Part 6

In 1867, the army of Japan consisted of nine battalions of infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, and eight batteries, and numbered only 10,000 men. This force, which formed the _cadre_ of the present army, had French teachers and adopted from the latter the French uniform. After the Franco-German war of 1870-71, German officers took the places of the French instructors; military service was made a national obligation; and Japanese officers were sent to Europe, every year, for the purpose of study. At the time of her war with China, Japan had an army consisting of seven infantry divisions; but finding herself unable, at the end of that war, to retain the fruits of her victory, on account of her weakness both on land and at sea, she made every possible effort to create an army and a fleet that would be strong enough to protect her interests. On the 19th of March, 1896, the Mikado issued a decree providing for such a reorganization of the army as would double its strength in the course of seven years. This reorganization was completed in 1903. Our military and naval authorities did not overlook the creation and development in Japan of a strong army and fleet; but they confined themselves to the collection and tabulation of statistics. We kept an account of every ship built and every division of troops organized; but we did not estimate highly enough these beginnings of Japan, and did not admit the possibility of measuring her fighting-power by European standards. The latest information that we had with regard to her military strength, prior to the late war, was compiled by our General Staff from the reports of Colonel Vannofski and other Russian military agents in Tokio. It showed that her army, on a peace footing, numbered 8,116 officers and 133,457 men (not including the troops in Formosa); and on a war footing, 10,735 officers (not including reserve officers) and 348,074 men, with perhaps 50,000 untrained reserve recruits. There was no mention of additional reserve forces.

_Russian Generals Pigeonhole Reports of Japan's Fighting Strength_

In 1903 Colonel Adabash, who had just visited Japan, gave to General Zhilinski, of our General Staff, very important information with regard to new reserves which the Japanese were organizing for service in case of war. Inasmuch, however, as this information did not agree at all with that previously furnished by Colonel Vannofski, General Zhilinski did not give it credence. A few months later, Captain Rusine, a very talented officer who was acting as naval observer in Japan, made a similar report upon Japanese reserves to his superiors, and extracts from it were furnished to General Sakharoff, Chief of Staff of the army. Although the information contained in this report ultimately proved to be perfectly accurate, the report was pigeonholed, simply because Generals Zhilinski and Sakharoff did not believe it; and in our compendium of data with regard to the military strength of Japan in 1903-4, no reference whatever was made to additional reserve forces. According to the figures of our General Staff, therefore, the total number of available men in the standing army, the territorial army, and the regular reserve of Japan, was a little more than 400,000.[B]

Recently published official reports of General Kipke, Chief Medical Inspector of the Japanese army, show that the loss of the Japanese in killed and wounded, in the course of the war, was as follows:

Killed 47,387 Wounded 173,425

Total 220,812

Their loss in killed, wounded, and sick was 554,885--a number considerably greater than the whole force which, according to the figures of our General Staff, they could put into the field. They sent 320,000 sick and wounded back from Manchuria to Japan.

Other available information is to the effect that the bodies of 60,624 killed were buried in the cemetery of honor in Tokio, and that, in addition to these, 75,545 men died from wounds or disease. The Japanese thus admit the loss of 135,000 men by death.[C]

Their Chief Medical Inspector says that their killed and wounded amounted to 14.58 per cent of their entire force, from which it would appear that they put into the field against us troops of various categories to the number of 1,500,000--or more than three times the estimate of our General Staff. In view of these facts, it is evident that our information with regard to their fighting strength was insufficient. At the time when they had hundreds of avowed and secret agents in the Far East, studying the strength of our land and naval forces, we entrusted the collection of data with regard to their military strength and resources to a single officer of the General Staff, and, unfortunately, our military observers were not always well selected. One of these experts in Japanese affairs said, in Vladivostok, before hostilities began, that, in the event of war, we might count on one Russian soldier as equal to three Japanese. After the first engagements he moderated his tone and admitted that it might be necessary to put one Russian against every Japanese. At the end of another month he declared that, in order to win victories, we must meet every Japanese soldier in the field with three Russians. Another of our military agents, who had been in Japan, predicted authoritatively that Port Arthur would fall in a very short time, and that immediately thereafter the same fate would overtake Vladivostok. I sharply reprimanded the faint-hearted babbler and threatened to dismiss him from the army if he continued to make such injurious and inopportune remarks.

