke with a clash, my left arm was pierced. I fell, and before I could rise a shell came and shattered my right leg. I gathered all my strength and tried to stand up, but I felt as if I were crumbling and fell to the ground perfectly powerless. A soldier who saw me fall cried, ‘Lieutenant Sakurai, let us die together.’"
_Tadayoshi Sakurai, Human Bullets, chapter 26 (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47548_
The soldier who offered to die with him stayed with the Lieutenant till morning, binding his wounds, and finally creeping away to find and bring help if he could. He, too, had been wounded, and Sakurai found him later in a hospital. At the end of many hours of constantly imminent death, the helpless and suffering Lieutenant was saved by two soldiers who bore him, stealthily and with infinite difficulty out of the range of the Russian rifles and to a field hospital, where he found himself among intimate friends.
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Of the scene on the morning following the terrific assaults of August 23d, the correspondent Nojine writes:
"The rising sun showed up sheaves of corpses on the ground that was still ours. Death had indeed triumphed, and had claimed 22,000 lives. From this time forward the enemy remained content with the slower advance of regular siege operations. … The enemy had got close up to our positions, and the salient angle of the north-east was almost in their hands. I say ‘almost,’ because the ruins of these works remained the greater part of the time untenanted, neutralized by the gun-fire of both sides." A month passed before another serious assault was undertaken by the Japanese. Then, on the 21st of September, they attacked what was called "203 Metre Hill." "Column after column rushed forward on to 203 Metre Hill, covering all its fore hills and slopes with heaps of dead; but at 8.45 a. m. they were repulsed. This assault was distinguished by particular obstinacy. … Having got three-quarters of [the hill] they meant to get possession of the rest at all costs: they slowly crawled upwards, fell dead, rolled back, and others dashed forward; they lay concealed and waited for reinforcements; nothing would drive them back. All their thoughts, all their endeavors were to get possession of this hill. Our men began rolling down great boulders from the top. These bounded down, flattened out the dead and sought out the living, who, in trying to dodge, exposed themselves and were shot by our men on the lookout. … During the night of the 21st about 900 corpses were collected under 203 Metre Hill." Nevertheless the assault was repeated on the following day. "From the moment this assault was beaten back, the trenches in front of 203 Metre Hill were gradually evacuated and the enemy went to earth only on Angle Hill. All their sapping was confined to the north-east. On the western front of the Fortress there now remained in our possession only 203 Metre, Flat and Divisional Hills. … October 1 was an epoch in the history of the defence of Port Arthur, for it was on this day that the first of the 11-inch shells fell into the Fortress, and so changed the aspect of affairs. … Nowhere could we find real safety from them. … The concrete of the forts, the armor on the battle ships, were penetrated clean through." Mining and counter-mining, by the besiegers and the besieged, were now in progress, and the explosion of such mines was begun near the end of October. On the 30th of that month the Japanese made another general assault, after a "cruel bombardment" of four days. "The October attacks were short, but most determined and bloody. As regards their success, it was but slight. The enemy had gained some dozens of yards—no more. … The Japanese had fired over 150,000 shells." The "November assault season" began on the 20th. Its climax was on the 26th, "when time after time, the enemy threw themselves with extraordinary gallantry and persistence on forts Ehr-lung-shan, Chi-kuan-shan and B Battery. Thousands were mown down, but the living surged onwards. But it could not go on forever, and at 3.30 the infantry attacks slackened and ceased. … All next day and night an incessant stream of wounded poured into Arthur, our losses being more than 1500 men. … The slopes below and beyond Tumulus Hill were thickly spread with dead Japanese. A thick, unbroken mass of corpses covered the cold earth like a coverlet. On the day of the assault the following order had been issued by Major-General Nakamura, who commanded the Japanese force told off for that forlorn hope: … ‘Our objective is to sever the Fortress on two parts. Not a man must hope to return alive. If I fall, Colonel Watanabe will take over the command; if he also falls, Colonel Okuno will take his place. Every officer, whatever his rank, must consider himself his senior’s successor. The attack will be delivered mainly with the bayonet. No matter how fierce the Russian fire, our men will not reply by a single shot until we have established ourselves. Officers will shoot any men who fall out or retire without orders.’ … This is the kind of foe we had to fight. …
"We now come to the culmination of the tragedy, and perhaps the bloodiest scene of carnage of the whole war—the fight for and capture of 203 Metre Hill." The attack began November 27 and was continuous for eight days, excepting that an hour’s truce was obtained by the Japanese, December 2, for the burial of their dead. The next day "the fight on the hill was, if possible, more exasperated. In the Fortress the feeling of alarm was intensified, and all unemployed men had been got under arms, … and the other points denuded, in order to feed the maw of 203 Metre Hill. Even the hospitals gave their contribution. December 4—bright and frosty—ushered in a fresh hell. It was now hardly a fight between men that was taking place on this accursed spot; it was a struggle of human flesh against iron and steel, against blazing petroleum, lyddite, pyroxiline and mélinite, and the stench of rotting corpses. It was the last day but one of the long-drawn agony." At noon on the 5th the Japanese gained the top of the hill, and held it against an attempt that evening to drive them off. "203 Metre Hill was lost, and with it more than 5000 Russians."