_Moral Superiority of the Japanese_

But it was not only with regard to Japan's material strength that our information was insufficient. We underestimated, or entirely overlooked, her moral strength. According to that great leader Napoleon, three fourths of an army's success in war is due to the moral character of its soldiers. This relation of moral character to material success still exists, although the conditions of battle, in these days, are more trying than they were in the Napoleonic wars. And now, more than ever before, the moral strength of the army depends upon the temper of the nation. Armies are now so organized that, in case of war, soldiers are drawn, for the most part, from the reserves. A successful war, therefore, must be a popular war, and victory must be attained by the hearty coöperation of the whole people with its Government. The recent contest in Manchuria was a popular war for the Japanese, but not for us. The Korean question, and the question of naval supremacy on the waters of the Pacific, involved vital Japanese interests, and the immense importance of these interests was so clearly understood and so fully appreciated by the Japanese people that the war for their protection was a national war. Japan spent ten years in preparing for it, and then the whole nation carried it on. Japanese soldiers, deeply conscious of the bearing that their exploits might have on the future of the country, fought with a self-sacrificing devotion and a stubbornness that we had never seen in any war in which we had previously been engaged. Sometimes, in villages that we had taken by assault, a handful of Japanese soldiers would barricade themselves in native houses and die there rather than retreat or surrender. Japanese officers who fell into our hands--even wounded officers--generally committed suicide.

It is quite possible that when we have a true history of the war based on Japanese sources of information, our pride may receive another blow. We already know that in many cases we outnumbered the enemy, and still we were not victorious. The explanation of this, however, is very simple. The Japanese, in these cases, were inferior to us materially, but they were stronger than we morally.[D] To this aspect of the struggle we should give particular attention, because military history shows that, in all wars, the antagonist who is strongest morally wins the victory. The only exceptions are such contests as that between the English and the Boers in South Africa and that between the North and the South in America. The English were weaker than the Boers morally, but they put into the field an overwhelming force, and, in spite of many defeats, they finally conquered. In the American war, the army of the South was in the same position that the Boer army was, and the Northerners had to put a superior force into the field in order to overcome it.

_Extraordinary Popularity of the War in Japan_

Among the sources of moral strength that failed to attract our attention in Japan were the following: The training of her citizens had long been patriotic and warlike in tendency; her educational system had inculcated an ardent love of country; and even in her primary schools children were prepared, from their earliest years, to be soldiers. The people regarded the army with profound respect and trust, and young men served in it with pride. All these things we failed to see, and we overlooked also the iron discipline enforced in the army and the rôle played in it by the samurai officers. We wholly failed to appreciate, moreover, the vital importance of the Korean question to Japan, and the strength of the hostile feeling that was raised against us when the Japanese were deprived of the fruits of their victory after their war with China. The party of Young Japan had long insisted upon war with Russia and had been restrained only by a prudent Government.

When the war began, we recovered our powers of perception, but it was then too late. And at that time, when the war was not only unpopular in Russia but incomprehensible to the Russian people, the Japanese, with a great outburst of enthusiastic patriotism, were responding, like a single man, to the call to arms. In some cases Japanese mothers even killed themselves, when their sons, on account of weakness or ill health, were denied admission to the army. Hundreds of men volunteered to undertake the most desperate enterprises, in the face of certain death; and many officers and soldiers, before going to the front, had funeral ceremonies performed over their bodies, in order to show that they intended to die for their native land. The youth of the Empire crowded into the army, and the heads of the most distinguished families sought to serve their country by enlisting themselves, by sending their sons to the front, or by helping to pay the expenses of the war. Some Japanese regiments, in attacking our positions, threw themselves with the cry of "Banzai!" upon our obstructions, struggled over or through them, filled our ditches with the bodies of their dead, and then, rushing across upon the corpses of their comrades, forced their way into our entrenchments. The army and the whole people appreciated the importance of the war, understood the significance of the events that were taking place, and were ready to make sacrifices in order to achieve success.

_Military Training of Japanese Children_

After the Japanese-Chinese war, of which I made a most careful and detailed study, I myself was inspired with a feeling of respect for the Japanese army and watched its growth with anxiety. Then, in 1900, the part played by the Japanese troops that coöperated with ours in the province of Pechili confirmed me in the belief that they were excellent soldiers. During my short stay in Japan, I was unable to acquaint myself thoroughly with the country and its military forces, but what I did learn was enough to convince me that the results attained by the Japanese in the course of twenty-five or thirty years were astounding. I saw a beautiful country, with a large and industrious population. Intense activity prevailed everywhere, and I was impressed by the people's joy in life, their love of country, and their faith in their future. In their military school, where I saw a Spartan system of education, the exercises of the cadets with pikes, rifles, and broadswords were not approached by anything of the kind that I had witnessed in Europe,--it was fighting of the fiercest character. At the end of the struggle there was a hand-to-hand combat, which lasted until the victors stood triumphant over the bodies of the vanquished and tore off their masks. In these exercises, which were very severe, the cadets struck one another fiercely and with wild cries; but the moment a prearranged signal was given, or the fight came to an end, the combatants drew themselves up in a line and their faces assumed an expression of wooden composure.

In all the public schools prominence was given to military exercises, and the pupils took part in them with enthusiasm. Even in their walks they practised running, flanking, and sudden, unexpected attacks of one party on another. The history of Japan was everywhere made a means of strengthening the pupils' patriotism and their belief in Japan's invincibility. Particular stress was laid upon the country's successful wars, the heroes of them were extolled, and the children were taught that none of Japan's military enterprises had ever failed.

_Japan's Material Resources_

In the manufactories of arms I saw the turning out of rifles in immense numbers, and the work was being done swiftly, accurately, and cheaply. In Kobe and Nagasaki I inspected attentively the ship-building yards, where they were constructing not only torpedo boats but armored cruisers, and where all the work was being done by their own mechanics and foremen under the direction of their own engineers. At the great national exposition in Osaka there was a splendid and instructive display of the country's manufactures, including textiles, products of cottage industry, complicated instruments, grand pianos, and guns of the largest caliber--all made in Japan, by Japanese workmen, and out of Japanese materials. I saw nothing of foreign origin except raw cotton and iron, which were imported from China and Europe. And the products displayed at this exposition were not more worthy of attention than the observant, courteous, and always dignified throng of Japanese visitors.

In the agriculture of Japan many of the methods were ancient, but the culture was unquestionably high. The fields were carefully worked, and the effort to make every foot of land yield all that it could, the struggle to raise crops even on the mountain sides, and the insufficiency of the country's food products despite this intensive culture, showed that the people were becoming overcrowded on their islands, and that the Korean question was for them a question of vital importance. I lived ten days among the fishermen, and saw something of the reverse side of Japan's rapid development under European conditions. Many complaints were made to me of heavy taxes, which had increased greatly in later years, and of the high cost of the necessaries of life.

I witnessed reviews of the Japanese troops, including the division of Guards, two regiments of the First Division, two regiments of cavalry, and many batteries. The marching was admirable, and the common soldiers appeared like our younkers. The officers and leaders of the Japanese army whom I saw and met made upon me a very favorable impression. The culture and knowledge of military affairs that many of them possessed would have given them places of honor in any army. With General Terauchi, the Japanese Minister of War, I had had friendly relations ever since 1886, when we met in France at the great manoeuvers directed by General Levalle. Among others whose acquaintance I made were Generals Yamagata, Oyama, Kodama, Fukushima, Nodzu, Hasegawa, and Murata, and the Imperial princes, Fushimi and Kanin. In spite of a terrible war, which has separated by a barrier nations that were apparently created for union and friendship, I still cherish a sympathetic feeling for my Tokio acquaintances. Especially do I remember with respect their ardent love of country and their devotion to their Emperor--feelings that they have since made manifest in deeds. I met also in Tokio many leaders in fields other than that of war, among whom were Ito, Katsura, and Komura. In the report that I made to the Emperor, after my return from Japan, I placed the military power of the Japanese on a level with that of European nations. I regarded one of our battalions as equal to two battalions of Japanese in defence, but I estimated that in attack we should have two battalions to their one. The test of war has shown that my conclusions were correct. There were lamentable cases, of course, in which the Japanese, with a smaller number of battalions, drove our forces from the positions that they occupied; but these results were due either to mistakes in the direction of our troops, or to numerical inferiority in the fighting strength of our battalions. In the last days of the battle of Mukden, some of our brigades consisted of hardly more than a thousand bayonets. It is evident that the Japanese had to put into the field only two or three battalions in order to deal successfully with a brigade of such depleted strength.