The end was now near. On the 15th four generals, and other officers, including General Kondratenko, the most valued assistant of General Smirnoff, were holding a consultation in one of the casemates, and were killed by a 11-inch shell, which penetrated even that shelter. On the 18th Chi-kuan-shan Fort was captured; on the 28th Ehr-lung-shan was lost; on the 31st the Japanese took fortification Number 3, and on New Year’s Day they won the Eagle’s Nest. That day General Stössel sent a flag of truce to open negotiations for surrender. The capitulation was signed the next day. "Of 18,000 sick and wounded reported on the day the garrison marched out, 6000 only were wounded; the balance were cases of scurvy."
_E. K. Nojine, The Truth about Port Arthur (Dutton & Co., New York). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59972_
General Stössel was subsequently ordered for trial before a military commission, on a number of charges, including disobedience of orders from the General Commanding in Manchuria, false reports to headquarters, improper interference with the commandant of the Fortress, and personal absence from most of the engagements that had taken place in and around Port Arthur. He was condemned to death, but the Tzar commuted the sentence to imprisonment for ten years. He began serving the sentence in March 1908, and was pardoned and released on the 19th of May, 1909.
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JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (September-March). War with Russia: The Campaign in Manchuria. From the Battle of Liao-Yang to the end of the Battle of Mukden.
Early in October, a month after the escape of the Russian army from its defeat at Liao-Yang, General Kuropatkin attacked the Japanese at the Sha-ho river and fought a desperate battle with no substantial success. Extensive movements were then interrupted by the approach of winter, and the campaign was practically suspended for the next four months. "The three Japanese armies had maintained the same relative positions in which they had fought their way from Hai-Cheng northward. Kuroki’s was the right, Oku’s the left, and Nodzu’s the center. By the middle of February, Marshal Oyama had been reënforced by Nogi’s one hundred thousand veterans of Port Arthur, hereafter to be known as the fourth Japanese army, operating to the west of Oku. A somewhat mysterious fifth army, under command of General Kawamura, had been operating somewhere between Kuroki and Vladivostok, and, while its movements had not been known definitely, it had been expected to threaten General Kuropatkin’s left. Both Russians and Japanese were within a few miles of Mukden, the sacred city of the Manchus. This city of half a million people lies in a plain,—really the valley of the Hun River,—with the Hun and the Liao rivers twenty to thirty miles west and southwest. Eastward are the Mao-Tien Mountains, extending along the line of the Port Arthur & Harbin Railway. The Russian and Japanese lines formed a huge bow or crescent, the Japanese to the southward, extending over a hundred miles of plains and hill from Chang-Tan eastward across the railway to Lone Tree (Putiloff) Hill, almost all the strong positions being held by the Russians." In this position of the two stupendous armies the long series of engagements known collectively as the Battle of Mukden was opened by the Japanese on the 20th of February, 1905. The center of the Russian army rested on the Sha-ho; its right wing, commanded by General Kaulbars, was distant from its left wing, commanded by General Linevitch, more than one hundred and twenty miles. The Japanese attack was begun by Kuroki, commanding their right. Crossing the Sha-ho, he "swung around the Russian left, driving it from the mountains in the vicinity of Tie Pass to Fushun, an important fortified post (and the Russian coal depot) on the Hun River; Nogi’s force had attacked General Kuropatkin from the west. Nogi had marched through the neutral zone south of the Liao River, to Sin-Min-Tun, a violation of neutrality against which the Russians and Chinese had protested. This neutral zone, however, had already been used by the Russians as a base to forward coal and supplies to their army, so the Japanese Government claimed that the neutrality had become null and void. On March 3, Nogi rolled up the Russians in flight, and his advance was not checked until his right wing had come into touch with Oku’s left, only about eight miles south of Mukden. While the armies of Oku and Nodzu continued to pound the Russian center, with tremendous losses to themselves and to the enemy, Nogi’s left, after a forced march of forty miles, fell upon the Russian center. Through this Oku and Nodzu drove a wedge, and, although Generals Linevitch and Kaulbars had made a desperate defense and General Rennenkampf’s Cossacks had performed prodigies of valor, the Russians had found themselves (by the end of the first week in March) attacked in so many places on the north of their flanks that it had become a question with Kuropatkin, not only of retreat, but of saving large bodies of troops from being surrounded and annihilated.
"Early on the morning of March 10, the Japanese occupied Mukden, and the Russian retreat had become a rout. The next day the important fortified town of Fushun was seized by the Japanese, and thereafter the Russians, disorganized and suffering from hunger and the weather, poured northward to Tie Pass, forty miles from Mukden,—outmarched, outgeneraled, and outfought."
_American Review of Reviews, April and May, 1905._
"The sufferings caused by the retreat cannot be exaggerated. It must be remembered that the weather remained intensely cold and that the arrangements for collecting the wounded were all disorganised. … Defeat, it may be added, was wholly unexpected by the Manchurian Army, and that view was shared by the foreign attaches and the war correspondents. Whatever their opinions might be as to the possibility of General Kuropatkin marching on Liao-Yang, they felt confident that the Japanese would be unable to turn the Russians out of the positions so long and so carefully prepared. The Japanese accomplished this seemingly impossible task. …
"Following on the disaster of Mukden, General Kuropatkin was relieved of his command, exchanging places with General Linevitch. The new Commander-in-Chief fixed his headquarters at Guntzuling, where the shattered army was re-formed."
_Lord Brooke, An Eye Witness in Manchuria,