All that I saw and learned of Japan, or her military strength, and of the nature of her problems in the Far East, convinced me that it would be necessary for us to come to a peaceable understanding with her, and that we should have to make great concessions--concessions that, at first sight, might seem humiliating to our national pride--in order to avoid war with her. As I have already said, I did not hesitate even to propose the return of Port Arthur and Kwang-tung to China and the sale of the southern branch of the Eastern Chinese Railway. I foresaw that the threatened war would be extremely unpopular in Russia; that there would be no manifestation of patriotic spirit, on account of the people's ignorance of the objects of the war; and that the leaders of the anti-Government party would avail themselves of the opportunity to increase domestic discontent and disorder. I did not, however, anticipate that the Japanese would display so much energy, activity, courage, and lofty patriotism, and I therefore erred in my estimate of the time that the struggle would require. In view of the insufficiency of our railroad transportation, we should have allowed three years for the war, instead of the year and a half that I thought would be enough.

With all their strong points, the Japanese manifested weaknesses that may be shown again in future wars. I shall not enumerate them, but I will say that, in many cases, the outcome of the fight was in doubt, and that in other cases we escaped defeat only through the errors of the Japanese commanders. There is a saying that "the victor is not judged." I may add that to the victor is rendered homage, and this is true of the Japanese. The general tone of the whole press was favorable to them, and even their practical and well-balanced heads might well have been turned by the praise that they received. No one went further in this direction than Count Leo Tolstoi. In an article published in a foreign journal,[E] our gifted author and philosopher expressed the conviction that the Japanese defeated us because, owing to their warlike patriotism and the power of their ruling authorities, they are the mightiest nation on earth, and are not to be conquered by any one, either at sea or on land.

The strength of Japan was in the complete union of her people, army, and government, and it was this union that gave her the victory. We carried on the contest with our army alone, and even the army was weakened by the unfavorable disposition of the people toward all things military. Our aims in the Far East were not understood by our officers and soldiers, and, furthermore, the general feeling of discontent which already prevailed in all classes of our population made the war so hateful that it aroused no patriotism whatever. Many good officers hastened to offer their services--a fact that is easily explained--but all ranks of society remained indifferent. A few hundreds of the common people volunteered, but no eagerness to enter the army was shown by the sons of our high dignitaries, of our merchants, or of our scientific men. Out of the tens of thousands of students who were then living in idleness,[F] many of them at the expense of the Empire, only a handful volunteered,[G] while at that very time, in Japan, sons of the most distinguished citizens--even boys fourteen and fifteen years of age--were striving for places in the ranks. Japanese mothers, as I have already said, killed themselves through shame, when their sons were found to be physically unfit for military service.

_Russian Discipline Undermined by the Revolutionists_

The indifference of Russia to the bloody struggle which her sons were carrying on--for little understood objects and in a foreign land--could not fail to discourage even the best soldiers. Men are not inspired to deeds of heroism by such an attitude toward them on the part of their country. But Russia was not merely indifferent. Leaders of the revolutionary party strove, with extraordinary energy, to multiply our chances of failure, hoping thus to facilitate the attainment of their own dark objects. There appeared a whole literature of clandestine publications, intended to lessen the confidence of officers in their superiors, to shake the trust of soldiers in their officers, and to undermine the faith of the whole army in the Government. In an "Address to the Officers of the Russian Army," published and widely circulated by the Social Revolutionists, the main idea was expressed as follows:

"The worst and most dangerous enemy of the Russian people--in fact, its only enemy--is the present Government. It is this Government that is carrying on the war with Japan, and you are fighting under its banners in an unjust cause. Every victory that you win threatens Russia with the calamity involved in the maintenance of what the Government calls 'order,' and every defeat that you suffer brings nearer the hour of deliverance. Is it surprising, therefore, that Russians rejoice when your adversary is victorious?"

But persons who had nothing in common with the Social Revolutionary party, and who sincerely loved their country, gave aid to Russia's enemies by expressing the opinion, in the press, that the war was irrational, and by criticizing the mistakes of the Government that had failed to prevent it. In a brochure entitled "Thoughts Suggested by Recent Military Operations," M. Gorbatoff referred to such persons as follows: