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Copyright, jqo4, by Colliei-'s M'cekly. 
 
 Soldiers of the Fourth Army marching into Liaoyang after the Russian 
 — evacuation. 
 
WITH KUROKI IN 
 MANCHURIA 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Vagabond p^^o 
 
 The Ways of the Service . . 1.50 
 In the Klondyke 1.50 
 
WITH KUROKI IN 
 MANCHURIA 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY 
 
 JAMES H. HARE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1904 
 
THE LiBRARV OF i 
 OONGRtSS 
 
 Two Copies i^ieceived 
 
 my 19 »904 I 
 
 Oopyright tntrv 
 
 CLASS o- Mc. mi 
 / /^ cJf 
 
 COPY A. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 COLLIER'S WEEKLY 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published, November, 1904 
 
 TROW DiRECTORy 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
(fi 
 
 H 
 
 TO THE JAPANESE INFANTRY, SMILING, 
 BRAVE, TIRELESS; AND NO LESS TO THE 
 DARING GUNNERS WHO DRAGGED THEIR 
 GUNS CLOSE TO THE ENEMY'S LINE OVER- 
 NIGHT, THIS BOOK, WRITTEN BY ONE WHO 
 WAS WITH YOU FOR FIVE MONTHS IN 
 THE FIELD IS ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. When Komura Sent for De Rosen ... i 
 
 II. The Old and the New 7 
 
 III. The Night of Victory 19 
 
 IV. To the Front ! 26 
 
 V. Overtaking the Army 34 
 
 VI. First Operations at the Yalu .... 47 
 
 VII. Crossing of the Yalu 55 
 
 VIII. Battle of the Yalu 67 
 
 IX. After the Yalu — Hamatan 83 
 
 X. The Owner of the Battle Ground . . 99 
 
 XI. A Tribute to the Dead 108 
 
 XII. Three Divisions on Three Roads . . .117 
 
 XIII. First Attack on Motien Pass . . . .130 
 
 XIV. Second Attack on Motien Pass . . . .150 
 XV. A Right AVing in the Air 176 
 
 XVI. Battle of Tiensuiten 186 
 
 XVII. After Tiensuiten 207 
 
 XVIII. A Correspondent's Life in Manchuria . 219 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIX. A Letter in Camp to Nippon Denji . .232 
 
 XX. LiAOYANG — Fighting Our Way into Position 249 
 
 XXI. LiAOYANG — The Artillery Duel . . . .266 
 
 XXII. LiAOYANG KUROKI CROSSES THE TaITSE . 283 
 
 XXIII. An Important "Little Hill" .... 294 
 
 XXIV. KuROPATKiN Retreats 308 
 
 XXV. Aftermath 318 
 
 XXVI. The Strategy and Politics of the War . 336 
 
 XXVII. Sayonara 355 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Soldiers of the Fourth Army marching into Liaoyang after the 
 
 Russian evacuation Frontispiece 
 
 Landing troops in the harbor of Chenampo 30 
 
 Train of Korean coolies, loaded with rice for the army, passing 
 
 through the North Gate of Ping Yang 38 
 
 Timbers for bridging the Yalu being carried along a road which 
 had been screened with cornstalks because it was in sight of 
 the enemy's position 50 
 
 Field hospitals on the river sands of the Yalu after the Japanese 
 
 stormed Ku-Uen-cheng 76 
 
 The twenty -eight guns captured from the Russians at Hamatan 
 
 parked in a compound in Antung 96 
 
 General Kuroki, commanding the First Japanese Army, in front 
 
 of his headquarters at Antung after the victory of the Yalu 100 
 
 A Buddhist service and military honors at Antung for Russian 
 
 officers who fell at the Yalu 108 
 
 On the road to Liaoyang . 118 
 
 Some Russians of a party of observation wounded and captured 
 
 by Second Division skirmishers 122 
 
 A halt by the riverside for lunch and rest on the advance from 
 
 Feng- wang-cheng to Lien -shan-k wan . . . . . . 126 
 
 General Okasaki on the steps of the Temple of Kwantei the 
 
 morning of the first attack on Motien Pass 134 
 
 When the base hospital was distant and immediate opera- 
 tion was important, it was performed at the field dressing 
 
 station ,,,,.. 142 
 
 ix 
 
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Searching party of Japanese burying Russian dead on the field 
 
 after repulsing the attack on Motien Pass 148 
 
 Showing redoubts, gun positions, and artillery roads built by the 
 
 Russians to hold the valley at Bunsurei ...... 170 
 
 The Japanese battery in the kowliang which the Russians did 
 
 not locate at the battle of Tiensuiten 202 
 
 Col. Baba of the Thirtieth Regiment and officers of his staff 
 
 watching his men storming the hills before Tiensuiten . . 204 
 
 Battlefield of Tiensuiten. Gun pits at the left were those of the 
 "saddle" battery where the Russian General Keller was 
 killed 214 
 
 A veteran of the Twelfth Division, who had marched from Seoul 
 
 to Liaoyang and fought in five battles 242 
 
 Typical mountain work — a line of skirmishers advancing under 
 
 cover of a rib to charge a trench . 252 
 
 Japanese burning their dead in the rain after the hard fight of 
 
 August 26th 256 
 
 Infantrymen fording the Tang River after driving the Russians 
 
 from the hills on the opposite bank 264 
 
 Japanese dead who fell in holding a trench at a critical point in 
 
 the First Army's flanking movement before Liaoyang . 270 
 
 The precious field telephone, belonging to a battery of artillery, 
 
 is well protected from damage by shell -fire 296 
 
 Sept. 4th, before Liaoyang. The white points on the hills 
 across the Taitse are the shells fired by the battery in the 
 foreground 310 
 
 Kuroki's guns crossing the Tang River 322 
 
LIST OF MAPS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 The Actions on the Yalu 67 
 
 On April 29th, Kuroki had his whole army massed at Wiju 
 behind the hills of the river bank. Once a lodgment was 
 effected on the opposite shore, he was ready to cross and 
 operate with such rapidity that his fresh reserves in pursuit 
 after the battle captured twenty -eight guns at Hamatan. 
 
 The Six Days' Action around Liaoyang 249 
 
 On Sept. ist, the Russian frontal line fell back on Liao- 
 yang. On the 2d, the First Army had occupied Hayentai 
 (the hill marked 2). On the 3d, the Russian frontal line 
 was in full retreat over the four bridges across the Taitse 
 and its forces were pressing the First Army as they went. 
 
 Routes of March and Principal Actions of the Four Japanese 
 Armies 343 
 
 The First Army (one division landing at Seoul and two divis- 
 ions at Chenampo) marched through Korea while the more 
 northerly harbors were still ice-bound. With the Third 
 Army before Port Arthur, the Second followed the railway, 
 and the Fourth went through the range from Takushan. 
 
WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 WHEN KOMURA SENT FOR DE ROSEN 
 
 Rumors instead of hours have marked the pas- 
 sage of the days of waiting. You tightened the 
 mainspring for to-morrow's lot when you wound your 
 watch at bedtime. This afternoon came one unHke 
 the others, definite in shape, electric in transmission 
 from lip to lip, having the magnetic force of truth: 
 ^^Komura has sent for de Rosen. It has come.'' 
 Though the words were from your servant, you 
 believed them as readily as you believe in an earth- 
 quake shock that you feel. To-night the whole 
 nation knows that negotiations are at an end and 
 bloodshed is about to begin. The years of expect- 
 ancy have culminated in the decisive step. The 
 patient Government has at last given the word. 
 
 Where are the crowds? Why is there no cheer- 
 ing ? Doubtless more people are watching the bulle- 
 
2 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 tins in London and New York than here. "Think 
 of Piccadilly or Broadway on such a night!" ex- 
 claims the foreigner. In Japan there is little to see, 
 little to hear. There is everything to feel. Two 
 theories which you at home may have from this de- 
 scription you would never have here. There is no 
 apathy; there is no doubt or fear. Instead of going 
 abroad to gather in public places and shout, the 
 Japanese go to the houses of their friends and sit 
 over their hihachis (charcoal burners) and talk little 
 — very little. They know that there is to be war, and 
 that is enough. It is the war that they have prayed 
 for — almost a holy war. 
 
 Throughout the land to-day and yesterday a 
 shower of pink tickets has fallen. Each ticket 
 called a man out of a kimono into a tunic; out of 
 getas into military shoes. It said, according to Jap- 
 anese logic: "The Mikado has given you life; now 
 he calls upon you to give it back." There is no weep- 
 ing at the farewell. I saw a reservist parting with 
 his family at the railroad station to-night. He came 
 in with his little boy, olive- skinned, round-faced, 
 smiling — a live Japanese doll of three years — thrown 
 over his shoulders. The women folk formed the 
 inner circle, the men the outer. In the centre of 
 such a group, the soldier in his Occidental uniform 
 
WHEN KOMURA SENT FOR DE ROSEN 3 
 
 seemed to belong to a world apart. There was no 
 weeping; for years they had expected him to go, 
 and now he was going. He smiled, and they smiled 
 at the parting — a variation of that Japanese smile 
 which says: ''We are sad and try to show that we 
 are not by being merry." 
 
 Yesterday there were no signs of preparation; 
 to-day there have been signs of preparation every- 
 where for those who would see them. On the pa- 
 rade-ground, and in other public places, officers 
 with little note-books, hundreds of coolies, and loads 
 of timber suddenly appeared. They settled down 
 to their task as if it were the routine of every day. 
 There was little shouting, no seeming hurry, no 
 oaths snatching order out of confusion. The order 
 was in the officers' note-books, in lines of ideographs 
 running up and down the pages. With the rapidity 
 of circus tents, rose long lines of sheds for the horses 
 of a division. There was not even the hammering 
 which is the bass of the hackneyed ''din of prepara- 
 tion." The girders and the supports were bound 
 together by the deft wrapping of straw ropes. Every 
 board and every stick seemed to have its place, and 
 those in command to know just where the place 
 was. At the same moment that the coolie ants began 
 their work, officers went from house to house to 
 
4 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 provide for the billeting of soldiers, and more lines 
 of ideographs were made in note-books. 
 
 In a few hours the soldiers — dropping their peace 
 tasks wherever the pink tickets found them — began 
 to arrive, and settled down in their quarters, quiet, 
 welcome guests of quiet hosts. Why go out and 
 cheer when you may sit over the hihachi and smile 
 with the heroes-to-be, who, augustly condescending, 
 have deigned to honor a poor domicile with their 
 presence ? 
 
 At the Russian Legation the gates are closed. No 
 Japanese stops in passing. The native attendants 
 in the little lodges on either side of the massive grill- 
 work, with its gold-crowned double-headed eagle, 
 press their faces to the windows querulously. The 
 thin columns of smoke rising from the chimneys 
 form the only other sign of life. Within the silent 
 structure are the sole beings in all Japan who de- 
 sire Russian success. Baron de Rosen and the 
 attaches, awaiting their departure, might well wish 
 for a crowd and some signs of demonstration to 
 break the sinister quiet. 
 
 "War has come!" the foreigner may say to a 
 Japanese. 
 
 "Yes," with a smile — as if to imply, "Will you 
 augustly condescend to excuse the war for coming?" 
 
WHEN KOMURA SENT FOR DE ROSEN J 
 
 "And Japan is going to fight hard and win 
 victories?" 
 
 "Yes," with the same smile, quizzical and mean- 
 ing — meaning one knows not what to the map of 
 Asia. 
 
 The click of the getas on the stones seems itself to 
 be in a minor key, so few people are abroad; the 
 jinrikisha men, huddled in their blankets at their 
 stands, knock the ashes out of their tiny pipes and 
 start homeward. The little shops close no earlier, 
 remain open no later. Their workers are busy with 
 their tasks rather than with discussing war. Yet 
 they welcome the news, and they would give their 
 all for the cause. By midnight you look the length 
 of the streets without seeing the flight of a single one 
 of the varicolored lanterns which the runners hold 
 on the thills of the little man-carriages. Tokio is 
 going to bed at the usual hour. But what thoughts 
 may be passing behind the paper windows with 
 their checkered lattice-work, through which the 
 lights are no longer shining, is as far from our 
 knowledge as what is passing in the office of the 
 General Staff. 
 
 "Scared, aren't they?" asked a foreigner who 
 arrived in Japan to-day for the first time. "Why 
 don't they get out their bands?" 
 
6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 "Study the Japanese smile," residents warned him. 
 
 "But this httle people in their paper houses against 
 the big Russians! Haven't they awakened to what 
 they have undertaken, and aren't they worried? 
 Why, they are beaten at the start by their own 
 showing!" 
 
 "Study the Japanese smile," again the residents 
 warned him. 
 
 In other lands the withdrawal of Ministers means 
 the playing of fortissimo passages with the brasses. 
 On another historical night, thirty-odd years ago, 
 the Paris crowd was crying, "On to Berlin!" In 
 Japan it is pianissimo with the violins, which means 
 more than the brasses. There is no shouting of 
 "On to Manchuria!" yet. The hush of the long- 
 expected come true, the issue narrowed to the ex- 
 tremity of a bull's-eye, the plain realization of this 
 day, this hour, being a landmark in history, have 
 outweighed superficial impulse. We who are in 
 Tokio to-day have witnessed a racial phenomenon. 
 Associating the thought of rabble with a noisy mouth, 
 one may feel how by extremes the very jinrikisha coo- 
 lies have taken on an air of senatorial dignity. The 
 man new to Japan only wonders, or thinks he is not 
 getting what is advertised; others realize that their 
 study of the Japanese smile has only begun. 
 
II 
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 This morning, after Tokio had slept one night 
 on the fact of actual war, it was my good fortune 
 to have an hour's talk with Field Marshal Marquis 
 Yamagata, the man behind the Cabinet, who, more 
 than any other, is responsible for the step Japan 
 has taken. The appointment with him had first 
 been made for a week ago. When the day set 
 arrived, the Genro were hastily summoned to one 
 of their urgent sittings, and in the language of his 
 secretary, his Excellency was ^'very busy." From 
 the moment when negotiations were broken off the 
 field work of the Elder Statesmen was finished ; that 
 of the army had begun. One of them, with true 
 samurai courtesy, signified his leisure by not forget- 
 ting the request of a foreigner. 
 
 The drive to the Marquis's house took me to the 
 farthest suburbs of the city. We passed many small, 
 two-wheeled army carts drawn by ponies, and the 
 still smaller ones drawn by coolies. Splashes of 
 red of the stripes of Imperial Guardsmen's new caps 
 
8 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 or trousers showed through crates that were piled 
 high in contrast to the compact Kttle boxes that 
 contained ammunition. The reservists from out- 
 lying districts were on their way to town. With 
 each one were his nearest friends. The road be- 
 came a procession of groups. If your servant is 
 absent in Japan, the death, the sickness, or the mar- 
 riage of a "friend" calls him. It is a land of groups 
 of friends. All the cronies of his age see the recruit 
 into the army, and see the recruit become reservist 
 back into it again. The parting with his wife or 
 his mother or his sweetheart is usually at the door- 
 step. 
 
 If you looked away from the soldiers and the 
 policemen on the beat, at the shops with their slid- 
 ing screens pushed back, making windows and doors 
 and show-windows and show-room into one; at the 
 ideographic signs and the garb of the daily workers, 
 either near by or in the fields, the vista still had 
 everything in common with the Japan of forty years 
 ago, which knew no world but her own. 
 
 It was strange that on this morning of all morn- 
 ings I was going to see the man I was. He had 
 grown to manhood under a regime as different 
 from ours as that of the Chinese from the ancient 
 Greeks. As a youth, if he had cut off his queue, 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 9 
 
 he would have been debased from his rank as a 
 gendeman. If he had attempted to leave his native 
 country he would have suffered death, which the 
 Shogun thought a fit punishment for a crime against 
 the isolation which was the gospel of the land. 
 
 Yamagata's first experience of war was as a feudal 
 swordsman clad in armor, who fought according to 
 the Japanese counterpart of the etiquette of the 
 Knights of the Round Table. Clan warfare, the only 
 kind known, was then the privilege of the few, like 
 private yachts. A gentleman born (a samurai) 
 alone had the right to bear arms. Until you know the 
 chivalry, courage, pride, and stoicism that that word 
 stood for, you can in nowise understand how it is 
 that this suddenly transformed Oriental people to- 
 day cross the seas to fight on its own ground the 
 Russian Empire. A farm laborer in those days was 
 as far from the right to bear arms as a longshoreman 
 is from a bishopric. Yet this Yamagata has lived 
 to lead one army, whose soldiers were composed of 
 all classes and armed with modern rifles, in a vic- 
 torious foreign war; and he may yet take the field 
 in another and infinitely greater one, when the forty 
 waiting transports (improvised from steamers) shall 
 carry an army of three hundred thousand men to 
 Korea and Manchuria. 
 
lO WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 If I had gone to see him forty years ago — when I 
 could not have gone unless I had been a Japanese, 
 and wore a queue and two swords — we should have 
 sat on mats with our legs crossed. Profound would 
 have been our bows, delicately worded our compli- 
 ments. To-day, I drove into a tree-studded yard 
 that was entirely Japanese, surrounding a stone and 
 stucco building which was distinctly Occidental. 
 (The Japanese have found our houses more comfort- 
 able — if less artistic to their taste — than their own. 
 Their sylvan effects they most wisely retain.) I was 
 ushered into a reception room that might be that of 
 a well-to-do person with distinction of taste at home. 
 Yamagata has in this age the versatility and the 
 classic simplicity of the soldier and statesman in one 
 that we associate with another age. A field mar- 
 shal by right of his victories in the field; one of the 
 five Elder Statesmen; the Mikado's counsellor in 
 civil as well as in military affairs, and the head of the 
 political coalition responsible for the present Cabinet, 
 he stands for the policy and the administration that 
 brought on the war. He is not of the school of radi- 
 calism, but of the old school of Japan ; a Tory rather 
 than a Whig. The manners of other days in Japan 
 are reflected in him as the manners of other days in 
 America are in an old-time Southerner. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW ii 
 
 I have said that he was one of the five Elder States- 
 men; the five who are known as the Genro. Their 
 part is advisory in a land which follows the precept 
 of old men for counsel and young men for action. 
 All were leaders in the reformation. In the play and 
 counterplay of politics, everyone has known at some 
 time each of the others as an ally. To-day for the 
 first time, so far as their front to the world goes, 
 they are united — for the war. In the weeks past 
 they have held many secret meetings whose minutes 
 were reported to the Imperial ear alone. Out of 
 their candid discussions has come the Imperial con- 
 clusion and, finally, the Imperial word. For the 
 Emperor is the one who decides. He listens and 
 listens, as unchanging of face as the Buddha at 
 Kamakura, and once his determination is made 
 known, keeps the faith of ancestral infallibility by 
 holding to it. 
 
 Foremost of the Genro is Ito, purely the civilian, 
 purely the statesman, who is criticised for his foreign 
 policy as Gladstone was, while Yamagata, the soldier, 
 is criticised for his home policy as Salisbury was. 
 But Ito is not without chivalric appeal to his country- 
 men. It was he who, out of far-seeing patriotism 
 and a youthful spirit of curiosity, cut off his queue 
 and put aside his samurai sword when the penalty 
 
12 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 was loss of caste as a gentleman; who went aboard 
 a British trading ship and secured passage to dis- 
 tant lands when the penalty of visiting distant lands 
 was death. Once- in his country house at Oiso he 
 told me the story of how the British skipper who 
 made an unwelcome passenger callous his soft hands 
 on ropes and sails found a samurai game. For his 
 sacrifice he learned where the foreigners' power lay; 
 and queueless, swordless, he returned to his country 
 with the message — meaning so much to Russia — 
 that the only way to keep the foreigners out was to 
 use the foreigners' weapons. That was forty years 
 ago. 
 
 Now, Japan not only uses foreigners' weapons, 
 but makes them ; and the laying of the extensive new 
 trolley car system of Tokio is not interrupted by 
 the war. 
 
 At the great court dinners of this feudal, this ever 
 impressively unique state, Ito has a little table near 
 the throne, among the princes, by himself. In the old 
 days the Mikado resided in state at Kyoto and the 
 Shogun at Tokio ruled Japan. Now the Mikado is 
 in Tokio and Ito is his right arm. After him comes 
 Yamagata; and then, in order, Inouye, who accom- 
 panied Ito abroad, and Matsukata. They hold no 
 office. They are sages superior to the Cabinet, 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 13 
 
 which is a conservative Cabinet — ^Yamagata's. Nei- 
 ther Oyama, the head of the army, nor Ito, the head 
 of the navy, is one of them. But their turn has 
 come. The Genro decided that war was best. Oyama 
 and Admiral Ito made war. 
 
 **^ *^ ^l' ^l' 
 
 *t« *l^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 It was Yamagata the country gentleman, the 
 statesman, not Yamagata the soldier, whom I saw 
 this morning, this slight, elderly man in a frock coat, 
 with his bronzed face, his high cheek-bones, his good- 
 humored eyes, and hair turning gray, in his person 
 • bringing one nearer to the old Japan, and in his mili- 
 tary power to the modern Japan, than any other 
 man. His secretary, Mr. Nakayama, who inter- 
 preted for us, is a Harvard graduate. But he is 
 young and born to this regime ; he has about him the 
 air of the Occident. The Marquis belongs at once 
 to this regime and to the one before. As we sipped 
 our ceremonial tea, he talked of the war which was 
 only sixteen hours old; the war on which he had 
 staked his reputation; the war which meant to his 
 people more than their political future — their future 
 as individuals. He spoke of it as simply and as 
 calmly as if war were an e very-day affair. Nothing 
 in the shrewd face showed that he had been under 
 continuous strain for weeks. 
 
14 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 I spoke to him of the two things which made me 
 marvel most. The first was the organization into a 
 united, thoroughly disciplined army of classes which 
 formerly had never associated; of clans that had 
 always been at the sword's point; of the ^^ groups" 
 of friends ever ready to become factions. One might 
 as well have expected to make a Pole a good Russian 
 within forty years after the conquest, as to make a 
 unit out of the Japanese of 1850. The army, ab- 
 sorbing all clan rights, seems to-day one man and 
 one mind, keeping its secrets as one. How was this 
 brought about? I wanted to hear the explanation 
 from the Field Marshal who had seen the army rise 
 from the first companies that threw away their bows 
 and arrows for rifles. There was the Oriental dep- 
 recation of self in his answer, which left me knowing 
 little more than before. He seemed a little surprised 
 that the success had been so manifest to foreigners. 
 It had been very difficult and it was still very diffi- 
 cult, according to a field marshal's high ideas of disci- 
 pline, to make Japanese officers and men realize the 
 spirit of military unity as they should. 
 
 '^The spirit of corps that keeps military secrets 
 seems perfect," I suggested. 
 
 ^'Not entirely," he said gently. ^'Some will talk 
 when they ought not to. Our newspapers, too, are 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 15 
 
 far from being as careful as they should be. Rather 
 than know everything and know it fully and accu- 
 rately in due time, their principal ambition seems to 
 be to know the idea before anyone else, and publish 
 it first. They are not yet enough advanced to be 
 discreet." 
 
 I wondered what a city editor would think of the 
 Marquis's view. 
 
 This morning, the greatest of newspaper mornings, 
 all that appeared was the official statement of the 
 negotiations, with Japan's reasons for breaking them 
 off. There was nothing about the mobilization, or 
 what troops were here or being moved there, because 
 the Government had given strong hints of what it 
 would and would not permit to be published. The 
 great reason for the rise of a united army lies in the 
 inherent respect of the Japanese for law, for the 
 Emperor, for the nobility, and for the Emperor's 
 counsellors. 
 
 To my second question, the answer was more en- 
 lightening to the foreigner who comes to Japan as 
 the Japanese go abroad, bristling with question 
 marks. 
 
 '^If you will look at the geographical position of 
 Korea you will see that it is like a poniard pointing 
 at the heart of Japan," said the Marquis. " If Korea 
 
i6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 is occupied by a foreign power, the Japan Sea ceases 
 to be Japanese, and the Korean Straits are no 
 longer in our control. Our public men are of many 
 parties, not of two only, as are yours in America. 
 Our Cabinets are the product of coalitions, which, 
 for the time being, seem to His Majesty and the legis- 
 lative power best to serve the interests of the country. 
 Foreign policy is a thing entirely apart. In the con- 
 sideration of Korea and Manchuria, all men of all 
 parties needed only patriotism to realize the single- 
 ness of our interests. Whatever Cabinet was in power 
 continued the policy of its predecessor, and the policy 
 of all on a question which put the very life of our 
 nation at stake. So our unchanging attitude from 
 the outset of our disagreement with Russia has been 
 natural and inevitable. In its negotiations the Gov- 
 ernment has patiently kept the hope of peace in view. 
 No agitation prejudicial to calm deliberation has 
 been permitted. A society organized against Russia 
 was suppressed. Our demands were clear and un- 
 faltering. We had to deal with an enemy whose 
 methods were those of evasion and hypocrisy, to 
 whom delay meant advantage." 
 
 This war completes the chain of Japan's calcula- 
 tions. It represents the third period in the forward- 
 ing of her high ambitions. First, when foreign fleets 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 17 
 
 opened her ports by force, she set out to make those 
 internal reforms and to organize an army on modern 
 principles which should guarantee her safety. As 
 a monument of the initial step, the old forts built 
 after Perry's coming still stand in Tokio Bay. The 
 diplomacy of such men as Yamagata, with the con- 
 structive home policy of Ito, went hand in hand with 
 military organization, in which the fear of India's 
 fate was the ^'battle-cry of clans to sink their differ- 
 ences." But still the foreigners in the treaty ports 
 lived under their own laws. 
 
 The second step was the Chino- Japanese War, 
 when the world expected to see the giant crush the 
 midget under his thumb, and instead saw the midget 
 raise the flag of victory over the giant's belly. It was 
 then, by the weapons with which place is won, that 
 Japan forced herself into a position of power among 
 the family of nations. Ex-territoriality ceased; for- 
 eigners are now under Japanese law. The Japan- 
 ese people, thanks to the combination of Russia, 
 Germany and France, had to see the territory which 
 they had won by their blood fall to the lot of Russia's 
 "glacial approach." 
 
 The third period is at hand. Its task is commen- 
 surate with the reward it offers. By arms, Japan 
 must make room across the seas for her congested 
 
1 8 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 population, with the prospect of becoming one of the 
 greatest of world powers. It shows how long human 
 life may be in the changes and the deeds it may 
 compass, that the samurai before me had lived 
 through the two periods to help precipitate the third. 
 Yet the explanation is not so difficult. A civilized 
 race was simply transformed from fighting with 
 swords to fighting with small-bore rifles and battle- 
 ships; from heralds to newspapers; from hand to 
 machine looms. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE NIGHT OF VICTORY 
 
 Yesterday the Japanese lanterns were tele- 
 scoped; to-night they are alight; to-night Tokio 
 hears only of victory. All day the men who sell 
 the extras have been hurrying through the streets, 
 their cries drowning the decorous tinkle of their 
 little bells. Bulletins, the size of a sheet of note- 
 paper, have been sweetmeats to the public, whose 
 stomach could not have surfeit of such news. This 
 we do know: The cruiser Variag and the gunboat 
 Korietz are wrecks at Chemulpo, and Admiral 
 Togo has dealt a telling blow at Port Arthur. Much 
 more we hope, wanting to believe every happy rumor 
 that ink makes on paper and sends broadcast with 
 clarion voice — price, one sen. 
 
 The Japanese does not cheer until he has won. 
 To-night the population of the town seems twenty 
 times what it was the night war began. Tokio, hav- 
 ing something to be proud of, opens its doors and 
 
 shows its head. The little Buddhist images, with 
 
 19 
 
20 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 far-off, subtle smiles, wake up and blink. The 
 paper-windowed houses that husbanded doubts 
 and fears and the tense expectancy of a people who 
 think of their Emperor's fortune before their own, 
 send their occupants forth, if not to merry-making 
 at least to walk up and down. Streets that were dark 
 last night dance with globes of yellow light to-night. 
 
 The Japanese lantern does not belong in a land 
 where you read from left to right horizontally, but 
 to a land where you read from right to left perpen- 
 dicularly. The lantern goes with the people, their 
 houses, their costume, and their manners. You 
 must come to Japan to understand the lantern; you 
 must be in Tokio on the night of victory to realize 
 that it is a living thing. 
 
 In columns of twos and threes — an ill-lighted 
 city serving a pictorial end — winding in and out 
 through the streets ran the yellow balls of light, 
 clear-cut against the darkness, while under them 
 was the roar of song and cheer. They went to the 
 Admiralty, and from the steps of the big building 
 of European architecture, the Minister of Marine 
 made them a speech. All this was Occidental. 
 The foreigners' interest lay farther on when the 
 parade, with its crest of moons, passed across the 
 moat and through the double gates that open at 
 
THE NIGHT OF VICTORY 21 
 
 the corner of the palace enclosure into the park 
 that faces still other gates through which the state car- 
 riages pass to the most exclusive of courts. 
 
 Across the length of the park the lantern-bearers 
 formed in close order. Every face was turned 
 toward the palace. The lanterns were raised high 
 as the ''Banzais!" rang out, ''Dai Nippon banzai! 
 Dai Nippon banzai ! Banzai, banzai, banzai ! ' ' The 
 dim light showed the students of the higher schools 
 in their neat-fitting Western uniforms — they who 
 had missed fighting for their beloved country by 
 being born three or four years too late. The best 
 that they could do was to split their throats in the 
 cold, moist night air. At their heels, in the freer 
 garb of hakamas, were the students of the university, 
 with their future of developing and civilizing the 
 lands that the navy and army should win. 
 
 ''Isn't it pretty near time that the Emperor showed 
 himself?" a foreigner asked. All faces were turned 
 toward, all eyes were looking toward, a wall of dark- 
 ness. Out of it was visible only the white sides of 
 one of the buildings in the enclosure. 
 
 If this had been St. Petersburg, and the Russians 
 had won, we can imagine how the Czar might have 
 appeared in a doorway for a moment, under a blaze 
 of light. That would be a part of the mise en scene 
 
22 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 for that land ; a part that would receive the approval 
 of David Belasco. Japan is different — always differ- 
 ent. This is an Emperor whose ancestors have sat 
 on the throne from time immemorial. If Palestine 
 were to-day a free Jewish nation, and the Jews an 
 inherently warlike people who had never known con- 
 quest, the descendant of Moses, who sat on the throne, 
 would mean to them what their Emperor does to 
 the Japanese. The services and the surroundings 
 of divinity hedge him around. The house in which 
 he lives is not in sight of the park. He could not 
 see the dancing lanterns that leaped skyward with 
 the cries of "Banzai!" If he had wished to show 
 himself to the people, there was no way. The peo- 
 ple cheered him as an abstraction; yet a living ab- 
 straction to whom they intrust the direction of their 
 personal affairs. 
 
 While Tokio rejoiced. Baron de Rosen was pack- 
 ing his trunks. His going had more than one pa- 
 thetic side. He was personally fond of the Jap- 
 anese. Like the French Ambassador in Berlin in 
 1870, his information, leaving inclinations out of the 
 question, made him a peace man. Whether or not 
 he, too, had informed his country of the enemy's 
 preparedness, and been scoffed at for his pains by 
 
THE NIGHT OF VICTORY 23 
 
 his over-confident superiors, history may not yet 
 relate. Weeks ago, when reports came from Port 
 Arthur that Admiral Alexieff was convinced that 
 there would be no war, people here wondered how 
 he could so far misunderstand Japanese diplomacy. 
 
 Japan began hostilities of her own initiative. She 
 carefully chose the hour of her first offensive blow. 
 She may have expected to catch Russia unawares, 
 but there is no reason why the Russian should have 
 permitted her to. Japan played precisely within 
 the letter of the law. Russia had for years made 
 capital out of promises. Japan made capital out 
 of sudden, decisive action. 
 
 For months before his departure the negotiations 
 had been taken entirely out of de Rosen's hands. 
 He was merely a messenger who carried letters 
 from his Government to the Foreign Office, and, 
 saying, *'Your Excellency, I have the honor to pre- 
 sent — " he was gone. Aside from his official worries, 
 he suffered the acutest pain from an ear affection. 
 It is a saying in the diplomatic service that the 
 legate to a country which declares war against his 
 own is usually shelved. De Rosen may receive a 
 small post ; it is unlikely that he will ever have another 
 important one. With the knowledge that his career 
 was closed, half ill, he had to wait four days in 
 
24 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 miserable loneliness in that massive brick Legation 
 building which is now closed for — How long ? 
 
 The news of the destruction of the Variag and the 
 Korietz at Chemulpo, of the occupation of Seoul, of 
 the vital injuries to two battleships and a cruiser at 
 Port Arthur, coming bit by bit, were brought to him 
 while he was yet in the enemy's land, waiting help- 
 lessly on the date of the departure of the French 
 steamer from Yokohama. While Japan's swift suc- 
 cesses fairly electrified the air, his fellow Ministers, 
 bound to avoid any reference to the war, had to pay 
 their farewell calls when he knew that the actual sym- 
 pathies of most of them were with the enemies of his 
 country. From the palace where victory reigned 
 came valuable presents in token of a royal adieu, 
 without malice, borne by polite messengers to the 
 house of defeat. Finally, the day of his going was 
 the Japanese Fourth of July. 
 
 The train for Yokohama which the Baron chose 
 went at nine the evening before the departure of the 
 steamer. As the carriage passed out of the Legation 
 gates, a faint murmur rose from the bystanders — a 
 murmur of curiosity rather than assault. The police 
 escort was scarcely needed. Tokio, which has no 
 slums, seems to have no mobs. The crowd which 
 banked the open space that the police made at Shim- 
 
THE NIGHT OF VICTORY 25 
 
 bashi Station was wholly quiet. Not alone the Le- 
 gation people were there to bid him once more hon 
 voyage^ but many Japanese officials awaited his ar- 
 rival in a room upstairs. It was an incident of the 
 bureaucratic system which grinds to the same fineness 
 on all occasions that the Ministers had to buy their 
 platform tickets in due course. 
 
 From the station itself the crowd was entirely ex- 
 cluded. The train was the regular one going at that 
 hour, and the usual stream of getas went clicking 
 over the concrete to the second and third class com- 
 partments. Two or three minutes before the gong 
 was sounded, the Baron, looking ill and worn, lead- 
 ing, the Legation folk and the Japanese officials fol- 
 lowed him to his compartment, where, after the 
 Russians had entered, the others paused, and then 
 bowed as the train pulled out with no guard except 
 a few soldiers in the compartment ahead of the 
 Baron's. A carriage met him at the Yokohama 
 station, and the police saw him aboard the Yarra, 
 which was to bear him to Europe. The next morn- 
 ing a few near friends were on the pier. He smiled 
 to them as the steamer drew away, taking him out of 
 a land that he liked and that liked him. 
 
IV 
 
 TO THE front! 
 
 Never was parting guest more happy to go, never 
 was parting guest more heartily and sincerely sped. 
 With the correspondents of the first contingent actu- 
 ally away, the hopes of the second and the third rose 
 to the dignity of expectations. They gathered at 
 Shimbashi Station with tin horns and gave the chosen 
 few three and a tiger. For over two months some 
 of us have waited for official passes to join the Jap- 
 anese army in the field. Now that we have the 
 treasure it is not much to look at — only a slip of 
 paper which would go into the average- size envelope. 
 By rights it should be on vellum, with marginal 
 decorations of storks standing on one leg and an in- 
 scription of summa cum laude for patience in flour- 
 ishes. Our thoughts, however, are not on such 
 trivialities. They are entirely on how much each 
 little pass will permit us to see. 
 
 "The Japanese were absolutely prepared for this 
 
 war and all possible contingencies save one," said a 
 
 26 
 
TO THE FRONT! 27 
 
 secretary of legation in Tokio. ^'They overlooked 
 the coming of a small army of correspondents repre- 
 senting the public opinion of two great friendly 
 nations." 
 
 Nearly a hundred Europeans and Americans, used 
 to entirely different food and conditions of life from 
 the natives, turned a hotel into a barracks, and with 
 persistent address asked for privileges from the For- 
 eign Office. In time such a force, each representing 
 a competitive property, can wear even the Japanese 
 smile of politeness down to a studied grimace. We 
 had and have the conviction that the army would 
 preferably have had neither correspondents nor at- 
 taches in the field. The lives, the millions of dollars, 
 the national aims at stake were not ours; we 
 came only by courtesy as foreigners. A correspon- 
 dent kills no Russians; he may, if indiscreet, give in- 
 formation to the enemy. But the Foreign Office and 
 even a higher power said that we must go. The time 
 and manner of our going was perforce left to the 
 General Staff. It was not a new situation in the 
 world ; that of a decision by the Government with ex- 
 ecution left to a department. And the General Staff 
 kept saying, ^^very soon, " and bidding us be patient. 
 
 While tableau after tableau of success was unfolded 
 by land and sea, and the rumor-mongers of the 
 
28 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 uncensored, unknowing, madly imaginative China 
 coast met the demands of the press which wanted a 
 battle every day, the men who wanted to see war 
 in the field instead of through the bubbles of gossip 
 over Eastern bars, strode up and down the corridors 
 of their hotel prisons, among tents, saddles, and kits, 
 like so many melancholy Danes — as if each were the 
 Hamlet of the play. 
 
 At last the rampant curiosity of the spoiled chil- 
 dren of the press, grateful for small favors, may feed 
 itself on the sight of a Japanese soldier really march- 
 ing toward an enemy in a disputed land. 
 
 Now that we are started, we wonder what lies in 
 store for us in this campaign of an Oriental power in 
 a hermit land. The time of our return is shrouded 
 in the mystery of the vicissitudes of a great war which 
 has scarcely begun. The departure from Shimbashi, 
 when an Anglo-Saxon hurrah broke the long record 
 of Banzais for departing troops, the parting of a dozen 
 foreigners from their American and European friends, 
 reminded us again of the romance and the pictu- 
 resqueness of our position. There was never a war at 
 all comparable to this, and never a war which drew 
 so many foreign correspondents. The uncertainty 
 of our position, the uncertainty of the conditions 
 under which we shall live, brought a havoc of buying 
 
TO THE FRONT! 29 
 
 at the last moment on the part of men who have 
 studied their requirements in the field while they 
 waited. We have everything, from postage-stamps 
 done up in oiled paper to tool-chests the size of a 
 pocket-book. 
 
 The small islands, for the most part barren and 
 rocky, which pepper the sea near the Korean coast- 
 line, have been a blessing to the Japanese in this 
 war. They provide cover from storms for the nu- 
 merous fleet of small transports which three months 
 ago were doing merchant service. Our own trans- 
 port and our experience were typical. The Sumi- 
 noye Maru, of a thousand tons burden, is thirty- 
 three years old. She was bought in England when 
 she was already past the Ai age limit of Lloyds. 
 Ever since she has been running out of Hokkaido. 
 She is as shipshape as she is patched. Her Japan- 
 ese skipper, who speaks English excellently, and 
 with more than English politeness, served his ap- 
 prenticeship before the mast of a sailing vessel out 
 of Glasgow. The result is high tribute to his teach- 
 ers. He cares for his ancient charge with the nice- 
 ness of a family physician, wooing ten knots out of 
 her rheumatic engine. 
 
 When a nor'wester came up, soon after we left 
 
so WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Chemulpo, he ran her behind one of the accommo- 
 dating islands and dropped anchor. When the sea 
 calmed he went out again, and this morning he 
 brought us to Chenampo, that first port where the 
 correspondent blessed with an official pass issued 
 in Tokio is permitted to land. Chenampo has been 
 and is, so far as we know, the main point of landing 
 both for troops and supplies north of Chemulpo. 
 The settlement that looks out upon the harbor is 
 Japanese and well isolated from the two near-by 
 Korean villages by more than distance. It is 
 the outpost which the Japanese flag is following. 
 From a trading and fishing hamlet the few rows of 
 Japanese houses have risen to the dignity of officers' 
 quarters for an army of invasion. Until we came 
 there was one foreigner who spoke some English — 
 the German collector of customs. For weeks sup- 
 plies and soldiers have been forwarded into the 
 interior with no other spectator except the Japanese 
 and the Koreans. The newcomer is as much at a 
 loss for details of fact as a Hungarian just arrived 
 in New York is to the intrigues of Fourth Ward 
 politics. 
 
 From the steamer we could see the new unpainted 
 barracks and storehouses which rose with the magic 
 that forethought and preparedness command soon 
 
TO THE FRONTl 31 
 
 after the first transports dropped anchor. Beyond 
 the piled stores, beyond the artillerymen scattered 
 in the streets or taking their horses for exercise, there 
 is nothing of the commotion to be expected of a great 
 point of military debarkation. 
 
 In an hour in Chenampo you get an impression of 
 the coming and passing race, clearer perhaps than you 
 will have weeks hence. Here the little men are of 
 the future and the big men of the past. The two 
 races are as distinct in type as Germans and Moors. 
 Wherever you see a blue figure on the landscape it is 
 Japanese, wherever you see a white figure it is Korean. 
 The Korean never washes his body and only washes 
 his clothes occasionally. You are in a land of coolies 
 and corrupt ofiicials. All spend most of the time 
 in the street. The race itself is characterless, list- 
 less, without color. Through the mass rides one 
 little Japanese artilleryman or walks one little Jap- 
 anese infantryman, and the natives look at him with 
 a kind of stupid, preoccupied curiosity. The smart 
 visitor in uniform came only yesterday, clearing 
 the seas first of a European enemy. He could almost 
 walk under the arm of one of the big Koreans who 
 erectly, patronizingly, saunter the street's length and 
 back again, pipe in hand. Yet he could clear the 
 town by lifting his finger. Giving way to the 
 
32 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 masterful race, the native, not making even the feint 
 of resistance, still retains that stupidly impassive 
 dignity. 
 
 '^Let the Japanese come! We still wear white 
 and do our hair up in knots on top of our heads, 
 and thus you will see we lose nothing." 
 
 The Koreans are as noncommittal about the 
 coming of the Japanese as the average American 
 about the tribal differences of the Fijians. Men 
 and women dressing much alike, in their muddy- 
 colored white clothes, with feminine faces unfeminine 
 and masculine faces unmasculine, the Koreans seem 
 a sexless people, begetting wonder that the race has 
 not long ago ceased reproduction. 
 
 Some few — the few who understand — may realize 
 the benefits which will result from Japanese occu- 
 pation. The foreigner who lacks conviction need 
 only go from the orderly and cleanly Japanese to the 
 filthy Korean village. The ofhcer commanding, 
 who received us at his headquarters in a dwelling 
 more modest than that which with true Japanese 
 politeness he placed at our command, was Oriental 
 in his deprecation of how little he could do for us 
 and Teutonic in the exactness of his arrangements. 
 
 The arrival of the foreign correspondents is more 
 interesting to the Koreans than the arrival of the 
 
TO THE FRONT 1 33 
 
 Japanese. There were Japanese here before. As 
 for the big noses, there was only the Collector of 
 Customs, and now there are many others equally 
 strange. The inn, whose lower floor some artillery 
 officers vacated on our behalf, is such as every trav- 
 eller in Japan knows well. The song of my type- 
 writer has awakened the interest of the lady of the 
 house, who is originally from Nagasaki. She has 
 opened the sliding door, and, dropping on her knees 
 with a courtesy to the correspondent (sitting on a 
 blanket roll with a provision box for a table), has 
 pointed at the machine and said "Shimbun" (news- 
 paper). I told her she was right, and courtesied 
 with the type spool in turn. It is a pleasure to find 
 such a hostess and such a clean house in Korea. It 
 is blessed, when your mission is to see a war, after 
 many weeks of waiting in a peaceful capital, to be 
 even as far as Chenampo, where patches of official 
 blue enliven the muddy white of native monotony. 
 
V 
 
 OVERTAKING THE ARMY 
 
 Through a land where a civilization only half 
 matured and then withered has rotted through gen- 
 erations of decadency, where no man understands 
 a horse and men take the place of horses, where 
 every inhabitant high and low is lousy, where filthy, 
 corrupt officials have so long collected all surplus 
 profits as taxes that subjects learn to avoid trouble 
 by avoiding surpluses^through the sodden, her- 
 mit Korea runs a river of new life, to be fruitful 
 with consequences that open all the vistas of con- 
 jecture and problematic discussion. 
 
 By the old Peking Road — the valley following the 
 path of ages of travel — by the same road down which 
 the old conquerors came, down which civilization 
 was introduced, the Japanese army is moving. Only 
 it moves in the opposite direction. For the first time 
 since the Romans, the armed mission of a higher 
 human organization has gone northward. In its 
 wake, with its bulk in mass to strike the enemy, the 
 army leaves the stations of its order and cleanliness; 
 
 34 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 35 
 
 as significant as the clean hospital attendants in the 
 ward of sickness. The new may not be ideal, but 
 it is so much better than the old as to silence all 
 comparisons. 
 
 Two months ago it was the old Korea. What- 
 ever happens now, it cannot be the old Korea again. 
 The soldier's sudden change of a blow and a day 
 has been wrought in the presence of those who have 
 worked in the evolutionary way of an evangelist's 
 patience and persistence. The river runs by a spot 
 where continual drops of water have made some 
 impression. In sanitary isolation above the sink 
 of the old town (whose ancient, pagoda-topped wall 
 has survived to the purpose of holding filth from 
 contact with outer clay) are the houses of the mis- 
 sionaries of the American Presbyterian Board. 
 
 ^ WU *3f %if *1^ «1« 
 
 ^* 'I* *y* *l* *l» 5j* 
 
 On the road later I met a schoolmaster fromTokio 
 — a reservist serving with the battalion of sappers — 
 trudging on very erectly and very sturdily under his 
 heavy marching kit. 
 
 "Do you speak English?" he asked. 
 
 The question came like an unexpected wireless 
 message from a friend on another ship at sea. 
 
 "Though I was fresh from town life, it was not 
 the physical exertion of the private soldier which 
 
36 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 I found hardest to bear. My muscles soon hardened 
 and the sores on my feet soon became calloused. 
 The filth and the vermin are the terrible things. 
 In Ping Yang I was living in a miserable native 
 house when I met an American missionary gentle- 
 man who provided me with clean quarters and a hot 
 bath" — here his eyes glistened — "like I have at 
 home." 
 
 Between travellers there is no bond after lan- 
 guage like that of cleanliness. I walked my horse 
 for some time beside the reservist and chatted with 
 him. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 ?|5 ^ *1> •T* »!• ^ 
 
 Now in my travels I have seen many missionaries, 
 and there are good missionaries and bad, just as 
 there are good and bad blacksmiths and poets. 
 Some missionaries become converted to the life of 
 the country whose inhabitants they would convert, 
 and instead of being isolated heights sink to the stale 
 level of heathendom itself; some are proof of the 
 old saying that the blood of the martyr is the seed 
 of the church. 
 
 The missionaries of Ping Yang are practising in 
 truth the precepts of the devotion which called the 
 ambition of their theological school days. What a 
 town they dwell in! a town where the human being 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 37 
 
 lives as filthily as only one other animal, the swine, 
 will; where the leather merchant lays his fresh pelt 
 on the uneven stones of the main street and from 
 his doorway watches, through the dirty slits of his 
 unwashed eyelids, its tanning by the tread of passing 
 feet. 
 
 Yes, before the romance of this ancient city ap- 
 peals to me, it must have a sewerage system and its 
 inhabitants must submit to immersion in lye in order 
 to give soap a purchase. You may search in vain 
 among the people of the earth for a satire like that 
 which clothes this race in white — a white that is 
 hardly ever washed. Long ago, an Imperial edict 
 bade them put on white whenever royalty died, and 
 royalty died so often that the rabbit folk saved ex- 
 pense most loyally by grieving for royalty all the 
 time. 
 
 Such is Ping Yang; and in Ping Yang — the Ameri- 
 can flag beckoning me from the plain at the close of a 
 journey in which, struggling, I had led my struggling 
 horse through the mire from Chenampo — I found 
 some simple American homes whose occupants pa- 
 tiently and hopefully, by example and argument, 
 work for the betterment of their fellow-men. With 
 them, while our horses rested, I spent an American 
 Sunday. Early the next morning we began that 
 
38 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ride to Kuroki's front which, for the individual corre- 
 spondent, is as historical as battles to come will be 
 for the world in general. There was no need of 
 having the road pointed out to us. It lay where the 
 line of coolies passed through the northern gate. 
 Like a dotted line on the map they marked the route 
 of the army whose food they carried. 
 
 The Hermit Land and the Land of the Rising Sun 
 might well be called the Land of the Burden Bearers. 
 Korea excels in coolies as distinctly as Japan does in 
 lacquer ware or China in tea. Your native can 
 carry more and lift or pull less than the average man 
 of any other country. Like the hackney horse, this 
 human being has literally been bred by generations 
 to a special task. The young boy who brings fire- 
 wood from the hills has his pack steadily increased 
 until he reaches the adult's load at sixteen or seven- 
 teen years of age. The muscles that bear are de- 
 veloped at the expense of all others. Nourishment 
 for his brain, the force for the natural aggressive 
 characteristic of the male sex, all go into his back. 
 He is as mild and as helpless as a milch cow with a 
 load of five hundred- weight. 
 
 If he owns a horse, the local officials may take it 
 as a tax, but the local officials now can do no worse 
 than to beat him. His capital in the world are the 
 
1^ 
 
 r "e 
 
 ^•** 
 
 u^-.-m^i^'':w^i 
 
 
 »* « 
 
 ^V^A^ 
 
 Copyright^ igo4, by Collier's J I 'cckly. 
 
 Train of Korean coolies, loaded with rice for the army, passing through 
 the North gate of Ping Yang. 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 39 
 
 two crotch-sticks of his packing-frame and the straw 
 ropes for fastening on his burden. His one luxury, 
 his joy of Hving — his only reason for living, I should 
 say — is his pipe, whose little bowl he fills at every 
 opportunity. Bending under a hundred and twenty 
 pounds, he will trot out of line and back to his place 
 in order to get a light at a wayside house. 
 
 Vanity of vanities! I recall when I followed the 
 path of the Klondyke gold-seekers to Dawson the 
 pride of blue-eyed, fair-haired men, who belong to 
 the most individualistic of races, about the weight of 
 the packs which they carried over a short summit. 
 The rabbit people, without the aggressiveness to say 
 that their souls are their own, will carry twice as 
 much all day — without boasting. 
 
 The Japanese army has been the easiest master 
 that these coolies have ever known. It pays them 
 good wages for a stated weight and a stated daily dis- 
 tance. The official, lying in wait for their earnings, 
 wonders if the new order of things so prolific of graft 
 shall not stay his hand. This type we occasionally 
 saw striding about gravely in white garments — his 
 dignity broken only when the necessity to scratch 
 compelled. 
 
 A certain correspondent met one of these gentle- 
 men on the road and asked him the distance to a 
 
40 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 certain town. The official sat down to write it in 
 Chinese characters. The correspondent's face re- 
 maining blank, the Korean spat in contempt of one 
 whose early education had been so signally neglected. 
 Now the correspondent had just walked up a steep, 
 bowlder-strewn hill; and the strangely named place 
 which, ten ri to the rear was only five ri away, was 
 not yet in sight. 
 
 From the Korean gentleman came an odor as pene- 
 trating as a miasma. The temptation was irresist- 
 ible. First observing that his hand was gloved, 
 he brought it down with significant force on the top- 
 lofty headgear of the Korean gentleman and drove 
 bird cage and all fairly down over the official ears. 
 The Korean gentleman disappeared over the hill 
 with his white garments flying. The fact that prob- 
 ably he had never run before in all his life lent to 
 the incident poetic justice. Retributive justice would 
 consist in first giving all the ruling class, from the 
 Emperor down, fifty lashes, then setting them to 
 mending the roads and, thereafter, importing horses 
 and starting the country anew. 
 
 Most of the women of the land — and all the young 
 women — had needlessly fled to the interior and all the 
 men had sought the public highway. It was in the 
 period of the last days of winter idleness. The fields, 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 41 
 
 with their last year's rice stubbles, were as yet un- 
 turned, and the brook-sides were just beginning to 
 show green. If cash payments kept the rural popula- 
 tion entranced for another two weeks then the season's 
 crops might suffer. By day, the temperature suited 
 horse and man — spring air and spring sun. By 
 night the cold crept in gradually until at dawn it was 
 in your marrow; and above the saddle-bags, out of 
 which we must live, we had to tie blankets enough to 
 keep us warm. 
 
 We must ride somewhere between a hundred and 
 twenty-five miles and a hundred and seventy miles 
 before we were on the scene of action. Was the 
 army fifty miles this side of the Yalu ? Or was it at 
 the Yalu? Would the historic crossing or an his- 
 toric attempt at a crossing be made before we should 
 arrive? According to the traditions of war corre- 
 spondence, we should have dashed. Collins, Hare, 
 and I, who kept together, had all the effort of dashing 
 with the actual experience of crawling and the sus- 
 pense that goes with it. My feelings were worse than 
 when the Lake Shore train that was to connect me 
 with the transcontinental limited that was, in turn, 
 to connect with a Pacific steamer at 'Frisco was 
 storm bound. They might wait the steamer — cer- 
 tainly they would not wait the battle. 
 
42 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Carrying us and our food and our warmth, our 
 China ponies could make only from twenty-five miles 
 to thirty-five miles a day over a highway whose only 
 road commissioner had been the traffic of a thousand 
 years. We nursed our steeds as an Arctic explorer 
 nurses his rations. We dragged them up the hills 
 and led them down the other side. And from the 
 summit we followed the winding gray streaks through 
 the valleys, through the villages toward one with a 
 pagoda which stood for a name on the map which 
 marked a mile-stone of our progress. 
 
 In the distance the villages were white; but their 
 white was like the white of the Korean's garments — 
 a pitiful mask for filth which clogged the streets into 
 which foul door- ways opened. Our stages of progress 
 were reckoned in Chinese li and Japanese ri and in 
 kilometers and, finally, in miles (by our own deduc- 
 tion). Kilometers are all very well in the abstract; 
 but when the Englishman or the American counts 
 his steps, he wants to know just how many miles he 
 has gone and just how many he has yet to go that 
 day. 
 
 A Chinese li is about as long as the native wants 
 to make it. The li of Fusan is no relative of the li 
 of Gensan, unless by coincidence. If the immemo- 
 rial custom has made a distance of five miles thirty li 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 43 
 
 and a distance of ten miles twenty li in the same 
 locality, no resident sees anything illogical in the 
 fact. A Japanese ri is definitely about two and a half 
 miles. A li is nominally one-third of a mile. We 
 asked the Koreans in li and they responded in ri. 
 We asked the Japanese in ri and they responded in 
 li, while we practised elocution on the enunciation of 
 I's and r's. 
 
 Contradictions as to distance were equalled only 
 by contradictions as to where the army was and 
 what it was doing. The officers guarding transport, 
 busy with the affairs of their section, instead of having 
 information to give rather expected some from trav- 
 ellers who had come from the outside world. Their 
 business was not to speculate on the work of other 
 parts of the great system, but to be efficient in their 
 own. 
 
 At a distance of from fifteen to eighteen miles apart 
 were the etappes, or stations, which the advancing 
 force left behind. Piles of supplies stood at the door 
 of official yamens and even blocked the pagoda's tum- 
 ble-down gates of approach. Around them swarmed 
 white figures taking up a day's burden, or depositing 
 it while they crowded into the houses in layers for 
 the night. For all this there was one Japanese word. 
 "Hetambo" was the open sesame. The humblest 
 
44 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 coolie understood it. To the commanding officer 
 of a "hetambo" village we commended ourselves 
 upon our arrival. As varied his hospitality, as 
 varied the quarters at his command, so varied our 
 fortunes. 
 
 We had to thank the officers of the army that had 
 gone before for warfare on vermin. In some places 
 they had remained long enough to cover the filth- 
 blackened walls with thin sheets of rice paper. 
 Always we felt that we need use only a modicum of 
 insect powder. At the '^hetambo" we had what was 
 more important than food for ourselves — food for 
 our horses. The knowledge at the end of the day 
 that there were no saddle-galls was equal to a repast. 
 
 Avoiding my diary, I will yet mention two days 
 which stand out black-lettered on our journey, and 
 one which stands out red-lettered. The first was that 
 of our approach to Anju, when we took a ^' short cut'* 
 which proved the longest way around. It was the 
 pouring rain which made us dare the economy. At 
 the rate of a mile an hour we plunged through the 
 mud, and at the end of each hour Anju seemed as 
 far away as ever. 
 
 The second was that when we did the longest ride 
 of all. At 6 P.M. our ''hetambo" town was three 
 miles away, so far as we could estimate; at 8 p.m. 
 
OVERTAKING THE ARMY 45 
 
 it was five miles away. Darkness found us on a 
 treacherous road in a swamp. Finding the way, we 
 led our horses till we saw lights, and the lights led us 
 to piles of rice in their close-woven straw sacks at 
 the familiar pagoda gate. 
 
 But there were mitigating circumstances. The 
 officer commanding the "hetambo" extended plan- 
 ters' hospitality. Our horses had a big, dry stable 
 with plenty of fodder; we had a dry room which had 
 been papered; a room that made it a pleasure to re- 
 move your boots, Japanese style, before entering; 
 and in the morning a cleanly little soldier of Japan, 
 all smiles, brought water for a bath — as if he knew 
 that bathing was the common ground of friendship 
 between our two countries. I bathed; I shaved by 
 the dawn's first light; I had slept with my clothes off, 
 for the ^'hetambo" had blankets to spare; and I rode 
 forth fresh for effort as for adventures. A bath and a 
 shave — they give you at least another hour's en- 
 durance. 
 
 On the third day we made a short ride. Tifiin 
 time found us by the side of a mountain stream which 
 ran clear and knee deep over a gravel bed. I looked 
 at that and at the white patches — Korean white — 
 of my pony. 
 
 "That stream was meant for you and me, Pinto, 
 
46 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and in a corner of my saddle-bags I have a bit of soap 
 for beast as well as man." 
 
 I undressed Pinto and then myself, and we washed. 
 There was the feel of ice in the water. That was so 
 much the better. For to bless the natural glow was 
 the warmth — noon-day warmth — of April sun which 
 dried Pinto's coat, laundry- white now, as he nosed 
 his feed-bag and then nibbled green grass; while his 
 owner, trying to forget the soiled clothes which he 
 must put on, gave himself in nature's dress to na- 
 ture's rest as he reclined on the cloth side of a poncho. 
 Verily, if it is pleasant, it is also good to wash, espe- 
 cially in Korea. 
 
VI 
 
 FIRST OPERATIONS AT THE YALU 
 
 When I was sixty miles from Wiju I heard that a 
 battle had already been fought. Like all rumors, 
 the terror of it was that Truth must sometimes ride 
 in Rumor's company. With a road free of soldiers 
 and thick with lines of straining coolies, twenty — 
 thirty — miles I rode, and still the same report, with 
 the smile and ''I don't know" of the quartermasters, 
 made scepticism grow into anxiety. 
 
 Then I saw on a hill-side artillery horses and near 
 by a battery; a mile farther another battery; then 
 two more, and how many more I shall not say. I no 
 longer asked if there had been a general engagement, 
 for there are not general engagements until the guns 
 are up. 
 
 Uphill and downhill, into a region less thickly 
 populated, where the forests of pine on the slopes — 
 "Russian timber concessions" — were being sawed 
 into bridge lengths to take a Japanese army into Rus- 
 sian dominion, horse and correspondent plodded on 
 
 47 
 
48 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 till we reached the water-shed and looked afar upon 
 the panorama of a mountainous land with a broad 
 river flowing through it. Thereafter, young trees 
 set thick as a hedge along the road when it ran at an 
 angle, with screens of corn-stalks hung overhead 
 when it descended directly, told us that we were with- 
 in sight of an enemy whom we would not have know 
 the number, of our men and guns. 
 
 Nature here has made a natural barrier of empire. 
 To Korea and Manchuria, the Yalu is what the 
 Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence are to the United 
 States and Canada. 
 
 Were there roads, the precipitous banks would be 
 an obstacle more than offset by fords higher up 
 stream. An army, however, is tied to its transpor- 
 tation. Men who climb over untravelled ground 
 must have their dinners and their blankets. The 
 Japanese must keep to the road, the Russians must. 
 Wiju is on the road and so we shall fight there. 
 
 The situation of Wiju is typically Korean, with the 
 water from the ascents making a stew of its own filth. 
 You go downhill to approach it from any direction. 
 Every house is unseen from the Manchurian side. 
 A natural wall protects it from one shore at a point 
 where the Yalu's waters pass in a single channel. 
 Above and below there are islands, low and sandy. 
 
FIRST OPERATIONS AT THE YALU 49 
 
 This one point in the enemy's Hnes is an unassailable 
 centre. 
 
 Opposite on the Manchurian bank rises a bare 
 and rocky bluff, "Tiger's Hill," with one high hump 
 and one lower, like a camel that is kneeling. A 
 winding path leads between the humps. This is 
 the only sign of human occupation, and no one as- 
 cends or descends it. Behind it, as the Japanese do 
 in Wiju, the Russians may move as openly as if they 
 were in a peaceful valley at home. Down the river 
 and up the river the banks on both sides are still high, 
 and on the Japanese side are formed of ridges which 
 are natural breastworks and earthworks. Shelter 
 for reserves is ready to hand as if made to order. 
 
 Rare is the figure of the Korean. Dots, patches, 
 and lines of blue uniform have taken the place of the 
 peasantry who, in other times, would be showing 
 spring activity. The only ploughing that is done is 
 that of the engineers scarring the reverse slopes. The 
 work in hand is war; the scene distinct in its cleav- 
 age from all gatherings of humanity. The hill-sides 
 where there have been only paths are cut by roads 
 prepared for a battle's work, as the mechanics of the 
 stage prepare for producing a play. In a word, this 
 means mobility. The passage of a field-gun must 
 be made as smooth as that of the theatrical star. 
 
so WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Whoever crosses the river with an army must pos- 
 sess the low islands either above or below the town. 
 Once they are his he may no longer screen the move- 
 ments on his immediate front, and submits his force 
 to shrapnel from the enemy's heights. Two of the 
 channels below Wiju may be forded; the third must 
 be bridged. If the Japanese are to open the way 
 into Manchuria by this route, the making of the 
 bridge and crossing it in sufficient force to drive 
 back the Russians (should they resist), form the 
 diamond point of interest. It means more than a 
 pass, for here the pass must first be built. 
 
 Our army of ants with their guns, rifles, spades, 
 bridge timbers, pontoon sections, presses closer and 
 closer to the river bank. No movement seems un- 
 premeditated. No one among the fifty thousand 
 men, fed by the coolie-strewn road, who have settled 
 down on this foodless region is ever idle. Instead of 
 an army of soldiers it is presently an army of navvies, 
 so preoccupied with industry that it seems to resent 
 the waste of the noon hour. The little man who 
 strains under a timber smiles as he goes; for every 
 step is one against the enemy of his country. 
 
 We watch the roads; we watch the slopes from 
 our camp; and we wait, devouring in one mood, 
 despising in another, the rumors brought by the in- 
 
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FIRST OPERATIONS AT THE YALU 5 1 
 
 terpreters who make it possible for us to talk at all 
 with our hosts. Perforce, the army's first work is to 
 take the islands in order to provide striking ground 
 for the great action. 
 
 This morning Captain Okada, a teacher in the 
 Staff College at Tokio, who is our mentor and cen- 
 sor, came to the correspondents' camp at 4 a.m. 
 with word that an action was expected at daylight. 
 You stumbled into your clothes, you stumbled out 
 of your tent, with field-glasses over one shoulder 
 and flask over the other, and a piece of chocolate in 
 your pocket. As your eyes strained to make out the 
 path in the darkness, you felt the cold night mist on 
 your face. From a hill where you waited for dawn^ 
 you could see the outline of other hills, and in the 
 valley something dark — the town. 
 
 There, expectant, in the oppressive stillness, one 
 looked toward the east for the sunrise, and listened 
 for the rattle of musketry. It began far away on our 
 right in volleys, as company after company of a line 
 pulled their triggers. It was not a heavy fire; it 
 signified only a skirmish or the morning '^constitu- 
 tional." The moment of '^ darkness before dawn" 
 was theatric, as if the lights of a stage were turned 
 down and then up. One second you could see 
 nothing. Half a minute later, only the mist hang- 
 
52 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ing in the valleys and cut by the heights shut out 
 the view. 
 
 The firing soon died away. We were told soon 
 afterward that the Japanese had rushed and taken one 
 of the islands far down the river. There was noth- 
 ing for us to do except to look at the positions. The 
 reaches of the river below the town were visible from 
 the ridge where Captain Okada ^^ guarded" us. 
 
 On the first island now held by the Japanese, we 
 could see the infantry in their trenches, and the de- 
 tails for water, and wood, and provisions going and 
 coming. There were no signs of an assault by them. 
 On the next island is the custom-house and a small 
 village which needed no Goldsmith to sing its de- 
 sertion. So far as we could see, not a soul was in 
 sight on the whole Russian front except a Russian 
 officer, who rode up and down on his trotting Cossack 
 pony as if he were on his morning constitutional. 
 Was he riding along an intrenched line or not? 
 Were there Russians on Genkato or only the pre- 
 tence ? To the onlooker it seemed as if the Japanese 
 might early cross over and take possession of the 
 empty houses. But a gun is silent till it speaks. 
 Later, we had a foretaste of what might happen if 
 the Japanese should rise from their cover. 
 
 At the summit of the path leading over Tiger's 
 
FIRST OPERATIONS AT THE YALU 53 
 
 Hill, between the two humps, were visible three 
 figures, the only others besides the itinerant horse- 
 man which indicated the presence of an enemy. At 
 intervals one of the three would bend over and the 
 other two would stand back. Then there was a 
 puff of smoke, and a shell went flying down the river. 
 Where it burst you could not tell. The solitary 
 horseman rode back again. Some reserves near by 
 were formed in line and marched away. 
 
 Ever this is the Land of the Morning Calm, where 
 the still cold of night breaks into the still warmth of 
 day. As I counted the seconds from the time of 
 Tiger's Hill gun-fire till we heard its report (in order 
 to judge the distance), I could hear no sound in this 
 area where two armies faced each other except the 
 ticking of my watch. Directly from the cover of 
 Tiger's Hill two companies of Cossacks rode out 
 widely deployed. They were a fair mark; too fair 
 a mark. The Japanese are not so naive in the art of 
 war as to disclose their gun positions on such slight 
 temptation. 
 
 Just opposite Wiju itself a number of Japanese 
 engineers were building a bridge over to the first 
 island. They went about their work in a methodical 
 way, as if their task was the most natural and com- 
 monplace thing in the world. They crossed back and 
 
54 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 forth in boats with supports, and they laid planks 
 with seeming unconcern, as seen through the glasses, 
 when probably they were making every minute 
 count. 
 
 The doubts or worries of the bridge-builders did 
 not occur to the spectators on the heights, who saw 
 simply so many moving figures, ascertained their 
 object, and passed to other things. They had the 
 advantage of an army of offence. Either the Rus- 
 sian had to unmask some of his batteries or allow 
 them to make headway. He acted on his decision 
 as to which was the lesser of the two evils with a 
 burst of shrapnel, which made the bridge-builders 
 scatter for cover like girls in lawn dresses out of the 
 rain. That was the work of a few moments — an 
 incident of warfare. So was the diversion of the 
 Russian battery's attention to the town, where circles 
 of blue smoke from bursting shrapnel hung fleecily 
 in the air and then were blown away, and the bits 
 of iron that rained in the streets formed the first 
 souvenirs of the conflict that is to come. 
 
VII 
 
 CROSSING OF THE YALU 
 
 I HAD been at Wiju three days when my friends 
 and guides, the batteries that I had passed on the 
 road from Ping Yang, began to arrive. They were 
 parked near our camp. Every morning I looked 
 out of my tent door to make sure they had gone no 
 farther. I saw the artillerymen starting out at dusk 
 with their spades; I noticed spots on the hill-sides 
 where the earth had been freshly turned in prepara- 
 tion for an expected guest. Finally, on the morning 
 of the 29th (April), I saw that the guns and limbers 
 had been swung into position ready for the teams, 
 and that night I heard the rumble of their wheels as 
 they took the roads which branch in every direction 
 from the main highway. 
 
 If this were not enough, there ran through the 
 whole army the tremor which is unmistakable. This 
 or that minor operation will cause a flutter of ex- 
 pectancy which a bare report and exaggeration may 
 
 make portentous. When the hour of a great move- 
 
 55 
 
% 
 
 S6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ment is at hand nothing can keep the secret which 
 runs from man to man hke some magic fluid. 
 Before the guns began to move we had heard infantry 
 fire at the right — that sacred right where no one ex- 
 cept the officers and soldiers whose duty took them 
 was allowed to go. 
 
 On the night of the 29th we heard that the Japanese 
 had effected a crossing. For this news, so far as we 
 had known, we might have had to wait for weeks, 
 or we might have had to wait only for hours. The 
 distance was not more than four miles, and the aver- 
 age citizen may ask why we did not ride to the spot 
 and find out for ourselves. The correspondents 
 are a part of this military organization in that they 
 may go only where they are told. While the army 
 is ordered into the fight, we are ordered to keep out of 
 it. At four in the morning came the word from head- 
 quarters with the modest information that by going 
 to a certain place we might see something of interest. 
 The certain place gave one a view varying from one 
 to ten miles. 
 
 On the way from camp no sign left any doubt 
 in your mind that the great day had come. Where 
 the guns had been on the more distant slopes were 
 only a few transportation carts parked; where regi- 
 ments had been encamped were only the ashes of 
 
CROSSING OF THE YALU 57 
 
 camp-fire and sward that had been pressed by sleeping 
 forms neighbor to that which the artillery horses 
 had ploughed with restive hoofs. Over another rise 
 and you saw the lines of marching men moving 
 steadily to the position where they were to be at call 
 if wanted. A glance along any one of the roads 
 which the army had built to lead up to its positions, 
 told its story of a movement in force. 
 
 "There will be some artillery practice," said a 
 Japanese officer politely, and he smiled the Japanese 
 smile. 
 
 It was a knoll high among its fellows to which the 
 correspondent was assigned. There he could see 
 everything except the thing he most wanted to see- 
 Where was it that the Japanese had crossed? The 
 bluffs to the right hid the upper reaches of the river 
 and you looked to the west as you had before. You 
 saw the town of Wiju once more under the morning 
 mist, with the tower on the bluff that hid it from 
 the Manchurian bank. Near by the gunners of a 
 battery lay in their casemates, bathing themselves 
 in the first rays of the sun. Beyond were more 
 shelving hills dipping to the river's edge, while the 
 spreading stream made channels around low sandy 
 islands. Those the Russians had held they had 
 burned and evacuated yesterday. But the Japanese 
 
^S WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 had not occupied them. Their Hne was still to be 
 seen like a blue flounce to the line of willows that 
 furnished them cover. 
 
 Only the creak of axles along the roads could be 
 heard while we waited for the beginning of the great 
 game. We saw orderlies going with the messages 
 to the guns, and then we saw a flash from one of the 
 bluffs, where a Japanese battery was concealed. 
 Others followed, but you saw them not; you looked 
 to see where the first shell struck. A wreath of blue 
 smoke broke over some undergrowth where the 
 Russians had a trench with the same flash as a sky- 
 rocket, but with the difference that wickedly it spelled 
 death instead of frolic, and a man resurrected from 
 the age of cross-bows would know instantly that it 
 did. 
 
 There is nothing in our every-day life comparable 
 with shrapnel fire except lightning; it is the nearest 
 thing to it that a human being can produce, and has 
 the same awful theatricalism. As few men are killed 
 by shell-fire, so few are kifled by lightning. The 
 soughing of the fragments of a shrapnel are those of 
 the wind through a telegraph wire multiplied a thou- 
 sand times and raised to a high key. It sometimes 
 seems to a recruit like a file-tined fork scooping out 
 his stomach and scraping the vertebrae of his back- 
 
CROSSING OF THE YALU 59 
 
 bone. Such are his feeHngs then that his legs will 
 not lift him out of his trench, or, if they will, they 
 carry him to the rear. 
 
 I was thinking of these things, and of how neither 
 force was composed of veterans, when the Japanese 
 guns turned their attention to what we called the 
 "conical hill battery" because of the shape of the 
 rise on which it was placed. From the first the coni- 
 cal hill battery had been saucy; from the first it got 
 something like the worth of the money which brings 
 guns and ammunition six thousand miles from Rus- 
 sia to the Yalu. These disturbers of the peace 
 dropped shells in Wiju without an ''After you, gen- 
 tlemen," on a quiet routine afternoon, as the first 
 signal of their presence. They informed the Japan- 
 ese line on the lower islands what they might expect 
 if they advanced. So far as we knew, there might 
 be others where they came from. When they pleased 
 they could shell the town, but the Japanese gunners 
 were content to bide their time and let them. The 
 hour had come when our side might pay off old scores 
 with the unerring aim of days of calculation. A 
 little tardily, but with good practice, as gunners call 
 good killing, the conical hill battery came into action 
 this morning. 
 
 "We've been waiting for you — for you," the Japan- 
 
6o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ese guns seemed to say, and they let go. They 
 covered the position with shrapnel rings which hung 
 still in the clear air, till so fast and thick was the fire 
 in that circle that you saw only the flashes through 
 the smoke. If the Russians would shoot they could 
 not see. A rain of fragments overhead was not enough. 
 The howitzers on the island to the right held by the 
 Japanese pumped percussion shell after percussion 
 shell into the earth, and dust rose to join the smoke. 
 
 The one on the conical hill was not the only Rus- 
 sian battery or the only object of Japanese fire. The 
 outnumbering guns of the Japanese, so excellently 
 manned, made the odds in this duel seem unfair. 
 But as long as the enemy has a weapon in his hands 
 and has not signalled his surrender, the business is to 
 kill. War is the most unsportsmanlike of games. 
 
 Rarely were all the Japanese guns in action ; there 
 was no need of it. There were minutes when you 
 heard a score of explosions; there were other min- 
 utes when you heard the talk of the reserves, who 
 with rifles stacked rested on the slopes of the valley 
 at your feet. 
 
 Intent on watching the guns, one forgot the direc- 
 tion where the hills hid the stream itself, but not the 
 back — ^where the crossing, report said, had been made. 
 Here the hills on the opposite bank were without 
 
CROSSING OF THE YALU 6i 
 
 batteries, while our own above Wiju shot across to 
 the heights to the westward. 
 
 Sweeping casually the Russian side of the upper 
 reaches of the river with the naked eye, one saw 
 something denser than a shadow that seemed to be 
 moving. A look through the glasses, and the pro- 
 gramme of the day's work was as clear as what had 
 happened. On the Russian left (up the river) the 
 bank rises in a precipitous rocky formation to a height 
 of a thousand feet. At the base is a path and a line 
 of sand left by the falling current. Stretching along 
 this for a mile or more, like so many blue-pencil 
 marks on brown paper, were the Japanese. 
 
 Any Russians above them could have done more 
 damage with tumbling bowlders than with rifle-fire. 
 They were under a shelf . They could be reached only 
 by shooting straight down the stream, and had gun 
 or rifle ventured this, they would have found no 
 cover save the smoke of shrapnel from the batteries, 
 which would have sent them back. The crossing of 
 the Yalu had been effected by a few rounds of mus- 
 ketry fire. The impregnable position of the enemy 
 had become cover and protection for the Japanese 
 advance. 
 
 This line kept breaking into sections, which scram- 
 bled up ravines to the heights and disappeared. We 
 
62 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 turned to the guns, which fired whenever a mark 
 showed itself. At three in the afternoon we saw our 
 hill-chmbers again — some of them. They had gone 
 over the heights and were under cover of a knoll 
 opposite Wiju. One may say that the Japanese guns, 
 numerous, well-placed, withholding their fire till 
 the great day, accomplished the crossing of the Yalu ; 
 one may say that the crossing was the result of a feint 
 on the left and a movement on the right; one may 
 say many things. The Japanese always intimated 
 that they meant to cross below Wiju on the left. 
 They had crossed above Wiju in the war with China. 
 But the fords were uncertain and tortuous. We even 
 heard from our interpreters of a magnificent, if not 
 warlike, plan of building a pontoon under fire over 
 the deep channel below Wiju. This the Imperial 
 Guard (our centre), fully expecting to lose half their 
 number, were to cross while the left made a lodg- 
 ment for flanking purposes further down-stream, as I 
 have remarked; correspondents were permitted to 
 look at the lower part of the river all they pleased. 
 
 This movement, like all others, resolved itself 
 into the old essentials. There was less strategy than 
 tactics. Why the islands up the river had been chosen 
 for the point of crossing was plain enough when, 
 from the tents of head-quarters, on the evening of the 
 
CROSSING OF THE YALU 63 
 
 30th, I saw the bridges which had been built joining 
 two islands across narrow and sluggish currents. 
 Once arrived on the other bank, the storming party 
 were not in a pocket, as they would have been below 
 Wiju, but had safe breathing space under cover. 
 They could go over in the night and be ready for 
 work in the morning. 
 
 This crossing was used in the war with China, 
 and now again in the war with Russia, because it 
 was the strategically natural one. The simple prin- 
 ciples of strategy must remain the same. Upon 
 personnel and execution depends success. In the 
 hour when the faculties are dazed with the mass of 
 incident and the memory crowded with kaleido- 
 scopic scenes, every fresh consideration brings a 
 fresh tribute of praise to this feat of military work- 
 manship. It is clear enough now why the general 
 did not want us to see the ends of his lines, or whither 
 the timbers and the planking for the bridges were 
 borne after they disappeared behind the knolls fol- 
 lowing the military roads. His line was far shorter 
 than anyone had supposed. The river itself pro- 
 tected his flanks. Within a radius of ten miles his 
 whole army was held ready to throw over the river 
 in force, unwearied by marching. His success was 
 his preparation. His fortune was the weather, 
 
64 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 which made the water in the Yalu low; which gave 
 his gunners clear air; which gave his men dry ground 
 to sleep on and dry clothes to sleep in. 
 
 There is a word which has possibly been used in 
 every despatch sent from the front, and that is ''pre- 
 cision." No word can take its place. Whether 
 in the arrangement of transport or in the accuracy 
 of gun-fire, it expresses the work of this army. We 
 who have seen manoeuvres where hitches if not blun- 
 ders ever occur are prepared for greater ones in 
 actual battle. The movement of the 30th of April 
 on the banks of the Yalu was like a field-day (if you 
 can imagine such a thing) where the troops had 
 been taken over the positions beforehand, and every 
 detail rehearsed with the care of a wedding cere- 
 mony. From the time that coolies were set to saw- 
 ing bridge planks far to the rear, and the first out- 
 post was placed and the first sod turned for a road 
 or a gun position, the Japanese army seemed to 
 know precisely what it had to do and just how it was 
 going to do it. From the head-quarters with its 
 Japanese smile no information came, and the barrier 
 to inquiry was ever that of Oriental politeness. 
 The contention that a modern army cannot keep 
 its secrets and have correspondents in the field was 
 made ridiculous by the Japanese success in this 
 
CROSSING OF THE YALU 65 
 
 respect. It can never be used again to excuse mili- 
 tary incompetency. The years of preparation for 
 a set task made in Tokio (which might mean httle 
 in practice) became in appHcation and execution as 
 pattern-like as theory itself. 
 
 Of Kuroki, the man who directed operations on 
 the spot, we have had occasional glimpses. He is 
 sturdily built, sinewy, with no spare flesh, and has 
 a clean-shaven square jaw. In the days of waiting, 
 when no man knew where or how we were to cross 
 or what forces the Russians had, and he alone knew 
 all — quite all, staff officers knowing only each his part 
 — one saw him walking by himself among the trees 
 of the groves which he and his staff occupied, and 
 again with a telescope on a prominence watching 
 his own troops rather than the positions of the enemy 
 — watching and smoking. 
 
 I have said that fortune favored him. I should 
 have added that nature also favored him. The 
 hills running toward the bluff, which descends sharply 
 to the river, held valleys between their heights which 
 were meant to mask an army's movements. And 
 the Japanese engineers knew how best to make na- 
 ture serve their purpose. They, least of all, in an 
 army which shirks no amount of tedious labor to 
 ^ain an object, were inclined to spare any pains. 
 
66 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Before the troops and the guns advanced, every 
 point of the road where it might have been visible 
 from the Russian side had been screened by fences 
 of corn-stalks and of young trees cut near their roots 
 and set in the ground. Where the descent was at 
 right angles to the river itself, aprons of grass and 
 weeds had been hung. You could have driven a 
 battery of artillery the length of the miles of hidden 
 roadway freshly constructed without once showing 
 it to the enemy. 
 
 Riding back from head-quarters to camp, you 
 left the army behind as abruptly as the walls of a 
 town. Roads, screens, gun positions had served 
 their purpose. The hill-sides were swept clean of 
 human occupation. No debris was left behind. 
 There never is in the path of the Japanese. In Wiju, 
 whose houses only the day before had held all the 
 Japanese that could be packed on their floors, open 
 windows and door- ways stared at you. The quiet 
 was as intense as the crack of a shrapnel is sharp. 
 
VIII 
 
 BATTLE OF THE YALU 
 
 We had expected that the battle would come with 
 the crossing, but the two were entirely distinct. The 
 crossing was effectively secured on one day (April 
 30th), and the battle occurred on the next. Draw 
 a line approximately north and south through Wiju 
 and both banks to the east were already in possession 
 of the Japanese on the night of the 30th. Opposite 
 Wiju the Ai River joins its waters to those of the 
 Yalu. On its bank the right flank of the Japanese 
 rested at the end of the first day's movement. All 
 that night troops were crossing into China till morn- 
 ing found Korea without the army that had been a 
 self-invited guest for many weeks. 
 
 If the spectator on this famous First of May had 
 
 some idea of what he was going to see, the vagueness of 
 
 that idea added to the interest. He knew that the day 
 
 before had been one of the great days of his life, 
 
 and expected that this would be another. Rising 
 
 at dawn becomes second nature when you are with 
 
 67 "" ' " 
 
68 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 an army. As I rode through the south gate of the 
 city, Captain Okada looked at his watch and asked if 
 the others were close behind. He was a little wor- 
 ried, like a man who has guests to dinner. There 
 was to be a charge and the time for it was almost as 
 exactly set as that for the rising of a theatre curtain. 
 
 The bluff above Wiju was no longer forbidden 
 to the correspondent. Lifting your glasses to see 
 what new tableau this ever-prepared army — that 
 shows you nothing till it is finished — had in store 
 for you, no glance was wasted on Tiger's Hill, which 
 rises out of the river's bed to the height of a thou- 
 sand feet or more. Its sides are precipitous. On 
 first thought, it seems an impregnable position of 
 defence. But if infantry could not storm these 
 steep, rock-ribbed ascents, no more could infantry 
 escape down them. To take Tiger's Hill the Jap- 
 anese had only to march around it. The Hotchkiss 
 which the Russians had there was withdrawn on the 
 28th. 
 
 In the dark ages of Europe a robber baron would 
 have built his castle on such an eminence and defied 
 and ruled all the country round. In this conflict 
 it was in the centre of an artillery duel, with shells 
 flying about its ribs, but none fired at it or from it. 
 On the other side of Tiger's Hill there is a sandy 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 69 
 
 bottom, and the Ai River, flowing between heights, 
 here enters the Yalu. On the western side of the 
 Ai the high bluffs, with the broken sky-hne above 
 and the stretch of river sand below, continue till they 
 disappear in the haze. Four or five miles from the 
 mouth of the Ai are the white walls of a little village, 
 Ku-lien-cheng. From this village runs the main 
 highway toward Feng-wang-cheng and Liaoyang, 
 which the armies must follow. 
 
 This, then, was the position of the Russians who 
 had evacuated the broad sandy islands in the river 
 below Wiju two days before. They had formed 
 on the road. The ease with which the Japanese 
 had crossed on the previous day above Wiju, sur- 
 prising the Japanese themselves, led to only one 
 conclusion. The Russians had not intended to give 
 battle at the Yalu. All that they sought to gain 
 was delay which should fatten the numbers of their 
 guns and men at the point where they should make 
 a stand. Whenever they could force the Japanese 
 to elaborate preparation for a general attack they 
 had gained days, perhaps weeks, for their over- 
 worked railroad. Every mile the Japanese travelled 
 inland was a mile farther for the Japanese and a 
 mile nearer for the Russians to the all-commanding 
 thing of all armies — the base of supplies. That 
 
70 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the Russians would fall between the two stools of a 
 general defence and simple delaying tactics was not 
 contemplated. 
 
 At the end of the first day you thought that all 
 was over except deploying to brush the hills clear 
 of the rear-guard. But the second day held a sur- 
 prise for the Russians and for the Japanese. For the 
 Russians the annihilation of two regiments and the 
 loss of twenty-eight guns, as reported. For the Japa- 
 nese this made a success that was unexpected. The 
 spectators are still in doubt whether to marvel most 
 at Russian carelessness or at the marching power of 
 the Japanese infantry. 
 
 On the night of April 30th the Japanese occupied 
 the last of the islands without loss and crossed in 
 force. The morning of May ist showed us clearly 
 the Russian position, how it was to be taken, and 
 the force that was to take it. Along the crests of the 
 Russian heights you could see the dust-colored line 
 of the Russian trenches from three hundred to five 
 hundred feet above the river-bed. The trenches 
 were long enough to hold a great force. They 
 might be manned by a thousand or by ten thousand 
 men, who rested for the moment in peace and se- 
 curity, with their antagonists as clearly outlined 
 before them as the streets of a town to a balloonist. 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 71 
 
 Every man there must have known that in the 
 end he must fly. Meanwhile he must take as great 
 a toll of lives as silent rifles, with magazines filled 
 and waiting on the trigger's call, could command 
 when they should speak. On the sands below, 
 distinct to the naked eye, the cones of two field -hos- 
 pital tents bespoke preparation for what the Rus- 
 sian rifles could give. Not a man of the Japanese 
 lines needed a doctor at that moment. In an hour 
 thousands might, the numbers all dependent upon 
 the size of the force hugging the dusty line on the 
 Russian heights. All was to be real in this drama 
 of the meeting of two organized groups of men who 
 had marched far and carried heavy loads and lived 
 on hard rations for the privilege of mutual destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Lining the wall of Wiju, perfectly secure from 
 fire, were the unwashed, non-committal Koreans, 
 whose land was one of the subjects of contention. 
 (When I crossed the river the next day, the first 
 man I saw was another subject of contention — an 
 old Chinese sifting out of the sand and ashes the 
 parched remains of the grain from the ruins of his 
 house, which the Russians had burned.) 
 
 In the Japanese line were some thirty-five thou- 
 sand men, forming an intact blue streak from up 
 
72 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the Ai-ho to Ku-lien-cheng. They would remain 
 as stationary as trees till the order came which 
 should set them in motion as one machine toward 
 the Russian position. Without glasses this line 
 seemed no more than a long fence hung with blue, 
 the Russian position only an uninhabited height, 
 where storms perhaps had eroded the summits. 
 Between the two, over the stretch of sands where 
 the skirmish line and the reserves were to pass, and 
 on the farther channel which they were to ford, was 
 no moving object. It was a zone free of life which 
 soon would be the scene of human activity that 
 would hold the attention of the world — a stretch of 
 river-bottom where was to be made the first infantry 
 charge of account in the most picturesque of modern 
 wars. 
 
 Before the charge began, the onlooker had time 
 to realize that he was about to witness a frontal attack 
 with modern weapons which many tacticians hold 
 to be no longer practicable. The Japanese infantry 
 had been marching and hill-climbing all the day 
 before. Those who had slept at all had slept little. 
 Some had spent the night in getting into position. 
 Now they ate their rations of rice and fish, and lay 
 packed close in the convolutions of the river-bed, 
 seeing the long levels that they had to cover at the 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 73 
 
 double and the heights they had to conquer — a task 
 set sternly before them in the clear light of morning. 
 
 Their guardians, the guns, still had suspicions 
 of the conical hill battery that had been pounded to 
 silence on the 30th. They spat fire with the vicious- 
 ness of bitter memory. No answering flash broke 
 through the columns of dust tossed up by the com- 
 mon shell from the Japanese howitzers or the blue 
 smoke rings of the shrapnel. The skirmishers had 
 sprung to their feet, company after company of 
 that visible line four or five miles long had de- 
 ployed, and yet our breathless waiting brought no 
 gun-fire from the enemy's heights. 
 
 Had the Russians entirely withdrawn their guns 
 overnight ? If they had, then they meant to make 
 no proper defence; they sought only to force the 
 Japanese to a battle formation; to gain time for 
 the increasing army on their chosen ground for 
 decisive resistance. Or were the Russian guns 
 waiting for a fairer chance? This was a dramatic 
 possibility, but it did not stand to reason. The 
 frontal attack was to have no savage test. We were 
 to see more of a field-day than a battle, you thought, 
 not counting on the determined resistance of the 
 Russian infantry unassisted. 
 
 With smokeless powder, with field guns of the 
 
74 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 latest pattern, with all other modern accessories, 
 we had two armies not in khaki. Every Japanese 
 soldier on this arena was as sharply defined as pencil 
 marks on white paper. Could the mind have worked 
 rapidly enough through the glasses, one might have 
 counted them all. With reserves crowding in, they 
 became like a young orchard. For the first fifteen 
 minutes there was no rifle-fire. Was it really war 
 or was it only manoeuvring? We listened for the 
 rattle of musketry; at any second we expected to see 
 some of the figures fall. With the undulations of 
 the ground, and individuals avoiding bad footing, 
 the line would grow bunchy in places, and then thin 
 out again to better skirmish order. 
 
 But the units were much closer than the order of 
 either the British or American armies. The Anglo- 
 Saxons were seeing the German theory tried — the 
 German theory of numbers and pressing the attack 
 home in face of the enemy's fire as against ours of 
 widely separated units. If there were five thousand 
 Russians in the trenches on the heights, it seemed 
 that they ought to mow that river-bed clean of 
 Japanese. 
 
 Such was the distance that the line seemed to go 
 ahead from the steady impulse of mechanics instead 
 of being carried by human legs. Their double 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 75 
 
 seemed a creep. At one and the same time you 
 wanted them to hasten in order to bring on the dra- 
 matic finale, and you wanted them to wait in order 
 to give you time to grasp in full the panorama they 
 afforded. They had two miles to go, with sand to 
 their ankles in many places. The first rifle-fire 
 came from far to the right up the Ai-ho, where the 
 end of the Japanese line was obscured. 
 
 Along the trench on the Russian heights we could 
 still see the Russian officers moving back and forth. 
 They were not nervous for the fight to begin, while 
 they kept their men in tune with majestic oppor- 
 tunity. Soon we heard the rake of their volleys and 
 the answering fire of the Japanese, who lay under 
 cover of the drifts in the sand between their rushes. 
 No faltering among the Japanese was evident, but 
 you knew, you felt, even from the distance of the 
 Wiju wall, that there the fire was hot. Something 
 in the attitude of the advancing figures said as much. 
 They were bending to their task as if pulling at ropes. 
 For it was work now. 
 
 You turned from the effect to the cause, and, de- 
 spite that living, pushing line of human flesh on the 
 river-bottom, you scanned only the heights, trying 
 to count the heads above the dust-covered streak of 
 the Russian ridge. 
 
76 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Such is the concentration of thought and gaze 
 in the development of one particular phase of such 
 a spectacle, that you may be missing completely 
 something new and vital to the whole which is pass- 
 ing at the other end of the field. 
 
 How long had they been coming? I wondered, 
 when I first saw black objects about two feet high 
 under the glasses scattered and running like men out 
 of the rain — out of safety into danger, in fact — 
 over a knob at its left and plunging into the Russian 
 trench. This was the greatest moment of all. Here 
 were reinforcements; here was a prospect of re- 
 sistance that provided another thrill in the drama. 
 Every rifle added to the speaking ones in the trench 
 meant more patients for the surgeons waiting in the 
 hospital tents for the first arrivals. At the same 
 moment we could hear the rat-tat-tat of the Rus- 
 sian Maxims. 
 
 Here, too, was a mark to gladden the heart of 
 the artilleryman. How long before the gunners 
 would see it? Or was not the knob in the range of 
 their vision? If not, they must soon receive the 
 signal from those who could see. There were no 
 longer thirty-five thousand men about to assault 
 a position. Nothing except batteries and some 
 Russians running across a knob into a trench — 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 77 
 
 where they were to go through hell in order to keep 
 an enemy in check for a quarter of an hour. Still 
 they came, still the guns said nothing in protest. 
 Seconds became minutes. 
 
 The altitude was great; the range was new. When 
 the word was passed the shooting was the worst I 
 have ever seen Japanese gunners do. Higher and 
 higher they lifted the bursts, which still did not reach 
 the mark, while the Russians kept on coming as un- 
 mindful as if shrapnel were fireworks. '^That 
 surely will be high enough," the gunners must have 
 thought with each discharge, only to find that it 
 fell short. They kept on lifting and lifting them 
 — a progress of explosions up the hill-side — till finally 
 the blue smoke of a shrapnel curled fairly over the 
 heads of the targets. The Russians paid no atten- 
 tion to that, or the next, or the next. Then one ex- 
 ploded a little over them and a little in front of them, 
 so that they got the full benefit of its spread. 
 
 And now all the guns had the range. Common 
 shell tossed the earth skyward; shrapnel was scat- 
 tered from above. Like so many paper figures under 
 a bellows, one burst blew a half-dozen Russians 
 down. Then we saw no more except those who 
 came out to bring in the fallen. The dare-devil 
 Slav had taken the straight path, while the breaking 
 
78 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 roar of muzzles mocked his temerity. Afterward 
 we learned that he could have gone round under 
 cover, but that would have lacked aplombj which 
 is important in old-fashioned war. 
 
 Unremittingly the Russians held to their task. 
 The Japanese line, which had moved out in a semi- 
 circle to envelop the whole Russian position, had to 
 deal with the situation as it developed. The ad- 
 versary's defence had been outlined exactly. Every 
 man on the plain knew the limits of its length. At 
 either side of this Ku-lien-cheng trench — the one 
 which focussed my attention — were ravines leading 
 up to either end. 
 
 The most natural human instinct — or animal in- 
 stinct, for that matter — will seek to get an opponent 
 on the hip, that is, on the flank. Pressing under 
 cover of the heights, we soon saw a column passing 
 up either ravine. In the feat of reaching the base 
 of the heights there had been no faltering step. It 
 was done with such drill-ground exactness that the 
 dropping units seemed a part of the evolution. Those 
 who pressed up the ravines were only a part, a sen- 
 sibly delegated part, while the extreme left of the 
 line filed on into the little town of Ku-lien-cheng, 
 and the right — we saw little of the right, which ex- 
 tended up the Ai River, thought little of it in the oc- 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 79 
 
 cupation of nearer impression, little anticipated the 
 part it was to play before nightfall. 
 
 What one asked then was : Did those in the trench 
 know of the streams of blue-coats, each with a big 
 Japanese flag at its head marking every foot of ascent 
 like an indicator? 
 
 Mindless of fire as of raindrops, a solitary Rus- 
 sian officer now stood on the parapet stiff as a watch- 
 tower. A shell-burst sent him down for a moment; 
 but he came back It was plain that he was count- 
 ing the minutes and proposed to use every one with 
 the vengeful opportunity it gave. The ravine at 
 the right was deep enough to show only occasional 
 moving blue spots, and always that defiant flag 
 which rippled and rose and fell with the color-bearer's 
 scramble over the rocks. The flanking column at 
 the left had arrived on the summit of a broad knoll 
 certainly not more than five hundred yards from 
 the trench. There with Japanese precision they 
 were nicely forming into close order preparatory 
 to a rush. But their rush was never made. One 
 of those accidents — those keen, murderous satires 
 frequent in great engagements — dealt this flock of 
 warring humanity a crushing blow from its own 
 side. 
 
 Deftly the Japanese gunners had covered the 
 
8o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Japanese advance; now the black powder used in 
 the howitzers showed its inferiority to the Shimose 
 powder of native invention, which, such is its even- 
 ness of quahty, will with the same length of fuse 
 land shell after shell in the same place in a manner 
 that seems superhuman in its application of theo- 
 retical mechanics. The charge did not carry the 
 howitzer's projectile as far as mathematics — ^war is 
 made by mathematics in these days — indicated that 
 it should. At the edge of the closely formed men 
 on the knoll a column of earth and smoke flew sky- 
 ward. We saw the scattering of forms through the 
 dust; the disruption of a mass into its parts, and 
 before the air was clear — fired before the result of 
 the first was apparent — came a second shell. 
 
 Down the hill-side the blue figures came running — 
 not out of lasting panic, because they immediately 
 reformed. Sixteen blue spots we counted prostrate 
 behind them. Within a stone's throw of where the 
 Russians had gone out to pick up their own wounded, 
 some of the Japanese, with the common gallantry 
 that makes bitter enemies akin, ran back to their 
 fallen comrades one by one. Some they knelt over 
 for only a moment; these were beyond help. Others 
 they knelt over at length, applying "first aids." 
 The next day we counted eleven new-made graves 
 
BATTLE OF THE YALU 8l 
 
 with wooden tablets on this spot. A few aheady 
 had sprays of plum blossoms stuck in the fresh earth. 
 It is cherry blossom time in Japan now, and plum 
 blossoms are grateful in the strange land. These 
 deaths were tragic sacrifices to a protecting fire, yet 
 in the great game of the general conflict they counted 
 for little beside the lives the guns had saved in silenc- 
 ing the enemy's fire. 
 
 Could the Russian ofiicer^ that sentinel unmoved 
 amid the lightnings, have seen this accident it might 
 have meant a streak of silver for his cloud. Was 
 the flag at the head of the storming party at the 
 right also hidden from his view? He remained so 
 long that his surprise and capture seemed certain, 
 and I think that there was no member of the Japan- 
 ese staff — such is the admiration of courage for 
 courage — who did not hope that one Russian might 
 have the deserved reward of escaping unharmed. He 
 must have been the very last to go, steadying his 
 men — his big, helpless, untutored, fair-haired chil- 
 dren — with his own rock-ribbed fearlessness. One 
 moment you saw him still and erect, a lone figure 
 poised between the forces of two empires. Then he 
 was gone. 
 
 The flag which had zigzagged and bobbed up the 
 ravine appeared at the end of the trench. That 
 
82 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 climber, the color-bearer, was not too out of breath 
 to walk the length of the trench, swinging aloft his 
 flag in order that all on the plain below might see 
 that he had arrived. 
 
 It was not yet ten o'clock. Less than three hours 
 had been occupied in a business which you had seen 
 as a whole with panoramic fidelity. It was like seeing 
 Lookout Mountain fought w.thout the mists. You 
 wanted the charge made over again, and made 
 slower to give you more time for appreciation. You 
 had seen the reality, and at the same time you felt 
 a detachment from it which was at once uncanny 
 and unsportsmanlike. The spectator had been as 
 safe as in an orchestra chair when carnage reigns 
 on the stage. It was as if a battle had been arranged 
 for him and he had been taken to the best position 
 for seeing its theatrical effects. 
 
IX 
 
 AFTER THE YALU — HAMATAN 
 
 Nature would have called the morning's task 
 a day's work finished. Nature would have said to 
 the color-bearer and all the men behind him, "Well, 
 you've done it; you are here, now rest." What 
 followed recalls the remark of a Japanese officer some 
 time ago, that the Japanese relied upon the mobility 
 of their infantry to offset the dash of the Cossack 
 horsemen. 
 
 These little men, who had been ceaselessly at work 
 for thirty-six hours, were only beginning the day. 
 That supreme test of an army, when fatigue is the 
 accomplice of a breathing spell to enjoy victory, was 
 met by this army with a smile — the Japanese smile. 
 It followed the book as it always does. It followed 
 up its advantage with stubborn persistence. 
 
 When the infantry disappeared over the hills 
 there remained the dead and wounded and the busy 
 surgeons and our silent guns. As the crow flies, 
 it was under two miles to Ku-lien-cheng. But to 
 
 reach it we must go through the town and up the 
 
 83 
 
84 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 river and then across, where the first lodgment was 
 made, and through the river sands around Tiger's 
 Hill, and ford the Ai-ho. The thought that one 
 might now see the trenches where the Russians had 
 fought, might go into the position of the " conical 
 hill battery,'' and come nearer to the infantry fire of 
 the pursuit, called you, regardless of tent and equi- 
 page in the rear. 
 
 But Captain Okada passed the word that we were 
 to return to camp. This was a blow whose magni- 
 tude we who had come twelve thousand miles were 
 to realize bitterly. At the time we thought, as he 
 said, that it might "all be over." Least of all, did 
 we anticipate the spectacular tragedy of Hamatan. 
 I think that the Captain is sorry now that he did not 
 permit us to join in the pursuit without waiting to 
 ask his'superiors for instructions. If he is not, he 
 ought to be. 
 
 That night in the little Chinese village of Ku- 
 lien-cheng, where the staff had established itself, 
 the cable correspondents who crossed the river 
 with their despatches saw the aftermath of battle in 
 its reality of detail. Russian prisoners were brought 
 in with the news of twenty-eight guns captured. 
 Russian officers stood around the camp-fire with 
 those to whom a Russian disaster meant triumph. 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 85 
 
 Russian wounded waited with Japanese wounded 
 their turn at the operating table. Surgeons nodding 
 for want of sleep had a harvest of vital cases. 
 
 With the info mation which the Japanese staff 
 now has at hand, the disaster at Hamatan becomes 
 explicable only when you know the contempt a 
 white man may have for a yellow man, the character 
 of Siberian garrisons, and the nature of some old 
 commanders who have nodded over their samovars 
 through long service in time of peace. Five miles 
 from Ku-lien-cheng at the mouth of the Yalu is 
 Antung, a prosperous town, one of the new open 
 ports which Russia would prefer to have closed. 
 Over the coast rise, in that range which extends con- 
 tinuously to Liaoyang, Feng-wang-cheng is reached 
 by a road from Antung which joins the one from 
 Ku-lien-cheng. That by Ku-lien-cheng is the old 
 Peking Road, which means nothing in its favor as 
 a highway except that it is an old route of travel. 
 Small gunboats may approach within range of An- 
 tung. Any force of size intending to resist firmly 
 the crossing of the Yalu must have had both roads 
 in condition for retreat. 
 
 Of course the first essential of any force on the 
 defensive is a scouting service, which will at least 
 keep it informed of the enemy's actual advance 
 
86 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 in all directions; and the second is facility for a 
 rapid movement to reach the point where the enemy 
 develops his attack. Our best judgment is that 
 the Russians had at the Yalu ten thousand men, 
 with perhaps five thousand on the road in reserve, 
 while the Japanese had a total of forty thousand. 
 Such disparity made the ultimate arrest of an 
 effective crossing out of the question. The art was 
 that the Japanese made their lodgment on the 
 opposite bank without any loss approaching the toll 
 that five hundred infantry properly placed could 
 have laid. 
 
 Zassulitch seems to have concluded early in 
 April that the Japanese would attempt a landing 
 at Antung from transports. Along the water front 
 he built deep timbered bomb-proof trenches. On 
 the hills back of the town he constructed excellent 
 gun positions, with good approaches from the road 
 leading to Feng-wang-cheng, which he had reout- 
 lined with better grades in places and in others 
 repaired according to the regulation requirements 
 for rapid withdrawal of artillery and wheeled trans- 
 portation. At the water front of Antung itself 
 the river is so deep that a disembarkation of in- 
 fantry would actually have to be made in bodies on 
 shore instead of in the shallows with deployment 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 87 
 
 at a distance. In short, the Russians seemed to 
 have been mesmerized by Antung. They were not 
 to be surprised there or flanked from that direction, 
 whatever happened elsewhere. 
 
 Coming down to the immediate period before 
 the crossing, despite all the Japanese cleverness in 
 screening their movements it seemed impossible 
 that the Russians could not have apprehended by 
 field observation that the Japanese were gathering 
 a great force at Wiju. The Japanese method of 
 keeping their secrets from outside communication 
 was simple and drastic. For a week before the 
 battle Korea was sealed. No telegrams, no letters 
 were allowed to depart. In her harbors were the 
 waiting transports that were to carry the army 
 that was to cut off Port Arthur. The work of the 
 force which was to fight the first important land 
 engagement of the war was unheralded, while the 
 ports of China filled the press with "shocks" and 
 "counter-shocks" of rumors and imaginings. It 
 was a new situation in journalism. But the fact of 
 Kuroki's presence by actual contact, I repeat, must 
 have been known to the Russians a week before the 
 crossing; while the Japanese, on their part, thanks 
 to their intelligence service, knew of the Russian 
 preparations at Antung immediately they were begun. 
 
88 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 When a council was held we are told that many 
 of the young officers maintained that the Japanese 
 were going to cross up the river. Zassulitch, how- 
 ever, had arranged that the Japanese should land 
 at Antung, and he would not have it any other way. 
 One thing that held him to his opinion was the fact 
 that a launch had been seen landing bridge timbers 
 on one of the lower islands — a candid, open-faced 
 launch! At the same time, pontoon trains and 
 coolie-borne timbers had moved over a rise in plain 
 sight down the river, and, once obscured, had 
 started up the river again. (Aside from that, the 
 Japanese were, indeed, to build a bridge down the 
 river for purposes which shall appear later.) Im- 
 mediately they were ready for their effective crossing 
 above Wiju, the gunboats made a most earnest dem- 
 onstration in the neighborhood of Antung while the 
 infantry feinted on the lower reaches. 
 
 Now the place for reserves was unquestionably 
 at Hamatan, where the road from Antung joins 
 the Peking Road. Here they were held ready to 
 reinforce in either direction. But they hurried 
 toward Feng-wang-cheng, without going to the 
 assistance of their comrades in distress, we judge. 
 At all events, they did not come into action, and so 
 may be dismissed. From Ku-lien-cheng scarcely 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 89 
 
 a spadeful of earth had been turned on that mis- 
 erable Peking Road, and the approaches up steep 
 ascents to the positions were in nowise creditable 
 to the engineers who had admirably prepared those 
 at Antung. The lack of prevision, especially when 
 the action was to be a delaying one, may be accounted 
 for by the guns having to take up unexpected posi- 
 tions. But there is no gainsaying the fact that 
 some of the Russian artillery was at the Yalu a 
 fortnight before the battle and had time to prepare 
 for eventualities. 
 
 So well did the Japanese fool their enemy that 
 they struck the Russian where he was unprepared 
 and never sent a man against him where he was 
 prepared. On the morning of May 30th the Russian 
 position was an angle made by the Ai-ho's junction 
 with the Yalu. From their point of crossing up 
 the Yalu the Japanese had overnight sent a column 
 straight over the hills in line with the course of the 
 Ai, while the Guards, crossing up the Yalu, also 
 followed the river-bed past Tiger's Hill, and in the 
 morning, with the Second Division opposite Ku-lien- 
 cheng, the line thus enveloped the angle. The only 
 guns to remain and make any show of fight were 
 those at Makau, up the Ai-ho, which we had 
 been unable to silence during the artillery duel of 
 
go WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 April 30th, but which were silenced promptly on 
 the I St. 
 
 The '^conical hill battery" fell back overnight. 
 Hamatan, where the Russians were caught the 
 next evening, was less than ten miles away. With 
 the close of the infantry engagement the Russians, 
 who had by no means made full use of their oppor- 
 tunities in a delaying action, had measurably ac- 
 complished their object; though with a heavier loss 
 than was called for because of their trenches, which 
 were in nowise shell-proof. Kuroki had been forced 
 to infinite preparation and a battle formation which 
 had occupied him two weeks. 
 
 Two ticklish problems which had bothered the 
 Japanese Chief of Staff were easily solved. The 
 first was that of a pontoon bridge across the one un- 
 fordable channel below Wiju. This was accom- 
 plished by floating the pontoons down stream from 
 above Wiju on the night of the 30th, without dis- 
 covery by the Russians. The other was fording 
 the Ai-ho in order that the flanking portion of the 
 army might reach the heights. The soldiers were 
 fertile in suggestions, which included boards and 
 tubs and other conceptions that did not meet 
 with staff approval. One officer wanted to lead 
 a picked body of skilful swimmers, who would strip 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 91 
 
 naked and, with rifles held over their heads, swim 
 across with a rope which they would make fast as 
 a help for those who followed. But this was un- 
 necessary, because we had had a week without rain. 
 Scouts found fordable places. The important thing 
 was speed. The quicker a soldier crossed the less 
 he was exposed. It was in the water that most of 
 our casualties occurred. The pontoons so skilfully 
 floated down stream had afforded both guns and 
 infantry passage. The route by the bridge across 
 the upper islands was out of the question in a junc- 
 ture where time was everything. Our little Japanese 
 horses cannot gallop much, but they did the best 
 they could; and axle deep in sand, again in water, 
 a battery crossed over and went up the valley of 
 the Ai, and then, sluing and bouncing, through a 
 path in the hills running at right angles to the line of 
 retreat. 
 
 Along the old Peking Road marched the two regi- 
 ments that had defended Ku-lien-cheng. Not only 
 the two regiments, but their guns, their soup boilers, 
 their heavy transportation carts — an equipment 
 wholly out of place — winding and plodding over 
 the stony, rutty, crooked mountain highway. The 
 band with all its instruments was along, too. No 
 flankers were on the hills. With forty thousand 
 
92 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 victorious soldiers in their rear, the Russians moved 
 as one vegetating Siberian garrison would move from 
 an old to a new post. 
 
 Our reserves went on past the tired storming 
 parties. Three columns of them pressing toward 
 a common objective climbed over the hills. Some 
 of the men were so tired that they fell asleep the 
 moment they halted. One sure way of keeping 
 them awake, a Japanese officer told me, was to 
 keep them going. The first knowledge the Russians 
 had of the activity of the Japanese pursuit was the 
 sight of a company of the Twenty-fourth Regiment, 
 which had outmarched all the others. 
 
 When it came over the knoll it beheld a soldier's 
 Promised Land. Here was a road charged with a 
 marching column under its rifles. The Russian guns 
 unlimbered; the Russian infantry deployed and 
 charged. The tables of odds at Ku-lien-cheng 
 were suddenly changed. If that company had done 
 the text-book thing of hurrying back to its sup- 
 port, the Russians would have been much farther 
 along the road and the booty and prisoners might 
 have been less. It had one captain and three lieu- 
 tenants killed. All its cartridges were gone and bayo- 
 nets were fixed, while the Russian line was only two 
 hundred yards away — when bountiful assistance 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 93 
 
 came. The Russians had scarcely felt this fire on 
 their right flank in front when the head of the 
 column on the left flank broke over the hills, and 
 so did that of the right flank in the rear. 
 
 From that moment the drama was not war in the 
 valley of the old Peking Road. It was slaughter. 
 The Russians formed around their guns and tried 
 to charge. Bullets that missed the infantry caught 
 the artillery horses and the horses of the wagons. 
 Increasing as more men came up, the fire from the 
 hills was as steady and remorseless as an electric 
 current along a wire. Out of the melee a Russian 
 priest led the remains of one regiment, charging 
 through a bullet-swept space. We know only that he 
 did this gallant thing. All Russia must know him 
 as a hero ere this letter is mailed. 
 
 The rest had made the sacrifice that a soldier's 
 honor demanded. In their disorganization and 
 inexperience further resistance was futile and mur- 
 derous. A white handkerchief came out of an ofli- 
 cer's pocket as instinctively as a drowning man 
 tries to keep his head above water. The Japanese 
 descended from the hill into the valley, where dead 
 artillery horses and dead men lay piled together. 
 All military sense had disappeared. The masters 
 directing the retreat an hour ago were a part of a 
 
94 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 pitiful, stricken mob. Russian officers, without 
 thinking of their captors or of anything except that 
 they were breathing and were out of hell, hugged 
 and kissed one another while they wept. A messmate 
 would see a messmate who was still living and they 
 would rush toward each other to embrace hysterically; 
 then asking what had become of another friend, 
 perhaps would see him lying dead near by. 
 
 ''It was strange to us," said a Japanese officer; 
 or one Japanese man never kisses or embraces 
 another. If the Russians had been fighting for 
 many hours steadily against odds and then had sur- 
 rendered, they would have borne themselves, as most 
 soldiers do under such circumstances, with stoical 
 indifference. The effect of the surprise — a surprise 
 by yellow men — was that of an explosion. Stand- 
 ing among the ruins of the wreck, the survivors 
 felt themselves the happy creatures of a dispensa- 
 tion of Providence. 
 
 So it is Hamatan which spells ''disaster" for the 
 Russians on the Yalu. The impact Japanese divi- 
 sions, an attack undelivered until all was ready and 
 then delivered rapidly and precisely, meant a strong 
 pursuit, which Russian carelessness abetted. It 
 may be said of Kuroki that his task could not have 
 been better performed. Our own losses were less 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 95 
 
 than a thousand; the Russian trebled ours, includ- 
 ing nearly a thousand prisoners, twenty-one field 
 guns, six Maxims, and a proportionate quantity of 
 ammunition wagons, transport carts and rifles and 
 all the band instruments. 
 
 When the correspondents crossed the river with 
 their baggage the morning after, we took the pontoon 
 and the bridge by the lower islands, which were 
 now thick with transportation. Ku-lien-cheng was 
 deserted except for the transport men and the 
 wounded Russian officers and prisoners. All were 
 yet dazed — dazed by the effects of the explosion. 
 The age of the officers varied greatly. I observed 
 one, a captain of sixty years, with bristling mous- 
 tache, lean and tall, whose face bespoke the frontier. 
 He knew no foreign language. He was truly Rus- 
 sian. Especially noticeable was the devotion of the 
 soldiers to their superiors, cooking what there was 
 to cook for them and trying in their rough way in 
 this new situation to make them more comfortable. 
 
 "Completely overcome!" a lieutenant kept repeat- 
 ing. That expressed his whole sense of Hamatan. 
 Then he added: "It is a little hard to be among 
 the first prisoners in the war." 
 
 Yet I thought that the fatality of the Oriental — 
 for the Russian is an Oriental — made all the Rus- 
 
96 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 sians, considering their previous contempt for their 
 Httle enemies, far more cheerful than Anglo-Saxons 
 would have been under the same conditions. 
 
 In Antung itself a courtyard is packed thick with 
 guns — better field guns than the Japanese have ever 
 owned before — and busy little soldiers of Japan are 
 separating and cataloguing the booty of the giants. 
 The big bass horn has two bullets holes through it 
 and the trombone is quite beyond repair, for the 
 same vital reason. There are live shells enough 
 to supply the battery, which will soon be turned 
 against its former owners, with ammunition for 
 more than one hard fight. I noticed that the Cos- 
 sack swords were dull edged. Our enemy has yet 
 to wake up to a realization that he is at war with a 
 serious foe. Outside in the street the slender, nar- 
 row Japanese carts were passing by. These are meant 
 for mountain roads. The broad, heavy carts that 
 we captured are meant for the steppes. Between 
 the two types there is the contrast of a hansom and 
 a four-wheeler. 
 
 In another compound not far away are the men 
 who three days ago had manned the guns and 
 guarded the carts — big, bulky fellows in boots and 
 broad-legged trousers and loose tunics. They are 
 having a much better time than they anticipated. 
 
1=1 
 
 a 
 
 1=1 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 y 
 
 d 
 
 a. 
 
 el 
 
 03 
 •+J 
 
 c3 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 s 'S 
 
 Cl 
 
 a; 
 a; 
 
 I 
 
AFTER THE YALU— HAMATAN 97 
 
 When I looked in on them I saw that their hosts had 
 rigged up a horizontal bar. A sturdy little Japanese 
 guard was teaching them exercises. They tried 
 hard and laughed at their failure and marvelled at 
 the agility of the little fellow, who, with a Japanese 
 grin and Japanese persistence, kept on urging and 
 training them till they were quite tired out. Another 
 guard was a teacher of the Japanese numerals and 
 a pupil who stuttered away at the Russian numerals, 
 in turn. In the hospitals, Russian and Japanese 
 wounded are receiving the same attention. The 
 wounded Japanese is the more stoical. He sub- 
 mits grimly to an operation without anaesthetics 
 and he marvels a little when a Russian sufferer 
 groans. Some of the Russians who were shot at 
 Hamatan have since died. Among them was a 
 captain who was buried on one of the hills above the 
 town with military honors, and with religious hon- 
 ors in keeping with a war where the East meets the 
 West with modern arms. There were two services; 
 one by a Buddhist priest and the other by Mr. Vyff, 
 the Danish missionary. 
 
 Through the open doors of the hospitals on these 
 pleasant spring days in a temperate clime comes the 
 creak of Chinese and Japanese carts carrying the 
 food of the soldiers ahead. First, Seoul was the First 
 
98 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Army's base; then Chenampo; then Yongampho. 
 Now it is Antung. The water front where the Rus- 
 sians built their trenches without an armed host is 
 stocked with stores that feed the stream of traffic 
 moving northward. The hfe of the town itself is 
 unchanged. One day the Russians were here; the 
 next the Japanese. The shops were not closed on 
 account of the change. There is no license on the 
 part of the Japanese, they act the part of guests — 
 and customers. Our little soldier pays for the good- 
 ies that the cake vendor had ready on his arrival. 
 The Government pays a fair price for horses and 
 a fair rental for carts. Antung is busier than it has 
 been for years and sees profit ahead. 
 
X 
 
 THE OWNER OF THE BATTLE GROUND 
 
 When General Kuroki and his staff approached 
 Feng-wang-cheng, the Governor and the local offi- 
 cials came out to offer him the freedom of the city, 
 which had been in the grip of his advance for 
 more than a week. The woven-hair windows of 
 the Governor's chair threw a subdued light on silken 
 robes; the swaggering trot of its bearers, scornful of 
 populations, set off the occupant's languid impas- 
 siveness, the absence of which in the Caucasian forms 
 the Oriental's chief source of contempt for us. 
 
 In all the essential facts of modern conquest 
 the occupation of Feng-wang-cheng was complete. 
 There was not even the saving hope (which buoys the 
 spirits of most beaten peoples in their humiliation) 
 of legions in the background which might re-form 
 and recover the lost ground. Submission here had 
 no hint of sullen patience; it was signified by receiv- 
 ing the General as if he were a travelling foreigner 
 of distinction. For the Chinese the art of war is 
 the art of making profit out of defeat. The officer 
 
 99 
 
lOO WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and the official had skin of the same tint and a com- 
 mon classic language, whose written characters either 
 could understand. Saying that both were Oriental 
 is the same as saying that both Americans and Abys- 
 sinians are Christians. 
 
 Kuroki had come on horseback. His blue coat 
 was sprinkled with the dust of the army-travelled 
 road; his credentials were the blow his legions could 
 strike. Otherwise than stepping in and out of his 
 chair the Governor had lifted no finger of effort to 
 bring himself to the meeting; his credentials were 
 the service and the squeeze-money he could com- 
 mand without a gesture. The contrast of the two 
 men was pale beside that of the soldiery at their 
 backs. These incarnated a civilization which is 
 the most exclusively martial of any in the world, 
 and those one which has found a means of unpar- 
 alleled perpetuity in its contempt for arms. 
 
 The discipline of the Chinese soldiers was in har- 
 mony with the cut of their baggy trousers. They 
 were recruited from the scum of the population — 
 rapscallions who had a ^'good job," an easy way of 
 earning a living. The object of their organization 
 was personal protection to the Government; their 
 number, some test of his importance in the world. 
 From road's end to road's end, to right and to left, 
 
Copyright^ igo4, by Collier's Weekly. 
 
 General Kuroki, commanding the First Japanese Army, in front of his 
 headquarters at Antung after the victory of the Yalu, 
 
THE OWNER OF THE BATTLE GROUND lOi 
 
 wherever the advance extended, were the best blood 
 and best physique of another land where, pay not 
 being the main question, it is a great privilege to 
 carry a rifle for your Emperor. Yet the navy would 
 have seen in their Governor's manner of dealing 
 with the situation, and in their untidy soldiers, too, 
 a vindication of their race pride. Kuroki's adjuncts 
 of power were not those which the Chinese have held 
 dear for thousands of years. His marching and 
 counter-marching thousands are sheerly ridiculous 
 to the only civilized people which have no respect 
 for the profession of arms. 
 
 Never has the Chinese had a broader canvas or a 
 better subject for the art of making profit out of the 
 conqueror. He is in a sense the umpire representing 
 civilized opinion as between the two disputants. 
 With the burning of Moscow in mind, superficial 
 consideration might have led one to expect that the 
 Russian would desolate the land through which he 
 retreated. Policy would not permit. Some houses 
 have been burned, but these seem to represent only 
 individual instances of Cossack outlawry or the spleen 
 of commanding officers who were out of temper on 
 retreat. 
 
 Population and granaries at Feng-wang-cheng, as 
 at Antung, were left undisturbed. The Russians 
 
I02 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 expect to return. They argue that when they come 
 they will want the corn for food, and the fodder for 
 their horses, and houses in which to billet their sol- 
 diers. Any expanding empire must have some 
 conviction that it is easier to rule a people through 
 their indifference and undisturbed economy than by 
 provoking their hatred. The Japanese expect to 
 remain till the Russian cloud has passed. They 
 have the same material objects of sustenance and 
 comfort in view, and, besides, they must give day by 
 day proof of the singleness of their purpose in com- 
 ing to rescue this people from outside dominion and 
 guarantee a permanent return of sovereignty. They 
 come as friends of the Chinese, who recognize friend- 
 ship only through actual benefits gained. 
 
 Whether it is the house of the Governor, the store- 
 keeper, or the rooms of a temple priest that you oc- 
 cupy, each has the most distinct Oriental felicity in 
 face of personal discomfort — that art of making 
 profit from defeat; of making you feel at home in a 
 way that commands a present at the end of your stay. 
 You comprehend how the Russians were made 
 equally welcome. Does the Chinese distinguish 
 at all between friend and foe ? Does he see in either 
 more than inconvenience in return for a market for 
 his produce ? I am inclined to think that he would 
 
THE OWNER OF THE BATTLE GROUND 103 
 
 not object to having the war go on indefinitely with- 
 out prejudice as a business proposition. His pref- 
 erences are hidden behind a mask which possibly 
 the Japanese, who can read the ideographs, may 
 penetrate, but surely an Occidental may not. He 
 wants, indeed, to rule no other country and to have 
 no other country rule him. The island Oriental 
 understands him better than the Russian does. If he 
 could fully appreciate that Japanese success means the 
 integrity of China as promised — and that he might 
 go his own hermit way — the big Manchurian might 
 have the patriotism to fight on his own account. 
 
 But the integrity of China is a generality which 
 includes the people who live across the river and 
 in the next town. What has one to do with them? 
 Do they earn food for you and your family? The 
 Chinese has in common with every other Chinese 
 manners, customs, physiognomy, and industry. Col- 
 lectivism he does not understand at all, or rather he 
 understands it in his way. If he succeeds in business 
 he will take all his relatives into the establishment 
 and care for them. He will go in numbers to the joss- 
 house to beat gongs to appease mythical animals 
 that make droughts and floods. Foreign invasions 
 belong to the same order of disturbances, and he 
 would meet them in the same way. 
 
I04 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 To-day, then, we have the most martial and the 
 least martial of civilizations side by side exemplify- 
 ing by personal examples each its dominating qual- 
 ity. One searches history vainly for a parallel. 
 There is the industrialist gleaning parched grain 
 from the ruins of his house and the patriot who dies 
 for glory alone. It is fair weather for military move- 
 ments — on the road is the soldier. It is sowing 
 time — in the fields is the Chinese. The man on the 
 road is working slavishly for his country; the man 
 in the field is working slavishly for himself and his 
 family. 
 
 The ^'transporters" better explain the martial 
 marvel of Japan than the firing line. The "trans- 
 porters" are always at the rear, and only at the rear — 
 the drudge ants of this army of workers that carry 
 mill and granary with them. They play the same 
 part as our civilian teamsters who receive $3 a day, 
 while our soldiers themselves receive only one-sixth 
 as much. It is a ''good job" for the teamster; it 
 is war for the soldier. For the "transporter" it is 
 neither a "good job" nor war. 
 
 In the drafting of conscripts in Japan the poorest 
 in physique and general fitness are rejected. Of 
 those accepted, the farthest below the standard, I 
 understand^ are made "transporters." Because he 
 
THE OWNER OF THE BATTLE GROUND 105 
 
 is an inch shorter than his fellows, Nippon Denji 
 may smell powder only when the transport wagons 
 are attacked. At landing places and depots he 
 must bear sacks of rice and sake kegs on his back. 
 On the road, he has to lead by day the ponies that 
 draw the little transportation carts and groom them 
 by night. The ponies go better for leading; if they 
 did not, economy of energy would demand that the 
 ''transporter" walk just the same. For those gen- 
 iuses of quick marches and swift, decisive blows — 
 the fighting men — the time required for perfecting 
 strategic plans or bringing up other columns may 
 mean weeks of rest. Not infrequently they must 
 wait for the supply trains, which means all the more 
 haste for carts and ponies. 
 
 The ''transporter's" work is like that of the 
 housewife. There is always more to do. Day in 
 and day out they pass back and forth over the dusty 
 road, no sooner depositing one load than returning 
 for another. A month's wages would not buy a 
 day's square meals in New York or Chicago. Yet 
 they smile as they work. Their hearts are in their 
 drudgery. Their smile, their spirit, their eagerness — 
 these are the marvels to the Occidental. They are 
 not forced to toil by a military aristocracy. It is 
 a privilege to serve the Emperor in the field even as 
 
io6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 a "transporter." A line of braid on the cuff — the 
 soldier has one; the " transporter" has none — is the 
 bridge between chivalry and labor. When one of 
 the Russian regiments would tower over any Jap- 
 anese regiment like so many elder brothers, the add- 
 ed inch which takes the conscript from the supply 
 train to the firing line has a suggestion of irony to 
 the Occidental. 
 
 So it well might to the native. For the Manchu 
 is as big as the Russian. No human exhibition could 
 be more unreasonable to him than that of the "trans- 
 porters" who do coolies' labor for a pittance. But 
 the Chinese, too, is a creature of sentiment and of 
 self-sacrifice. He works for his family and his an- 
 cestral tablets. On the other hand, the "transport- 
 er's" family sent him forth, proud that he might 
 endure hardship for a few cents a day. 
 
 Japan, the chivalrous, is poor; China, the mer- 
 cantile, is rich. If the Chinese should turn their 
 
 energy toward war Yes, if — if all the people 
 
 of New York should decide to move into the coun- 
 try to-morrow! Speculation is easy. The Chinese 
 have assimilated many armies, many * transporters." 
 They have worked out the only practice — making 
 profit of defeat — that has preserved a people intact 
 while new empires were born and old ones fell. 
 
THE OWNER OF THE BATTLE GROUND 107 
 
 They started before the Greeks, and the Peking cart 
 still goes creaking along their bad roads. Whatever 
 the outcome of the war, they will miss no good bar- 
 gains, will waste no time in idleness, and will always 
 be fond of their little children, and fonder of their 
 grandmothers, and yet fonder of the graves of their 
 great-great-grandmothers. 
 
XI 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD 
 
 Japan has two religions. One is all soul; the 
 other is the worship of patriotism. One has carried 
 the breath of peace through the breadth of Asia; 
 the other is the outgrowth of a single country's prim- 
 itive superstitions, without a strictly ethical code or 
 ethical grandeur. 
 
 The memorial service for the dead of the Second 
 Division yesterday was a revelation of the heart 
 of this peculiar, this martial race. The hurrying 
 tourist, seeing many Buddhist temples with their 
 many images (visited by old men and women and 
 children) and skipping the simple Shinto temples, 
 reaches hasty conclusions of a national cult that is 
 little more than the memories of a people's folklore. 
 War passes the philosopher by and sinks the plum- 
 met deep into the human emotions. Here, while 
 a Shinto priest performed the rites of his faith, an 
 Imperial prince, a general of a division, and a score 
 or more of staff officers and eight thousand troops 
 were motionless, reverential spectators. When the 
 
 io8 
 
A TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD 109 
 
 Buddhist priest took his place, the officers scattered 
 and the soldiers were marched away. 
 
 Both the situation and the weather were fit for 
 the ceremony held in a fair land that military ardor 
 had conquered. It was at nine in the morning, 
 when you prefer to leave the shade for the open. 
 The sun shone brightly. There was a hillside for 
 the sanctuary; the plain for the congregation in 
 khaki. Beyond them was the town, with its walled 
 citadel, pagoda-roofed, set in the levels of growing 
 corn and millet, and in the distance the precipitous 
 saw-tooth, splintered-rock summits of Feng-wang 
 Mountain, the highest point of the natural wall of 
 defences of this waiting army. 
 
 On the field of Stakelberg's abortive attempt to 
 relieve Port Arthur despatches tell us that the Jap- 
 anese Second Army men are still picking up the 
 Russian dead and assorting the trophies of another 
 hard-fought battle. Whatever struggles were pass- 
 ing at the fortress, where besieged strain with watch- 
 ing and besiegers with preparation, at Feng-wang- 
 cheng the peace was as profound as in the temples 
 of Nikko. The stalwart soldiers in rigid lines spoke 
 of the North, of the vigor which comes with exist- 
 ence in an inhospitable cKmate; but the sanctuary 
 carried you back to the toyland where the soldiers 
 
no WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 came from. The ceremony was in keeping with a 
 late spring morning. It was as suited to summer 
 as the church interior to winter. Thinking of the 
 snows to come, of fields that are wide instead of 
 diminutive, of a land whose physical aspect recalls 
 the Caucasian, it seemed as much out of place as 
 cathedrals in the tropics. Shintoism no less than 
 Buddhism is scarcely at home in a land where corn 
 instead of rice is grown. 
 
 Two lines of different-colored streamers on tall 
 staffs ran to the improvised torii with its fluttering, 
 zigzag gohei (strips of white paper denoting purity) 
 and the crossed flags of Japan. Cut evergreen trees 
 enclosed the oblong space on which the thoughts 
 of the thousands were centred. Poets say that the 
 evergreen denotes everlasting purity. Shintoism 
 says nothing; it is a faith that has forms which 
 seem to have outlived their traditions — at least for 
 the foreigner's ears. The masses take pines in the 
 yard of a Shinto temple for granted, as we take holly 
 for Christmastide. In place of the inari (foxes) 
 were trees that blossomed with paper flowers such as 
 any smart house-boy could make on short notice. 
 The inari are the messengers from God; for the 
 fox is a clever strategist and therefore fit to guard 
 a Japanese temple. The blossoms were peonies; 
 
A TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD iii 
 
 the flower of Buddhism is the lotus. Barring these 
 externals, the unreverential might have thought him- 
 self invited to a view of the provisions before a 
 regimental feast. Young onions, the coarse radishes 
 and coarse lettuce of the country, and small Japan- 
 ese cakes were piled high on a number of stands, 
 and on one, four well-tied and decorous fowls were 
 blinking. These were the regimental offerings to 
 dead comrades. To those who fell on May ist, 
 when the gardens were only just being planted and 
 the canteen men had not yet brought up beer, they 
 would have been delicacies indeed. After the cere- 
 mony, they were to be divided among the living. 
 
 On one side of the sanctuary were the General 
 and the Staff of the Second Division, some officers 
 from the corps staff, and the foreign attaches. The 
 picturesque figure was Nishi himself, who had just 
 been made a full general in recognition of his 
 services at the battle of the Yalu. Even in his 
 khaki, which yet became him well, he looked like 
 a feudal lord out of an old print. Lean of figure, 
 with skin of yellowed parchment drawn over his high 
 cheek-bones, you felt that he might smile — a Japan- 
 ese smile — but otherwise his expression, waking or 
 sleeping, never changed. On his right was Prince 
 Kuni, of the Imperial blood, wearing also the cords 
 
112 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 of the staff, a roly-poly little man, standing more at 
 his ease than his colleagues. On the other side, 
 forming an avenue up the slope through which 
 the soldiery on the plain could see the function, 
 were unattached soldiers and officers. 
 
 The brocade-robed, white-bearded priest wore the 
 sword of a samurai — of a Shintoism militant. His 
 assistants were two soldiers who had been priests 
 before the war began. He, himself, was, in fact, 
 the only Shinto priest with the Second Division. 
 In the fight at Hamatan, on May ist, where bayonets 
 were fixed and there were charges and counter- 
 charges, and, finally, a Russian priest led the remnant 
 of a regiment out of a cul-de-sac under a murderous 
 fire, there was no Japanese priest in attendance. 
 The Japanese army has no chaplains. The priests 
 who are here come by courtesy and have no official 
 position in a force where economy would not per- 
 mit the presence of a single man who did not assist 
 toward the great material result of efficiency. 
 
 Every Japanese soldier is in a sense his own priest. 
 If all national boundaries in Europe were erased 
 and the whole took the cross as a flag in the name 
 of common deliverance, you would have a parallel 
 of the different Japanese provinces suddenly united 
 by the reformation under the common banner of 
 
A TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD 113 
 
 race and faith. The red centre of the Japanese 
 emblem stands for the birth of the Imperial ancestor 
 from the loins of the Sun Goddess. The Emperor, 
 then, is the deity of this cult of folklore; faith and 
 patriotism and militant racial impulse are united 
 in one. God is country and country is God in the 
 person of the Emperor. 
 
 When the priest came forward and waved his 
 wand of white paper streamers over the Prince and 
 the staff, and over the multitude in khaki, it is safe 
 to say that not one of the officers standing there really 
 believed in this exorcism of the evil spirits any 
 more than the average European General Staff 
 believes that the whale swallowed Jonah. They 
 did believe in the rising sun on the flag, in the 
 Emperor, in their country. According to their creed, 
 the Emperor had given them life and position and 
 whatsoever they held dear in this world, and it was 
 their duty to return gallantly, unhesitatingly that 
 which he had given whenever the call should come. 
 If logic made them doubt his divinity, their hearts 
 felt the illusion completely. 
 
 From the little enclosure at one side, made of 
 sections of soldiers' tents, the assistant priests 
 brought other offerings — of sake (the Japanese 
 wine), of sweets — which the priest held up before 
 
114 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the officers and the army and blessed, and then 
 deposited on the stand left vacant for the purpose. 
 When the stand was overflowing the priests fell 
 back, and General Nishi, unbending, his face a 
 Japanese mask of parchment, advanced and unrolled 
 a thick sheet of paper as big as a pillow-case (of 
 the same sort as that from which I saw the Emperor 
 read his address opening the Diet). If the sheet 
 was large, the characters were large also and the 
 words few. In a voice of quiet monotone, he read 
 his speech commemorating the dead. 
 
 It was a good speech; almost a great speech, 
 even disregarding the eloquence of the situation, for 
 a soldier to make. As between it and the speech 
 of the average Russian general on a similar occasion, 
 good taste was all on the side of the Japanese. In 
 spite of the fact that Shintoism conceives no definite 
 immortality, he addressed the fallen as if they were 
 actually present. He would not have been a Japanese 
 if he had not politely apologized for the meagreness 
 of the offerings. 
 
 Without definitely saying so, he nevertheless 
 spoke the thought of how for the first time the 
 Japanese army had met European foes, and, for 
 the first time on trial before the world, had over- 
 come a valiant enemy in a position strong by nature 
 
A TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD 115 
 
 and strengthened by art. Now this army's courage 
 was /^whittled to the very edge/' he said. He 
 bade the "sweet souls" of the fallen to rest in peace, 
 conscious that they should never be forgotten; 
 they had served the faith. Fame! The hope of 
 being ever remembered by their friends and their 
 family as having died for Japan — that is the immor- 
 tality which calls the Japanese in place of the houris 
 of the Mohammedan. Fame and the faith (which 
 is country)! — there again you have the explanation 
 of the military marvel of the Orient. 
 
 When he had finished, first the Prince and then 
 the General, followed by all the ofiicers and the 
 foreign military attaches, brought sprigs of ever- 
 greens tied by ribbons of white paper and deposited 
 them in rapt silence on another stand that had been 
 set in front of the one which held the offerings that 
 had been specially blessed. Then the troop of bu- 
 glers, who stood in the centre of the troops, blew a 
 fanfare. In thirds and fifths, it was discordant to 
 the ears of the Occidental. But to the Japanese it 
 was musical and inspiring, perhaps. Then the three 
 regiments of infantry, the regiment of artillery (with- 
 out their guns), the regiment of cavalry, and the 
 engineers moved as one body. They have changed 
 their blue uniforms to khaki, but the color of their 
 
Ii6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 blankets and their accoutrements remains the same. 
 Pacing the hill in close order, they looked like raised 
 sections of dry, brown earth. Turning, their blanket 
 rolls showed. One moment we beheld the dull un- 
 der side, the next like the upper side, of a varie- 
 gated carpet. 
 
 A Buddhist priest came in front of the sanctuary 
 and set down a burner smoking with incense. Here 
 was the suggestion of a great soul religion like 
 Catholicism. A few, in easy attitudes, watched him 
 through the elaborate, meaning service while the 
 soldiers went streaming back to their quarters along 
 the roads. The heart religion of sceptical, ma- 
 terialistic, subtle, martial Japan is the folklore of 
 her fathers. Buddhism is the dilettante faith of 
 individual devotees. But the faith of youth and 
 war is Emperor and country. Shintoism is inher- 
 ent, official. The Emperor is a Shintoist. Beside 
 the ceremony that had preceded it, the Buddhist 
 service was like a prayer in the anteroom after 
 formal prayer in official session. 
 
XII 
 
 THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 
 
 Converging columns must wait each upon the 
 progress of the others to the tune of the master's 
 plans. General Nishi said last night that we should 
 rest here during to-day. The Second Division 
 follows the Peking Road through the Motien Pass, 
 which is the Thermopylae between Feng-wang-cheng 
 and Liaoyang. The Twelfth follows parallel wagon 
 paths to the north, and the Imperial Guards par- 
 allel wagon paths to the south. Beyond this, the 
 whole of Kuroki's army, are other Japanese armies 
 stretching to the railroad itself and barring the sea 
 from the Russians with practically an intact line of 
 bayonets. Drawn toward the centre, the forces of 
 either side which have fought in isolated battles 
 will be united. 
 
 For six weeks we marked time at Feng-wang-cheng, 
 
 counting the days till the beginning of the rainy 
 
 season from which all time in the East is reckoned. 
 
 The Chinese calendar sets the date as July loth. The 
 
 last weeks of June were at hand. We began to ask 
 
 117 
 
Ii8 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 if we were not going to Liaoyang after all ? In the 
 stagnation of an army in the field in camp, which 
 the contrast of the nervous excitement of an army 
 in movement makes the more deadening, the corre- 
 spondent waited, knowing only that, once the down- 
 pour began, movement was possible only to an army 
 of herculean energy. The flash of information 
 that was our deliverance came like the flash of light- 
 ning out of a blue sky, as it always does from the 
 armor-clad secrecy of military staffs. With it came 
 all details, too, as usual. The precise hour was 
 named when the division headquarters would pass 
 the grove where I had become as settled in my tent 
 as in a manor house. It is dawn at four, and soon 
 after we heard the tread of infantry and the clank 
 of their accoutrements. At eight on the morning of 
 June 24th, to be exact — ^just at eight to the minute 
 announced — General Nishi, riding as the point of 
 the wedge with his staff behind him, made an interval 
 of isolation in a division's passing. 
 
 Behind the staff were some strange-looking men, 
 indeed, such as Marco Polo never described in his 
 travels. They rode big geldings, suitably provided 
 by the Government, and they were big themselves, 
 and, though clad in different habits, they seemed to 
 the army itself to have been poured out of the same 
 
Copyright, jgo4^ by Collier's Weekly. 
 
 On the road to Liaoyang, 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 119 
 
 mould. Only the keenest slant-eyed observers could 
 have seen that they might speak different languages 
 and come from different lands. Their distinction 
 from the thousands of soldiery and the Chinese (who 
 were hoeing the corn which they were just planting 
 when we came to Feng-wang-cheng) quite sunk any 
 distinction of one from another. 
 
 They had straight eyes and white faces, and 
 their hair was not black. The military attaches 
 and the correspondents are the albinos of the army. 
 More than one private who saw them pass wondered 
 how they came to be riding with the General. Let 
 them appear on the line of outposts and they would 
 be taken for Russians. Only yesterday an English- 
 speaking Japanese said to me that he could not tell 
 one European from another; that he had heard 
 that either nationality could tell an Englishman 
 from an American almost at a glance, and he asked 
 me if it were true. Therein lies an excuse, if not a 
 reason, for not permitting either correspondents or 
 military attaches more freedom of movement in the 
 field. To bring the comparison home, if the average 
 American ofiicer, let alone outpost, could not dis- 
 tinguish a Japanese from a Chinese or a Korean, 
 with hair cut the same way and wearing much the 
 same kind of clothes, he would take no risks on the 
 
I20 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 strength of his judgment. So the attaches ride 
 behind the staff and the correspondents behind the 
 attaches, and they are the most curious thing about 
 this army to the army itself. 
 
 Two or three miles out of Feng - wang - cheng, 
 on the bank of the river, a guard of cavalry was 
 drawn up. This, the General's escort, completed the 
 formation of the headquarters party, whose pace 
 was that of the infantry. All the first morning we 
 were within the zone of Japanese occupation during 
 our rest in camp. The period of waiting had had 
 no idle moments for the engineers, who went to 
 their work every day with the regularity of mortar 
 carriers. 
 
 The heights beyond the town were seamed with 
 trenches and cut with roads for the artillery. Not 
 one has been required in action. It was not thought 
 that they ever would be. Their value was ^^ moral." 
 They made fifty thousand men as good as a hundred 
 thousand men for defence, and they held safe on 
 Kuropatkin's flank an army which could be thrown 
 into his rear the moment that he should advance 
 with his whole force to the relief of Port Arthur. 
 He advanced, with part, with a result that we all 
 know. 
 
 When we had gone over the highest of the hills 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 121 
 
 which hold Feng-wang-cheng in their lap, we left 
 the made roads and came again to the old Peking 
 Road. Our course wound, with the valley made by 
 the stream, which we were continually ford ng, 
 and as the course wound, so wound the column and 
 their transport. On either hand were mountains, 
 ever mountains, pyramidal, sugar-loafed, terraced, 
 thick with trees, untouched by art except where the 
 Chinese had carried their tillage patches from the 
 fertile valley up the slopes. An army with guns 
 would be almost as helpless off that road as a fish 
 out of water. The one sign of human presence that 
 we saw on the heights was a spot where the trees 
 had been levelled and a signal staff told of a Rus- 
 sian lookout. 
 
 In front of the General was the advance guard, and 
 behind, as ahead, the road was as thick with soldiers 
 as the hills with trees. In that streak of humanity, 
 with its canopy of dust, the only persons that rode 
 alone were the General himself and an officer astride 
 a kicking horse. Until you see them in column, 
 you do not realize what a big force fifteen thousand 
 soldiers are, and until you see their transport you do not 
 realize what a lot they eat; and until you have ridden 
 all day at the rate of arduously marching men you 
 do not realize what the pleasure of riding at will is. 
 
122 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 No stream ever followed its course more closely 
 than we this old highway. There was only one 
 channel for the current of khaki shoulders. In the 
 fields always were the scattered, blue-bloused Chinese 
 workmen. Elderly women — I saw no young ones — 
 were weeding their gardens in the groups of houses 
 dignified with a name on the map where the farming 
 folk live. (Those who think of all China as over- 
 crowded must overlook this part of Manchuria, which 
 is sparsely settled.) The local population had seen 
 the Russians go away a few hours before ; they may 
 have had to take cover while there was an exchange 
 of shots. If so, there was time wasted, and they 
 must work that much harder to make up for it. They 
 did not take the trouble to look up at the thousands 
 of madmen who, according to their thinking, were 
 chasing thousands of other madmen playing at a 
 madman's game. The General was only a mounted 
 man to them. A runner on a bicycle interested them 
 far more. 
 
 The earnestness with which everything in the 
 column's progress was done alone bespoke the fact 
 that we were not on a route march. Always we 
 were hearing of the Russians just ahead. The 
 first sign we had of their existence was on the second 
 day, when we saw on a knoll half a dozen big, blond- 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 123 
 
 haired men in gray caps. These were a "point" 
 that had been betrayed into the arms of Japanese 
 scouts by a false Chinese guide, I was told. They 
 had every right to be bored, every Japanese surgeon 
 who passed stopping to offer them some attention. 
 We passed one other wounded Russian in one of the 
 springless, jolting Chinese carts. He had been shot 
 in his head, which he rested on a pile of sacks under 
 the broiling sun. He looked up at our Caucasian 
 faces quizzically as if wondering how we could be 
 going in the opposite direction when we had been 
 captured, too. 
 
 But I set out to write of a march, not of blood- 
 shed (of which there was none of account) — a march 
 that went like clockwork. Five-sixths of the thought 
 of staffs is centred upon getting a soldier rapidly 
 along a highway, with sufficient food and ammu- 
 nition. The weight of his pack, how it should be 
 adjusted, how to keep up his spirits in the face of 
 fatigue, the minimum bulk of food which will give 
 him nourishment — these were the subject of military 
 councils long before the time of Caesar. The soldier 
 of every country has his peculiar prejudices and his 
 peculiar habits. The Japanese soldier carries only 
 forty pounds, as against sixty for the soldiers of 
 other countries. Yet in height the Second Division, 
 
124 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 drawn from the north, where the chmate is severe 
 and the human product that survives is sturdy, is not 
 far below that of the average French or Itahan regi- 
 ment, while in actual carrying capacity the Japanese 
 are probably superior. Besides, height is not every- 
 thing. The Japanese soldier is never weedy. He is 
 built on the square ; he is a buttress instead of a pole. 
 
 His only prejudice is in favor of teapots. These 
 he gathers by the way; he is loath also to give up a 
 certain type of enamelled cup purchasable in Feng- 
 wang-cheng. He not only carries his forty pounds 
 to the end of the march, but the end of the march 
 finds him in line. Out of the whole division I did 
 not see a hundred stragglers on any day. 
 
 We did not make more than half the distance in a 
 day of some of the famous route marches of famous 
 Continental armies, it is true. But the Continental 
 conscript has a macadamized road, while such a sun 
 as that which makes the corn grow in a Manchurian 
 valley is unknown. This army is not doing a few 
 days' show practice. It marched over the icy roads 
 of Korea in February, and has been under marching 
 conditions ever since, and keeping its health. In 
 all weathers it must go on, with its nerve steady at 
 any moment for the shock of battle, not for the blank 
 volleys of a manoeuvre. 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 125 
 
 To beat the sun you must rise early. On the 
 second morning, when we moved out of Siuehhtien, 
 having slept in the open with the heavy dew on our 
 faces, the hour set was 5:50. 
 
 "Why not six?" a correspondent asked. "This 
 is cutting it as fine as the four-dollar-ninety-nine-cent 
 bargain at a department store." 
 
 There was no affectation about this precision. It 
 was a part of the system. At 5:50 in the fields be- 
 yond the town, with the air still thick with dew 
 and the mountains shrouded in mist, we found the 
 regiments and the guns, with every last part of the 
 equipment of thousands of men, complete and ready 
 as those of an intricate machine. 
 
 The foreigners presented themselves to the Gen- 
 eral — the General neat and polite — who responded 
 with the Japanese smile, and then we mounted and 
 fell in behind him and the appointed regiment. In 
 an hour the town was as clean of the army as if it 
 had never been there, except for the armed guard 
 of the "transporters'" corps. 
 
 As we moved over the winding road through the 
 mountains, I saw the one thing of the three days 
 which did not seem a part of the programme. In some 
 other armies, in a march through the enemy's coun- 
 try, it would have been one of many little "breaks" 
 
126 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 regarded as inevitable; here it was as prominent as 
 missing his lines by an old actor in a familiar part. 
 Some of the "transporters" had taken their carts 
 forward into the line of the infantry's march. One 
 of the carts was overturned. I wondered if the in- 
 fantrymen, with a ''What the devil are you doing up 
 here?" had not done the trick in a moment of exas- 
 peration. If they had, the " transporters " would 
 only have smiled in answer to the question. They 
 were smiling, anyway. If the whole army were 
 routed what remained would smile. But the smile 
 would not be that of carelessness, for all the "broken 
 bits" would be studiously gathered in. 
 
 These mornings in the mountains always make 
 you think that you are to have an overcast day. Until 
 the sun breaks through, quickly dispelling all vapors 
 and illusions — then is the day's glorious interval for 
 marching. Toward noon, when we stop for an 
 hour, the marches are shorter, the rests longer. Nip- 
 pon Denji, the man of Japan, has then eaten all the 
 rice cooked in the company boilers, and the rations 
 of meat and fish supplied him the night before, and 
 with "Break ranks," he rushes to the water, where 
 he washes his pannikin and the little piece of towelling 
 which he always carries, and then wipes the dust 
 from his face and neck. At other times he stacks 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 127 
 
 his rifle and drops his kit and runs to shade, flopping 
 himself down on the cool ground like a seal into 
 water. The joy of this march thus far is that there 
 is always shade and always water. The So River, 
 which we crossed and recrossed, is always fordable 
 and is fed by mountain springs. 
 
 Our twelve miles a day has been made, too, with 
 all baggage keeping pace, and with the advance send- 
 ing the enemy before it, and always prepared — this 
 solid line of men on the road with hospital corps and 
 ammunition ponies bringing up the rear — to attack 
 in force should the enemy make a stand. It was 
 eleven when we came into Kansautientsz yesterday 
 under a sun that was like the open lid of a furnace. 
 A regiment of infantry, that had passed many great 
 fields of young beans without thought of wasting the 
 energy to set foot on them, settled down in a field 
 now, illustrating to the owner how thoroughly in 
 most cases chance entirely rules the fortunes of war. 
 In half an hour this field was trodden down as hard 
 as a tennis court. 
 
 The General himself did not know whether or not 
 we were going to move any farther that day, but the 
 men must be in organization and ready, heat or no 
 heat. A soldier is not a veteran until he learns to 
 make the most of any conditions. So the infantry- 
 
128 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 men brought branches from the trees, making the 
 field look like a young grove. When the artillery 
 came up, the gunners did the same, but kept their 
 horses hitched. At four came the word, from the 
 authority which was looking toward the progress 
 of all columns, that we should be here for two days. 
 The groves fell, and the infantrymen marched to the 
 right and left to encamp in ravines. Then the whole 
 army, including correspondents, settled down for the 
 afternoon to wait for the transportation to come up. 
 
 The transportation is always behind the guns — 
 the precious guns — force going before the provender 
 when there is an enemy in sight. Thus the advance 
 may arrive at noon and get its dinner at seven. If 
 there is a fight, no one will be thinking of food, and 
 seven will be ample time. With no fight, what is 
 there for a correspondent to do on an empty stomach 
 but lie in the shade and think of the simmer in the 
 pan of the bacon which first went to Chicago from 
 Nebraska, and then all the way to Manchuria in a 
 yellow sack, which you may pack on pony or cart 
 through the dust, with never a germ disturbing the 
 fatty — oh, too fatty! — inside. 
 
 To-day the army is washing, the surface of the 
 river is oily with soap worshipfully and vigorously 
 applied. The bushes are hung with garments yes- 
 
THREE DIVISIONS ON THREE ROADS 129 
 
 terday steeped in the sweat of conquest. The privi- 
 leged few who can "rustle" native caldrons will get 
 hot baths — that supreme luxury which every Jap- 
 anese has daily at home — which means to him what 
 jam does to an Englishman, sauerkraut to a Ger- 
 man, and pie to an American when struggling over 
 roads in pursuit of armed men in a strange land. 
 
 To-morrow Nippon Denji will stroll about camp 
 as fresh as a daisy. He will look in at my tent door, 
 and watch the strange being with blond hair and 
 big nose who is writing about his exploits. He is 
 bearable even in his curiosity because he is quite 
 the cleanest soldier in the world. 
 
 P. S. — June 28th. — Nippon Denji did little stroll- 
 ing to-day, for it came on to rain as hard as the 
 sun shone yesterday. The dry bed of the So became 
 a channel for a torrent, and the soil of the valley 
 seemed to spurt water like a sponge from the pressure 
 of your foot. But the army is doing its work in 
 waterproofs just the same as if the day were fair. 
 Bad weather cannot spoil the flavor of the news 
 which concerns Nippon Denji personally and all 
 the world internationally. The Russians have evac- 
 uated Motienling. Now, Motienling, as I have 
 already noted, is the pass of Thermopylae on the 
 road to Liaoyang. 
 
XIII 
 
 FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 
 
 LiENSHANKWAN IS the first collection of houses 
 this side of the watershed which separates the valley 
 of the Yalu from the valley of the Liao. Swarms 
 of flies hover over the mire, which steams when the 
 sun shines and turns liquid when it rains. Belated 
 ditching cannot at once offset the evil heritage of 
 Cossack horses quartered in yards and courts. 
 
 In the four days that our headquarters has been 
 here we have heard a few spurts of rifle fire, while 
 the occasional prisoner and occasional wounded man 
 brought in have indicated simply that the enemy 
 has been keeping in touch with our column. With 
 an army of consequence these are as much common- 
 places as outpost duty itself, and little skirmishes 
 become what ^^ warming-up practice" is to an out- 
 door game. To-day, Collins, Hare, and I, three 
 Americans, who mess and tent together, had planned 
 to celebrate the Fourth to the best of our limited 
 resources. For the flag, possibly the only one float- 
 ing in Manchuria on the famous day, we had raised 
 
 an especially high standard. 
 
 130 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 131 
 
 But at the breaking of light the long report of 
 volleys came over the hills. When they had con- 
 tinued for half an hour the call became irresistible. 
 So saddles were thrown on to our horses while we 
 breakfasted. It was a little early to ask the staff 
 for the chaperon, who signifies when and where we 
 may move. Besides, it was our national holiday, 
 and we proposed to ride forward, dependent upon 
 the courtesy of the officers in the field. Finally we 
 found that we had not counted unwisely on our 
 host. 
 
 It was our good fortune and our novel experience 
 as correspondents with this column to come upon the 
 scene of action when it was fresh. What I saw — 
 so creditable was it to Japanese courage and acumen 
 and Japanese humanity — made me wonder more than 
 ever why correspondents have been denied the privi- 
 leges of the actual front. There are many games 
 in the strife of individuals and nations, but none 
 was ever more intense than that played near the 
 old and the new temples of Kwantei this morning. 
 
 The pass itself which the Russians attempted to 
 take is seven miles from the town. We had looked 
 forward to Motienling for a great battle. In Tokio 
 we heard, again on the march we heard, that the 
 Russians would here make their most determined 
 
132 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 defence. Japanese strategy forced evacuation with- 
 out a shot. 
 
 The old road leading to the summit is macadam- 
 ized in Nature's way with the rocks and stones which 
 the freshets have not carried away. You climb 
 upward to an opening some fifty feet deep, and here 
 is the Thermopylae of Manchuria — nothing more or 
 less than a cut in a fan-shaped series of hills, more 
 defensible from the Yalu side than the Liao side. 
 On the banks two companies of infantry that had 
 marched fast on sudden call were resting. The 
 sound of volleys could still be heard. It had travelled 
 with us — proof enough that the reinforcements were 
 not needed. 
 
 All we could see was the verdure-clad mountains 
 on every hand, and the sappers at work on the road 
 that wound around the base of a spur in front of us. 
 This we followed. It led us down into a valley and 
 around the base of another spur and to an open 
 place occupied by a big temple of gray bricks. This 
 was built by the Chinese after the war with Japan, 
 because the gods of another temple, it was thought, 
 had prevented the Japanese from taking the road 
 over the pass. Thus deity got its reward, while gen- 
 erals who failed might save themselves from decapi- 
 tation by suicide. 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 133 
 
 Now the Red Cross flag was tied to the portals, and 
 on the massive granite steps General Okasaki, com- 
 manding the troops that had been engaged, was receiv- 
 ing and despatching messages, while the field telegraph 
 wire (run in from the road), with its streamers of 
 paper warning horseback riders, passed over his head 
 to the operator in the court. At the side entrance a 
 litter was being borne in. Within the sanctuary, the 
 feet of one of the giant blue-and-white-robed gods with 
 hideous face furnished a head rest for a dying soldier. 
 
 In the living apartments of the priest and in the 
 court, the wounded had great Russian overcoats 
 thrown over them, and you knew by the size of the 
 man, or by the heavy Russian boots which protruded 
 underneath, whether the stricken one was of the 
 enemy or not. All belligerency was out of the minds 
 of those who had lunged and thrust and fenced in 
 darkness with bayonets an hour before. They were 
 now in the one family of the helpless. The orders 
 of the General on the steps, standing for the voice of 
 health and strength, were as quiet as the movements 
 of the surgeon, who knew no side and no country in 
 his work. The Chinese priest who looked blankly 
 on had the proof (in his logic) of the inferiority to 
 his own of the Russian deity, which had failed where 
 his had succeeded. 
 
134 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 We rode on to the original temple of the highly 
 successful god, where you felt as near the scene of 
 action as you do when hastening to a fire and you 
 come to a side street blocked with fire-engines and 
 hose. On the steps were two Russian prisoners 
 with their guard. They looked like men who had 
 wakened in the morning surprised to find themselves 
 alive. After passing through hell they were in the 
 quiet of a mountain temple yard surrounded by 
 tokens of their enemy's success. The line had gone 
 on, leaving safety for the stricken. 
 
 Beyond the temple the road cuts through the 
 grove. Out of its shadow, as I turned my horse in 
 this direction, came a dead Japanese brought on 
 four crossed sticks. He still seemed to be holding 
 his rifle fast; his limbs were in the position held 
 when instant death came; one hand was at the 
 trigger, the other on the rifle stock; one leg was bent 
 in the act of taking another step toward the foe. 
 A hundred yards farther on the road breaks into open 
 ground. This sweeps down in an apron to a long 
 valley which ends in mountain terraces. With a 
 road and a creek bed at the bottom, the valley is cut 
 like a trough between two rows of high green hills. 
 Where the ascent to another pass begins gleam the 
 white sides of a pagoda. At this place, on the pre- 
 
Copyright, jgo4, by Collier's Weekly. 
 
 General Okasaki on the steps of the Temple of Kwantei the morning of 
 the first attack on Motien Pass. 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 135 
 
 vious day, the Russians had had their advance out- 
 post. On the Japanese side, to the right of the road, 
 at the base of the first hill on the north, the Japanese 
 had had their advance outpost of thirty-six men in a 
 Chinese farmhouse. 
 
 Thus far, then, the sensitive finger-point of the 
 First Army had felt its way for the protection and 
 the information of the main body behind it. Both 
 sides had their pickets, of course, and the zone be- 
 tween them was combed by the indefatigable Jap- 
 anese scouts. Behind the big hill to the north of 
 the outpost was a Japanese company in support; 
 at the old temple in the grove was the company of 
 which the outpost was a section. At the new temple 
 were two companies in reserve covering effectively 
 other roads besides that through the valley. 
 
 On the night of the 3d a battalion of the Twenty- 
 fourth Regiment of Siberian Sharpshooters and a 
 battalion of the Tenth Regiment of Siberian Sharp- 
 shooters (making 2,000 in all) were formed under 
 shelter of the hills of the far end of the valley. These 
 men were principally Siberian reservists. Of this 
 type of former soldiers and migrants I once heard 
 a Russian general say: 
 
 "There, sir, we have a force to defend Siberia— 
 in these hardy setders, living an outdoor life, know- 
 
136 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ing how to fight in a wild country. They have 
 been in the army. They can ride a.nd shoot. Our 
 giants would make short work of the Httle fellows 
 from Japan. But Japan will not be so foolish — 
 never!" 
 
 While he was indulging in such toploftiness over 
 vodka and cigarettes, the little fellows who fought 
 this morning were smiling, smiling, smiling, and 
 drilling, drilling, drilling, and their officers studying, 
 studying, studying. 
 
 One of the captured non-commissioned Russian 
 officers said that they thought the pass was lightly 
 held, and they hoped to surprise its occupants. The 
 surprise was of the nature that the elephant gives 
 the man who puts an express bullet into its brain. 
 It was conceived on information as inadequate as 
 the elephant had. 
 
 At shortly after three the front of the Russian 
 column bayoneted the Japanese picket who had at 
 first in the darkness mistaken its advance for one of 
 the Japanese patrols which were continually coming 
 and going. This was at the ravine behind the big 
 hill, which is transverse with the road. Here the 
 battalion of the Twenty-fourth went in reserve be- 
 hind the big hill. With them were their lumber- 
 ing boilers on wheels, so that the men could have 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 137 
 
 hot soup when they reoccupied MotienHng. The 
 battahon of the Tenth, without scouts or flankers, 
 proceeded in column along the narrow valley road. 
 Skobeleff used to do this sort of thing against the 
 Turks, who had no outposts and only mass dispo- 
 sitions. 
 
 The lieutenant in charge of the thirty-six men in 
 the farmhouse had heard the belated challenge of 
 his picket, and stuck his head out of the window 
 to see the Russian column. His men sprang out 
 with their rifles and ammunition and the clothes 
 they were sleeping in. They fastened themselves 
 on the head of the column with the clear-eyed fury 
 of a mongoose. They had no idea of the numbers 
 of the enemy. They saw forms and knew they were 
 Russians. It did not occur to them to run, let alone 
 surrender. 
 
 It was not worth while to shoot. Their natural 
 instinct is to '^ close in" like torpedo-boats. They 
 used their bayonets. They held on, like a small 
 tackier holding on to the giant who is struggling on 
 with the ball. Their gallantry turned their own 
 surprise into a surprise for the Russians. They 
 forced the Russians to deploy; they unnerved that 
 long column marching peacefully — especially the 
 men in the darkness to the rear. Indeed, they paved 
 
138 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the way for the eventual Russian demorahzation. 
 In extricating his men from the melee, the lieutenant 
 had to act as one of Caesar's might in reforming a 
 section of a legion which was broken and fighting 
 desperately; the hand-to-hand conditions were the 
 same, and all that was of use on the modern long- 
 range rifle was the piece of cold steel at its barrel's 
 end. 
 
 But he succeeded in leading those who were not 
 killed or wounded to the crest of the apron-like slope 
 from the red temple grove's edge. There they act- 
 ually formed a line. Many of the twenty survivors 
 were cut and slashed, but all were game. While the 
 thousand Russians deployed in a kind of swarm- 
 ing irregularity over rough ground, the twenty waited 
 for them on the one hand, and for support to come 
 up on the other. 
 
 Enough shots had been fired to warn the company 
 behind the hill near the outpost and the company 
 in the grove by the old temple. They assembled 
 and charged toward the sound of the firing. Beyond 
 the grove facing the valley, and on the opposite side 
 of the road, the Japanese had made some trenches. 
 The Russians were already across these when the 
 first company emerged from the grove. The Jap- 
 anese fired and then clinched. It was still so dark 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 139 
 
 that the form of a man could be made out only a 
 few feet away. The Russians came up straggling, 
 but with the power of ten to one. The Japanese 
 were in perfect company order. For half an hour 
 they held their ground with cold steel alone, the 
 officers using their swords — that of Lieutenant Kono 
 was nicked like a saw afterward. The momentum 
 of numbers alone should have borne them back. But 
 there was no light, and the Russian soldier is stupid. 
 When the head of the column stopped, the rear 
 stopped also. All the four Japanese companies 
 engaged belonged to the first battalion of the regi- 
 ment — the first being at the old temple, the third 
 behind the big hill, and the second and fourth at the 
 new temple in reserve. The third, being farther 
 away than the first, came up a little later and formed 
 on the slope of the big hill to the right of the first. 
 The twenty of the outpost were still standing their 
 ground. The lieutenant saw he was in the way 
 of his own company's fire. Such was his control 
 over his men after their ordeal that he led them to 
 the rear and formed them in a flanking position on 
 the left of his own company, which soon after day- 
 light had gained the trench on the other side of the 
 road. 
 
 And now the second company came up to the 
 
140 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 assistance of the other two. With some of the 
 thousand Russians still hanging on the slope, the 
 mass were still at its foot. They had taken no op- 
 portunity of ground except to find cover. The 
 battalion of the Twenty-fourth — with its soup ket- 
 tles, remember — was still doing nothing in the ravine 
 behind the big hill. When the battalion of the Tenth 
 fell back under the flanking and plunging fire, 
 they could have re-formed with the Twenty-fourth 
 and had two thousand men against five hundred. 
 Instead, this surprise party, which was going to eat 
 its lunch in Motienling, piled on down the valley, 
 and at six o'clock the Japanese were pursuing. By 
 this time the Japanese Major Takakusagi knew 
 all about the Russians, their numbers and position, 
 even if the Russians did not know about him. The 
 Russian battalion of the Twenty-fourth, which was 
 in reserve, could come around the hill and onto the 
 flank of the little Japanese force. One company 
 was kept behind to guard against this possibility. 
 
 This it did by getting above the battalion and 
 dropping bullets into the party of the soup wagons. 
 So the Twenty-fourth — and its soup wagons — re- 
 treated too, and the lot were chased by one-fourth 
 of their numbers right away to the white pagoda. 
 
 When you went over the field and saw the dispo- 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 141 
 
 sition which the Japanese had made of their advance 
 force, it was perfect. That is much, and yet there 
 is something that counts more — perfection in mobiHty. 
 Far away is that cry that the Japanese were merely 
 copyists. This is a terrene far different to that of 
 their own land. They have evolved a system of 
 their own for it. Considering that the Russians are 
 Russians, they were wise not to go on. If they had, 
 the prisoners and booty they would have lost would 
 have been accordingly large. 
 
 To the limit the Japanese knows his enemy; to 
 the limit he knows his ground; he knows that he 
 can depend upon any force of Japanese, however 
 small, not to lose its nerve; and, finally, his troops 
 have the verve and the mobility to make his dispo- 
 sitions effective. We smile now when we think of our 
 fears about the Japanese cavalry ; better than cavalry 
 is it to have the Russians blunder along the valleys 
 while we catch them from the hills. But the Jap- 
 anese himself is never caught in the valley. 
 
 All the above is from descriptions on the spot from 
 the Japanese officers and from prisoners. When I 
 arrived, shortly after nine, firing could still be heard 
 from the end of the valley near the white pagoda, 
 and as you came out of the grove of the old temple 
 into the open, the near scene — tragically witnessing 
 
142 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 defeat, gloriously witnessing a marvellous little vic- 
 tory — did not permit you even to look the length of 
 the green-walled valley. Here was the aftermath of 
 action still reeking. The two companies that had 
 first met the attack had broken ranks. Their rifles 
 were stacked by the roadside. The field was theirs; 
 their duty, to carry in the wounded and bury the dead. 
 Parties armed with spades were already departing 
 for their grim work. On the road itself still lay 
 several of the Russian dead and wounded, these 
 being distinguishable instantly by their size, their 
 dark uniforms, and their big caps. 
 
 Apart were three more wounded, with an unhurt 
 Russian Red Cross man among them. He was 
 seated in the dust, his arms resting on his knees. He 
 followed the foreigners blankly by rolling his eyes, 
 not by turning his head. Otherwise, I saw no sign 
 of interest on his part during half an hour. He was 
 a moujik before he went into the army, doubtless, 
 and the crassness of a moujik, that pawn of autoc- 
 racy, I shall not attempt to make the reader under- 
 stand. He had come up a hill in the dark, he and 
 his big, stupid comrades. The priests had probably 
 told them that they were going to great victory; 
 they were to play the Japanese a smart trick. Then 
 the column had become demoralized with the sud- 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 143 
 
 den descent of a swarm of human hornets in the 
 night. The Hght had broken to find him among 
 these strange, slant-eyed httle men, who have al- 
 ready excited Russian superstition to the point of 
 believing that the Japanese are veritable demons 
 for cunning and shooting. It is hard to keep up 
 confidence in your God when you are always being 
 beaten. When the light came he was alone with his 
 wounded, and the Japanese, observing the red 
 cross on his arm, did not march him away with the 
 other prisoners, but properly left him to look after 
 his own. This was now beyond him. He did not 
 seem to realize that the suffering man next to him 
 was trying vainly to ease his position without help 
 till a Japanese surgeon gave it. When you knew 
 him and knew Russia, his stupefaction was ex- 
 plainable. 
 
 While the wounded waited for the litters, which 
 went laden to the new temple and returned empty, 
 the Japanese infantrymen appointed for the purpose 
 were separating and cataloguing the equipment that 
 had fallen into the victor's hands. You had only 
 to look at this for further explanation of the marvel 
 of the morning. In contrast to the aluminium can- 
 teen of the Japanese was the iron-bound, unsani- 
 tary wooden water-bottle of the Russian. Instead 
 
144 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 of the aluminium pannikin, light, compact, portable, 
 was the bag of brown bread and the two-quart 
 bucket with no attachment for the belt except the 
 bail. In place of the carefully fitted shoes and 
 tight leggings, admitting of rapid movement, were 
 the clumsy boots, too big for comfort or for getting 
 a firm foothold on rough ground. 
 
 The Russians had come in their clumsy gray 
 overcoats, which tripped their legs when their boots 
 did not, as if they were going to the rear instead 
 of into a critical action in the darkness, where mo- 
 bility and surefootedness are first principles. Be- 
 sides this, the Russian's trousers were all too big, 
 as was his coat. Everything about him was like a 
 paternal muffler, putting him at the disadvantage of a 
 man swimming in an ulster and gum boots. The 
 contest was that of a gamecock and a big brahma. 
 The feet of one runs to spurs and the other to feathers. 
 
 The Russian had come to count on his weight. 
 Let the Little Father and the priests give the word 
 and he would lumber on over the savages. The 
 Japanese has been training mind and muscle to 
 meet an adversary of great reputation. His first 
 shock of surprise at Russian slowness and stupidity 
 has passed. What he did this morning he now re- 
 gards as the natural thing. He now has the confi- 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 145 
 
 dence as well as the skill. His possible error is 
 that he may think that other Occidental armies are 
 like the Russian. 
 
 Looking from the trench to the field, you saw 
 prostrate forms, the splotch of white bandages show- 
 ing where they had been hit, or if they had none 
 the surgeon had come to them too late. Parties 
 with spades were going about the field searching 
 in the bushes, and when they came to a fallen 
 Russian, bending over him and then passing on or 
 beginning to dig a hole, which in a few minutes was 
 replaced by a mound with a stone or stick which 
 said in Japanese characters that a certain soldier 
 of a certain Russian regiment was buried there. 
 
 There was one wounded Russian still lying on 
 the field whose proper destiny is emigration to 
 America. He alone of his comrades had not lost 
 his humor or his faculties for occupation. When 
 I approached him he was rolling a cigarette. At 
 sight of an Occidental face his blue eyes twinkled 
 and his even white teeth, polished by black bread, 
 showed in a smile of recognition. 
 
 '^ Speak English?" he asked. 
 
 ''Yes. Do you?" I responded eagerly. 
 
 "No," said he. ''Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" 
 Do you?" I asked. 
 
 iC 
 
146 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 "Nein!" Then he asked me about the French in 
 the same way. Here was his little j oke, and he laughed 
 over it heartily, just as if he did not have a bullet hole 
 through the thick of his leg which had bled profusely. 
 
 When I returned from the field this Ivan Ivano- 
 vitch of Kharkoff was holding a reception. His 
 Japanese friends had made him a stone rest with 
 boughs for a cushion. There was no need of his 
 rolling cigarettes now. He had a row of them and 
 other offerings by his right hand, and he had been 
 offered drink out of water-bottles until he could not 
 swallow another drop. One of the dozen around him 
 evidently spoke a good deal of Russian. Ivan told 
 them where he lived, and he laughed and joked, but 
 for such an intelligent fellow he was most stupid 
 about the morning's operations and the number of 
 troops engaged. On the strength of his smile, Ivan 
 would get on an3rwhere in the world. Earlier I 
 had seen a wounded Japanese who, too, had that 
 gift of good cheer which must have made him a 
 rallying point of camaraderie. Half a dozen were 
 accompanying his litter. In the pauses they bent 
 over him caressingly and kept away the flies. He 
 was badly hit, but still he was smiling. 
 
 A dozen rods away from Ivan was another Russian 
 who had the top of his head gashed v/ith a bullet. 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 147 
 
 Out of his mind, he would try to rise, and then again 
 he would try to find his rifle and his accoutrements. 
 The next man I came to had escaped death by the 
 narrowest margin. The bullet had passed between 
 the carotid artery and the jugular vein. Without 
 bleeding much, he had a very stiff and very sore 
 neck. Two Japanese infantrymen had appointed 
 themselves his guardians, and were escorting him 
 slowly up the road. One was for making him as 
 comfortable as possible and waiting till he could be 
 carried back; the other argued that litters were few, 
 and he had better be walked to the old temple, and 
 this view prevailed. 
 
 On their way they stopped to give a drink to a 
 Russian who had been shot through the abdomen. 
 He was groaning terribly. The Russian, having less 
 self-control than other Occidentals — being in fact, as 
 the Czar calls him, only a great, pap-fed child — gives 
 way to his feelings more than the average European 
 soldier. Particularly would a Japanese who was still 
 conscious try to bear his suffering in silence in the 
 presence of the enemy. Such is his complexion and 
 the impassiveness of his face — at least to the Occi- 
 dental — that he does not show his loss of blood. So 
 militant is his nature that he seems to relax less in 
 death than his enemy. 
 
148 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 To the country boys who compose this column 
 and have seen few foreigners except tourists who 
 have strayed off the beaten track, the Russian is 
 strange in dress, strange in feature, and very white. 
 When the Russian is pale, his whiteness becomes 
 spectral to Oriental eyes; and when the big, pale 
 Russian groans the Japanese stands back a little 
 from him, awed, uncomprehending, and looking 
 more helpless than I have ever seen him under 
 other conditions. Eventually, he tries the water- 
 bottle and to make a pillow for the suffering man's 
 head with boughs. That is what he would want 
 himself; and that is what the Russian wants, too. 
 
 By noon there were mounds over most of the 
 still figures which I had seen on my arrival, and 
 the wounded had been carried back. Only the 
 fresh spaces of earth six feet long, the grass trampled 
 here and there, and the trench sprinkled with empty 
 cartridge shells reminded one of the fight. The 
 rifles of the company were still stacked, and the men 
 were still on leave, wandering about at will as they 
 would in the streets of a garrison town at home, 
 while some were still busy counting the rifles, the 
 cartridge cases, and the tin buckets which the enemy 
 had left behind. 
 
 In a little war this affair would have been made 
 
FIRST ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 149 
 
 the subject of songs in the music halls and poems 
 in the evening papers. In military parlance it was 
 a disastrous attempt to rush an outpost under cover 
 of darkness. That sounds as proper and formal as 
 calling out the guard. In fact, it was a struggle 
 with cold steel between opponents armed with rifles 
 that carry 2,500 yards; in fact, it had all the human 
 elements and all the strategy, tactics, and unex- 
 pected contingencies of a battle compressed within 
 the limits of the immediate comprehension of eye 
 and mind. 
 
XIV 
 
 SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 
 
 It is noon. The morning's great work is nearly 
 finished. The Kttle infantryman who sprang from 
 his blankets in the night to arms, the charge and the 
 hazard of death, bends his back to the hot sun as he 
 climbs the hills with the zip of bullets in his ears, 
 his temples throbbing, his legs grown laggard from 
 weariness, the voice of hunger bidding him stop 
 while the voice of his officer bids him go on. 
 
 The pursued Russian, equally the sport of weari- 
 ness and fatigue, has a heart of lead. This beaten 
 giant, stupid and soft-muscled, who marched through 
 the darkness confidently to a daylight surprise, now 
 dragging himself wearily over the slopes, has left 
 behind on the ground dedicated to the success of a 
 superior genius he cannot comprehend, blanket rolls, 
 intrenching tools, dried clots of blood on the grass, 
 and his dead. 
 
 One side prays for more strength to carry his vic- 
 tory home; the other for more strength to assure 
 
 escape and for time to bring in his wounded. The 
 
 150 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 151 
 
 combat has become the chase of the hare by the fox 
 — tired fox, tired hare, and burning sun! But the 
 fox is not after his dinner. That is in his pannikin. 
 Where Knes of rifles strive with Hnes of rifles, 
 suspense holds minutes in the balance until they have 
 the weight of days. Now the air is clear and the 
 shimmer of heat waves rises from the valley. The 
 damp and chill early morning when the fog hung 
 long in the lowlands and longer in the high places, 
 seems instead of a few hours away to belong to 
 another season if not another epoch; for we have 
 seen what is a triumph to one empire and a tragedy 
 to another enacted between breakfast and luncheon. 
 
 *^ *1^ ^^ '^ *^ *l* 
 
 *y« 'I* ^ "T* <f* *il^ 
 
 The battle began as soon as the light would allow 
 enemy to distinguish enemy. There is no call like 
 that which dawn sent over the high hills of the divide 
 to Lienshankwan at their feet. It puts a prickle 
 into the fingers' ends, wine into the veins, and a 
 tempest of restlessness and curiosity into the brain. 
 With batteries passing to the front, with ammunition 
 ponies and stretcher-bearers on the run, with an 
 army in all its carefully adjusted parts responding 
 with nervous alacrity to a sudden summons, with 
 the pounding of distant guns and the crackle of dis- 
 tant rifle-fire whipping our impatience, we foreigners 
 
152 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 waited outside headquarters for two hours before 
 we were told that we might go. 
 
 Of the ride over MotienHng, seven miles from the 
 town, I have already written in my account of the 
 Russian attack of July 4th. Again the current of all 
 things flowed toward the front. Except staff officers 
 and orderlies, we passed no one going in the opposite 
 direction until we met a small body of infantr3^men 
 coming leisurely back. Each showed somewhere 
 about his upper extremities a patch of white bandage. 
 This man had a hole through his trigger hand; that 
 one a slash in the head where the hair-breadth's 
 variation of a bullet's course would have meant death. 
 In the first general marshalling of casualties the 
 slightly wounded had been dressed and tagged, and 
 sent to the base hospital on their own feet. They 
 had seen the Russians run, they had the honor of a 
 wound, and they might take their time. 
 
 When we reached the pass it was deserted and 
 silent. The firing still sounded two or three miles 
 away. Around the first slope and then up another 
 slope, and then into a valley, and then up another 
 slope we went, and there on the road we saw little 
 sprays of empty cartridge cases gleaming under 
 our horses' feet. These said that the line had gone 
 on; they spoke of victory. A blanket roll which 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 153 
 
 its owner had dropped in his flight told us, too, that 
 the Russians had come at least this far. 
 
 Breaking through the underbrush above the road, 
 we tethered our horses. From this eminence we 
 could see a Japanese line on a hill a mile or more 
 away. This we recognized by the glint of the offi- 
 cers' swords. In this clash of modern arms all that 
 we could distinguish faintly — and that through pow- 
 erful glasses — were some men hugging a hill as if 
 they were trying to keep out of the rain. Their rifles 
 were invisible ; there was no smoke, of course. Only 
 by the crackle that came from their direction did 
 we know that they were firing. 
 
 At the new temple of Kwantei at the base of the 
 slope were groups of officers of brigade and division 
 staffs; some signal corps men were carrying still 
 another wire across the field from this nerve centre of 
 action. 
 
 ^'To see! To see, and not get killed, and have 
 something worth while for this article!" that was 
 as much the central thought of the correspondent 
 as driving the enemy back had been the central 
 thought of every Japanese from general down, when 
 dawn developed a hostile force in front of the pass. 
 
 More firing seemed to come from the left than from 
 the right. To our left was the grove surrounding 
 
154 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the old temple. So we made in that direction. The 
 blood of a dead Russian whom I passed in the open 
 was already black and dry. In the woods the blood 
 was still wet and red. Running as fast as the Rus- 
 sians had when they fled, Captain March of our army, 
 Captain Vincent of the British, and myself kept on 
 past the temple and followed a path which brought 
 us into the open, where we found some protection 
 from the few bullets that came our way. 
 
 Above us a company of Japanese in a trench were 
 as industriously at work as the ladies of a sewing 
 circle. At first I could not see their objective, from 
 which probably they had never lifted their sight 
 from the moment they had begun the pursuit; then 
 on a bushy knob I made out the dark gray figures of 
 the mark — not more than a thousand yards away. 
 Below us on the valley road was the deserted limber 
 of some Russian battery which had had no time to 
 spare when the knitting-machine in the trench caught 
 men and horses with a plunging fire. 
 
 Above the sound of the rifle-fire came the calls of 
 two stragglers for their lost company; and from the 
 ridge on our left came the reassuring answer of com- 
 panies found. One fine-looking private was about 
 to plunge through the woods toward his comrades, 
 when I looked up to see a bullet hit a leaf just in front 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 155 
 
 of his face. He threw back his head with a sudden 
 halt as one does when he enters the wrong room at 
 a hotel. ^^Oh!" he exclaimed, then straightened up, 
 smiled his Japanese smile and went on. The way 
 in which he and all the others had called signified 
 that they were not stragglers from choice; they were 
 as anxious to "arrive" as a guest who is late to dinner. 
 The company which was making its way to the 
 top of this ridge lay down on its crest covering our 
 flank. We gave them only an occasional thought 
 and an occasional glance; for the work of the mo- 
 ment was being done on another slope beyond. 
 There the officers' swords heliographed their presence 
 among the trees and bushes at the top, and there I 
 saw the red-sunned flag of Japan held well out of 
 sight of the enemy. The Russians were on the next 
 ridge, where we saw the spaces between the trees 
 darkened by the movement of an occasional figure. 
 The Japanese, hugging their advantage while they 
 raked the Russians with rifle-fire, directly began to 
 advance by rushes. After a time we noticed some 
 figures on the slope beneath the Russians. It was 
 like fighting from housetop to housetop, and it seemed 
 as if the enemy ought to have picked off our skirmish- 
 ers one by one. The Japanese made no rigid lines; 
 they were not hidebound by text-book particularities. 
 
156 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Yet these were men of the same division that I saw 
 move with such regularity and precision across the 
 sandy river bottom of the Yalu on May ist. 
 
 Now they had a wholly different task, and they 
 adapted themselves to it. They had been at home 
 on the river bottom ; they seemed a little more at home 
 on the uneven hillside, where every inequality speaks 
 a language to the tired man advancing under fire. 
 This dip with its partial cover may save a life; that 
 rise may prove to be the skyline of killing accuracy. 
 So the units (under cover of the fire from their sup- 
 port on the ridge at their back), never for a moment 
 losing the aspect of a choate whole, got up the hill 
 with the least exposure possible. A squad or a sec- 
 tion seems to have the same tactical sagacity as a 
 company or a battalion. Panther-like, it will creep 
 up till it is on a rise where it will catch the enemy's 
 line at an angle. Smokeless powder is the cover 
 of its cunning. The Russian, easily demoralized, 
 only knows that he is under a flank fire whose source 
 he cannot discern, whose amount he usually over- 
 estimates. 
 
 The whole habit of life of the Japanese at home 
 fits him for this hill work. When he sits he never 
 uses a chair, but squats. Watch a group of staff 
 officers in the open, and naturally they drop to 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 157 
 
 their haunches and lay the map on the turf. Thus 
 they rest as comfortably as Europeans would in 
 chairs. Lying in a trench, his suppleness enables 
 Nippon Denji to hug the trench closely and thus 
 get a steady aim in a position which is strained and 
 unnatural for the European — especially for Ivan 
 Ivanovitch, the big, clumsy Russian. In the field 
 Nippon Denji can drop as easily as a setter dog, and 
 rise with the same spring when he rushes forward 
 for another interval. His stature gives him the 
 favor of mathematical probability; his nimbleness 
 increases this. 
 
 The ideal modern soldier would be an acrobatic, 
 highly intelligent pygmy who could shoot accurately 
 and carry his rifle, his rations, and his hundred 
 rounds of ammunition, and march as fast as the 
 next. When Ivan Ivanovitch — he of the boots, 
 the sloppy trousers, the big blanket roll, and a bucket 
 for a pannikin — lies to take cover, and when he 
 rises to advance it is the effort of a camel with all 
 his equipment hampering him. A hill is a ball under 
 the Japanese gymnast's feet. To the Russian it 
 is a creation of pitfalls and surprises. What will 
 happen when we reach the plain ? 
 
 Watching the side of the ridge occupied by the 
 Russians we saw the Japanese slowly taking position 
 
158 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 under cover of the furrow at the edge of a field of 
 ploughed ground. The flag was not with them. In 
 the old days of shock tactics the troops of a unit 
 guided on their colors. Modern armies may not 
 have this any more than the beating of drums to 
 inspirit them. To-day the flag is useful only to 
 fling to the breeze as a signal of the occupation of 
 an enemy's position — a signal to the general and 
 to the gunners. At other times, unless you want to 
 draw fire, it is best tied up in its oilcloth case. The 
 color-bearer, who had shaken out his precious 
 emblem a little below the crest of the hill when it 
 had been taken, now rolled it up and started to follow 
 the advance through the gully to the ridge beyond. 
 
 Our little veterans in the trench over our heads 
 had ceased firing. As we passed them in search of 
 higher ground for our citadel of observation, they 
 were sitting about as comfortably as they would on 
 their mats at home, eating their rice, their dried fish, 
 and their tinned meat out of their pannikins. Their 
 wounded had been carried away. Their rifles, 
 which lay on the parapet among the piles of empty 
 cartridge cases, looked innocent of the mortal stings 
 which each holds in its venom chamber. 
 
 This trench is worth noting. Twice the Russians 
 have had it and twice the Japanese have sent them 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 159 
 
 back, neck and crop. At the edge of the temple 
 grove, where the road takes the slope, it commands 
 the long valley of Towan as the western steps of the 
 Capitol command Pennsylvania Avenue. But the 
 trench was of value only on the Japanese side. 
 For the Russians it looked into the edge of the 
 woods. On both occasions the Japanese had only 
 a picket and an outpost beyond the old temple. 
 The trench was built for use when the reserves 
 should come up to the assistance of the outpost. 
 This time, as before, the Japanese pursuit tumbled 
 into its lap and swept with their fire the enemy's 
 flight before them. Our little men seemed well 
 pleased with their morning's work. They had a 
 good appetite for their wholesome meal. 
 
 Now, as I have written in my account of the ac- 
 tion of July 4th, the Peking Road, after leaving the 
 pass of Motien proper, winds over the shelving hills 
 till it descends in front of the grove of the old temple 
 to the valley of Towan, precisely the kind of valley 
 which would be illustrated in a physical geography. 
 It is a trough between hills. To the north of the 
 trench — on the other side of the apron-like entrance 
 to the valley — is a conical hill, which is a better place 
 to see from than to fight from. Here we looked 
 down upon the finish of the morning's fray; here, at 
 
i6o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 noon, we saw the Russian saving what he could out 
 of the wreck of the morning's hazard. 
 
 On the road at our feet stood the abandoned 
 limber. Beside it I now noticed a dead horse, which 
 was explanatory. No living thing had yet ap- 
 proached that spot where the drivers and gunners had 
 cut their ammunition adrift in order to save their 
 piece. Farther on was the carcass of another dead 
 horse — perhaps from the same team. While the hills 
 teemed with human ants, that road was a brown, 
 dusty, abandoned streak. To appear on it was to 
 be seen by thousands of riflemen. The beaten 
 highway in a mountainous country had become 
 the one place that everybody avoided. It was the 
 street (with spectators on either side) swept clean 
 before the procession came along — only the passing 
 hero here would have been pelted with something 
 harder than rose petals. 
 
 On our right of the road, on the side of a high 
 and gradual slope of ploughed ground, were two 
 Russian companies in retreat. They moved in 
 two groups — their intervals those of tired men who 
 want air on a hot day. They might have been a 
 leg-weary party of excursionists leisurely climbing a 
 height to get a view of a town who were already 
 fervently wishing that they were back at their hotel. 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS i6i 
 
 They were not turning to fire; they were simply 
 getting away — ^getting away in flocks, watched by 
 their shepherds, the officers, in the days of long- 
 range rifles and smokeless powder. They did not 
 go fast in order to economize human life ; that would 
 not have been brave. Also, that might have demoral- 
 ized these grown-up children of the Czar, who would 
 have kept on running each for himself. Their gray 
 blanket rolls, their black breeches, made them as 
 fair marks as black ducks on a pond. While the 
 Russian support was on the crest of the ridge above 
 the retreating groups, on the first crest this way 
 were the Japanese. You recognized their position 
 still by the twinkle in the sunlight of such officers' 
 swords as had not yet been covered with khaki. 
 
 An occasional Russian dropping showed that 
 these two companies were under fire. Therefore, 
 naturally the thing for them to do seemed to be to 
 take advantage of a diagonal gully which cut the 
 slope. This they did finally, still in a mass, still 
 plodding nonchalantly on, still being brave — and 
 stupid. An intelligent force under the same con- 
 ditions would have scrambled up the hill in half the 
 time as units, which would have instantly and auto- 
 matically come together under the cover of the other 
 side of the crest. But the Russian must be kept in 
 
1 62 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the flock. Elasticity he has not. He thinks for 
 himself no more than the horses that draw the guns. 
 Yes, the difference between Nippon Denji and Ivan 
 Ivanovitch is more than that of height and weight; 
 it spans the difference between the Middle Ages 
 and common intelligence. 
 
 The ridge which the Russians occupied was high, 
 running out into the valley, with a precipitous 
 descent like a promontory into a sound. On the 
 other side the valley widened into a small plain, and 
 here the road was occupied — with the procession of 
 defeat. The habit of the Russian makes him take 
 to the highway and to level places. Such is his 
 plainsman's instinct that he will tramp under fire 
 over even ground rather than advance under cover 
 over the rough. When fire rakes the even ground, 
 for a while he will march back — bravely and slowly 
 back — rather than try the other way. 
 
 On this little plain we saw the Russians doing 
 the kind of thing which is impressive at the Russian 
 grand manoeuvres. The ravine at the other side of 
 the ridge was the natural funnel of retreat for all 
 the scattered and beaten cohorts on the north (right) 
 of the valley. Into this, galloping hospital wagons 
 coming by the valley road from To wan disappeared. 
 Out of it came in close order a battalion formed from 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 163 
 
 the beaten ranks. Stretched across a cornfield on 
 the left of the road, in the broad part of the valley, 
 was a battery of guns, which had taken no advantage 
 of the natural cover of the ground. The Russians 
 seem to like a position where they can be seen and 
 cannot see. 
 
 The gunners were back under the shade of a grove 
 of trees with their horses. A battalion of fresh re- 
 serves, coming out of the grove, deployed into skirmish 
 line and support for the guns with European drill- 
 ground intervals. Back of them the valley is closed 
 by the slopes rising to the heights of Yantsu Pass, 
 which the failure of the morning made again the 
 Russian line of defence. Beyond it there is, I am 
 told, no other equally suitable ground for a stand 
 until we reach Liaoyang. 
 
 From the white pagoda tower on the first rise above 
 the village of Towan, at the end of the valley, the 
 Russian General saw the action of July 4th. The 
 conduct of his troops was very brave, he reports. 
 Two battalions advanced in close order and were 
 repulsed and pursued by four companies. If the 
 General is there now he may say that his retreat at 
 this point is orderly and that his troops manoeuvred 
 beautifully. He may even apply this to the company 
 which now advances at the base of the promontory. 
 
i64 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 The idea, presumably, is to ''creep up'' and catch 
 some of the Japanese infantry on the flank. They 
 ''creep up" in line on the river bed, which silhouettes 
 their dark uniforms. For just such situations Japanese 
 tactical sagacity is prepared. The man, the squad, 
 the section, the company is each a thinking unit, yet 
 connected by delicate, quickly responsive nerves with 
 the whole. If a squad cannot cover this or that 
 spur, a section joins it. If a section is not enough, a 
 company comes. Some unit posted for the purpose 
 grasped the opportunity now vouchsafed. By the 
 tremor of that line you knew the moment the fire 
 came. And the fire was too hot. The line closed 
 up like a camera. Then individuals returned and 
 picked up the wounded. 
 
 Meanwhile, we had hoped to see that Russian 
 battery in action. The hill where we sat was not 
 more than four thousand yards away — a fair mark. 
 Possibly this fact led to our General calling us back; 
 j.nd when the General calls you have to go, even 
 though the drama is at the denouement. As we 
 drew away the guns were still without their gunners, 
 and the retreat along the road continued. 
 
 Having seen what we could of the finish of the 
 fight, we now faced toward the ground where the 
 struggle had taken place while we waited at head- 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 165 
 
 quarters and while we rode to the front. To the 
 east the new temple of Kwantei stood out boldly 
 on the slope. This new home of the gods who 
 were supposed to have prevented the Japanese from 
 crossing the pass in the war of 1894-95 was this 
 morning for a minute in the Russian firing line. 
 Three shells were landed in its brick walls, but the 
 big blue and white josses were not hit — which, ac- 
 cording to Chinese logic, may justify a third sanctu- 
 ary in their honor. 
 
 The pass itself was hidden by other slopes, but 
 our point of view lay directly in line with it and the 
 Peking Road. Why the Russians should now strive 
 in two assaults to recover Motien, which they aban- 
 doned three weeks ago, is a strategic mystery which 
 may possibly be explained by the fact that by the 
 precepts of this war it was characteristically Russian. 
 Kuropatkin's attempt was vital, and made under 
 every augury of success that superstitious Russia 
 could command. 
 
 The 17th of July is the Sabbath, which blesses 
 every undertaking to the mind of the Greek Church. 
 It is also the anniversary of the taking of Shipka 
 Pass, the event of the Russo-Turkish War which 
 most appeals to the Slavonic imagination. Twenty- 
 seven years later, the gallant success against one Ori- 
 
1 66 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ental race was to be repeated against another; the 
 landmark of Russian courage in the Near East was 
 to have its counterpart in the Far East. This Sab- 
 bath was also a Saint's Day, bespeaking the power of 
 the Church against the heathen of the little islands. 
 Moreover, for the first time regular Russian troops 
 from Europe proper were put in the field against 
 Kuroki's fight-seasoned, march-seasoned veterans. 
 
 It was a task to the taste of the hero of Shipka, 
 and Kuropatkin first won place as Skobeleff's ad- 
 jutant. In order to show his men what bad marks- 
 men the Turks were, Skobeleff used to walk along 
 the parapet of the Russian trenches before Plevna. 
 He was the beau ideal of the days of shock tactics; 
 he was the one for daylight surprises in mass and 
 as swift marches as hero-worship and priestly incite- 
 ment could bring out of the moujiks. He could live 
 high on six days in the week and charge splendidly 
 on the seventh. Kuropatkin has carried the tradi- 
 tions of his old chief into the days of smokeless 
 powder. Well may the Commander-in-Chief, him- 
 self, wonder why, when he did as Skobeleff did, his 
 legions, instead of placing the flag on the heights, 
 were driven back in tumult and confusion. 
 
 The famous pass, as I have said, is merely a cut 
 worn by trafiic in the long range of hills at the sum- 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 167 
 
 mit of the divide. These hills rather than Motien 
 — a name — form the strategic position which Kuro- 
 patkin tried to wrest from Kuroki. His plan was 
 to engage the front at Motien while a lodgment 
 was made on the flank at Gebatow, seven miles 
 away. Behind Gebatow is another pass. The 
 Russian advance was made in the darkness by two 
 great columns; one by the Peking Road toward 
 Motien, and the other by the road leading to Geba- 
 tow. The total force consisted of seven regiments 
 or in all about twenty-five thousand men. The 
 Japanese were first apprised of the movement of the 
 Gebatow column at about 12.30, of that of the other 
 column two hours later. A single Japanese company 
 received the shock of the Gebatow column. Here, 
 indeed, occurred, first and last, the crux of the battle, 
 which no foreign observer saw. That company held 
 its ground. Before the reserves had come to its 
 assistance it had twenty men killed and thirty-six 
 wounded. 
 
 Equally as well as he knows that his ammunition 
 is good, a Japanese general knows that any force, 
 however small, will stay where it is placed — stay, alive 
 or dead. One company is as much like another as 
 peas in a pod: No special units; no Rough Riders; 
 no King's Own; no stiffening of weak regiments 
 
1 68 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 with regiments of volunteers or regulars. There 
 is an approximate level of courage and skill. A com- 
 mander may choose the unit at hand as a mechanic 
 takes down any one of a number of equally tempered 
 tools from a rack. If you want a Horatius at the 
 Bridge, take the nearest first sergeant. 
 
 The Russians came to the attack with a splendid 
 confidence — a childish, mob-like confidence. All 
 the way across the Siberian steppes in their troop 
 trains they had been begetting this. ''When they 
 see us big burly fellows, the leather-skinned Makaki 
 (dwarfs) will run fast enough. They will find that 
 we are no colonists and reserves — we are the Little 
 Father's chosen." But the ''Makaki" know a 
 mark when they see one; and they like to fire at a 
 column in close order. 
 
 Nature as well as church and historical auguries 
 were on the side of the Russians this morning; the 
 Japanese had only skill and courage on theirs. Dawn 
 broke into a thick fog. At six o'clock you could 
 not see a man two hundred yards away. Pushing 
 aside all outposts, the Russians gained the slope fac- 
 ing the ridges of the pass itself, and there in the mist 
 they began intrenching themselves — to hold the front 
 engaged according to plan. They did not seem to 
 know that the Japanese had guns on the pass — in- 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 169 
 
 formation they had from authoritative sources as soon 
 as the gunners could see them. It is demorahzing 
 to be under shell-fire when no big voices speak on 
 your side — that is an old, old military saying which 
 has lost none of its sapiency with the improved dead- 
 liness and precision of artillery. 
 
 Besides those in front, on the Russian right came 
 the sound of more guns. The Japanese division on 
 that side had sent out a demonstration on the flank. 
 The gunners could see little, but the thunders they 
 invoked were a mighty warning. On the Russian 
 left at Gebatow that Japanese regiment had gripped 
 its hill with a steady outpour of lead, and Russian 
 numbers could not stir them. Thus the centre alone 
 was in its place, numbed with the fear that it was 
 flanked. The position desired by the Russians had 
 been reversed at the outset; the Japanese centre was 
 containing the Russian centre, while the Russian 
 flanks were pressed back. The rapier of his strategy 
 had bent back on the fencer. Church and anni- 
 versary and cover of night and mist would not avail 
 him when his steel was poor. 
 
 As the mist cleared the Japanese gunners saw in 
 the valleys, into which the two roads had poured their 
 reserves, black masses for their target. Destruction 
 was as simple as bursting a bomb in a room full of 
 
170 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 men. Shrapnel rained until the very road was 
 clogged with the dead and wounded. No Russian 
 guns spoke in reassuring tones above the confusion. 
 If the Russian artillery came up at the gallop more 
 frequently there would be less need of the hospital 
 wagons coming up at the gallop. 
 
 An attack with seven divisions without support 
 from batteries! What can this indicate, unless 
 Japanese formidability has driven the Russians to 
 timidity in risking their guns, lest they should lose 
 them as they did at Hamatan? This slaughter- 
 pen, where no blow could be returned, was a terrible 
 introduction of the flower of Kuropatkin's army to 
 ''The Real Makaki," as you would write the title 
 for a magazine article. Without guns to support 
 them, flanked by more than the demonstration from 
 the other division — by the force of the brigade hold- 
 ing the pass (a brigade never for a moment in doubt 
 of its abilities) that had crawled over the high ascents 
 to the south, which evidently had not appealed to the 
 Russians as a quantity in the game — the Russian 
 line that had intrenched in the front fell back upon 
 a scene of carnage in place of a reserve. 
 
 From that moment the attack became a chase. 
 The Japanese force pursued twice its numbers over 
 the ridges. Reaching a summit, Nippon Denji 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 171 
 
 hugged it closely, pouring in a steady fire upon the 
 fleeing figures under the sight of his rifle barrel. 
 When the Russians answered it was always in volleys, 
 usually spiteful and ragged. To fire at will (which 
 is the only killing way, except when demoralization 
 of a column caught within the range is sought) 
 seems to be without the pale of the Russian private's 
 sense of individuality and intelligence. He must 
 fire as he marches — in a flock. (No doubt, in grand 
 manoeuvres his volleys are quite ''beautiful," as the 
 admiring princes might say.) He aims in the 
 general direction of the enemy, with the result that 
 he fires into the sky. When a line of Russian rifle- 
 men on one ridge are protecting the retreat of their 
 brethren below from a line of Japanese riflemen on 
 the next ridge, they disturb the Japanese compara- 
 tively littie. And when all the pursued are either 
 hit or under cover on the other side of the Russian 
 ridge, the Japanese begin to advance according to 
 their own system of tactics. Rake the ridges and 
 then charge them is the way — the way that 15,000 
 men sent 25,000 back to To wan. 
 
 Following the road back, after leaving the conical 
 hill, I saw a dead Russian lying by the same bush 
 where I had seen one on the 4th. He was of the 
 same regiment as the other, and the coincidence was 
 
172 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 startling. (From the valley where the slaughter of 
 the reserves from the shell-fire had occurred we were 
 warned away by our chaperon of the staff. Our 
 course lay over that taken by the Russian advance 
 line which faced the pass.) Prisoners were still 
 being picked up in the underbrush. One Russian 
 who had been found prostrate had been examined 
 in vain for any wound. Yet it was with difficulty 
 that he was got to walking. Apparently he had been 
 '' scared stiff " by his baptism of fire. When another 
 unwounded man was asked how he happened to be 
 taken prisoner, he replied: "I wanted to be." When 
 a contemptuous comment was translated to him, he 
 said: ^'I have no interest in this war. I don't pro- 
 pose to be sacrificed." He may have read Tolstoi. 
 
 The Russians had come up in heavy marching 
 order just as they did on the 4th. The field was 
 scattered with pieces of equipment. To a private 
 who lightened his load the discarded blanket or 
 intrenching tool might mean the difference between 
 supping in the Russian lines or going to Tokio as a 
 prisoner. In one knapsack was a Jewish text. I 
 wondered if the owner of the text, thinking of 
 Kishineff, took any particular interest in Russian 
 success in Manchuria. Among the pile of spoil at 
 brigade headquarters, now so familiar a sight with 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 173 
 
 this army, were three drums. Jewish texts and 
 drums ! A polyglot army of enforced loyalty against 
 a homogeneous people with a common breath of 
 patriotism! Drums in the advance line of a morn- 
 ing attack, at a period when next to the art of not 
 being seen is that of not being heard! 
 
 In the temple were some of the Russians who 
 had been wounded by shell-fire. Their groans min- 
 gled in a low, agonizing chorus. Among them were 
 men too stunned to know that death was near; 
 men who were smiling to think that their wounds 
 were light and they might smoke cigarettes and live. 
 A giant, blue-eyed, blond-haired fellow, while he 
 groaned, tugged at the coat- sleeve of a neighbor, who 
 looked at him in the puzzled scowl of poor brute 
 humanity not yet ushered out of the Middle Ages. 
 The neighbor, indeed, had a face of such hard un- 
 intelligence as to make comprehensible the outrages 
 proved in this day's fighting against the soldiers of 
 that Czar who was the author of The Hague Peace 
 ConferencCo Hitherto, we have heard of Russian 
 outrages; some of them unnamable here. I had been 
 slow to repeat these reports. Mutilation of the 
 bodies of a brave adversary by soldiers of a supposed 
 civilized nation seems incredible. 
 
 Among those who were sent to observe the Russian 
 
174 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 advance were Lieutenant Seinai Yanagisawa and 
 five soldiers of the Thirtieth Regiment. They made 
 contact with the Russians in the woods by the old 
 temple. Two of the soldiers, Fukusho Yaesawa 
 and Tokichi Nakasawa, were killed. The Russian 
 line passed over the place where they fell. After- 
 ward the Japanese recovered this ground. When 
 the bodies of Fukusho and Tokichi were found, 
 their heads — and all that follows represents surgical 
 investigation and affidavits — had been laid open by 
 an axe or an intrenching tool, with the brain matter 
 falling out. Tokichi had been shot through the 
 aorta and died instantly. Fukusho had been shot 
 through the heart and died instantly. Both these 
 bullet wounds had bled freely. There was no blood 
 from the brain matter, plainly indicating that the 
 blows on the head had been struck after death. In 
 other words, wanton, butcher-like brutality had 
 wreaked its vengeance on the bodies. 
 
 m^ *Aa mlm %|« mS^ «A# 
 
 *T» *J* *T* ^^ ^* ^* 
 
 The General in charge of the Japanese division 
 which had done this splendid morning's work — 
 Nishi, who listens and listens and gives few worded 
 orders — ^upon our return to the new temple, we found 
 seated on a grassy slope smoking a cigarette. He 
 had not even got up a perspiration on this hot day. 
 
SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIEN PASS 175 
 
 His strenuosity is delegated, and that is his art of 
 command. Some infantry reserves near by were 
 fanning themselves. To a Russian who had not 
 tasted their fire these "Makaki" might have seemed 
 quite effeminate. The fans which the little men use 
 are presents from the Emperor. On them is in- 
 scribed, in the handwriting of the Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Army, Marquis Oyama, the words: 
 "Do your best for your country!" On a hot day 
 a fan may beat up a breeze in front of a soldier's 
 nose which will save him from succumbing. 
 
 Could the Russian General have seen the smiling 
 Nishi, that undemonstrative head and front of 
 efficiency (whose work on this day was to make 
 him the first division commander in the war to be 
 congratulated by the Emperor), it would have been 
 the last blow. Well might the Russian complain: 
 
 *^0h! If he did not make such easy work of it!" 
 
XV 
 
 A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR 
 
 We were six weeks at Feng-wang-cheng. We 
 have been in Lienshankwan four weeks and we came 
 here expecting to go to Liaoyang at once. In 
 neither instance was our stop due to a check by the 
 enemy. We have been more than punctual, and 
 thus we have been an ideal swinging and isolated 
 right wing of the closing movement on Liaoyang, 
 which is now developing itself. For the Second 
 Army to have to wait on us would be a misfortune. 
 The First Army's place is to wait on the Fourth, 
 which is between the two, and to go when it calls. 
 We are now within three days' march of the railroad. 
 With our next movement, either Kuropatkin will have 
 evacuated Liaoyang or else we shall have played 
 a part in the decisive battle of the campaign. 
 
 The advance of the First Army has been in three 
 
 periods. In the first, Korea was cleared of the 
 
 enemy and the Yalu was crossed and the war carried 
 
 into Manchuria. If ever the Russians were kept 
 
 guessing it was at this time. Kuroki's movement 
 
 176 
 
A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR 1 77 
 
 up the Peking Road drew off attention from the 
 landing of the Second and Third Armies. For the 
 Russian, on one hand, was the possibihty of feints 
 and withdrawals on the Liaotung; on the other, the 
 possibility of the First Army being reinforced and 
 driving through to Liaoyang — that master blow of 
 strategic fearlessness which will ever be one of the 
 fascinating ''ifs" in the history of this war. We did 
 the cautious, the safe, the academic thing, as the 
 Japanese have done from first to last. Meanwhile, 
 they have had enormous success in convincing the 
 world of their capacity for the unusual and the un- 
 expected. 
 
 What the First Army did was to stop at the first 
 good defensive position where it could have a fair- 
 sized town for quarters. Feng-wang-cheng, then, 
 was the second period. Here, if Kuropatkin should 
 attempt to dispose of it in detail, it was perfectly 
 safe from an attack by double its numbers. Indeed, 
 I think that an attack would have been most wel- 
 come. Originally, we had expected the Russians to 
 defend Feng-wang-cheng. Their rout at the Yalu 
 gave them no time to take advantage of a fine nat- 
 ural position. 
 
 As we waited at Feng-wang-cheng, every passing 
 day seemed to superficial observation a day of ad- 
 
178 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 vantage to the Russians; a day for increasing their 
 force and for strengthening those defensive works 
 which should delay our advance when finally it 
 should begin. Time was what Russia needed; time 
 we were giving her, ran the argument. The fault 
 of this reasoning was that it overlooked the fact that 
 Russia had other places to defend. The pressure on 
 the right was replaced by pressure on the Liaotung 
 Peninsula, at the point of which lay a fortress whose 
 loss would be irreparable. 
 
 Kuropatkin was marching to the relief of Port 
 Arthur rather than to the attack of Feng-wang-cheng. 
 He went, we now believe, with all the available force 
 that he could spare from the protection of his line 
 of communications ; of Haicheng and Liaoyang from 
 the possible landing of the Fourth Army at New- 
 chwang, perhaps, and the simultaneous advance of 
 ours. Thus the railroad was held in the vise of two 
 possibilities. Equally with the cry of the Japanese, 
 ^^We must have Port Arthur!" runs the cry of the 
 Russian, '^The enemy must not get between Mukden 
 and Liaoyang! " 
 
 The effort to relieve Port Arthur was met by the 
 Japanese in the battle of Tehlitz. Here the Rus- 
 sians chose their own ground. They were attacked 
 by equal numbers of Japanese, who drove them in 
 
A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR 179 
 
 rout from the field, and buried over eighteen hundred 
 of their dead — or more than the total of Japanese 
 casualties. Our own advance did not follow im- 
 mediately. It was so timed in the general programme 
 of strategy as to make all the Russian defensive works 
 waste effort. 
 
 Yesterday I rode back to Bunsuirei, which was 
 to have been the first strong line of defence before 
 the pass of Motien itself. An arm of hills, which 
 here cuts the valley, slopes upward to a bald 
 knob, where, through the weeks that we were at 
 Feng-wang-cheng, a Russian lookout was kept. Ap- 
 proaching this position from the direction of Feng- 
 wang-cheng, you see nothing but the green, unin- 
 habited hills. This is as the Russian wished the 
 Japanese to see them. Approaching from Lien- 
 shankwan, you behold heights that are scarred with 
 lines of fresh-turned earth. From the main road 
 an artillery road branches. It runs straight up the 
 gentler ascents, and then, stone abutted, it zigzags 
 back and forth to its end and object — gun positions, 
 ammunition chambers, and casemates. 
 
 As you make an incision in a Dutch cheese, so 
 the crests of the round hilltops have been cut into 
 redoubts. With the same care that a cook takes in 
 crimping a pie-crust, every tell-tale sign has been 
 
l8o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 hidden; every break of earth has been sodded on 
 the Feng-wang-cheng side. The same amount 
 of energy expended on the old Peking Road would 
 have macadamized that atrocious highway for many 
 miles. The Chinese must have been vastly amused. 
 
 Our philosopher of the pigtail and the baggy 
 trousers had been accustomed to the idle Russian. 
 The busy Russian was a new order of being. After 
 the idle Russian had broken from his comfortable 
 habit, then to make no use of the result — that was 
 ^ losing face" with the Chinese, quite. The old 
 master ceased to be formidable. When the natives 
 catch individual Russians or Russians by twos and 
 threes in the open now, they beat them with flails 
 and slash them with sickles and otherwise take a pri- 
 vate revenge for the outrages their women folk have 
 suffered. 
 
 Here, as at Ku-lien-cheng on the Yalu, there is 
 topographical testimony of a comimander-in-chief's 
 change of mind — only in a wholly different way. 
 On the Yalu he was prepared for a crossing at An- 
 tung instead of above Wiju. At the last moment 
 it was apparently decided to make a determined 
 stand, with the result that the Russians fell between 
 that stool and the one of a rearguard action. The 
 Siberian troops who faced the assault lay exposed 
 
A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR i8i 
 
 in the shallowest improvised cover on the crest of a 
 rocky ridge, with a score of guns playing on them. 
 
 At Bunsuirei the preparations were not without 
 a host; for one Japanese column marched peace- 
 fully by these works and looked over its shoulder at 
 the seamed and scarred hillside. Here there were 
 no shallow cuts where shrapnel could easily find its 
 mark but trenches deeper than a man's height where 
 the defenders might stand. The gun positions had 
 been laid out with a skilful hand. How often m the 
 weeks of waiting the artillery officers and the artillery- 
 men scanning the slopes must have imagmed the 
 advancing Japanese under their shells, and m their 
 fancy even pictured that joy of a gunner's heart, a 
 column in close order within range. Any one who 
 views the position can think only of a death struggle; 
 the redoubts suggest this. They provided that from 
 their rear the infantry might protect the guns « 
 extremis. If fall back the defending force must, it 
 would be only after having cost the enemy a price m 
 casualties and in delay. 
 
 In this region cultivation has crept farther up the 
 valley than in the neighborhood of Antung, nearer 
 the market, where good land is neglected; for the 
 Chinese farmer migrates little in search of better 
 conditions. From the signal hill itself twenty miles 
 
l82 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 of valley, with the fields on distant slopes no bigger 
 than your hand, is outlined before the eye. The 
 winding road and gravelly river-bed are strung with 
 villages, which, with the going heavy from the rains 
 that pour when the sun does not pour, are the mile- 
 stones of the progress of a soldiery in heavy march- 
 ing order and an army's transportation. 
 
 To the west the heights of the range which the 
 old highway crosses at Motien Pass are dim in blue 
 haze. That was the great second line — the main 
 line — of defence. Here were miles of trenches and 
 more gun positions that were never used. These, 
 too, were built in Kuropatkin's time. The blame 
 for this fiasco cannot be laid at the door of any old 
 general who had been vegetating in Siberia — but pos- 
 sibly at the door of one who had been vegetating in 
 St. Petersburg. He would not spend a life to keep 
 a position which has cost him two thousand casualties 
 in a vain effort to regain. 
 
 Why? Another change of mind, perhaps; the 
 pressure of other columns, perhaps; misinformation 
 as to our numbers, perhaps. The Russian still in- 
 sists on taking up a certain position and waiting for 
 us to attack him in front, never thinking that we 
 may send a force to take him in flank. We came 
 from Feng-wang-cheng by three parallel roads, any 
 
A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR 183 
 
 one of which flanked any position in front of another. 
 In the fight of the Twelfth Division at Chowtow — 
 when this army brought its right into line with its 
 centre and left — the Russians had equal or superior 
 numbers, but a Japanese detachment, creeping over 
 hills which the Russians considered (evidently) quite 
 impossible for military purposes, caught the Russian 
 line that had held the Japanese back steadily all day 
 at an angle which compelled hasty retreat under a 
 killing fire. 
 
 The Russians suffer as much for want of infor- 
 mation as the Japanese profit by completeness of 
 information. Even if the Russians had not a single 
 loyal native spy — and I sometimes doubt if they have 
 — in their pay, and had to depend solely upon scouts, 
 their ignorance seems inexplicable. Any Chinese 
 who has been in the Russian lines is at the service 
 of the Japanese. Japanese success has given him 
 the confidence of his sympathies. The farther we 
 go into the country, the more experience the natives 
 have had with the Russians, and the more pro- Jap- 
 anese they are. The point of their hatred is sharp 
 with the outrages that their women folk have suffered. 
 Fine professions of commanding officers — a kind of 
 death-bed repentance — do not work out in detail 
 with the Russians, while they do with the Japanese. 
 
1 84 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 If the Russian employs native spies on his own 
 account, he does not know but they are also in 
 the pay of the enemy; he does not know but the in- 
 formation is that which the Japanese want him to 
 to have. It is too late now for the Russians to make 
 friends with the Chinese; the first seeds were sown 
 in the brutalities of the Boxer rebellion — I have seen 
 them brain children in cold blood — and now they 
 reap the harvest not only of these, but of years of 
 occupation which have been years of fear for every 
 peasant woman in Manchuria. 
 
 And here again we find the Russian uncertain of 
 his own mind in his policy as he has been in strategy. 
 His natural method is that of careless autocracy. 
 Between this and an attempt to placate the natives 
 he falls. Some towns he has burned, others he has 
 not. Sometimes he thinks of villages as future quar- 
 ters for troops, and again he would leave a path of 
 devastation in the way of the enemy. But devasta- 
 tion means that he would cut from under him the 
 last vestige of the sympathy of real civilization. 
 
 Even without every Chinese as an ally, estimating 
 the numbers and positions of the Russians would 
 not be difficult. They bring their bands and drums, 
 they camp in masses, they march by exposed roads, 
 and the smoke of their camp-fires in open places 
 
A RIGHT WING IN THE AIR 185 
 
 ascends to heaven. Climb a hill and look into the 
 valley and you can pretty well guess how many of 
 them there are. But this army which covers the ap- 
 proaches to this range for many miles! — its size is 
 masked even to the eyes of the attached correspond- 
 ents. It is a force of seemingly scattered units which, 
 at the word, fly together into forces of surprising size. 
 A Russian officer, depending alone upon his eyes, 
 might ride all day by the roads and paths, and when 
 night came be uncertain whether he had passed 
 through a district occupied by a battalion or a di- 
 vision. 
 
 Detachments share the farm-houses with their 
 owners, going as quietly about their work as if they 
 were old inhabitants. Like the little men whom old 
 Rip met in the Catskills, they nestle in the fastnesses 
 of nooks and shady places without ever doing such a 
 noisy thing as bowl — never! If half our force moved 
 away overnight and you rode through the valley 
 again the next day, you would notice no difference. 
 
XVI 
 
 BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 
 
 At three on the morning of July 31st all baggage 
 and even all correspondents and attaches forsook 
 the little town of Lienshankwan, whose hospitality 
 the Japanese had held with martial courtesy for 
 more than a month, leaving fewer flies behind than 
 they found when the Russians evacuated it. On 
 the 4th and the 17th, when our positions were at- 
 tacked, the unexpected sound of firing had taken us 
 over the pass. This time the engagement came 
 as no surprise; since the orders of the afternoon it 
 had become a set event like target practice. 
 
 All the ominous elation of a night before battle 
 was ours. Wakening from the few hours' sleep that 
 a correspondent snatched had the thrill of antici- 
 pation replete with every possibility of the shock of 
 arms. We had time for contemplation of the fact 
 that we were assigned to an army corps which, after 
 all, was only a unit in enveloping forces stretching 
 for nearly a hundred miles. 
 
 From the summit of Motien we saw the first glow of 
 
 186 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 187 
 
 light in the East. A thick mist had preceded it; a 
 mist that might save infantry approaching a position 
 hundreds of Kves and hold gunners in the awful 
 leash of blindness at the hour toward which all their 
 anticipations and preparations had been directed. 
 But the mist went as quickly as it had come, rising 
 swiftly as if to salute the dawn of a summer's day, 
 when mountain-top was as clear against the sky-line 
 as the houses of a village against the foliage of a slope. 
 Pack-laden and rifle-laden offence with the sun on 
 its back— as the Imperial Guards realized bitterly 
 before the day was over— was to have no cover 
 except of earth and trees and growing crops from 
 their watchful and waiting antagonists. 
 
 On the ride over we passed no guns or hastening 
 infantry. The whole fighting army was on the 
 other side of the pass. General Kuroki was already 
 on the hill back of the new temple (which with the 
 surrounding country I have already described) . That 
 thatch of tree branches which an infantry outpost 
 had erected now sheltered the mind of the movement, 
 who kept cool literally as well as metaphorically. 
 What chess-player would not ? On this hill, his chief 
 of staff at his side, he was to remain all day. The 
 chief of staff did the talking; he listened, and now 
 and then he gave an order. 
 
1 88 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 On this occasion all the carefully laid programme 
 was not carried out. The central column of the 
 Guards was checked ; batteries had to change their 
 positions. In the face of good and bad news he 
 was the same unchanging Kuroki. No spectator's 
 curiosity held his attention to any one part of the 
 field. He was playing the greatest of all games with 
 his mind on team play. The sound that interested 
 him most was not that of firing, but the click of the 
 telegraph instrument, which left nothing to the doubt 
 of vision but told him exactly what each unit was 
 doing. Meanwhile, the spectator, watching through 
 high-powered glasses for flashes and smoke rings, 
 saw the masses, the supers, the torch- bearers and 
 heard a roar and compassed their meaning as you 
 get the outline of the plot of a play in a tongue for- 
 eign to you. 
 
 From the left with the first streaks of light, between 
 the speeches of the guns, came the drum-drum of 
 infantry fire — but first to the simple outline of the 
 day's problem! We held the higher of the two 
 ranges of the divide, and the lower, the second, was 
 our object. The taking of Yushu (Yushurei) Pass 
 which commands the Mukden Road was left to the 
 division on our right, the Twelfth, which operated 
 beyond our sight and almost beyond our hearing. 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 189 
 
 Yantsu (Yoshurei) Pass, which commands the Liao- 
 yang Road, was the work of the central (Second) 
 and the left (Guards) division. The right and the 
 central division were to advance in line, and the left 
 division was to strike Yantsu on the flank and the 
 rear. 
 
 The spectator had the old citadel of observation 
 which he occupied on the 17th — valueless for guns 
 and infantry, and highly useful for attaches and cor- 
 respondents, who could see the action as a whole. 
 This conical hill was one of the heights which form 
 the reach between the two ranges where there are 
 sugar-loaves, turtle-backs and camel-humps, with 
 ridges twisting in unexpected directions — a terrain 
 like that of a loose cloth wrinkled with the hands till 
 there was no set characteristic except that of irregu- 
 larity. 
 
 At our feet lay the valley where some glacier once 
 made a track for freshets to wear down, and at its 
 end gleamed the tantalizing white base of the pagoda 
 tower of To wan. For a month that landmark of 
 our desire had tempted our eyes; and to-day we 
 were to have it or know the reason why. Towan 
 lies at the junction of valleys, as well as at the gap 
 that the old Peking Road follows in its final passage 
 after its long route in the shadow of mountain^ 
 
igo WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 toward the plain. By the roads in the low places 
 dwell the communes who plaster the slopes with the 
 green squares of their tillage. 
 
 Now the force which follows a valley becomes 
 a target for surprises and plunging fire. Except 
 under the cover of darkness, the attacking force 
 could not use the Towan valley as a channel for 
 bringing up its reserves. The Tiensuiten valley, 
 running north and south and crossing that of Towan 
 in front of the tower, stood between Kuroki and 
 the enemy as the Yalu had at Ku-lien-cheng. The 
 Russian defences, with guns in front and guns on 
 the sides, a vast rise of mountainous heights, was 
 as threatening as the bow view of a battle-ship, 
 the white base of the pagoda being the bone in its 
 teeth. On the right the angle was sharp in view of 
 the gentler slopes which led up to the eminences 
 almost on a line with the Peking Road, which 
 was the centre of the Russian position. Obviously 
 the way to take this was with pressure of infantry 
 on both sides if evacuation alone was desired; on 
 one side if a ^'bag" was desired. The second 
 way was tried, then the first was called into assistance, 
 and the manner of this as I observed it makes my 
 story. 
 
 Morning found the batteries of our central di- 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 191 
 
 vision in position and their troops lining the ridges. 
 It was not yet their turn. If the division on the left 
 was hidden from us as a body, we could at least see 
 some of its chips fly. The crack of its guns and the 
 bursting of its shells we heard as cries and their 
 echoes. We located the first Russian battery to 
 attract our attention by the burst of shrapnel smoke 
 which it drew. Here in a " saddle " between two 
 crests the gun positions had been cut out of limestone 
 rock three or four hundred feet above the level of the 
 plain. As the ugly blue curls of smoke shot out and 
 vanished into thin vapor, others came to take their 
 place and underneath them flashed the answers like 
 the mirrors of a heliograph in a burning sun. 
 
 The blue bursts were three to one against the 
 flashes, which came slower and slower and then 
 stopped. But still the thunders kept up. We had 
 seen only one Russian battery. Scanning the heights 
 for a glimpse of the others, on the very sky-line one 
 caught one, two, three, four malicious, hellish points 
 of flame. They were as sudden as the flight of a 
 rocket on a dark night in a little-traversed sea. 
 Splendid was their message to any observing gunner, 
 to whom they bespoke the apotheosis of his art. 
 In a breath they told of arduous weeks of preparation 
 for our coming. 
 
192 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 There was a miracle of the spade, the effort that 
 had carried an artillery road in old, old China to 
 that altitude! In the lap between two cones and on 
 the crest of one of them, snug as eaglets in their 
 nests, these metal mouths were vomiting death to 
 objects six or seven thousand yards away. No 
 shrapnel bursts went that high. Here were gunners 
 coolly at target practice while their comrades in the 
 "saddle" below took the revenge the enemy returned. 
 Japanese skill in gunnery could not overcome the 
 altitude or the obstacles which armories turn out 
 and money can buy. 
 
 I had waited for months for some concrete illustra- 
 tion of the superiority of the Russian guns. Now 
 it was emphasized as plainly as the speed of a 
 forty-horse-power automobile and a light runabout. 
 (The authors of profound exclamations about the 
 amazing feats of the Japanese artillery which have 
 been going the round of the press for months have 
 confounded guns with gunnery.) To-day, for the 
 first time in the five months' campaign of this army, 
 the fact that Ivan Ivanovitch is a big, burly man 
 and Nippon Denji is a little man notably counted 
 in the Russian's favor. 
 
 If Ivan has big boots, big stretchers, big blankets, 
 big commissary and hospital wagons, and big horses, 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 193 
 
 he also has big guns. With the Japanese, artillery has 
 been sacrificed to the size of the horses. His gun 
 is small like everything else about his army. It 
 is of an old pattern; the range is a thousand yards 
 less than the enemy's; the shell three pounds lighter; 
 the muzzle velocity 300 feet less a second; and it 
 can fire only one shot where the Russian gun fires 
 two or three. Nippon Denji had led the world 
 to a false conclusion by the way in which he used 
 a poor weapon. But on the 31st he was not against 
 such clumsy adversaries as those who made their 
 guns the sport of disaster at the Yalu. Instead, 
 he was against European trained men of that arm 
 of the service which calls the best of the thin upper- 
 crust of Russian intelligence for officers. 
 
 As a hydrant commands a street crossing, so the 
 skyline battery commanded the mouth of the valley 
 from which the central column of the Guards division, 
 debouched at dawn. In confidence the gunners, 
 who had plotted every distance within range, waited 
 for their target to appear. One of the Japanese 
 batteries took up a position on a ridge. From the 
 bottom of the valley it was as obscured as a man in 
 the middle of a flat roof from the street; from the 
 Russian hill-tops it was as plain as the man on the 
 flat roof from an adjoining church steeple. When 
 
194 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 that Japanese battery fired, the skyline battery 
 turned on the switchboard of destruction. 
 
 One, two, three, four went the screaming answers 
 back over the fields of millet and corn, the groves 
 and gullies, to their mark. With the first discharge 
 they were shooting as accurately as the even quality 
 of fuses and powder — the exactitude of chemical 
 processes and angles — would permit without harm 
 to themselves. They could keep up the stream as 
 long as they had ammunition. The Japanese 
 battery was a battery with its hands tied against a 
 giant with free and militant fists. The skyline 
 battery proved the overwhelming power of artillery 
 when there is no adversary to take the venom out 
 of its sting. 
 
 For our guns there was only one thing to do. 
 Japanese courage does not bootlessly stick its head 
 into the cannon's mouth; it is a quantity most skil- 
 fully used. So our guns ceased firing till they should 
 have a better position and a clearer field. The 
 skyline battery not only silenced them but it was the 
 main compelling force, I judge, in making the news 
 that rumor brought us at the conical hill. The fire 
 of the left had died down at 9:30; and then we 
 heard that the central column of the Guards had 
 been checked. The " bag " seemed in danger. It 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 195 
 
 was the turn of our Second Division to carry out its 
 part. (Still all that we had seen to give proof to 
 report was the unanswered flashes of the unap- 
 proachable skyline battery; the wall of the To wan 
 valley hid all else from us.) 
 
 While the left fought, we had watched the positions 
 of our own reserves on the nearest ridge and scanned 
 the Russian heights in vain for a glimpse of a single 
 infantryman. On the Tiensuiten valley ridge was 
 one of the Second Division batteries. This was ap- 
 proached by a gully leading from the valley of 
 To wan. The slatey color of ammunition wagons 
 choked this gully at a point just beneath the crest. 
 Officers and gunners had been loitering about at 
 picnic ease. At ten — the most cheerful moment 
 of the day for them — the Russian batteries began 
 searching the valley of Tiensuiten and the Japanese 
 ridge overlooking it. We saw the gunners taking 
 their places in the Japanese battery. A minute 
 later they let go. They had a few rounds of almost 
 uninterrupted service while the enemy located their 
 guns. 
 
 Then a battery high up on the Russian right took 
 a hand. The figures which still loitered back of 
 the Japanese battery did not seem much discom- 
 posed. They were at least taking their time to 
 
196 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 reach cover. But suddenly blue puff-balls were 
 blown out in every direction. From our safe posi- 
 tion they were pretty to look at; their significance 
 assaulted our ears when we heard the shrill flight 
 of their projectiles. The figures disappeared as 
 quickly as a colony of prairie-dogs which had been 
 sunning themselves. Men and horses having sep- 
 arated for a breath of fresh air now hugged cover 
 as if it were an infant in arms — all because of the 
 little blue rings of smoke, which would have been 
 a strange and unaccountable bit of witchcraft to one 
 of Caesar's legions. 
 
 Into the guns, over the guns, this side of the guns, 
 in nice spraying distance beyond the guns pointing 
 above the bull's-eye like the hits of a good marksman 
 on a paper target, with bursts above and spouts of 
 earth beneath, the fifteen-pound monsters with their 
 quarts of spreading bullets came. 
 
 ''A little over! A litde short! A little wide!" ran 
 the comments of the spectators, all intent on the 
 game and not thinking of life and death. (But 
 it was life and death, however, that lent the game its 
 spirit.) We saw units dodging up and down to fire, 
 and that was all. But to fire was to draw more 
 fire — fire that we could not adequately return. The 
 thing was to move up and get a better hold on these 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 197 
 
 long-range, rapid-firing adversaries. Our battery 
 became silent. Receiving no reply, the Russians 
 stopped. 
 
 This round, so far as the guns went, had been 
 decided in the Russians' favor, I think. There 
 was a lull through both valleys. The army rested; 
 it ate ; it made new dispositions. An artillery 
 duel consists of intervals of ear-wracking noise and 
 of silence which is like that of a tomb compared to 
 the rasping, mechanical purr of a factory room full 
 of looms. The fusillade begins with first one and 
 then another taking up the refrain, and then from 
 the whirlwind height of action it dies down one by 
 one till a last boom and shriek and crack introduces 
 a recess. And by the way it dies down you may 
 well judge which side is getting the better of the play. 
 The rests in a combat of mechanical and chemical 
 powers of destruction are as natural as the breathing 
 spaces in brute conflict which take on the rude 
 dignity of rounds in a prize-fight. 
 
 The lull on this occasion had an exception. One 
 gun of the ridge battery kept on firing in an assertive 
 solo at regular intervals to make the Russians think 
 all the guns were there, when, in fact, the others 
 were moving away. We saw the General and his 
 staff go riding up the gully to the battery position, 
 
198 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and finally he and a part of the guns disappeared 
 over the ridge into the valley where now our other 
 batteries and the entire right wing of our division's 
 advance was hidden. There he directed the ad- 
 vance to the final grip of the gentler slopes on the 
 right of the Russian position. 
 
 You might have then thought that the work was 
 over for the day. Noonday shadows crept lazily 
 over the valley of Towan. The Russian heights 
 seemed as innocent of guns as the hills of a resort 
 viewed from the veranda of a summer hotel. On 
 every hand was the silence of an uninhabited land. 
 It was a silence more intense than any day of peace 
 this stretch of the earth's surface had ever known. 
 In ordinary times some native carts would have been 
 creaking along the valley roads and the population, 
 unhushed, would have been going about their usual 
 labors. It was a creepy silence though the blazing 
 sun illuminated all things; a silence charged with 
 the thought that stealthy antagonist was creeping 
 toward waiting antagonist. You could hear the 
 tick of your watch and the drowsy hum of insects 
 quite plainly as you sought a little shade and rest 
 under a tree back of the conical hill. 
 
 At 2 : 30 our guns broke out with fresh energy. 
 Those of the ridge battery having moved nearer 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 199 
 
 could now pay back their old assailant in coin of kind. 
 One of its pieces spoke harshly, like an orator who 
 had over-used his throat. Some imperfection in the 
 bore, lately developed, must have cut the shell case 
 a litde and the revolution in transit produced a 
 guttural that was out of tune with all the other shrieks. 
 Thirty- two pieces the Russians had in all; fifty- 
 four the Japanese had in all. Every one joined in 
 the swelling chorus. Smoke rings hung on the hill- 
 sides like thistle-blows caught by an upward zephyr. 
 There was now no bad shooting except from — from 
 none other than the unapproachable skyline battery, 
 which swung its muzzles around to play on the right. 
 One, two, three, four — its shells burst four or five hun- 
 dred feet above the line of the ridge and over the 
 valley of Tiensuiten which the ridge hid from our 
 eyes. Directly we learned its object and the cause of 
 the outburst of all the guns on both sides to their full 
 capacity. Through the corn and millet of the slopes 
 approaching the Russian position on the right we 
 caught the movement of the Japanese infantry. 
 Draw a line north and south through the tower of 
 Towan and at right angles to the road leading through 
 the pass, and this force was beyond the Russian gun 
 position on the other side of the tower and the in- 
 fantry supporting it. 
 
200 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 The irregular terrain which had profited the sky- 
 line battery now made it the sport of its own satire. 
 Its target was invisible to its gunners. It was fir- 
 ing by estimate from a position where the signals of 
 results could not be easily received. The rapidity 
 of the bursts still told that same tale of the slowness 
 of the antedated Japanese guns. But the faster 
 the fire the better for the morale of the Japanese. 
 If the bullets had struck the advancing infantry from 
 such a height they could not have done more than 
 felled them. As it was, they were hundreds of yards 
 to the rear of both skirmish line and support. The 
 Japanese infantry, tired and hot — the Japanese gun- 
 ners especially — in view of what they had suffered 
 from these same guns, might well grin over a dis- 
 play of killing power as futile as tossing twelve-inch 
 shells into an untraversed part of the Pacific Ocean. 
 By silencing some of the aggressors it might have 
 diminished the stream of destruction that was flow- 
 ing into other Russian gun -pits; but the officers 
 in the skyline battery evidently decided that they 
 could better serve their country by indirect fire upon 
 unseen infantry. Meanwhile, the Russian ''saddle" 
 battery was receiving more than it could return. 
 The flashes from its muzzles were becoming infre- 
 quent. One imagined that each shot might be its 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 20i 
 
 death gasp. Seeing their man down, the Japanese 
 increased their fire. Ten shrapnel to one that was 
 sent were burst over the position. 
 
 With the dust from a ground explosion still hang- 
 ing in the air I saw three curls of blue smoke, each 
 fairly over one of the three guns, breaking in as quick 
 succession as you would flip out three fingers of 
 your hand from your palm. Such a bull's-eye score 
 must have been accident. Neither human, chemi- 
 cal, nor mechanical accuracy would permit it. The 
 ^^ saddle" battery was the first to go out of action 
 before a long lull in which antagonists again took 
 account of stock. The skyline battery which made 
 the morning artillery session in the Russians' favor, 
 had now by its hopeless waste of power left honors 
 even. 
 
 When the loud mouths spoke again, the infantry 
 of the Second Division, with the cool of the evening 
 at hand, were ready for the final act. Every Japanese 
 gun was in action. Now and then, in a second when 
 there were no reports from muzzles, no sound of the 
 shrill cries of shells in flight or the "uk-kung" of 
 bursts, we heard, as you. hear the rumble of city trafiic 
 in the lull of conversation, the rattle of the rifles, with 
 possibly the rake of a Russian volley. The infantry 
 are the fingers that get the final grip of a position; 
 
202 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the artillery removes thorns from their path. We 
 could still see our reserves on the slopes at the right. 
 The advance line which had taken one trench must 
 now be almost under the guns — hidden from our 
 view and the Russians', perhaps, as well, by fields 
 of grain. 
 
 Over the rise of a knoll, where the valley of Towan 
 broadens into the plain before the gap of Yantsu, 
 we saw a battalion or more of running figures 
 disappear into the kowliang. To-day for the first 
 time the kowliang played a part for this army — 
 a little foretaste of a part that it will play in 
 the military history of two nations if we fight a 
 decisive battle with Kuropatkin on the plains of 
 Liaoyang before harvest time. The seed of kowliang 
 is like that of the millet that we have at home. Its 
 aspect is that of Indian corn. With stalks a little 
 thinner, with leaves as plentiful, it grows to a height 
 of from eight to twelve feet. Only two months ago 
 we saw the Chinese planting the season's crop at 
 Feng-wang-cheng. Fierce suns and plentiful moist- 
 ure have already sent it to more than the height of 
 a horse's head. 
 
 What are our Japanese men going to do when 
 they no longer have hills to screen the sudden flank 
 movements of their agile, tireless limbs? has often 
 
c3 
 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 :3 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 >. 
 
 c3 
 
 s 
 
 ^ 
 § 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 203 
 
 been asked. The answer is the kowliang, and when 
 not kowliang Indian corn, which is also plentiful m 
 Manchuria. We had an object lesson to-day. 
 All through the fight, with increasing curiosity we 
 had noticed (past the gully which led to the ridge 
 battery) an artillery ammunition train hugging 
 the cover of a bend in the valley. It seemed as un- 
 attached in this action as if it were lost, strayed, 
 or stolen. All through the fight we heard the re- 
 ports of a Japanese battery— whose cough-cough- 
 cough told the hill-gazers it was on low ground— 
 which we tried in vain to locate. 
 
 It was in the kowliang back of the knoll over which 
 we had just seen the battalion which supported it 
 pass to the charge. The perfect concealment not 
 only included the men and guns, but the flashes them- 
 selves, which broke under the cover of green leaves. 
 You gunners of the skyline battery, so triumphant in 
 the morning, it will be more gall to you to know that 
 your fairest mark you never saw at all! These 
 pieces in range of twenty Russian guns were as 
 unmolested as you on your eminence, and their 
 deceit made the sport of the satire have a finer edge 
 than yours. Need I say again that the Japanese 
 never wait on the enemy but go to him— which is 
 the first instinct with a martial race? Need I en- 
 
204 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 large on the nerve of that artillery commander who 
 serenely took his battery into that position ? It is by 
 such nerve that victories are won. 
 
 Advancing infantry could have had no better pro- 
 tection than that line, making its way steadily across 
 the plain toward the mouth of the pass, received from 
 its coughing friends in the kowliang. When they 
 should reach the pagoda they had the Mecca of their 
 advance. The finish of the day's work was in sight. 
 The skyline battery was still throwing mirrors out 
 of the window while the Russian house blazed; still 
 bursting shrapnel harmlessly high over stretches of 
 field already clear of our advancing right; and the 
 desperate rapidity of its fruitless fire became the final 
 touch of irony of the battle. But the voices of the 
 Japanese guns were now the loudest; the Japanese 
 infantry were forcing near the hour of flight. 
 
 On the other side of the tower was a wooded hill 
 with four guns. These and the Russian infantry 
 trenches in front became in the last moments the 
 kowliang battery's fair prey. Our infantry appeared 
 and reappeared until we saw a line forming at the 
 base of the ridge on the point of which stood the 
 pagoda like a light-house on a little promontory, with 
 the fields of the plain for a calm, though a green, sea. 
 Time was short for the wooded-hill battery opposite. 
 

 
 <o 
 
 I 
 
BATTLE OF TIENSUITEN 205 
 
 We saw the Russian infantry that supported it flying 
 up the valley in scattered groups and figures, with men 
 on horseback directing them and shrapnel bursts from 
 the kowliang battery remorselessly pursuing them. 
 
 Suddenly something dark with horses attached was 
 shot out of the wooded slope, and as suddenly stopped 
 like a toboggan full of people striking a stone wall. 
 There was a moment's melee and then we saw horses 
 galloping up the valley. (The Russians had still 
 another gun added to their list of lost, as we learned 
 next day.) 
 
 On the left the Russian artillery and infantry still 
 held that division and their line of retreat safe — de- 
 stroying all hope of a "bag." Evacuation for the 
 Russians was inevitable from the moment that we saw 
 a Japanese officer with soldiers streaming after him 
 ride up the ridge to the tower. It was good to think 
 that that pagoda was ours. Now we should see what 
 it was like ; we should not have to look at it again as 
 the landmark of a forbidden spot — though firing from 
 the left where the Russians were covering their re- 
 treat still continued. 
 
 We might see no more. That was the verdict of 
 the espionage which keeps the foreigners from too 
 far exposing themselves. Riding back to where the 
 pack-horses waited for us with a meal, we saw the 
 
2o6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 staff at dinner in the court of the new temple of 
 Kwantei. An officer who had just ridden in was 
 silhouetted in the doorway. Evidently he had 
 brought great news — possibly of the success of the 
 brigade of the Second, which, assisting the Twelfth, 
 killed, captured, or wounded a thousand Russians in 
 a cut de sac in ten minutes with a loss of twenty on its 
 own part. The chief of staff was interrogating him; 
 other members looking up from their plates exclaimed 
 their interest. The General himself was listening un- 
 moved, just as he had all day. He had done a char- 
 acteristic day's work. Against our total of eight 
 hundred casualties, the Russian loss, besides the five 
 hundred dead they left on the field, must have been 
 fifteen hundred, including the mortally wounded 
 general in command. 
 
XVII 
 
 AFTER TIENSUITEN 
 
 The Second. Army has followed a line of railway 
 over comparatively level country; the Third has had 
 the academic work of a siege. The First has been 
 confronted in its vast swinging movement with the 
 two strongest barriers that nature can present to a 
 military advance. We have met the enemy in three 
 decisive battles ; one on a broad river, one of defence 
 and another of offence on the range which stood be- 
 tween us and Liaoyang. Strategic combinations in 
 which other forces than our own played a part gave 
 us the first line of heights on June 29th. By July 4th 
 Kuropatkin had changed his mind again. He tried to 
 shake our position in vain. On July 17th he came 
 with sixteen battalions and failed again. July 31st 
 we drove the Russians from the second line of heights, 
 which made the passes ours, as the action of May ist 
 made the Yalu. 
 
 Generically, the humblest soldier must know that 
 certain roads lead to certain objectives. The knowl- 
 edge whets his impatience. It makes the surround- 
 
 207 
 
2o8 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ings of temporary quarters miserably familiar in a 
 week's time. For a month we had dwelt in the awe of 
 a strong position before us which we must take. The 
 gaze of our longing eyes was centred on the white- 
 based pagoda of Towan. We wanted to see that 
 tower as much as a country boy wants to see the city. 
 Correspondents hoped that their recalls might be 
 postponed until they should set foot on this forbidden 
 spot, battery and rifle guarded. 
 
 On the happy morning of August ist we knew that 
 we should not have again to ride over the stony ascents 
 of Motien Pass, only to descend as we had come. We 
 were going over the field from which the enemy had 
 fled to judge, in the felicitous hour of victory, the man- 
 ner of his going. To a soldier this hour is like the 
 morning after the girl of his heart has accepted his 
 proposal. 
 
 Now the tower of Towan is a fine piece of old 
 Chinese architecture. As a tourist, I might walk ten 
 miles to see it. I might spend an hour in looking it 
 over — but not when a battle had raged in the neigh- 
 borhood. On Monday morning last it was purely a 
 symbol of the joy of possession and no drawing card 
 at aU compared to a battery of dummy guns with 
 which one lieutenant-general had tried to fool another. 
 On the rise where the tower stands, logs of wood 
 
AFTER TIENSUITEN 209 
 
 pointing over a parapet rested on the wheels of Chi- 
 nese carts. From the General Staff in St. Petersburg 
 to this Chinese trick is a sublime step. Heads set 
 with slant eyes are not so easily deceived. The real 
 battery was on the wooded knoll on the other side of 
 the valley. If the Japanese had fired at the dummy 
 battery instead of at this, the joke would have been 
 on them. As it was, the biter was bitten with the 
 most savage satire. 
 
 Five or six hundred yards from the tower lay the 
 proof of slant-eyed perspicacity and accuracy. The 
 dark thing with horses attached which we had seen 
 through our glasses on the previous evening shoot 
 down the incline and stop like a toboggan against a 
 stone wall was a field-gun in flight, with the hound 
 of shrapnel on its heels. The upset was as thorough 
 as the telescoping of a locomotive and tender that 
 have gone over an embankment. The ammunition 
 cases had shot out of the limber and lay where they 
 had fallen. The gun carriage rested on one wheel, 
 with the gun wedged against a tree trunk. In the 
 battery's position we found the explanation. There 
 lay three dead horses almost in the distances they hold 
 when hitched in a team. 
 
 As usual, the Russians had waited a little too long; 
 the Japanese infantry had crept nearer than they 
 
2IO WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 supposed; the Japanese guns had let loose all their 
 blasts of hell at the critical moment. Probably 
 gunners as well as horses were hit by that one shell, 
 which meant the loss of a gun. With half a team 
 and a weakened complement, the Russians tried 
 to escape. The regular artillery road continued 
 through the woods for some distance. But two of 
 the escaping guns, from lack of control over their 
 teams or from the demoralization of their drivers, 
 who evidently thought that they were shortening 
 the distance, bolted down into the valley by a side 
 road. One, as we saw by the wheel tracks, went on. 
 The other could not make the turn. Men and horses, 
 caisson and piece, went over in a tangle. Perhaps 
 already the whisper of pursuing bullets was in the 
 ears of the gunners who got to their feet after the 
 shock. (A dozen men, unfluttered by danger, as 
 we learned the next day, were unequal to righting 
 the gun.) There was only one thing for the Russians 
 to do and that was to take the breech and run. 
 This they did. 
 
 On up the valley where the Russian encampments 
 had been yesterday, the Japanese troops were set- 
 tling down in that fashion of order and cleanliness 
 which lends to even the common soldier a certain 
 aestheticism. In the houses and the shelters they 
 
AFTER TIENSUITEN 21 1 
 
 had come into a legacy of swarms of flies and the 
 filth which breeds them. The stones of the brook- 
 side were spotted with garments laid out to dry. 
 In the stream itself, the square shoulders and muscu- 
 lar torsos stretched themselves in the relaxation of 
 joyous health and in recuperation from a day and 
 a night on the field and the contemplation of rest, 
 wine-thrilled by the recollection of victory. In a 
 week you will find that the flies are largely ex- 
 terminated, each soldier undertaking private war- 
 fare. 
 
 From their new camps the litde men of Japan 
 look up at the earth-colored tracery of artillery roads 
 adjusted with the same easy angles to a retreating 
 gun and limber, with its six-horse team, as the curves 
 of a railroad track to a train. The longest of these 
 leads to that skyline battery which, on the 31st, had 
 in a few hours from a contemptuous altitude made 
 the others supremely ridiculous, and had its own 
 futility made supremely ridiculous in turn. With- 
 out a shell against itself, it silenced batteries; and 
 later in the day, by indirect fire, it threw scores of 
 shrapnel hopelessly high over positions where there 
 were no Japanese, while a perfectly screened Japanese 
 battery within easy range put the finishing touch 
 to the battery on the wooded slope— which was- the 
 
212 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 very point of the whole Russian artillery position set 
 on the terraced heights in the form of a triangle. 
 
 The road to the skyline battery spoke a volume 
 of praise of some engineer. It held any soldier's 
 admiration. It was proof enough of the aca- 
 demic capacity — the book preparation — of the higher 
 branches of the European Russian army; a thing 
 apart from the verve, the initiative, which makes 
 counter attacks as the first premise of holding a 
 defensive position. I can imagine this engineer's 
 exasperation should he have seen the utter lack of 
 proper trenches and roads at the Yalu, where vege- 
 tating Siberian garrisons, dreamily neglectful of 
 the old-fashioned formulae they had learned at school, 
 went out, Xerxes-like in their contempt for their 
 enemy, to meet with a surprise as overwhelming to 
 senility and adipose as the absconding of an old 
 confidential clerk is to a merchant. 
 
 From the skyline battery, all the Japanese positions 
 from the Russian view-point of the 31st are revealed. 
 Where the Yangtsu Pass crosses the second range, 
 the heights project in an elbow that on its angles sinks 
 by slopes into an enveloping valley, which opens 
 into a valley at the right and a valley at the left. 
 Attacking infantry must cross the levels — there was 
 the nut — but once it was on the slopes, the heights 
 
AFTER TIENSUITEN 213 
 
 formed a tangent. Nature made the position for 
 guns to delay the progress of a superior force. The 
 gunners at the skyline battery had the whole field 
 of the advance before them. While the left division 
 of the Japanese could not know by sight what the 
 centre was doing, the Russians might know as 
 readily as you may see what is going on in two rooms 
 of a house that has no ceiling. They could keep 
 as cool as if they were on review. 
 
 From the parapet, those who had been with our 
 left division the day before pointed out the abruptly 
 descending gap through which the central column 
 of the left Japanese division had debouched in the 
 hope of getting on the flank and rear of the Russians. 
 But the skyline battery had the "drop" on the bat- 
 teries of the central column of the left division and 
 on all its infantry. All day a part of the Japanese 
 line lay within two hundred yards of the Russians. 
 If Nippon Denji put up his head, Ivan Ivanovitch 
 let go a dozen bullets. Nippon Denji is always 
 ready to charge if you give him the word. But here 
 the Russians had a grip of their hill, and they shot 
 in a way that showed their disposition to stay. The 
 Japanese had climbed part way, but when he 
 put his hands on the window-sill his knuckles 
 were soundly rapped. Meanwhile, the voices of 
 
214 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the guns at his back spoke with no confident 
 tone. 
 
 As I have said, the fine edge of Japanese courage is 
 skilfully handled. So at nightfall these two lines 
 were still hugging the crests of two ridges, with the 
 forbidding and steep valley between them. There 
 the pressure of the infantry of the central column of 
 the army as a whole forced the Russian line to give 
 way. Below the skyline battery, in the lap between 
 two crests of another ridge, was the '^ saddle" battery. 
 The difference between the two was that of the scene 
 of peaceful target practice and an extinct inferno. 
 If you wish to see what shell-fire may do I commend 
 you to the "saddle" battery. You may pick up 
 shrapnel bullets on the road as you would pebbles. 
 Within a circle whose diameter was not ten feet I 
 counted six empty Japanese shell cases where they 
 had fallen. A novice might have thought that these 
 intact cups of steel meant that the charges had not 
 exploded properly. The contrary was true. The 
 cases should remain whole, so as to expel the two 
 hundred bullets which they carry with killing velocity. 
 Two of them lay on either side of a hole that a com- 
 mon shell had made. 
 
 Common shell had burrowed the earth as prairie 
 dogs burrow the plain. There were moments, as 
 
AFTER TIENSUITEN 215 
 
 we watchers knew, when explosions were almost as 
 frequent as the ticks of a watch. The swaths of 
 scattered missiles and of holes mapped the accurate 
 line shooting of the opposing batteries on the 
 plain. The Japanese seemed to say: ''We will 
 make you stop, anyway." They brought their 
 guns closer; they concentrated all available powers 
 of destruction on one point, as they did at the 
 Yalu. 
 
 In the actual positions themselves the common 
 shells had burrowed right and left and under the 
 guns. Lay your hand on the parapet and a shrapnel 
 bullet was under it. Seventy-five yards below the 
 slope was the finest victim of Japanese accuracy 
 that the war has yet brought forth; for gun had 
 destroyed gun. One of the spokes of the carriage 
 lay where it had fallen in the emplacement when it 
 was struck. How the wreck came to the position 
 it occupied, the Russians must explain. The breech- 
 block lay by the overturned piece, which bore the 
 date of 1903 and must have only lately come from 
 the arsenal. In the chamber was an unexploded 
 shell, just as the gallant gunner thrust it home when 
 the fatal blow came. 
 
 But the Russians had paid a far greater price 
 than this in tribute to Japanese determination, which 
 
2i6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 redeems, by the way they use it, the inferiority of 
 their artillery. Report tells us that here General 
 Keller received his mortal wound. A shrapnel 
 bullet in the hip for a favorite commander in this 
 hell where Russian courage stood undaunted may 
 well make a story which will ring through hero- 
 worshipping, mediaeval Russia. He could see well 
 here, though not as well as in the skyline battery. 
 If his staff were with him, he exposed the very spinal 
 cord of his force. Meanwhile, the Japanese general 
 — he of a race that only a half century ago fought 
 with swords in battle where the leader must lead 
 with his own fencing arm — sat in safety, his staff 
 around him, in touch with all his units, remedying 
 errors and meeting situations as they appeared. 
 But this general had taken over the formulae from 
 the latest school — von Moltke's — and applied them. 
 Keller was an heroic spectator, but not a modern 
 commander. While he looked on, one of his bat- 
 teries for lack of information — for the lack of the 
 closely knit nervous system of intelligence — was wast- 
 ing its shrapnel. He was as much out of place as 
 the conductor of a train on the cow-catcher. He was 
 simply a magnificent personality; and nowadays 
 personalities win decorations and machines win 
 victories. 
 
AFTER TIENSUITEN 217 
 
 Every battery but the skyline one left some relic 
 of hasty departure. That of the ridge on the south 
 of the road had thirty-seven unexploded shells lying 
 in a nice pile on the fresh earth of the emplacements. 
 By what we see and what we hear through the 
 Chinese and the prisoners, we learn how the enemy 
 received its defeat. 
 
 The Chinese brought us the news of General 
 Keller's death. In quite another way we learned 
 of the presence of military attaches on the Russian 
 side during this fight. Our Austrian attache was 
 sitting by the roadside where a Japanese hospital 
 attendant was talking in Russian to one of two 
 wounded prisoners. 
 
 ^^We were a party of observation," he said, "five 
 of us. The little men got around us and I was shot, 
 and I said to the others, 'You get out and save your- 
 selves!' But this big fool here" — and he nodded 
 toward the hulking, blue-eyed fellow at his side — 
 "he said he would not leave me. So he got shot, 
 too, and here he is — the big fool!" 
 
 Then the speaker saw the Austrian. 
 
 "We have a man in a hat just like that on our side," 
 he said. 
 
 "Is he a short, fat man?" asked Captain Dani, 
 shrewdly. 
 
2i8 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ''No, he is tall and thin," was the quick response. 
 
 And then Captain Dani knew that his comrade 
 of the General Staff had seen the batde, too. Though 
 they are only a few miles apart, when they meet 
 again it will be in Vienna. 
 
XVIII 
 
 A correspondent's life in MANCHURIA 
 
 This is less about myself than about those who 
 have intimately concerned my existence for the last 
 four months, with results sometimes strange and 
 sometimes humorous. While the army has waged 
 occasional battles, the correspondent has waged a 
 continuous one. 
 
 When the original sixteen assigned to the First 
 Army started, we had a contract with a Mr. Yoko- 
 yama to feed us and transport our baggage. On 
 demand he was to keep up with a column that was 
 going at the rate of fifteen miles a day. Mr. Yoko- 
 yama was the victim of misinformation, a delusion, 
 and the correspondents, and we were the victims of 
 Mr. Yokoyama. 
 
 In order to feed us in a mess, naturally he had 
 to keep us together. We were landed at Chenampo 
 over two hundred miles from the front. Possibly 
 the staff had that fifteen miles a day in view and 
 thought that we would arrive in a decorous body, 
 
 for that was four months ago, I repeat, when the 
 
 219 
 
220 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Great System that serenely plays havoc with Russian 
 inefficiency had as yet had no field experience with 
 one phase of war — the correspondents — for which 
 the Great System had not duly provided. The 
 sixteen did not wait on fifteen miles a day. They 
 went as many miles as they could, each his own way, 
 whether donkey back, horseback, or on foot. The 
 canteen struggled on, coolie borne, after individuals 
 who cared little whether they were fed or not till they 
 reached their destination. 
 
 These draggled, muddy men in all kinds of habits 
 rode into a general's headquarters which was the 
 centre of the precise movement of fifty thousand men 
 in one uniform, and boldly they looked if they did 
 not ask the question: ''Now bring on your battle! 
 We're all ready." 
 
 The Great System was busy. It really had no 
 place for spectators, particularly at rehearsals. It 
 set the limits of the correspondents' observations 
 on the hither side of hills that hid the portentous 
 work of engineers on the river bank. There the 
 strange order of beings that had run away from 
 their transport — the only beings in all that vast hive 
 of industry who were not moving a pontoon, digging 
 a gun position, building a road or doing something 
 toward the army's object — dwelt grimly in isolation 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 221 
 
 in a group of Korean houses. They had travelled ten 
 thousand miles; they had waited two months in 
 Tokio, and bitter memory reminded them that they 
 had been sent to the front as war correspondents. 
 
 The Great System decided that one correspondent 
 might come from their "compound" each day and 
 get the news for all. This was like standing outside 
 the inclosure and having a man on the fence tell 
 you who has the ball on whose fifteen-yard line. 
 The Great System could not understand that it 
 existed solely for getting a '^beat" for each individual 
 paper. Some correspondents had previously com- 
 plained that they had not had the privileges accorded 
 to others. This led the Great System to make a point 
 of insistent impartiality. Then there were growls 
 because it was not partial. Truly the Great System 
 must have been sorely puzzled. When the Great 
 System was ready to give our cue, we were taken to 
 heights where we saw the artillery duel of one day 
 and the battle of the next. Still some correspondents 
 were inclined to demand their money back at the 
 box-office. No one man had seen more than any 
 other. 
 
 Meanwhile, the canteen in broken parts had ar- 
 rived and set up its tent among the Korean houses 
 where the correspondents were encamped. Mr. 
 
222 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Yokoyama had not come to Korea himself. His 
 affairs were in the hands of a manager. The manager 
 could not speak any English. This saved him many 
 comments, which were toned down by indirection. 
 One can not in reason send for an interpreter to 
 say things that are better not printed, such, for 
 example, as " Oh, ." 
 
 Mr. Yokoyama had taken his idea of a cam- 
 paigner's diet from the tourists who frequent the 
 hotels of Japan. He thought they subsisted en- 
 tirely upon meat. He had brought only a little to 
 eat, and that consisted mostly of canned sausage. 
 
 Aside from feeding us for a stipulated sum, the 
 canteen was to bring mineral waters on sale. In 
 mentioning our wants before we left Tokio, one 
 correspondent had remarked that a little champagne 
 was good in case of sickness. Evidently Yokoyama 
 thought that we were all going to be ill all the time. 
 (For there is a bar in the Imperial Hotel frequented 
 by tourists.) He brought far more bottles of cham- 
 pagne than sausages — and the champagne was as 
 sugary sweet as ever Latin drank. Our meals 
 became town meetings, where individuals — and 
 there are as many individuals among the corre- 
 spondents as there are divisions in the army — set 
 out their likes and dislikes. 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 223 
 
 "Treacle is what you want!" said a spindling 
 Englishman who had served in South Africa. " Give 
 me treacle, I say. I told these bursters to bring 
 treacle. With plenty of treacle — good old black 
 treacle — you can ride day in and day out and be 
 as fit as a fiddle." 
 
 "C^sar conquered the world on treacle," ob- 
 served '^ Jimmy" Hare, the oldest of us and the 
 enfant terrible of the camp, "I know all about it, 
 now. He slid down the Alps on it, and chucked it 
 all over the Gauls and gummed 'em up so they 
 couldn't fight." 
 
 "Rather liverish, I should say," remarked our 
 academic correspondent. 
 
 "Bacon and beans are the thing," said Collins, 
 "and big fat flapjacks for breakfast. They're what; 
 they keep your ribs apart." 
 
 " 'Tucker' is what you want," said an Australian, 
 who represented a British paper. "Tucker" was 
 always his cry. He declined to go into details. 
 
 "Italian sausages!" shouted John Bass. "I knew 
 there was something wrong about this canteen 
 from the start, and I laid in an Italian sausage. You 
 can use an Italian sausage for a brickbat, insect 
 powder, a tent peg, a pillow, and to grease your 
 boots with. When you have to eat — actually eat 
 
224 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and so destroy — other things to satisfy your hunger, 
 you have only to smell of an Italian sausage and 
 your hunger is gone." 
 
 There was only one way to obtain coherency of 
 opinion and action, and that was to elect a mess 
 president. Nominations being in order, each sub- 
 scriber turned his thumb toward his neighbor. 
 Alphabetically was fair every one thought except 
 John Bass, and he was it. Poor old Bass! He had 
 troubles of his own as well as those of others. The 
 Italian sausage was helpful in reviving his nerves. 
 
 Our understanding in Tokio had been that not 
 only were we to pay all bills by check, but by checks 
 we were to draw cash whenever we needed it. In 
 Tokio, indeed, there was no accommodation which 
 was not readily granted. Alas, our manager had 
 not funds even for coolie hire. From Wiju to An- 
 tung we provided our own coolies while the can- 
 teen kept on feeding us. The supply of sausage, but 
 not of sweet champagne, ran out. We took to eggs 
 and chickens morning, noon and night. 
 
 ^'If we only had a little treacle to go with them — 
 good old black treacle." 
 
 Our Australian still called for ^^ tucker." 
 
 The one Frenchman was equally explicit. Occa- 
 sionally he would rise to demand : 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 225 
 
 **For what do we pay our fifteen yen a day?" 
 
 The canteen was impossible. We reverted to a 
 natural state of individualism. Behold three of us 
 now, Collins, Hare, and myself, camped beside a 
 mountain spring and a mountain brook. Having 
 brought no cooking outfits or proper supplies we 
 "rustled" the best we could. A few cans of ancient 
 corned beef and a few cans of counterfeit condensed 
 milk (made of corn starch) were found in Antung 
 itself. At Ping Yang a Frenchman had a store, but 
 he was not renewing his stock. (It was in this store 
 that "Jimmy" Hare ate an whole bottle of olives 
 without getting indigestion.) Seoul is farther than 
 Ping Yang, and in all more than three hundred 
 miles from our present base. There is also European 
 food in Japan, which you may have by sending a 
 man all the way there and back. 
 
 At Tiensuiten a plain ham becomes more expensive 
 than red-head duck in London, and a can of Cali- 
 fornia fruit a luxury like hot-house peaches. Even 
 cash is costly. Eight days ago we sent a servant all 
 the way to Antung to get a thousand yen in specie 
 from the branch of a Japanese bank that is already 
 open there. 
 
 Drawn up beside our tents are the three Chinese 
 carts which form our commissariat train. It is 
 
226 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 with fear and trembling that we think of the size of 
 the retinue which has to be fed, bound as we are by 
 the customs of the East. Sometimes the foreigner 
 tries to reform the usages of the teeming milhons, 
 and the East smiles like quicksand under the sun 
 and swallows him in. The union decrees that there 
 must be two Chinese to a cart, and injunctions are 
 out of the question. Besides the Chinese we have 
 two Koreans. One takes charge of the pack-ponies; 
 the other is Daniel Webster. Daniel's chin is 
 missing; his forehead modest. 
 
 ^^I didn't make my face, and I don't work with my 
 face," he says. 
 
 He came to us as a coolie — in the dirty white 
 cotton garments, the queue, and the toplofty head- 
 gear of his kind. To-day his hair is clipped short, 
 he has a jaunty little white outing cap, European 
 coat, and golf breeches, while there hangs from his 
 pocket, in further proof of hope, prosperity and 
 progress, a German-silver watch-chain with links 
 an inch and a half long. Where he got these things 
 his employers, least of all, should know. He takes 
 especial care of the '^cap." That is not for wear 
 when he washes dishes or digs trenches. Probably 
 no citizen of the United States could walk farther in 
 a week than ^^ Daniel." His pipe-stem legs are like 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 227 
 
 Stilts in the steps they take. He goes joyfully on 
 any errand, however hard the rain, however deep 
 the mud. Should our caravan move on to St. Peters- 
 burg, you would still find ''Daniel" attached. The 
 subject of Korean sloth and official extortion has 
 for the first time found out what a joyful, living 
 world of opportunity there is outside his native 
 "Hermit Land"— and all this on two pounds a 
 
 month. 
 
 The Master of the Household, in charge of all the 
 retinue, is Kochi, our interpreter, who speaks excellent 
 English. On this campaign he has learned many 
 things which were not taught at Cornell, where he 
 went to school. He draws maps, translates docu- 
 ments, keeps the Chinese in line with the few words 
 of their language that he has learned. He has never 
 yet admitted that he was tired or hungry. 
 
 Early in the spring, when we had to live entirely by 
 the grace of cans, we watched the growing corn, 
 beans and potatoes with encouraging eye. We have 
 them all on our table now. Fowl, however, are grow- 
 ing scarce in the land. They are not to be had by 
 beggary, purchase, or strategy. The Russians were 
 here before us, and the strays they left behind Japan- 
 ese thoroughness has gleaned. (One advantage of a 
 retreating army is that it has first call on the chick- 
 
228 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ens.) The thrifty Chinese hides the remaining few 
 as the ancestors of another generation. 
 
 And this brings us into the department of Kobay- 
 ashi, our forager. He took the place of Kurotaki, 
 who went home ill. I have said that no one in the 
 canteen spoke English, and it was from the wreck of 
 the canteen that we drew Kobayashi. He did not 
 speak English at the time. 
 
 "Hour or hive words," he said. 
 
 As a rule, when you engage a boy he professes to be 
 a masterful linguist, with the result that you find he 
 is not at all. Kobayashi' s policy was the contrary. 
 He took us on trial. After a few days, when he had 
 concluded that it was worth while receiving us into 
 his confidence, we found that he knew colloquial 
 English excellently. 
 
 According to his own tale, Kobayashi has been a 
 miner in Australia, a sailor on many seas, not to men- 
 tion that he helped to build the Brooklyn Bridge. 
 Reckoned up in years, his services make him a cen- 
 tenarian. As to his actual age, you can no more tell 
 it by his wrinkled face than the age of a pine tree by 
 its knots. 
 
 If we want anything done that is not just in the 
 line of the other "boys'' we call Kobayashi. 
 
 "All the time work for Kobayashi," he occasionally 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 229 
 
 grumbles. "Kobayashi up three hour clock, build 
 fire, boil water! Go to bed late night! Gentlemen 
 want anybody when everybody sleep call Kobayashi. 
 Damn!'' 
 
 ^^ Cornel Come, Kobayashi, you are unhappy to- 
 day!" we rally him. 
 
 Then over that wrinkled brown face will creep a 
 smile up to the eyes that twinkle between their 
 slants. 
 
 "I dunno, sir. All right," he says. 
 
 This morning I asked him if he thought the weather 
 would clear. He squinted quizzically and long at 
 the four points of the compass and said: "I dunno, 
 sir." But that was merely Japanese self-depreca- 
 tion, and I knew it. He had a most definite opinion, 
 as he promptly showed. "Wind sou'-sou'-west, sir. 
 Yes, sir, it going to rain some more." 
 
 Incidentally, Kobayashi waits on the table. When 
 he grumbled, sailor fashion, once, we gave this task 
 to another. Then we saw that wrinkled face (so un- 
 knowing or so knowing, as it wills) in the background, 
 critical and wistful. We restored him to his place. 
 
 About our beverages Kobayashi ever maintains a 
 polite fiction. 
 
 "Cocoa, tea, coffee?" he asks. 
 
 We call for tea or coffee. 
 
230 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Then Kobayashi shifts from one foot to the other 
 and utters a httle gigghng: "He, he!" to accompany 
 his grin. 
 
 "Cocoa!" we say. 
 
 Cocoa is all we have. 
 
 Kobayashi and our Chesterfieldian groom are such 
 stuff as the Japanese army is made of. We had orig- 
 inally a regular groom with high recommendations, 
 whom we sent home for drunkenness, neglecting his 
 horses, and trying to slay the grooms of our neighbors. 
 Ugajin was simply a boy of seventeen or eighteen, 
 whose father owned a curio shop in Nikko — a boy 
 who wanted to see a battle, a real battle. 
 
 He won the trio with his bow, the bow which he 
 has carried right through the campaign. The horses 
 are sleek and well cared for, and in odd moments 
 Ugajin works Japanese landscape effects in our tent 
 yard with admirable taste — the same Ugajin who, 
 when some Russian scouts were reported in the corn 
 near by the other day, rushed out to assist the soldiers 
 with a stone in hand, while Kobayashi seized a club. 
 Naturally, this is a martial race. 
 
 Whenever there is a battle we get a new camp, and 
 then we wait until the strategic demands of the whole 
 calls for another advance. The Great System under- 
 stands us a deal better than it did at first. It knows 
 
CORRESPONDENT'S LIFE IN MANCHURIA 231 
 
 now that we are not here to give information that will 
 benefit the enemy, though that information is the 
 kind that makes news for the cable men. And there 
 you have the rub between the arm of war and the arm 
 of publicity. 
 
XIX 
 
 A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 
 
 I FIRST knew you when the Allies fought their way 
 through the Boxers to save the Legations; and you 
 did most of the fighting without ever a look at the 
 gallery, and marched into Peking clean and erect and 
 cheerful, with no stragglers. Watching your skir- 
 mish line on one side of the road and the Russian 
 on the other, we observers made certain prophecies 
 which military wiseacres who had not been on the 
 march scouted. We listened to their scepticism and 
 smiled as anyone may smile when it is so easy to be 
 right as it was that day on the advance into Ho-she- 
 wo, when the little men left the big men straggling 
 behind them in the dust. You seemed then a veri- 
 table machine of a soldier, Nippon Denji, who could 
 do a goose-step all day and wash away your fatigue 
 with a bath at night. 
 
 Now I know you better; not to say that I know 
 you well. There is a barrier which is said to pre- 
 vent that. You are yellow and I am white. You 
 
 come from one end of the earth and I from the other, 
 
 232 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 233 
 
 and all the heresies and the prejudices which may- 
 descend to an island people belong to us both. The 
 Supreme Being made us quite different, I suppose, 
 so that each could say that he himself was the natural 
 being and his way the natural way. 
 
 My eyelids are horizontal and yours are on the 
 slant, and mine are as odd to you as yours are to me. 
 When I write it is straight across the page, with 
 letters into words and words into thoughts. You 
 have no alphabet; you write down the page with 
 signs that mean ideas. You start at the right hand 
 and write backward — or is it that I write back- 
 ward? — and this makes your book end where mine 
 begins. This has been the way of my people for 
 two thousand years, and for a thousand years it was 
 the way of the Romans and those before the Romans 
 who gave my people their first learning. Your way 
 has been the way of your people for two thousand 
 years and it was the way of the Chinese who gave 
 your people their first learning for more thousands 
 of years than history dares to count. 
 
 The wise men who know — if they have not changed 
 their minds lately — say that we are all from a com- 
 mon stock that started from some scientific Garden 
 of Eden. (Were your eyes slanted or mine straight- 
 ened m route? If we knew that, we might settle 
 
234 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 which really does write backward.) Your ances- 
 tors went to the East and mine to the West and we, 
 for one thing, have a keener memory of the fig-leaf 
 incident than you. You went to a group of islands. 
 So did we Anglo-Celts, changing all the time till we 
 were distinct from another people with quite a dif- 
 ferent language and quite different characteristics 
 who were only across a channel from us. (We over- 
 came that a little. We do think that a Frenchman 
 may be half way decent, now.) 
 
 In ancient times you went to sea mostly to fish; 
 and sometimes to invade Korea. We went to sea 
 for trade and for war, for glory and for piracy, for 
 Christianizing strangers and unquestionably, all in 
 all, for the good of the world. Three countries, 
 England and Spain and Holland (which stole the sea 
 bottom for its gardens) had so much of the ocean 
 around them, that they kept going farther and farther 
 till America was discovered, and eventually Spanish 
 priests came to one of your southern islands from the 
 Philippines, which had become Spanish property 
 now. They made converts; after them, the war- 
 riors at their backs might have been expected to 
 make conquests. You feared this; and rightly, if 
 Spain had not been on the decline, if the other Euro- 
 pean States had not been so busy quarrelling over 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 235 
 
 India and America and other near places that Japan 
 was as yet unprofitably far afield. 
 
 At the time, in the evolution of your society a 
 new master, the ^^Shogun," established himself at 
 Tokio, with a closer-knit governmental organization, 
 while the Emperor at Kyoto became a figure-head. 
 The Shogun did a thing unique in all history. He 
 closed the door of his country to all foreigners and 
 penalized an attempt at migration with death. 
 
 "You mind your business; we will mind ours," 
 he said to the world. "You leave us alone on our 
 little islands and we will not trouble you on your 
 continents." 
 
 No anti-expansionist could have asked more. To 
 clear the way a large number of Christian converts 
 were massacred. This was most religiously mediae- 
 val. It is no secret, Nippon Denji, that some of 
 my forebears did equally wicked things. We don't 
 talk much of them, especially when impressing the 
 Orient with our moral superiority, for we are much 
 ashamed of them and glad they are not living to-day. 
 
 For three hundred years Japan lived within her- 
 self, a hermit among the nations. Your Shogun was 
 lord over many governors of provinces, who were 
 hereditary, as he was. In time their families became 
 anaemic and the prey of formality. You, Nippon 
 
236 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Denji, you, the common man of Japan, were learn- 
 ing to read and write and think. You travelled 
 to behold Fuji, your beautiful mountain, and your 
 waterfalls and temples, which your artists painted 
 on kakemonos that were so cheap a coolie could buy 
 them — and the coolie did buy them. Yes, you were 
 getting stronger and the crust of feudal lordship over 
 you was getting weaker. The time was near when 
 you would break through and a new order of things 
 would be the result. 
 
 Meanwhile, the island people on the opposite side 
 of the earth had found other uses for the energy of 
 steam than making a tea-kettle cover dance. This 
 invention turned seas into ponds and oceans into 
 lakes. It said to all kings and princes, ^'I am your 
 over-lord henceforth. I propose to bring the nations 
 near together and soften their prejudices with trade 
 and touring. '' You could no longer be unsociable 
 if you would, Nippon Denji. With the commerce of 
 the world going past your door, the time was com- 
 ing when you would have to open it or someone 
 would follow a knock with a blow. 
 
 Commodore Perry was very gentle, considering 
 the way that such things are usually done. He came 
 into the harbor of Tokio with that new kind of 
 vessels which belched smoke from a funnel amid- 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 237 
 
 ships (the thing that made it go without sails) and 
 could belch something worse from the funnels that 
 projected from the sides. His squadron was as out- 
 landish to you as it would have been to the Romans 
 if it had sailed up the Tiber in Scipio's time. And 
 you felt just the way that the Romans would have 
 felt if a modern squadron had broken out of the sea 
 and trained its guns on the Capitoline Hill and sent 
 word ashore that the officer commanding would 
 like to arrange a treaty. Probably the Romans 
 would have made a treaty just as you did; but the 
 necessity would have hurt their pride a little, as it 
 did yours. 
 
 You soon learned that what one foreign nation had 
 secured all the others insisted on. Many treaties 
 followed the first, and inch by inch the foreigners 
 gained points, till they had their own concession in a 
 harbor where they lived under their own laws. Still 
 they asked for more; and still the Shogun tempor- 
 ized. It remained for an English trader to play the 
 part of the sacred goose to Japan, all unintentionally, 
 by giving the alarm. He rode outside the compound 
 of Yokohama one day to show the sights to some 
 friends from Shanghai. Over in Shanghai, when 
 a crowd of coolies were in your path you could cut 
 about with your riding- whip and they would run. 
 
238 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 This man had hved in Shanghai. He did not know- 
 that Japan was different. Strike at a crowd of 
 cooHes in Japan with your riding- whip and you would 
 be taken home on a Htter. 
 
 It happened on this occasion that the Prince of 
 Satsuma was passing along the Tokaido. He was 
 one of the most powerful of all Daimios and an 
 out-and-out Tory. One of the immemorial laws 
 of the land was that no one should pass through a 
 Daimio's retinue, on pain of death. It was a foolish 
 law and you had begun to feel that it was, Nippon 
 Denji — now that you were reading and thinking 
 and going all the way across Japan to see Fuji — 
 and there was an aching in your bones for a change, 
 just as there was in the bones of the French people 
 at the time that Marie Antoinette thought if bread 
 was so dear the poor ought to eat the nice little cakes 
 that you buy for a sou. Richardson wanted to 
 cross the road. The retinue was in the way. 
 
 "Oh, I know how to deal with this people!" he 
 said, showing off a little to his guests. 
 
 He rode in front of the Prince. The Prince had 
 been in Tokio disagreeing with the Shogun on this 
 very subject of foreigners. He was gouty and 
 short-tempered. 
 
 "Cut the beast down!" he shouted. 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 239 
 
 His retainers did so. A foreign nation had 
 another cause. Kagoshima was blown to pieces 
 by shells and an indemnity laid. The jingo Daimios 
 began to act on their own authority. If the Shogun 
 would not resist the barbarians, they would. The 
 Daimio of Choshu had some miserable forts at 
 Shimonoseki Straits. He fired on foreign merchant 
 ships that tried to pass against his orders. Were 
 not the Japanese the best swordsmen in the world? 
 Only let them go and they would make short work 
 of these rude, ill-mannered barbarians. The Daimio 
 lined up his samurai with their bows and arrows 
 against an allied fleet, which battered down his forts 
 as easily as they had those of other yellow races. 
 From that moment, the Japanese knew that the 
 Tories were wrong as well as they knew that security 
 through the Shogun was hopeless. 
 
 Aboard one of the ships of the fleet were four 
 young samurai (including the present Marquis Ito 
 and the present Count Inouye), who had shaved 
 off their queues and run away from Japan on pain 
 of death to see the world. They went ashore, tried 
 to reason with their sovereign lord, and were stoned 
 for their pains. After the bombardment Choshu 
 turned to them. Through all Japan ran like a 
 flame the realization of the situation. Every Japan- 
 
240 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ese, of course, had no doubt that his civiHzation 
 was superior to the Occidental. He saw his country 
 with her priceless pearl of independence at the 
 mercy of the so-called barbarians. India was an 
 example of what befell the weak and the disunited. 
 Should her fate be the fate of Japan ? 
 
 Ito and Inouye said that the first thing was to pay 
 the indemnity. The sum of that indemnity was 
 extortionate; and one country, the United States, 
 by a vote of its own Congress, returned the amount 
 to Japan. Don't forget that, Nippon Denji! 
 
 The next thing was to get ships and guns like the 
 foreigner's and turn them against him, if need be. 
 The old dynasty of the Shogun and the Daimios 
 fell of its own weight. But the lower ranks of 
 samurai^ more or less studious, too poor for dissi- 
 pation, always exercising, had the strength of mind 
 and body to form a new ruling class. At Kyoto 
 was the lineal descendant of the Sun Goddess, at 
 once an emperor and a divinity. The new move- 
 ment carried him to Tokio as its head. He ruled in 
 reality again. Fortune favored you, for he was and 
 is a strong, wise, imperturbable man. Diplomacy, 
 Japanese diplomacy, played for time, while the army 
 prepared. 
 
 Under the old regime about a fourth of the popu- 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 241 
 
 lation had been idle. They were the samurai of 
 different grades, retainers of the nobles. The clan 
 loyalty of Scotland was pale beside theirs. Noble 
 fought noble in continual internal strife; and a noble's 
 fight was his retainers' to the last man. If the honor 
 of a samurai was impugned, he committed harikari. 
 His moral code was bushido; which means that 
 honor, as he viewed it, was before all things. You, 
 Nippon Denji (man of Japan), were the worker. 
 Thanks to your travels and your education, a united 
 Japan was coming to mean more and more to you 
 and a province less. 
 
 Suddenly in this new army the boy from the fields 
 drilled in the same awkward squad with the samurai; 
 rifle and bayonet took the place of samurai sword. 
 You know how your country ran to the fad of 
 foreign things at that time. Old armor and old 
 blades were sold for a pittance. All Japan turned 
 to the weapons and the tactics of Europe. Bushido 
 became the privilege and the duty of the conscript. 
 The youth of the land were knighted at the recruiting 
 office. In place of your Daimio standing for one 
 province was your deified Emperor who stood for 
 every province. 
 
 Many fictions have been printed in foreign papers 
 since you took the centre of the world's stage, Nippon 
 
242 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Denji. They give you the quaHty of fatalism; a true 
 Mussulman's carelessness about death. When Che- 
 foo lacks for news, it tells the world that some officer 
 has committed harikari. I have yet to hear of a 
 single instance with our army. Suicide, besides, is 
 not limited to Japan alone. When a captain goes 
 down with his steamer rather than save himself, the 
 meaning is the same as the harikari of a Japanese 
 officer on a captured transport. Harikari is a par- 
 ticular form of death adopted because it tested the 
 victim's nerve in face of the inevitable. Harikari was 
 never frequent. Duels were not frequent in the last 
 century; but to read fiction you would think that 
 gentlemen fought every day. 
 
 I have found you different from the Chefoo idea; 
 for I have seen you in camp and in battle. I have 
 found that you have that same love of life that good 
 soldiers usually have, in that you know how to sell 
 it dearly. It has been said that your one ambition 
 is death in battle. I have found that your ambition 
 to kill Russians is much stronger. You are the 
 least careless about death of any veteran soldier I 
 have ever known. That is why you are such a 
 good soldier. In your lines I have seen less of 
 the bravado of the veteran who heedlessly exposes 
 himself when lying under cover waiting for a charge ; 
 
Copy rigid, igG4, by Collier s JlW/cly. 
 
 A veteran of the Twelfth Division, who had marched from Seoul to 
 Liaoyang and fought in five battles. 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 243 
 
 of the officers who heedlessly stand up with their line, 
 than in any other. 
 
 Of course, I have heard your officers use that 
 stock expression ^^to die for their Emperor." Their 
 practice is better. It is to make their lives just as 
 valuable to their Emperor as they can. Fatalism 
 embraces the idea of ^'I don't care." And you do 
 care, Nippon Denji. Fatalism says that you will 
 die when your time comes — why bother? It im- 
 plies too ready an acceptance of the inevitable to 
 make a good soldier. Frequently one race uses it 
 as an excuse for another's courage, thereby magni- 
 fying its own as something dependent upon a higher 
 quality. In Asia you find many fatalists, but most 
 of them will scarcely lift their hands to prevent 
 death. The Chinese have that quality much more 
 than you; for you never accept death as long as you 
 have the strength to send another shot at the enemy. 
 
 The reward in heaven which calls some soldiers is 
 not for you. Your reward is in the honor that your 
 death for your Emperor brings to your family. In 
 your village the people will point out your house and 
 your father and mother — more especially your 
 mother — and say the magic words about a son who 
 has fallen for his country. In other lands, too, 
 houses and mothers have that pride. But the 
 
244 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Japanese mother does not weep — not in public — 
 when she hears the news. The custom in Japan is 
 to smile in public, and that is the outgrowth of causes 
 as clear as make it usual to give a man on foot on a 
 remote country road a *'lift" in a carriage and not 
 to do so on Broadway. This does not mean that 
 that mother does not care; far from it. But she is 
 the mother of a samurai now. 
 
 You must not and do not show your feelings, 
 Nippon Denji. None the less, you suffer. I have 
 seen you struggling forward with your limbs aching 
 as they took their short and stubborn steps; but if 
 I smiled, you smiled back. I have heard a groan 
 from a cot in a field hospital and when the occupant 
 saw a foreigner was present, he drew his teeth 
 together and tried to smile. But I have seen that 
 same convulsive effort of pride in white men's armies. 
 The samurai youth were taught to bear pain and 
 hardship without murmur. Besides, we foreigners 
 think that your simple life saves you from the 
 "nerves" that curse Europeans. Or is it that you 
 are simply trained not to have them, as the Christian 
 scientist trains himself to the illusion that there is no 
 illness ? 
 
 Nowhere do you better show that you are a true 
 samurai than on the march and in camp. You are 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 245 
 
 obedience itself. Your officer provides for every- 
 thing in the text-book and you do as he says. The 
 fault with most armies is that human nature does not 
 permit of everything in the text-book. If you are 
 tired, you do not throw off your blanket and knap- 
 sack; you keep on with it. The road behind a 
 regiment is as clean of Japanese equipment as that 
 before it. You have a marvellous way of making 
 yourself comfortable when you break ranks. That 
 is because you squat instead of sit and some corn- 
 stalks tied together make a shady place for you. A 
 true samurai private bathes frequently, washes his 
 clothes, and observes sanitary regulations. You do. 
 That is one of the pleasures of being attached to your 
 army. Very rarely do you take too much sake. 
 Property may be left about carelessly. It is safe 
 from your hands. Not even horses are "taken" if 
 not watched in this army. That is wonderful- 
 wonderful 1 
 
 You men of the Second Division, to which I am 
 attached, have particularly won my heart. Your 
 home is in rugged northern Japan; you are, for the 
 most part, country boys. Your gendeness, your good 
 humor, your smiles while you march, fan in hand, 
 present a picture almost akin to effeminacy, wholly 
 at odds with that when you are charging up a hill 
 
246 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 or firing steadily from a trench. Your manners 
 everywhere give war a certain refinement. I have 
 seen a heedless correspondent ride into the formation 
 of a regiment and stop a whole line of tired men. If 
 he had done it with his own army, blue things would 
 have been said to him; but you looked at him curi- 
 ously, as if you were about to poke your fingers into 
 the cage. 
 
 You are impersonal to the last degree. In your 
 impersonality lies one of the causes of Japanese effi- 
 ciency. The Japanese seems to think of himself 
 always as one of many; his squad, his company, his 
 regiment — not himself! That makes team-play easy. 
 On the march when ranks are broken, the officers 
 of European armies stand apart. It is bad for dis- 
 cipline not to keep the gulf between rank and line 
 always in evidence. I have often seen the Japanese 
 officer sitting among his men by the roadside and 
 chatting with them; but always he is the officer, 
 and so clear is the definition of feudalism still that 
 they do not think of presuming. 
 
 You like to fight as squads, companies and regi- 
 ments just as well as some white men whom I know 
 like to fight individually. One common weakness 
 you have with every soldier of the world is home- 
 sickness. When I have talked with you as best I 
 
A LETTER IN CAMP TO NIPPON DENJI 247 
 
 could through an interpreter, you have expressed 
 your unhappiness over a delay in camp in a strange 
 land to which you had come purely for the purpose 
 of fighting. I heard you express the same senti- 
 ments that a Kansas man did one morning in the 
 ..Philippines, when his regiment lay in line waiting 
 for the order to charge. 
 
 "Come out, Aguinaldo, and bring all your men 
 and all your rifles," he said. "Kansas is ready to 
 fight you to a finish. A lot of us will be killed ; but 
 the rest will start back for the little old United States, 
 anyway." 
 
 Of course, there was no element of fatalism in the 
 remark made by a white man, or in the frequent 
 announcement of a regular going into a fight, that 
 everybody has to die sometime and maybe it will 
 be his turn to-day. 
 
 Like every other soldier, you make your new^ land 
 as much like home as you can. You lay out little 
 landscape gardens in Chinese yards; you build 
 paths out to the road. You paste rice paper that 
 you buy at the canteen — oh, that glorious canteen 
 that has delicacies from Nippon! — upon the walls 
 of your rooms in a Chinese peasant's house. You 
 put a mat on the floor, after washing it, and you 
 always take off your boots when you go in. If you 
 
248 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 have not a house you snuggle under the shelter tent 
 that you carry in sections on your back — and take 
 off your boots just the same. Oh, the joy of taking 
 off your boots! They are the hardest of all the 
 samurai equipment to bear. 
 
 We have travelled far together, Nippon Denji, first 
 over Korean roads and then over Manchurian roads. 
 You are as truly a foreigner in this land as I, though 
 you can make ideographs on the sand which Korean 
 or Chinese v^ill understand. Homesick you may 
 become; it will not make you less martial. Rather 
 it speaks your praise. One of these days, if you sur- 
 vive, you will return, a village hero, to the clean mats 
 of your own house. According to popular chroni- 
 cle, your mother will be sorry that you did not die 
 for your Emperor. The truth is that she is human 
 and she will be heavenly happy; but either way she 
 would smile. 
 
On Sept. ist, the Russian frontal line fell back on Liaoyang. On the 2d, the First Army had 
 occupied Hayentai (the hill marked 2). On the 3d, the Russian frontal line was in full 
 retreat over the four bridges across the Taitse, and its forces were pressing the First Army 
 as they went. 
 
XX 
 
 LIAOYANG — FIGHTING OUR WAY INTO POSITION 
 
 For five months the First Army had not seen the 
 sea, a plain, or a railroad train. When we fought, 
 it was over hills and ridges; when we camped, it 
 was in twisting valleys. On August 23d we were 
 still at Tiensuiten, which is twenty miles from Liao- 
 yang. Before we might fight in the great battle we 
 must fight two battles of our own. Before Kuroki 
 could swing into line with Oku and Nodzu, and 
 the three converging columns should form an intact 
 force, we must take a chain of majestic heights on 
 either side of the armpit-deep Tang River. 
 
 The three divisions of our corps still followed the 
 three roads which we had taken from Feng-wang- 
 cheng: the Second (General Nishi) — the men of Sen- 
 dai and northern Japan — formed the centre, the Im- 
 perial Guards (General Hasagawa) our left, and the 
 Twelfth (General Inouye) our right. 
 
 The Guards were in motion on the 24th. On the 
 morning of the 25 th we could hear their artillery- 
 fire while we broke camp. The nature of the coun- 
 
 249 
 
250 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 try was such that no one observer could hope to see 
 even at a distance the work of more than the divi- 
 sion to which he was attached. That of ours was to 
 be particularly difficult infantry work, and therefore 
 we loaned temporarily a part of our guns to the 
 Guards. While, roughly, each division had a sepa- 
 rate task, the success of each was largely dependent 
 on that of the others. 
 
 On the night of the 25th, when, a week's rations 
 in my saddlebags, I spread my blanket under a 
 tree, the Thirtieth Regiment was resting on a road 
 near by. I knew the Thirtieth of old. Its Com- 
 mander, Colonel Baba, stepped out of a twelfth cen- 
 tury Japanese screen into a modern uniform. Two 
 of his companies repulsed the first Russian attack on 
 Motien Pass, and then pursued twice their numbers. 
 Again, on July 30th, one of his lieutenants, scouting 
 a hill-top, came back yelling in boyish glee: '^Slip 
 your packs and hurry up ! The whole Russian army 
 is in the valley on the other side." 
 
 The Sendai men wanted nothing better than that. 
 They did hurry — like mad. Gasping from their 
 climb, they snuggled down to work with their rifles. 
 Vainly the Russians deployed and three times vainly 
 charged. When the Sendai men came to count 
 dead and prisoners there were more than a thousand 
 
LIAO YANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 251 
 
 — not to mention the shelter tents and other spoils of 
 a whole regiment. The commander of the battalion 
 of the Thirtieth, which was engaged, doubtless apolo- 
 gized, Japanese fashion, for not getting more. 
 
 On the threshold of a desperate charge — begin- 
 ning an orgy of danger and of physical and mental 
 strain without precedent — these veterans sat chat- 
 ting softly and smoking cigarettes. Each had a 
 white band around his arm, a badge to prevent fatal 
 mistakes in a dash on a pass in the dark. And I was 
 lulled to sleep by the murmur of their talk, and awoke 
 with the sound of guns, to learn that their night attack 
 had succeeded. 
 
 As ever in the First Army's career, we were in the 
 valley and the Russians were on the hills which we 
 must take. In front of the Second, northeast by 
 southwest, ran one long and intact ridge of the height 
 of a thousand feet or more. One end of this we had 
 won in the dark; that was the key. My favorite 
 mountain battery, also a famous night worker, had 
 here burrowed emplacements for its guns on the 
 flank of the Russian trenches. Its ponies and am- 
 munition train were well sheltered in a gully. Part 
 way up the hill-side in dips, where the enemy could 
 not see them, was our infantry getting into position 
 for the attack. Our movement was to sweep to the 
 
252 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 west and thus wheel upon the length of the crest 
 which the Russian infantry held. 
 
 Having missed Lieutenant Hamamura (who looked 
 after the correspondents attached to the Second Di- 
 vision) I made my way alone, which is not difficult 
 in battle as long as guns and rifles make a noise. In 
 my path I found some trees which not only made 
 welcome shade but were excellent protection when 
 bullets came my way. Only a small part of me 
 needed to project beyond the trunk in order that I 
 might see well. 
 
 On one of the ribs of the ridge which descended 
 to the valley, I could see the smoke of the volleys 
 of a detached Russian trench. The long summit 
 above, with its bowlders clear against the skyline, 
 had three cones. Now the men who were advancing 
 toward these by single file in three columns were 
 not firing. Each had the cover of some rib that rose 
 above the line of the general slope, and was more or 
 less at an angle with the line of the crest. The man 
 at the head of each column carried a little Japanese 
 flag, and all had their rifles swung at ease. The man- 
 ner of their advance seemed to say: 
 
 "We're quite used to this now. You'll catch a 
 few of us, we know, but we'll take the hill — and that's 
 what we were sent to do." 
 
LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 253 
 
 They were the men with the ball. Their "inter- 
 ference'^ was the incessant rifle-fire poured over their 
 heads by detachments posted at high points. Mean- 
 while, the little red-centred flags were steadily 
 waved, so that the "interference" should never mis- 
 take friend for foe. These flags seemed animate, 
 as if they were sweating and stumbling and righting 
 themselves again as they picked their way over the 
 rough, steep ground. 
 
 The most western column was advancing under- 
 neath, and in a line parallel to that of the Russian 
 trench on the rib. The top of this trench was scraped 
 by a sheet of flying lead, which some of my friends 
 of the Thirtieth Regiment were weaving from a rib 
 about a thousand yards away; and that is why the 
 Russians could not take advantage of a mark fairly 
 under the muzzles of their rifles. Some a little de- 
 tached from the others apparently were unaware 
 of the Japanese approach. When the head of the 
 column swept over the parapet, a dozen figures sprang 
 up as abruptly as so many jacks-in-the-box. The 
 surprise was as sudden as the meeting of two men 
 with umbrellas lowered at a street corner. Only 
 the Russians were not at all embarrassed as to the 
 proper thing to do. Their hands went up at the 
 same time as their heads. 
 
254 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Having cut the car out at the siding, the train went 
 on to keep its schedule on the main track. Only 
 half a dozen Japanese had entered the trench. They 
 left one of their number to guard the prisoners. 
 Then they rejoined the line, which, without seeming 
 curious or interested, passed underneath the trench 
 — according to programme. The incident was sig- 
 nificant of the mind and the method of the Japanese 
 army. i 
 
 Five hundred yards from the sum.mit the three col- 
 umns took their final breathing spell and ' came 
 together in three groups for the assault, while the 
 little flags fluttered in the bushes that gave them 
 cover. The mountain battery which had been quiet 
 now realized the psychological moment for which it 
 had been prepared by hours of night work. Any shot 
 in line found the target — that is, the main Russian 
 trench. The storming parties had a breathing space 
 and girded themselves for their final effort. Now 
 they climbed upward as if death were at their heels 
 instead of ahead of them. They did not fire; their 
 ^'interference" could not fire without too much risk 
 of hitting them. The only thing was to reach the 
 top, and before they could some must die, as every 
 man of them knew. The flag of the centre column 
 was waved triumphantly on its appointed cone a 
 
LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 255 
 
 minute before the other two. Then we saw the 
 figures on the skyhne rushing to any point of vantage 
 where, by sending bullets in pursuit of the flying 
 enemy, they could score losses which should balance 
 their own side of the ledger. The reserves might 
 now go forward safely over the zone which had been 
 fire-swept ten minutes before. 
 
 Thus the day's fighting was finished, but not the 
 day's work, nor the day's drudgery, nor the day's 
 misery. The wounded were yet to be brought in, 
 and the dead and the fuel to burn them collected 
 by weary limbs. The plunging fire of the Russians 
 against their foe, struggling through the rough fields 
 and over rougher, untilled slopes, had cost the division 
 six hundred casualties, including the death of a colonel. 
 
 Late in the afternoon a deluge of rain washed the 
 blood off the grass. The flood of water turned dry 
 beds into dashing rivulets. The flood of slaughter, 
 also settling toward the valley, passed on by the 
 single hospital tent— already congested at daybreak 
 from the night attack — into the village, whose popu- 
 lation was crowded into a few houses in order that 
 the wounded might be crowded into others. Through 
 every door -way you caught a glimpse of prostrate 
 figures and of white bandages with round red spots 
 which made them like wrapped flags of Japan. 
 
256 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Dripping hospital corps men brought in dripping 
 burdens covered with blankets or with the matting 
 in which the rice and horse fodder of the army are 
 transported. When darkness came, the lanterns of 
 the searchers twinkled in and out on the hill-side. 
 Dawn found them still at work collecting stray Rus- 
 sian wounded, who had lain suffering all night in the 
 rain for a dollar and fifty cents a year and the glory 
 which the Czar's service brings them. In the bushes, 
 in the declivities between the rocks of many square 
 acres — could every fallen man be gathered? How 
 many cries coming faintly from feverishly dry lips 
 and finally dying into a swoon were unanswered? 
 At some future time, when a Chinese peasant stum- 
 bles over a set of bones, the world will not be the 
 wiser. 
 
 In a room sixteen feet by ten, in which were twenty 
 Chinese, I slept on a chest about four feet long, and 
 awakened in the night to find my wet feet insisting 
 that my head should take a turn at hanging over the 
 side. In the morning, a mist which thickened at 
 times into rain shrouded hill and valley alike. Min- 
 gled with it was the smoke of crematory piles, where 
 layers of bodies were consumed between layers of 
 wet wood. Riding back up the ridge, I passed sixty 
 dead Japanese placed in a row under the dripping 
 

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LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 257 
 
 trees of a Chinese garden. Burial was to be their 
 lot. There was not time to burn them. 
 
 Our division's losses were greater than at the Yalu. 
 By this standard and by the physical effort expended 
 as well, we should have rested. But we were only 
 beginning. Our halt was due solely to the mist, 
 which would not permit us to fulfil our programme 
 to advance at the break of day. The infantry re- 
 mained on the slippery hill-sides, where they had 
 raised their slight shelter tents and placed wet corn- 
 stalks on the damp, spongy earth for beds. On the 
 crest of the ridge, while the bodies of the Russians 
 who had fallen in the trenches there yesterday were 
 being buried, the staff stood helplessly looking out 
 on the gray awning that hid the next valley and pro- 
 longed for a few hours the life of more than one fated 
 big soldier of Russia and little soldier of Japan. 
 Quick as General Nishi was to attack by night some 
 critical point with definite features, he hesitated to 
 make a general advance in the fog, which eventually 
 rose as quickly as a drop-curtain. 
 
 Instantly we knew not only the scene, but also the 
 plot of the play. The deep cutting revealed at our 
 feet opened into a valley which led westward to the 
 Tang-ho, with its fertile bottoms. The town of An- 
 ping was hidden by the projecting base of a bluff. 
 
^58 WITH KtJROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 We knew its location by a pontoon bridge thick with 
 Russian wagons going in the same tell-tale direction. 
 The wagons crossed stolidly. There was no pre- 
 cipitation in the lowering of the tents of the camp 
 on the other side. 
 
 That first clear view of our position quickened 
 every pulse at thought of catching a rearguard strad- 
 dle of a stream. The mist had favored the Rus- 
 sians. It had made our advance cautious and given 
 them cover for retreat. Over the ridge our infantry, 
 breaking their way through the kowliang, made 
 new paths over slopes where probably no army had 
 ever passed before. After them went the mountain 
 battery, sliding and plunging horses jerking the lead- 
 ers off their feet. 
 
 With the bridge as a centre, our division was press- 
 ing in on the retreat from one flank and the Twelfth 
 from the other. We trusted that the Twelfth was 
 nearer than ourselves. The Russian cavalry was 
 moving back and forth on our side of the river; the 
 Russian infantry stretched across the mouth of the 
 valley, while far over the hills the infantry and gun- 
 fire of the Twelfth pressed closer toward the pon- 
 toon. An hour before dark remained. As detach- 
 ments drew off, the line of Russian infantry became 
 thinner. Some cavalry forded the stream, and then 
 
LIAO YANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 259 
 
 some infantry, too, did not wait on the bridge. "We 
 are going to make them scramble for it," everybody 
 thought, "and there will be sharp work down there 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 "No, we're not," we knew a moment later, when 
 one flash and seven more in succession spoke from 
 the other side of the river to the left of the bridge. 
 No shrapnel came in reply. The entry of the battery 
 into the game settled it. The rest had no more dra- 
 matic interest than the last half of the ninth inning 
 to the victorious "outs." 
 
 That night three correspondents — Mr. Knight 
 of the London Morning Post, Mr. Frazer of the 
 London Times, and myself — followed the division 
 commander the way that the mountain battery went, 
 and this led us into the big valley running west to 
 Anping and then to the left into another defile where 
 your horse stumbled over stones when he did not 
 stick in the mud. By eleven o'clock we were settled 
 in a filthy native farmer's house, to which we were 
 welcomed by the weeping of children and the snarl- 
 ing of dogs. We fed our horses, we ate some biscuits, 
 and we slept a little. But how the house looked 
 outside or inside by daylight I can not say. Wq 
 departed before dawn, but not until after theregi^ 
 ment that had built their camp-fires ancj fallen asleep 
 
26o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 in the surrounding kowliang. And it was the same 
 regiment that had buried its dead in the rain and 
 spent the previous night in the rain. 
 
 On the 28th, the God of Battle rewarded us with 
 a parterre box, where we could see the spectacle as 
 a whole and in detail as well. At this point the Tang- 
 ho bends sharply. By Anping it runs for a time 
 due north; a mile from Anping it runs almost due 
 east. From a high peak we looked down upon the 
 bluffs in the stream- enclosed angle which concealed 
 the waiting enemy, with irregular slopes mounting 
 to a high ridge at his back. 
 
 Far to the west, on some rocky summit, I could 
 see the glitter of a heliograph sending messages to 
 and from all parts of the Russian line, which must 
 fall back systematically lest some fraction or other 
 find itself surrounded. We did not know then that 
 the heliograph was on the hill of Chusan, which was 
 the centre of the actual frontal defence of Liaoyang 
 itself. We named it ^'Kuropatkin's eye," and we 
 were glad to be so near to the gentleman himself; 
 so near to a decisive battle. 
 
 In the kowliang of the river bottom, on the op- 
 posite side from the Russian position, snuggled the 
 Japanese infantry. Welcome was the hot August 
 sun to dry clothes that had been wet for two days — 
 
LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 261 
 
 welcome until ten in the morning. By noon it was hell, 
 and the uniforms were wet again, not from rain or 
 mist, but from perspiration. Overnight, while the in- 
 fantry marched to its place, the guns had buried them- 
 selves in positions on the high ground nearest the river. 
 My favorite mountain battery was set to look after a 
 trench on the opposite bluff. In five minutes it had 
 emptied that trench of a company of infantry. 
 
 These big Russians had a good mile to go in the 
 range of shrapnel-fire. They were being kicked up- 
 stairs instead of down-stairs, which is harder, espe- 
 cially on a hot day. When for a moment the mountain 
 battery left them alone, they would bunch together 
 at one side or the other, where the ascent was easier. 
 Thus they made a good target again, and bang went 
 a shrapnel over their heads, and wearily they spread 
 out again under the commands of their gesticulat- 
 ing officers. Just when they thought that they had 
 passed out of range, a burst of blue smoke, with scat- 
 tering fragments, hurried them on like the crack of a 
 slave-driver's whip. It was a man chase, nothing 
 more nor less, with the gunners standing as easily to 
 their guns as spectators to their glasses. The 
 Russians must have felt like the tenderfoot who has 
 to dance to avoid a group of cowboys' playful fusil- 
 lade about his soles. 
 
262 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 On the other bend of the river facing Anping were 
 two companies of infantry which, under the bluff 
 edge, had been subjected to an occasional fire from 
 the field batteries in that direction. The officer in 
 command of this line must have drunk a half-bottle 
 of vodka and decided that he would do something 
 brave. He swung out his companies in close order 
 and began marching them down the hill, as if he 
 intended to ford the Tang-ho and wipe out our whole 
 division. The commander of the Japanese battery 
 which had this slope in plain view must have felt like 
 a man who hears of a legacy left to him by an un- 
 known relative. By the watch, that line broke in 
 one minute and a half after the first shrapnel invited 
 retreat. Then the blue smoke wreaths pursued the 
 scrambling units according to example. The busi- 
 ness of this force was to have punished the Japanese 
 infantry crossing the river all it could and then to 
 have got away under cover. Possibly the commander 
 was tired of waiting and wanted something desperate 
 and sensational to happen, in order to keep him and 
 his tired soldiers awake. 
 
 Other Russian detachments were driven out from 
 their nesting places, or, from another view-point, they 
 fell back, having held the Japanese on this line as 
 long as the mind behind the heliograph desired. 
 
LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 263 
 
 To force a division to deploy over this mountainous 
 country means of itself that its advance can not be 
 more than four or five miles a day. By noon the way 
 seemed fairly safe for the crossing. Forty or fifty 
 men broke from the kowliang in a seeming foot-race, 
 and dashed into the stream just below the village 
 which lay directly opposite to us. 
 
 You could see the splashes of a few bullets in the 
 water. The forders no more stopped to fire than a 
 picnic party getting in out of a thunder-storm stop to 
 shake their fists at the heavens. Wading up to 
 their armpits, the racers hastened on till they threw 
 themselves down in a dip of the opposite bank. Then 
 they looked up to see if there was anything worth 
 firing at. Another section of a company made a 
 dash in their wake, and another, and so on. At 
 the same time crossings had been made in the same 
 way at four other points of the river, the farthest 
 point being below Anping. At 1.15 we had no 
 Japanese on the other side; at 1.30 there was a lodg- 
 ment of five columns, which, in single file, swept 
 transversely over the slopes, while the guns pursued 
 any fleeing targets that appeared, whether mounted 
 or on foot. The paths were steep, the sun was hot, 
 and the lines seemed only to creep. 
 
 When we went back to a hill in the rear where 
 
264 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 division head-quarters were, we found General Nishi 
 as usual smoking cigarette after cigarette, with his 
 back to the field. When it was so dark that you could 
 not see the scene of action — as if that mattered to 
 him, which it did, for his wire told him from hour 
 to hour where his units were — the General lighted 
 still one more cigarette and languidly mounted his 
 horse. We, who had come a long way to report, 
 retraced our steps over miry paths across the river 
 to the village, to which we bade good-by without 
 breakfast before it was light. We went to a ridge, 
 of course, where, of course, we could look across a 
 great dip in the mountains (which sank to the valley 
 of a stream, of course) toward another ridge. We 
 could see our troops advancing with their accus- 
 tomed tactics, but without opposition. 
 
 An officer told me that he would wave a handker- 
 chief when there was any action, and I went down 
 to a little brook, where I washed my face and boiled 
 some rice and roasted an eggplant and an ear of corn. 
 About noon, when the signal came, I departed and 
 followed a winding valley road, which brought me 
 to a village on still another bend of the Tang-ho. 
 We were told that we should be here for a few days. 
 This was in keeping with all camp talk, which pro- 
 vided first for an approach to the main positions at 
 
■A 
 
 # 
 
 O 
 
 a. 
 
LIAOYANG— FIGHTING INTO POSITION 265 
 
 Liaoyang, and then for the final assault, as two 
 separate actions. 
 
 By this time I had become intensely human and 
 personal. My pack-ponies came up and I had a 
 good breakfast; while I was told that the division 
 head-quarters had departed overnight, giving us the 
 slip — as if we minded freedom of movement! — and 
 from over the ridges to the west I heard the pounding 
 of guns in such volume as I had never heard before. 
 It was like the noise of the surf, rising to a roar now 
 and then as a long breaker rolls in. 
 
 At last, when I climbed a ridge, I was to see the 
 plain and Liaoyang. The havoc of five hundred 
 guns was outlined as clearly as the battle pano- 
 rama of a Gettysburg or a Sedan when you climb 
 the stairs after paying your quarter at the door. 
 The great conflict had begun. Faintly, and but 
 faintly, one other experience expresses the feelings 
 of a correspondent of the First Army, and that is 
 when you are coming into a port after a long voyage, 
 a telegram of vital decision and the change of a new 
 land awaits you. 
 
XXI 
 
 LIAOYANG — THE ARTILLERY DUEL 
 
 The expiring range flings westward a few de- 
 tached ridges and hills, which are to the vast plain 
 what rocky island outcroppings of a precipitous 
 coast are to the adjacent sea. Between them gleams 
 the steel track that caused the war; that marks the 
 course of the main armies and is the first premise in 
 all their strategy. 
 
 Flowing northeast at right angles to the railway 
 is the Taitse River, which makes a break in the 
 range. The old Peking Road runs beside it. On 
 the southern bank is a typical Chinese provincial 
 capital. There the Russians had many storehouses 
 and sidings. The last of the heights forms a barrier 
 of defence to the east and southeast. These things 
 made Liaoyang a battle ground — these things and 
 a fortress at the terminus of the railway which must 
 still cling to a hope of relief. 
 
 As from a promontory you might see a naval battle 
 
 beneath, so we saw the artillery duel of August 30th 
 
 and 31st. The town itself waited and held its breath. 
 
 266 
 
LIAOYANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 267 
 
 The only sign of action there was the miHtary balloon, 
 a yellow ball that rose higher than the old pagoda 
 tower. To the southward you saw the movement 
 of hospital and ammunition trains, and under the 
 shade of groves and farmhouses the waiting horse 
 and foot, whose aspect said that the army was en- 
 gaged. 
 
 All these were set like pattern-work within a 
 fence of fire presently as safe from wounds and death 
 as a library nook from a driving storm. Farther 
 on along the railway is a camel's hump of rock, 
 Chusan— which we of the Second Division had named 
 "Kuropatkin's eye," from the heliograph we had 
 seen there during the fight of the 28th. In a semi- 
 circle, of which that was the midway point and the 
 Taitse River was the diameter, lay the Russian line 
 of defence. The Second Army, which had fought 
 its way along the railroad, was to extend over the 
 plain to the left of the "eye" and enter Liaoyang 
 from that side. Eastward from the "eye" run the 
 hills and detached ridges which merge into the range 
 at right angles. Here in the "corner," among a 
 chaos of heights, the Fourth Army, which had 
 mastered the passes on the road from Takushan, 
 came into position. On its right was the First 
 Army, which had elbowed its way with many flank- 
 
26S WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ing movements through the mountains, until at 
 last it saw the plain. With the three shoulder to 
 shoulder on the day the masters had set, all the 
 problems each had had to solve became significantly 
 past history. 
 
 That old question which we had ever asked in the 
 months of our waiting in camp on our way from the 
 Yalu — ^^Will Kuropatkin stand at Liaoyang?" — 
 was answered for the trouble of climbing to the top 
 of a ridge by the flashing of five hundred guns, like 
 the sparks from wood when a red-hot iron is drawn 
 across it. That scene of armed strength, the most 
 magnificent since the Germans were before Sedan, 
 did not turn my thoughts to Kuropatkin but to 
 another general, the head of the Russian railroad 
 system. One sweeping glance told you that Prince 
 Hilkoff had "made good" with his single-track 
 railroad. 
 
 It was strange that the first great battle with 
 modern arms should be fought in the suburbs of a 
 Manchurian town, and strange to find here on this 
 day a tribute to a Russian nobleman because he 
 had learned railroading from bureau to locomotive 
 over vast expanses in America; strange, too, and 
 Oriental, that a correspondent attached to the Japan- 
 ese army should see the operations of the Russian 
 
LIAOYANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 269 
 
 better than those of the Japanese side. For a group 
 of foreigners had taken the place of Kuroki's army. 
 They occupied the right end of the Hne resting on 
 the Taitse. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 29th, the Second Di- 
 vision had swung into position here very demon- 
 stratively, and on the night of the 29th it fell back 
 very quietly and, crossing the Taitse to join the 
 Twelfth in Kuroki's flanking movement, left corre- 
 spondents and attaches with their mentors to choose 
 a place where they could see the plain for twenty 
 miles around. In this relief map the only reduction 
 to scale was the limit of our field-glasses. 
 
 Realizing the object of each movement, we were 
 to have the problems of a battle's tactics worked out 
 before our eyes. The four bridges back of the town 
 spoke of tragic possibilities. Only once during the 
 first day was there a sign of life on any of them. 
 Then a train crossed, and by its smoke as it moved 
 northward we could denote the line of the railroad. 
 Behind a parallel row of hills to the eastward were 
 the camps of the battalions protecting the flank. 
 A schoolboy could have understood instantly how 
 Kuropatkin must go once we drove these battalions 
 back. With the bridges destroyed after his crossing, 
 the Japanese frontal line was momentarily power- 
 
270 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 less, and Kuroki might have to resist the pressure 
 of the whole Russian army. When the Japanese 
 Second Army, swinging to the left over the level plain 
 to the west of Liaoyang, could force back the Rus- 
 sian right, then the front must fall back to the town; 
 so it must if we secured possession of the '^corner." 
 
 The gap on our right between the Fourth and the 
 First Armies offered an opportunity such as Welling- 
 ton used at Salamanca. If Kuroki could make his 
 threat on the railroad insistent enough, if Oku and 
 Nodzu could shake the Russian defence on the 
 Liaoyang side, then Kuropatkin would be too busy 
 elsewhere to spare the troops to plunge into the 
 opening. Therein lay the ^^ nerve" of Japanese 
 strategy; therein its success. The board and the 
 pieces were before us, and we who sat on the hills 
 as spectators understood the game — aye, and the 
 mighty stake. 
 
 When Captain March, the artillery expert of our 
 General Staff, looked on a volume of gun-fire never 
 equalled in the world before, he drew a deep breath 
 and said: ^'This is great!" 
 
 Again he said, '^This is great!" and again. 
 
 But it was not the words or even the way he spoke 
 them, as much as March's deep breaths, that ex- 
 pressed our feelings. All, soldiers and correspond- 
 
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 1-5 
 
LIAO YANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 271 
 
 ents alike, had talked by the camp-fires of little 
 campaigns, of what a great battle with modern arms 
 would be like — and here was our ambition glutted 
 to satisfaction. 
 
 In that "corner" where ridge met spur in the 
 chaos of battling landslide, we could mark the po- 
 sitions of our batteries as you mark the factory 
 portion of a town by its chimneys. Over each one 
 hung the blue curls of the enemy's shrapnel. Deeper 
 than their neighbors spoke our Russian guns captured 
 at the Yalu, which were with the Imperial Guards, 
 now the extreme right of the main line and attached 
 to the Fourth Army. 
 
 One Japanese battery was marked as a particular 
 target. I counted twenty puffs over it inside of a 
 minute. We could see the guns that sent them out, 
 and their flashes were ugly orange red, and the 
 puffs, except for the lightning flicker of their bursts, 
 might have been a display of daylight fireworks. 
 For an interval of a few minutes the fire would cease, 
 except for an occasional shot, as if the gunners were 
 keeping their hands in. We would conclude that 
 the Japanese had had the worst of it. Then, as you 
 would flip out your fingers from the palm, one after 
 another, the air would be sprinkled again with blue 
 curls. 
 
272 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 The fact was that the marked battery was doing 
 ugly work among the Russian infantry, as we could 
 see, and whenever it broke out afresh, the Russian 
 guns had to concentrate and drive its gunners back 
 to their casemates. Its value to our side was that 
 it required a far-outnumbering predominance of 
 disciplinary shells; and in such amenities and checks 
 and balances you get the sense of an artillery duel. 
 
 No heliograph was being used on the hill of Chusan 
 on that day, you may be sure. It was an island in a 
 fog of shrapnel smoke. Along the spurs and as far 
 past it as we could see, there ran literally a line of fire. 
 In the dip between the ''eye" and the spur the Rus- 
 sian guns were two tires deep. There we saw the 
 game with weapons that hurled sixteen pounds of 
 steel jacket, enclosing two hundred odd bullets, played 
 in much the same way that boys wage battle between 
 snow forts. The trick is to fire when the other side 
 is exposed, and to keep down when the other side 
 replies. Every Russian battery, except those lost 
 in the haze beyond the "eye," was visible; but we 
 could not see a single flash from a Japanese gun. 
 We could see only the results of the Japanese fire, 
 while the results of the Russian fire we could deter- 
 mine in the "corner" alone. 
 
 In your ears always was a roar, which at times 
 
LIAOYANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 273 
 
 was as thick as that of a cataract. If there were 
 intervals free of any report, it brought you the speech 
 of infantry so continuous that it purred like a rubber 
 tire over a freshly macadamized road. This remind- 
 ed you again that the guns were only the brasses 
 and the drums of this international orchestra. On 
 the last of the hills beyond the Russian batteries lay 
 the Russian soldiery, and still beyond them, in front 
 of the Japanese guns, the Japanese. 
 
 What charges were being made and what charges 
 were failing we could not tell. We only knew that 
 any successful advance must send back the Russian 
 guns. The infantry of the Fourth Army we knew 
 were moving forward. We heard the cheers of a 
 position taken, but saw not one of the Japanese sol- 
 diers who had taken it. Then we saw the Russians 
 going over the ridge in a counter-charge, and we heard 
 their cheers when they recovered what they had lost. 
 Like every other part of the Russian line, they were 
 put in a position to resist to the death. They had 
 been surprised, but they had kept the faith with the 
 counter-charge. 
 
 These cheers called the spectator. I wanted to be 
 nearer to the infantry line and to feel the pulse of 
 that arm which is the bone and sinew of battle. But 
 I knew, too, that I should miss that whole which 
 
274 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 had the fascination of a fortune at hazard on a throw. 
 At any moment the Hne might break, and the con- 
 fusion of many regiments and many guns would be 
 under our eye. We watched its length feverishly for 
 the first sign of weakness. 
 
 Facing the heights on which we sat were the Rus- 
 sians awaiting the attack on our right. The battery 
 on the ridge directly between us and the town had 
 us in easy range. One of the attaches chivalrously 
 reasoned that its commander recognized through 
 his telescope that we were only sight-seers. More 
 likely, having in mind the attaches and correspond- 
 ents on the Russian side, he was not likely to waste 
 his ammunition doing his enemy a favor. 
 
 Between the base of the hills and the Taitse River, 
 another battery v/as stretched across the intervening 
 levels. Two idle batteries, then, at least, waited all 
 day while the division that threatened them was 
 miles away. This gap was protected by only the 
 thinnest screen of Japanese cavalry. All the trans- 
 portation of the First Army, its ammunition, its 
 flank, its rear, lay exposed to vigorous assault by 
 horse or foot. 
 
 Early in the war, the essays of the Russian cavalry 
 had been met by infantry of the First Army catching 
 them in the valley with a plunging fire. Now we had 
 
LIAO YANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 275 
 
 not even a few companies on the hills that looked 
 down on the Taitse-ho and the Tang-ho. As we 
 made the feint of a division serve as another division, 
 so we made the Japanese infantry's reputation pro- 
 tect our line of communication. And the Russian 
 gunners lay in the shade, and the Russian infantry 
 looked over the near ridges for our coming. I 
 wondered that Sheridan and Stuart did not turn in 
 their graves. 
 
 Toward noon of the 30th, the clear sky of the early 
 morning became overcast. Clouds hung above the 
 smoky mist of the shrapnel. Nature was in no mood 
 for rain ; but the thunders of the guns literally shook 
 it out of the heavens. The gusts of moisture came 
 down angrily and niggardly. They were thickest 
 where the fire was thickest. But none of the guns of 
 either side stopped. As night came on, the flashes 
 of the muzzles and of the shrapnel bursts put points 
 of flame in a lowering mantle of darkness. When I 
 fell asleep, I still heard some firing. It was the gun- 
 ners' blind effort to dismay the infantry which lay 
 grimly waiting on one side and grimly ambitious on 
 the other. 
 
 The morning of the 31st was as fair as that of the 
 30th. Silver streak of stream and dust streak of road, 
 and line of shrapnel smoke and gun-flashes, disap- 
 
276 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 peared into the haze of an August day fit for the rip- 
 ening of kowliang and corn. Liaoyang lay still, a 
 patch of silence on the plain. Its four bridges, in- 
 cluding that of the railroad, were still undotted spans 
 across the stream. The white and drab houses of 
 the native city merged with the green of their gardens. 
 The military balloon was making its first morning 
 ascension. Inside of the fence of fire the units of 
 the army's rear seemed in the same position as yes- 
 terday. There was no lull in the thunders which 
 had begun at daybreak. The last twenty-four hours 
 seemed like a month. This artillery duel had become 
 an institution. 
 
 But, yes, a closer look showed a change — a little 
 change. The bursts of the Japanese shrapnel were 
 now carried far to the other side of "Kuropatkin's 
 eye," toward the town, and they played continuously 
 over a Russian battery in a position farther to the 
 rear than any held before. By hand the men of 
 Oku's army had dragged all the way from Nanshan, 
 where they were captured, these five-inch Canets 
 whose bite was worthy of their bark. The artiller- 
 ists, who had struggled with them over bad roads, 
 had their reward. Now, for the first time in this 
 war, except at Port Arthur, the gunners of the vic- 
 torious Japanese could stand out of range of the 
 
LIAOYANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 277 
 
 Russian guns which were their target. There is no joy 
 sweeter to an artillerist's heart than that. Then, too, 
 in that "corner" of congested hills and congested 
 artillery-fire, it was evident that some of the Russian 
 guns had fallen back a little; but that might have 
 been only to rectify the line. 
 
 The infantry supporting the battery on the ridges 
 directly opposite the correspondents' citadel of ob- 
 servation, tramped heavily, Russian fashion, into 
 the gully and up on to the ridge near us, and looked 
 over the top of that and stopped there for a time. 
 Past the battery on the bank of the Taitse-ho four 
 guns trotted out leisurely in reconnoissance behind 
 infantry and cavalry that had gone ahead. They 
 were fairly in line with the rear of the Fourth Army. 
 After a few shots in our direction, which met with 
 no response, they went back, and so did the infantry 
 on the ridges in front of the correspondents, without 
 even sending us to cover with a volley or two; we 
 felt most insignificant and unworthy. 
 
 Now, Kuropatkin in his report tells us that his 
 plan was to let Kuroki isolate his army and then 
 destroy it in detail. On the morning of the 31st, 
 he says, he learned — presumably from this recon- 
 noissance — of the broad gap in our lines ; but he was 
 being crowded so hard in other directions that he 
 
278 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 had no troops to spare for the opportunity. The 
 daring of Japanese strategy had taken the nature of 
 its enemy into account and had reckoned well. By 
 his own confession, Kuropatkin had not discovered 
 the gap until thirty-six hours after it existed. A 
 half-dozen good American scouts would have in- 
 formed him soon after sun-up on the 29th, and these 
 men would have been worth more to the Russians 
 than any half-dozen of their colonels. 
 
 When I first looked out on the plain and saw the 
 two armies engaged, I was of the mind to see an 
 epochal contest decided in a day or two, as Waterloo 
 or Antietam was. The ammunition expended in a 
 forenoon was more than that expended in the whole 
 battle, of Gettysburg. Long-range weapons and rail- 
 ways mean only that the railways have more to 
 carry, and, by sparring with guns and rifles while 
 the infantry creeps forward, the openings for critical 
 assaults develop themselves but slowly and grudg- 
 ingly. Five hundred guns in line, with the shrapnel 
 of as many breaking over them, doubtless presents 
 the most stupendous spectacle ever brought into 
 the vista of the human eye. Yet the most magnifi- 
 cent storm at sea would scarcely keep the most ardent 
 admirer of nature's wonders from losing his sleep. 
 
 Field-glasses that had scarcely left their owners' 
 
LIAO YANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 279 
 
 eyes on the 30th now had long intervals of rest. We 
 were in the presence of a gigantic tug of war, where 
 the two teams seemed to hold each other steady, 
 with never a flutter of the ribbon to one side or the 
 other. The effect of that vast play of force hyp- 
 notically kept us in our places. To go nearer was 
 to see only one of a thousand parts that I had already 
 seen: that I was to see on the morrow; and so I re- 
 mained. 
 
 March, the gunner, who yesterday had munched 
 his hardtack while he gazed, now told us that the 
 sun was much hotter to-day than yesterday — though 
 it was not. The very suspense was wearing the 
 observer out. We felt at times as if we were listen- 
 ing to a ship grinding her way through the ice, with 
 the expectation that she would succumb at any 
 moment. If Blondin had stood for hours on the 
 tight rope over Niagara Falls, I can well understand 
 how the spectator, at first spellbound, might turn 
 aside to play with a dog at his feet ; or he might even 
 go home for luncheon, expecting that Blondin would 
 still be there when he returned. 
 
 "Tell me if anything new happens," said March, 
 as he sought the shade for his luncheon. "It's only 
 gun-fire, anyway." 
 
 What March wanted, what we all wanted, was 
 
28o WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 bulletins. It is not the fireworks nor the shouting 
 but the figures appearing on the transparencies 
 which hold stern attention on an election night. 
 Here we must watch results reveal themselves, cer- 
 tain that any vital change would be as clear to us as 
 anger, mirth, or death in pantomime on the stage. 
 And little things — little in this great affair — began to 
 speak of tendencies, at least. 
 
 Beyond the river, to the north, we saw the break- 
 ing of Russian shells on the hills, which told us that 
 Kuroki had made his lodgment on the flank, although 
 he did not yet threaten the railway. Far out on the 
 plain to the southwest of the town we saw the fires 
 which told of unexpected pressure there and the 
 destruction by the Russians of any possible cover 
 for the advance of the Japanese left. In that direc- 
 tion, too, we saw the movement of Russian rein- 
 forcing columns. Nearer, on the sidings just beyond 
 the Russian quarter, the smoke of a dozen locomo- 
 tives spoke of departure for the wounded, and, if nec- 
 essary, for the vital ammunition which should maim 
 more. Liaoyang itself still waited and watched on 
 another lease of power for the old master or the en- 
 try of the new. The bridges still unoccupied only 
 meant that the way was clear when the time came 
 to go. 
 
LIAOYANG— THE ARTILLERY DUEL 281 
 
 There was no diminution in the volume of artillery- 
 fire. A second time, almost at the same hour, the 
 sky grown ugly purple shed reluctantly the moisture 
 which the sun had extracted from earth and stream. 
 The drops hissing on hot barrels were at the same 
 time cooling to the intent faces of the fighters. The 
 flashes were plainer, while the blue curls of the smoke 
 of the shrapnel merged with the mist. A second 
 time, the sky having yielded its all, the atmosphere 
 cleared, as varicolored shadows passed over the sea 
 of yellowing corn. 
 
 The Japanese shells had crept still farther past 
 ^'Kuropatkin's eye." In the "corner" there was 
 no question but the Russian infantry had fallen back, 
 for the Russian guns were shifting their position to 
 the rear. But between the last of the hills and the 
 town, all obscured by the high kowliang, were the 
 redoubts, the pits with stakes at their bottoms, and 
 the barb-wire entanglements of the last line, which 
 was still to be taken by assault or commanded in 
 flank. 
 
 When, with the gathering of darkness, I left the 
 scene my last glimpse was of a battery between the 
 *^eye" and a neighboring spur. It was under a veil 
 of shrapnel smoke, illuminated by lightnings, which 
 quickly, stitch by stitch, the Japanese had woven. 
 
282 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 "Can they stand that and fire again?" you asked. 
 Beneath the mantle of smoke, Hke diamonds on a 
 bride's head, the Russian gunners who had kept 
 cover during the fusillade flashed their response as 
 rapid as the sparks of a parlor match struck on the 
 wall. Yet the bursts significantly outnumbered the 
 flashes. Something said that the battery would not 
 be there at daybreak. 
 
 The Japanese infantry had found the points in 
 the wall of human flesh and smokeless powder that 
 were weak. They had crowded so close that retreat 
 was death, and advance their only salvation. That 
 night they broke through with the bayonet. 
 
XXII 
 
 KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 
 
 We had seen the battle and the field of operations 
 as a whole. Now we were to see and feel a part — 
 the intimate, trying part— when veterans used to 
 victories, locking arms with superior numbers, 
 should make the effort of two divisions the universe 
 of our hopes and fears for three days of blood and 
 
 heat. 
 
 On the night of August 31st, I rode on in the track 
 of the flanking force, which had crossed the unford- 
 able Taitse in face of a napping enemy. This was 
 a by-road between high hills, where, in the darkness, 
 the torches and campfires of the commissariat lighted 
 the maze of Japanese carts, Chinese carts, pack- 
 ponies, Korean and Chinese coolies, and all the plod- 
 ding flesh, human or animal, which could bear or 
 draw suppUes. Among the caravan, as I rode for- 
 ward, I made out indistinctly the form of a tent 
 which I knew as well as I knew my own pony. The 
 "boys" had put it up on a stubble field. We had 
 
 for dinner a delicacy that we had been saving for two 
 
 283 
 
284 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 months with a view to such a time as this — when 
 long anticipation is reahzed with the keen appetite 
 of sheer physical fatigue. I can taste that can of 
 peaches as I write. 
 
 In the morning it was only an hour's trot to the 
 river. There I met old friends in an unexpected 
 place — the pontoons that we had used at the Yalu. 
 They had not come with Nishi from Feng-wang- 
 cheng along the old Peking Road ; so they must have 
 gone by mountain paths and over mountain passes 
 with the Twelfth, which, without ever closing up 
 with the frontal force, had gone directly to a lodg- 
 ment on the stream which covered Kuropatkin's left. 
 
 Luck is with these pontoons. Thus far they have 
 caused the dismissal of two Russian generals; and 
 well may the little engineers bail them out and re- 
 paint them in the hope of favors to come on other 
 streams that lie on the way to Harbin. At the Yalu, 
 Zassulitch concluded that the Japanese were going 
 to cross at Antung, and awakened to find the bridge 
 of his disgrace spanning an unprotected flank. 
 Orloff evidently labored under the same fulness of 
 theory and lack of scouting practice. His wound at 
 Yentai did not save him from public humiliation by 
 his Emperor. 
 
 Till we crossed the Taitse the war for the First 
 
KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 285 
 
 Army had been the march of a pattern plan. What- 
 ever the casualties, when night had fallen the day's 
 work had been finished according to programme. 
 This masterly trick with the pontoons, the nerve that 
 had left a gap of five miles in an army's line and 
 thrown a wing into the air, was the climax of our 
 strategy here. Beyond the Taitse the conflict be- 
 came such as painters paint and writers write. On 
 a level three miles across and ten miles from east to 
 west, parallel with the railroad, the Second Division 
 had its position. Its flank was in touch with the 
 Twelfth: Inouye's Twelfth that had marched from 
 Seoul, that had been first at Ping Yang, first at the 
 Yalu, first at Feng-wang-cheng, and now was the 
 exposed end of an army of one hundred and fifty 
 thousand men. The Imperial Guards were sepa- 
 rated from their corps and fighting with the Fourth 
 Army in the frontal attack. Once the Russian first 
 line was taken, they would close into the gap between 
 the main body and the wing and again be in touch 
 with the left of the Sendai men. 
 
 The task before us, to the eye comprehending 
 only field and slope, was such as more than once 
 before had occupied us for only a few hours' time. 
 To the left was an irregular mountain, called No. 
 131 on the map, which, rising knuclde-like, formed 
 
286 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 a rampart buttressing the defence of Liaoyang from 
 the northeast. Across a narrow gap from its base 
 there is a "Httle hill," Hayentai, not more than two 
 hundred feet high at its highest point and scarcely 
 four hundred yards long, but to many soldiers of both 
 armies bigger than Mont Blanc. Across another 
 level of a mile or more were two series of ridges, 
 which the spectators called Four Finger and Five 
 Finger. Their Chinese names, which I have since 
 learned, mean nothing to me. I stick to those by 
 which we knew them through three days, when every 
 burst of rifle-fire and every salvo of shrapnel brought 
 us some message of how the hazard was going. 
 Through the gaps between the heights we could see 
 the villages on the line of the railway which was 
 our goal. 
 
 The "little hill" the Russians had not properly 
 fortified. It was quite neglected until the battle 
 began. Elsewhere, but not here, the Russians had 
 cut the kowliang over the approaches to their de- 
 fences. Hayentai was bare. It was a target. It 
 must be taken. It was hard to take and hard to hold. 
 To an approaching army, the kowliang meant what 
 darkness does to a torpedo attack. Two weeks later, 
 when the kowliang was shocked, you might sit on 
 the temple steps, in the village at the base of the hill 
 
KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 287 
 
 and see a man three miles away as he walked across 
 the plain. On September ist he might have crept 
 up to within fifty yards and had the '^drop'' on you 
 before you had a glimpse of him. 
 
 To little men with mobile nether limbs and the 
 cunning of the fox, the kowliang speaks a sympa- 
 thetic language. There were also patches of low 
 millet, such as we see at home; but the army was 
 especially solicitous in avoiding them. Hereafter 
 the Chinese may plant that kind, for it has a good 
 joss and is not trampled down in war time. The 
 Russians on the 'kittle hill" were in the position of 
 a blind man shooting down the street. They knew 
 that the Japanese were coming, but they did not 
 know just where. They shot into the kowliang 
 miscellaneously, and the thick mass of stalks meas- 
 urably shortened the range of their bullets. 
 
 In one of our recent naval manoeuvres at home, a 
 black turret bounced porpoise-like out of the water 
 near a battleship, and a saucy ensign signaled: "I 
 have torpedoed you." General Orloff could sym- 
 pathize with the captain of that battleship. The 
 morning of September ist revealed the thirty-six 
 guns of the Second Division in a set, close line within 
 four thousand yards' range of the 'kittle hill." The 
 gunners had worked all night, as they had for the 
 
288 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 last five nights; and they were to fight all day, as 
 they had for the last five days. Only by working 
 all night would they have the opportunity to fight 
 all day. The inferior range made it necessary 
 that they bring their guns close to the enemy. Here 
 was not the first time they had so taken advantage 
 of position as to force any Russian gun which could 
 reach them by direct fire to come within range. 
 
 That we were fighting on the plain; that now we 
 were having a new experience and new methods, 
 I realized rather pathetically when a Chinese coolie 
 at the rear of the regiment, which I followed across 
 the pontoon, was singled out by the nature of his 
 burden. He had a characterless armful of red and 
 white cloth and wood. I recognized the little flags 
 which, on many stubborn hillsides, had marked the 
 progress of storming parties. They were made out 
 of common cotton and their staffs were the sticks 
 to hand at the time. These souvenirs of reality 
 had no touch of the gallery play of the silken regi- 
 mental standard which is blessed with the tears 
 and prayers of thousands at home; they had simply 
 the clinging fondness of personal association. 
 
 Like an old coat, they were half doubtfully brought 
 along. If the advance squads waved them now, 
 they were quite as likely to be seen by the Russian 
 
KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 289 
 
 as the Japanese general. The sudden change of 
 our world of action from mountains to level made 
 them as useless as a mosquito net in midocean. The 
 generals must henceforth keep touch with their 
 commands by wire and messenger; the units must 
 keep touch, one with the other, by feeling rather 
 than by sight — by the genius of military homogeneity. 
 Yes, we must do that; and we must get the "little 
 hill," that wart on the nose of our landscape. Once 
 it was ours, we had the leverage to move by flank 
 upon the heights to the right and left. 
 
 Confidently the regiments, the battalions, the com- 
 panies, deployed into the kowliang; as confidently 
 as if no mere storm of bullets could make a veteran 
 army break an engagement to cut off Kuropatkin's 
 retreat. If some magic reaper could have suddenly 
 laid the kowliang low, a feast of targets would have 
 been offered to the Russian gunners' eyes. But all 
 that was visible was the sea of ripening tassels 
 stretching across the breadth of the plain to heights 
 that screened the pontoon. The Russian gunners 
 knew that there was cannon food here, and they cast 
 their shells on a hundred- to-one chance. From high 
 ground, watching the shrapnel being thrown over the 
 field, we could tell when they were hot and when 
 they were cold. As a miller will weep over burning 
 
290 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 grain, so an artillerist might well weep at that pitiful 
 waste of shell-fire. 
 
 The Russian battery commander stays in his 
 battery, his sight obscured by the smoke and dust; 
 his perspective affected by the action immediately 
 around him. This is one of the Russian prejudices. 
 Every army has its prejudices, the product of national 
 mind and habit, which are against the best approved 
 thought of its own specialists, who are helpless to 
 overcome them. The Japanese, conning the text- 
 books of the world, finding all modern progress new, 
 are without prejudices ; and the text-book way for a 
 battery commander, though he does not seem so 
 gallant for picture purposes and risks his life even 
 more, is to stand at one side of the battery, where he 
 can keep his eye out for the target and for the effect 
 of his shells. 
 
 For two days I watched a Japanese battalion which 
 lay in close order behind a slight rise. Half a dozen 
 times the Russian guns seemed to have found it, 
 and curls of smoke broke at the right angle of height 
 and distance. There were flutters in the mass of 
 khaki, like that of the kowliang in a breeze; the 
 movement to assist the wounded. But the battalion 
 gave no such corroboration of Russian suspicion of 
 its presence as to deploy. It was needed where it 
 
KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 291 
 
 was; there was no better cover to be had. Stoically 
 it held on. Directly the Russian, all oblivious of 
 his fortune, turned the stream elsewhere, evidently 
 determined, like a gardener with a hose, to wet all 
 the ground impartially. 
 
 But the Russians did not overlook our batteries. 
 These were pounded steadily. If Russian practice 
 had been good they would have been silenced. As 
 it was, their answer to the poor, indirect fire which 
 they could not reach was a killing, direct fire that 
 poured shrapnel into the village at the base of 
 Hayentai and dug holes in the crest with common 
 shell. If a Russian gun had tried to swing into po- 
 sition on the crest of the ^'little hill" it would literally 
 have been blown off. The "little hill" was no place 
 for guns. It was no place even for infantry to tarry 
 long after taking it by storm, as later events proved. 
 We caught glimpses of Russian infantry there early 
 in the fight, but to remain was simply to set them- 
 selves up like ninepins before a skilful bowler. 
 
 Their departure did not mean that the hill was 
 ours. Left and right they could bring fire on any 
 force that tried to storm it. Rush by rush, however, 
 our troops made their way through the kowliang. 
 At nightfall we were in the village at the base of 
 Hayentai. As the sun went down^ our shells were 
 
292 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 still bursting on the crest, and the Russian shells 
 were bursting over our guns and over the field at 
 random. From the direction of Liaoyang we had 
 heard no sound of firing all day. The tired Russians 
 there were settling themselves in their second line 
 of defence, and the Japanese bringing forward their 
 artillery so that it should command the town. When 
 I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, Hayentai was 
 outlined by flashes of rifle-fire. In the pale moon- 
 light the Japanese crept out of the little village, and 
 foot by foot, in face of the flashes, with bayonet in 
 hand, in overwhelming numbers at 2 A. m. they 
 swept over the crest and bore the enemy back. 
 
 Yet there was no rest for them. They had to 
 make their squatters' rights good; to improve their 
 holdings instantly. More Russian guns and more 
 Russian infantry had come up over night. As the 
 Russian line before Liaoyang contracted, it yielded 
 spare divisions for the protection of the flank. With 
 the first streaks of dawn a mist of shrapnel smoke 
 hung over the ^'little hill." The work of the spade 
 in the blood-moist earth came after the work of the 
 bayonet in the flesh. Like prairie dogs, the little 
 men who were to hold Hayentai for the long day 
 before them burrowed for their lives. While a few 
 on the crest watched from cover there, the others 
 
KUROKI CROSSES THE TAITSE 293 
 
 dug deeper in their holes with the scream of shrap- 
 nel in their ears. If the infantry of the enemy came, 
 then the enemy's guns must abate their fire as the 
 charge approached and the bombproofs would empty 
 their guests over the crest to meet the onslaught. 
 For the value of the '4ittle hill" was not "in firing 
 from it, but in having the other fellow off it." 
 
XXIII 
 
 THE IMPORTANT ^' LITTLE HILL " 
 
 A SECOND bridge was built later in a more con- 
 venient place, saving the transport carts a mile or 
 more. The lodgment for the pontoons was made in 
 the dip between two heights. That to the north, 
 Kwantun, was once crowned by a fortress or a castle 
 of some kind, built, possibly, before the Coliseum. 
 The thick, crumbling wall of massive stones, thirty 
 feet high in places, still remains. 
 
 In this modern battle the only part that Kwantun 
 played was to furnish shade to the staffs the attaches 
 and the correspondents. On the slope at one side, 
 General Kuroki could see the whole length of the 
 positions which his forces were assailing. The situ- 
 ation of our corps was one to please the fancy of 
 " Stonewall " Jackson or Havelock. • We had a river 
 at our backs which guns and foot must cross in case 
 of retreat. We had a division quite in the air — but 
 Inouye, who had come all the way from Seoul and 
 was no novice in mountain work, commanded that 
 
 division. 
 
 294 
 
THE IMPORTANT "LITTLE HILL" 295 
 
 Between us and the main bodies of Nodzu and Oku 
 there was a five-mile march at the shortest, over a 
 road gorged with transportation. Always you must 
 bear this gap in mind in order to realize the strategy 
 of Liaoyang. When Kuroki started, there was no 
 certainty that the Second and Fourth Armies could 
 take the Russian frontal position. Had Kuropatkin 
 been able to break through the gap no assistance 
 could have come to us. 
 
 On the reverse side of the hill of Kwantun, the 
 telegraphers and the field telephone men were 
 always busy bringing news from our divisions, our 
 brigades, our regiments, our batteries and, most 
 important of all, from Oyama. Upon the span of 
 wire through the cornfields depended the staff 
 knowledge of the position of our own corps and all 
 the work of other corps which affected our own. 
 When the key should sound for Grand Headquarters 
 and no answer come, the position would be that of a 
 battleship in evolution whose rudder had refused to 
 respond. If the telegraph commands a mobility of 
 organization on a large scale impossible in Napoleon's 
 time, no chief of staff can ever quite forget that the 
 execution of his plans hangs by a thin thread of 
 copper. 
 
 No crime in the eyes of justice in battle can equal 
 
296 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 that of cutting a wire. The penalty is instant death 
 in all armies. We had an illustration of this on 
 the I St. Collins was a little distance behind the 
 staff when he saw one of the telegraph men running 
 after a Chinese, who squealed in terror as he fled. 
 The telegraph man caught the culprit by the pigtail 
 and brought him to his knees. Fatalistically ac- 
 cepting the inevitable, the Chinese seemed to lower 
 his head for the process. With the Japanese sword 
 which he carried, the telegraph man severed it from 
 the body. There was damning evidence enough — 
 a pair of wire cutters and bits of Japanese wire found 
 on the person. "Rather abrupt," you may say. But 
 cutting a wire may change the fate of a battle or 
 mean the loss of thousands of lives. 
 
 The staff did not seem to work hard. When it 
 does we shall be worried about the fate of our corps. 
 General Kuroki spent most of his time in the shade. 
 If his people raise a statue to him I hope that 
 he will not be riding a prancing horse and swinging 
 his sword; for he never rode a prancing horse and 
 never used his sword. To my recollection, I never 
 saw him make any gesture except to salute. The 
 sculptor had best make him squatting and looking 
 at a map while he listens to his staff; and always 
 all of his staff except the younger men (the gallopers) 
 
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 03 
 
 13 
 
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 U 
 
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 c3 
 
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 5b 
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THE IMPORTANT " LITTLE HILL" 297 
 
 were at his side. He could call for information or 
 suggestions as quickly as the head of a great business 
 house who has a row of push buttons on his desk. 
 
 General Fuji, the chief, fell asleep when the battle 
 was hottest on the 2d. He had spent most of the 
 night planning for that day. He could not make 
 the work of our infantry any easier or make the 
 fire of our guns any more accurate by watching 
 them; he could hear much better than he could see, 
 getting over the wire every detail of the movement 
 of each regiment and battalion as each general and 
 colonel and major saw it. When he was wanted 
 he could be wakened. Until he was, according to 
 the scientific view, he served his country best by 
 resting. 
 
 If you descended the slope into that field of 
 kowliang which hid our soldiers, you found your- 
 self in the situation of a botanist who is studying 
 a single flower instead of one who observes a land- 
 scape. You found blood and men and ripening 
 grain. The wounded were in the farmhouses; the 
 dead were being burned by weary details. Doctors, 
 with their eyelids drooping, were almost too tired to 
 be polite. The heat was the steady heat of the 
 season when the milk of the corn is turning to flour. 
 The rows between the kowliang were like the closed 
 
298 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 cabin of a catboat which rests on a glassy surface in 
 a midday sun. Overhead the tassels now and then 
 would move a little with a milky warm but relatively 
 cool breeze, as tantalizingly out of reach as heaven 
 itself. To lift your head was to be taught humility 
 by the bullets. 
 
 As the line crept forward there were only stalks 
 ahead of it and stalks behind it, and the guide of 
 its advance was the enemy's fire. The guns roared 
 like thunder — an infantryman could count the re- 
 ports from friendly mouths as an offset to the 
 shrapnel bursts that clipped through the kowliang 
 like hail. Details went and came with water, water, 
 water — a Chinese well, a ditch, anything that was 
 wet. Sanitary regulations passed into limbo in the 
 supreme hour of a great battle. The sufferers must 
 drink and a canteen full seemed only a swallow. 
 If I appear to indulge in figures of speech, I ask you 
 to take three days to crawl three miles through a 
 Kansas cornfield in August, being shot at all the 
 time. When you have done that on eight sen a day, 
 probably you will think that the land conquered be- 
 longs to you, regardless of title-deeds. 
 
 On the night of the ist, Collins and I had slept on 
 some kowliang stalks on the slope occupied by the 
 staff during the day. We awoke when the flashes of 
 
THE IMPORTANT " LITTLE HILL " 299 
 
 Russian shrapnel began playing over the patriotic 
 heads of the little men who had taken Hayentai from 
 the big men overnight. Drowsily we rolled up our 
 blankets, with the comprehension, first, that we had 
 horses to feed, then, that the artillery-fire was going 
 on to-day as it had yesterday, and then that we were 
 hungry, with no breakfast in sight. Probably the 
 artillery-fire would go on forever; probably there 
 were no soft beds and no square meals anywhere 
 in the world since we had returned to chaotic be- 
 ginnings. We recalled, however, that a river flowed 
 not far away on this summer morning. Presently 
 there was no war; there were only two insanely 
 happy men bathing themselves and their horses. 
 As we dressed, Collins broke into speech: 
 
 "What I would hke," he said, "would be, first, 
 some grapes all dewy off the ice; then " 
 
 But I did not permit him to go any further. 
 
 We had a little rice and some coffee. He boiled 
 the rice and I made the coffee, and I assure you we 
 did not overtax our stomachs. 
 
 ^'And after I had topped off with ice-cream," 
 said Collins, reminiscently, "I think I'd go to sleep, 
 with orders not to wake me, ever." 
 
 We had something that tasted as well to us as 
 ice-cream to the average diner in town. You may 
 
300 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 trust soldiers to find a spring, if there is one. In 
 the kowliang not far from Kwantun a spring bub- 
 bled out of the ploughed earth; bubbled ceaselessly, 
 coolly, from the filter of sandy loam, laughing typhoid 
 to scorn. When I first looked at it I remember 
 wondering how such cool water could come out of a 
 cornfield on such a hot day. If a linen cloth and 
 spotless napkins and Collins' s idea of a breakfast 
 had materialized at my elbow on opening my eyes 
 after a night on the ground, I could not have been 
 much happier than I was to have my turn among 
 the " transporters" at this fountain of joy. You found 
 bottom in the region of your ankles and you felt each 
 swallow trickle down till you were full to the throat. 
 There had been no rest for most of our gunners. 
 They had reached a situation where the general 
 might say: ^^ Battery Number Two may get the best 
 cover it can from shrapnel and sleep for an hour." 
 Our guns had become used to moving overnight. 
 Most of them were now in a new position to the 
 right of Hayentai, where they were in range of the 
 Russian positions of yesterday, at all events. The 
 possession of Hayentai gave us no place for guns or 
 infantry; but it meant, I repeat, that we could swing 
 into the gap to the northeast of Hayentai and get 
 a purchase in flank on Four Finger and Five Finger. 
 
THE IMPORTANT ''LITTLE HILL" 301 
 
 This we were doing. Optimism ran high for the 
 moment, among the spectators, at least. They had 
 been so accustomed to seeing any Japanese pro- 
 gramme carried out that many thought that we were 
 going to cut the railroad and get behind Kuropatkin. 
 In the first place, we do not know that Kuroki ever 
 had any programme of the sort ; in the second place, 
 there was the remark that March had made on the 
 30th, when we realized the magnitude of the Rus- 
 sian forces: 
 
 "Two or three divisions (with a river separating 
 them from their main body) will not stay long behind 
 an army of twelve or fifteen divisions which want to 
 break through in retreat." 
 
 We knew, then, as well as we knew six days later 
 that Kuropatkin, if he were not a gigantic blunderer, 
 could make his retreat good when he was ready. 
 The stake for which we might hope was the capture 
 or the annihilation of a division or less of the rear- 
 guard. 
 
 The first of the rambling ridges of Four Finger 
 and Five Finger was already ours. The Twelfth 
 had passed out of the kowliang on to the slopes. 
 Plainer than the men, we could see the ammunition 
 ponies emerge from the fields like serpents from the 
 sea and go into the cover of gullies. The first main 
 
302 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ridge had been taken with a rush. Our advance 
 had passed on over the crest, while our reserves 
 were khaki patches on the rocks. Between two 
 of the fingers we could see a saddle-like plateau 
 between heights beyond. On this were two most 
 persistent Russian guns, which were pounding our 
 infantry whenever the shrapnel from the Twelfth 
 gave them a clear air for seeing. Half a dozen 
 times I thought that at last the two had given up, 
 and flash — flash, their muzzles would signify their 
 presence. Bang — bang — bang, the reply of the 
 Japanese, seemed in words: ^^Oh, you're still 
 there, are you ? Very well ! Here's another present ! " 
 And the Russians would be quiet for three or four 
 minutes, as if trying to divert suspicion before they 
 spoke again. 
 
 At noon there was no longer any doubt; the two 
 guns had gone. Now the Twelfth began its assault. 
 To its assistance had come the Osaka mixed brigade, 
 fresh from Japan. Though the Russian guns were 
 away, the Russian infantry apparently still held the 
 *' saddle." Our guns swinging out into the gap di- 
 rected their fire to the protection of our advance. 
 Thus far, indeed, we were going well. It was said 
 when we possessed the "saddle" on Four Finger our 
 guns would be in range of the railroad. But later 
 
THE IMPORTANT "LITTLE HILL" 303 
 
 the spectators learned that they had mistaken a 
 new branch running to the coal mines of Yentai, not 
 on our maps, for the main line. 
 
 As for Hayentai, the Russians had many more 
 guns in that direction than yesterday. We judged 
 that some might have been brought off as the line 
 before Liaoyang narrowed with its retreat. The 
 Russian batteries realized that the Japanese were not 
 on the crest of the ^'little hill," and throughout the 
 day they dropped shells on the slopes where our 
 infantry burrowed and also in the village below. 
 A dozen would burst in rapid succession; always 
 there were enough to keep the new masters from 
 cooking their rice or sending details for anything 
 but water. Hayentai was the rock splitting the 
 stream of our advance. We had to go around it. 
 Through the kowliang to the southwest our infan- 
 try swept toward the mountainous height (known on 
 the map as No. 131) which commanded Liaoyang 
 from the northeast. If the Twelfth were swung in 
 toward Liaoyang, then it seemed that No. 131 must 
 fall of its own weight. Once ours, with the ridges 
 behind it also ours, we had a commanding gun 
 position for striking the retreat. 
 
 The staff evidently wanted No. 131 immediately, 
 as well as Four Finger and Five Finger. The Im- 
 
304 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 perial Guards were still on the other side of the 
 Taitse. They were sent forward in demonstration 
 on the river bottom toward No. 131 ; and on the river 
 bottom they lay for hours. The gravel under their 
 bodies was as hot as a stove lid. The shrapnel 
 scattered it as the first drops of a shower do the dust 
 of the road. But the Guards were too tired to mind 
 that. They felt as if they had been fighting and 
 marching since the world began ; and they fell asleep, 
 despite death and heat. 
 
 Meanwhile, the real charge broke out of the 
 kowliang to the southeast of the "little hill." It 
 ran around the base of a slope and, dodging and 
 dashing by rushes, swept upward, with dead and 
 wounded in its track. If the Russians in the trench 
 above had retreated often, they must have had some 
 satisfaction. They came out of their cover and, 
 silhouetting themselves against the sky, fired at will, 
 patronizingly. Our men found what protection they 
 could and waited for the cover of night. 
 
 Darkness fell with the Russians still in possession 
 of No. 131 and the Guards still lying on the bed of 
 the stream. We observers with the First Army 
 could see only the work of our corps; Liaoyang was 
 hidden from us. But gun-fire in that direction told 
 of action there. At one time we heard that the 
 
THE IMPORTANT " LITTLE HILL " 305 
 
 Russians were already away; again that the town 
 was ours whenever we would take it. There was 
 no question that in front of the First the enemy was 
 reinforcing rapidly with guns and men. The offi- 
 cer who had lost Hayentai on the night of the ist 
 had doubtless told his superior that he could hold 
 it against any odds. For you can place only a 
 certain number of men within a given length of 
 trench, and he had ample forces. He was right in 
 theory, but wrong in practice against the Japanese. 
 Liaoyang brought a new feature into modern war- 
 fare — the night attack. The Russian officer in 
 command of the ^'little hill" could not help himself. 
 He was in the position of the resident of Johnstown 
 who was correct in thinking that his drainage system 
 was all right until the flood came. 
 
 When the bloody remnant of his force examined 
 itself in the daylight in the kowliang, where it had 
 groped for cover, its members might well have sub- 
 scribed to the popular impression in Russia that the 
 Japanese is a poisonous insect that crawls into the 
 soldier's boots and under his clothing and stings him 
 to death. One thing we have noted, stage by stage 
 from the Yalu, and that is that the Russian is learn- 
 ing, as the British learned in South Africa. He is 
 taking notes out of the Japanese book and applying 
 
3o6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 them as far as the limited intelligence of the average 
 moujik will permit; and the moujik who has been 
 under fire several times has had a most enlivening 
 if not liberal education. 
 
 So the enemy, in turn, undertook a night attack. 
 Again the shrapnel bursts flashed over Hayentai 
 after the sun went down, while the rifles blazed out 
 from the crest which had been a dead gray against 
 the sky during the day. Sleeping on a rocky bed 
 near the castle of Kwantun we saw the spectacle as 
 we had seen it the night before. A Siberian regiment 
 and a regiment fresh from Russia — the old to steady 
 the new under the first staggering blast and the 
 new bringing ingenuous faith in his invincibility — 
 came with drums — drums in the night! There was 
 no artifice. The heavy Slav, like some mad giant, 
 rushed upon skill with the rage of brute force. A 
 torrent of men swept up Hayentai. They ingulfed 
 the Japanese who were there as the Japanese had 
 ingulfed the Russians the night before. Then the 
 fight in the dark began. The Japanese driven 
 back on their reserve in the village reformed. Shell- 
 fire no longer shook their nerves or broke their ranks. 
 The batteries of neither side might fire in the dark 
 without firing into their own men. Hayentai was 
 a debris-strewn, blood-strewn, shell-torn, open arena 
 
THE IMPORTANT ''LITTLE HILL" 307 
 
 for men and rifles — and particularly for the bayonets 
 on the ends of the rifles. Creeping upward like cats, 
 the little men put their steel in the big men and 
 swamped the Russian advance before its reserves 
 could be brought into action. In the morning the 
 mist of shrapnel charging over the crest was still 
 Russian,. which told us that the Japanese still held 
 that "little hill" as vital to either side as a bridge 
 to a roadstead. 
 
XXIV 
 
 KUROPATKIN RETREATS 
 
 On the morning of September 3d, when the staff 
 returned to Kwantun from its quarters in a little 
 village nearby, we were in a situation where even 
 if we could force our way we might risk going little 
 farther. We heard no word of Liaoyang except 
 that the Japanese had not yet entered the town, and 
 we looked over the now familiar position upon the 
 scattering gun-fire of line watching line grimly and 
 jealously. 
 
 In the afternoon I rode back over the road by 
 
 which the Second Division had come after its feint 
 
 against the Russian left wing on the southern bank 
 
 of the Taitse. On the river sands by the second 
 
 bridge was a concourse of pack animals safely out of 
 
 range of the Russian guns. Otherwise, on the levels 
 
 there was no transportation to be in the way of the 
 
 retreat of our artillery and trains, if the worst came. 
 
 Once in the hills, you found the valley gorged. 
 
 Here was the servants' hall, the pantry, the storeroom, 
 
 the stokehole of the army, which every breathing 
 
 308 
 
KUROPATKIN RETREATS 3^9 
 
 man on the fighting line thought of as a heavenly 
 thing that was ^'coming up" when the battle was 
 over. On the backs of cows as well as of Korean 
 coolies were the little trunks with the stated sixty- 
 two pounds of comforts that each Japanese officer is 
 allowed. They had come from Chenampo and Seoul 
 and had never before been separated so long from 
 
 their owners. 
 
 Its transportation is the one unshipshape looking 
 thing about the Japanese army. The litde two- 
 wheeled carts and the pack-ponies from the homeland 
 seem poured out of the same mould as the regi- 
 ments and the divisions and the generals. But the 
 supplementary commissariat is of the East eastern. 
 Neither officers nor privates of the transport corps 
 (bringing order out of a chaos of mules, donkeys, 
 cows, and carts, and a babel of moos, squeals, brays, 
 and coolies' shouts) had any glory out of these great 
 days in their country's history. They heard the 
 distant rumble of guns, while they waited on the 
 orders which might mean victory or defeat. 
 
 Our own cart was where we had left it. From 
 a hill nearby Liaoyang was visible, and I could see 
 in the gathering dusk the positions of the forces. 
 The town was no longer a patch of silence on the 
 plain. It lay between two hells. On one side, on 
 
3IO WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 the plain, were the Japanese batteries; and on the 
 other, across the river, were the Russian. You 
 marked their positions as you would a line of gas-jets. 
 The air was full of the lightning of shrapnel bursts. 
 I was witnessing the last act in the drama. Only a 
 rearguard remained yet to cross the bridges and then 
 destroy them. 
 
 The Second and Fourth Armies were held back by 
 a stream which could be forded by only a few men 
 at a time in a few places. Kuropatkin's whole force 
 of two hundred thousand was on the same side of 
 the Taitse as the First Army. Facing the line of 
 the enemy's retreat, Kuroki must be a spectator 
 of its passing. His two divisions and his extra bri- 
 gade were before six or seven times their number. 
 Fresh reserves were marching in from Mukden and 
 the divisions that had fought Oku and Nodzu were 
 crowding against our left. Though the onlookers 
 could not see the Russian columns, we realized the 
 pressure of their mass as you realize by the draught 
 that the door of a darkened room has been opened. 
 There was imminent danger of the Twelfth being 
 enveloped. Kuroki sent for the Guards to cross the 
 river in reinforcement. They came — as many of 
 them as had the strength. Those who had not fell 
 asleep in their tracks, with hot stones for pillows. 
 

 
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KUROPATKIN RETREATS 311 
 
 At this critical juncture our communication with 
 the main army was cut. We were isolated — a fair 
 prize, indeed, for Kuropatkin's divisions if he real- 
 ized his opportunity. Probably he did realize it and 
 probably his soldiers were as tired as ours. The 
 staff which I had watched on many fields for the 
 first time gave the order to retreat. But no sooner 
 were the orders for the Twelfth to fall back received 
 over the wires than communication with Grand 
 Headquarters was resumed and the pressure from 
 the Russians ceased. 
 
 The brave word followed the cautious word to 
 the end of the corps. That long line of carts and 
 coolies started out of the hills to close up with the 
 force that it fed. The order for pursuit was easily 
 given. Reaction gripping our weary force prevented 
 its accomplishment. No stimulant of Imperial am- 
 bition or clan loyalty, no ancestral faith could put 
 more strength into the legs of this army. 
 
 After the staff had held its last conference for the 
 day, General Kuroki stepped a little to one side and, 
 squatting, Japanese fashion, sat silently looking out 
 toward his lines. It was the first time that the 
 Russians had stopped him. That samurai face, 
 with its high cheek-bones and its square jaw, was 
 as enigmatical as ever. After some minutes he 
 
312 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 arose and walked rather wearily by himself down 
 the slope. He was not to receive the glory from 
 this action that he had from others; but in the 
 comparative tribute of military praise which he and 
 his corps deserved, the flanking movement across 
 the Taitse was a master-stroke of nerve and execu- 
 tion and the Yalu was a text-book manoeuvre. 
 
 Vaguely, the army comprehended that it had won 
 a victory. Definitely, it realized only that it had 
 won the right to rest. The observer, with all re- 
 strictions removed, on the morning of the 4th hur- 
 ried to Hayentai through the paths in the kowliang 
 that the ammunition ponies had made. Mounds of 
 earth with ideograph posts surmounting them did 
 not cover all the Japanese that had fallen in the 
 fight for the "little hill." Many more were being 
 burned on the Japanese side of the slope. 
 
 On the Russian side, the Russian dead were being 
 dragged to trenches. Looking west from the sum- 
 mit, Hayentai descends to level fields, which, a 
 little to the right, are cut by a sunken path that 
 carries away the heavy rains of summer. This had 
 given the Russians cover for their assault. This 
 had called to them in their panic, when the Japanese 
 forced them to flee. Here the faces of the dead were 
 upturned like the faces of passengers coming up a 
 
KUROPATKIN RETREATS 313 
 
 gangway and looking aloft to the people on the next 
 deck. 
 
 As a hog roots up the turf for nuts, so the Japan- 
 ese common shells had ploughed the earth. Brass 
 cartridge-cases, shrapnel bullets, bits of "first-aid" 
 bandages and bits of Russian brown bread and 
 buttons and clothing overspread the position. In 
 a pile was such of the harvest of victory as was 
 worth collecting. Russian and Japanese pannikins, 
 punctured by rifle-fire and torn by shrapnel, and 
 Russian and Japanese caps, slashed by bayonets, 
 were thrown together. 
 
 I picked up a number of cartridges which bullets 
 had struck. There was a bayonet that a bullet had 
 bent into a triangle; there were rifle butts that 
 had been shattered by shells into kindling wood. 
 The most pathetic of all were the little blue-bound 
 books which every Russian soldier carries. In these 
 are entered his name, the time of his enlistment and 
 other facts for identification. On more than one the 
 last entry was made by a bullet and the ink it used 
 was blood. The four drums were, in a sense, pa- 
 thetic, too. Their heads were in ribbons. 
 
 In this age of high organization, some oflicers 
 who sit in routine facing rows of pigeon-holes will 
 tell you that war is entirely made with brains nowa- 
 
314 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 days. All such should have seen Hayentai. There 
 they would have learned that the taking of criti- 
 cal points which are essential to academic plans 
 still depends upon brute butchery or brute courage. 
 The visitor would have slipped in blood instead of 
 dew. Like round figures on a carpet, the clots 
 were set off on the earth where the grass was matted 
 and worn away by struggle. It needed mincing 
 steps to touch every one it you walked in a straight 
 line. In a dozen places I saw red paths where 
 wounded men had dragged themselves away into the 
 kowliang. Following one of these, I came to the 
 coagulation which told the story of the death agony. 
 
 The marvellous thing was that, at one period of the 
 struggle, if a wounded man could only take himself 
 ten feet to the rear, he was safe. Where the rounding 
 crest dipped on either side, twenty feet apart, for a 
 time the Russian and the Japanese lines had lain in 
 the dark firing at the flashes of each others' rifles. 
 Slipping down the hillside, with the bullets whistling 
 overhead like a gale through the rigging, you were 
 as much out of the danger zone temporarily as if you 
 had been in Mukden. The positions were clearly 
 marked by the systematic arrangement of the blood- 
 clots. 
 
 Was not there ugly work? Was quarter always 
 
KUROPATKIN RETREATS 315 
 
 given? I have been asked. My answer is that all 
 was ugly work. Any one who does not palliate it, 
 in order to be consistent, must let a burglar in his 
 own house shoot at him without firing in response. 
 In such a situation, soldiers are not waiting on injunc- 
 tions from a court to restrain the enemy's violence. 
 Their articulations become less like human speech 
 than like savage cries. They are the ghosts of the 
 individuals who line up on parade; ghosts trying 
 to fight their way out of hell. The big man thrust 
 at every little man, and the little man thrust at 
 every big man; and the big man used his bayonet 
 in powerful lunges as the bull does his horns; the 
 little man as a panther uses his claws. The Japanese 
 officers, disregarding the sword of Europe — that de- 
 cadent product of social functions — carried their 
 samurai blades, which are made for killing. 
 
 When I visited the military school in Tokio in 
 1 901, as I watched the cadets fencing according to 
 Japanese fashion, I remarked: "That must be splen- 
 did training for the eye, and grand exercise." 
 
 "And extremely useful," an officer replied. 
 
 It was about this time that Herr Bloch got his 
 name frequently printed in all the papers on account 
 of his book, which held that modern arms of precision 
 would not allow armies to approach each other. 
 
3i6 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 And Hayentai and Chusan were only three years 
 away. 
 
 The prostrate man might still be living, and he 
 might still reach the bowels of an adversary with a 
 thrust. Discrimination might be as fatal to yourself 
 as throwing your oar overboard in a rapid. Men 
 were shot into eternity and slashed into eternity; 
 perhaps some were scared into eternity. But these 
 were not the veterans. I spoke with one of the vet- 
 erans, a Sendai man. 
 
 ^^You want to use your bayonet with your arms, 
 not your body." (He spoke as a cook would say: 
 "The whites of two eggs well beaten," etc.) "The 
 Russky uses his bayonet with his body. He sticks 
 his head down and rushes at you. If he catches 
 you, you are spitted for good. He is such a big 
 fellow that he lifts you fairly off your feet. If you 
 are quick on your legs, though, you can step to one 
 side, and then you have him ; the only way with little 
 men with short arms is to get in close. 
 
 "The first time I went into a night attack I kept 
 thinking of all that my officer told me. I felt like 
 I did when I went in as a recruit, and the surgeon 
 felt me all over." 
 
 "Stage fright," I suggested. 
 
 But a country boy from Sendai, though he had 
 
KUROPATKIN RETREATS 317 
 
 studied his English primer well, and tried to improve 
 himself so as to rise in the world, did not understand 
 that. At least, I did not think he did, by the opera- 
 tion of his Japanese smile. 
 
 "The first time I struck a Russian I could feel 
 ray bayonet grate on his bone," he went on. "I 
 did not think of it at the time, but when I thought 
 of it afterward it seemed very awful. I had seen 
 him coming like a big black shadow, and I had just 
 time to dodge, and I felt his bayonet go by my 
 cheek like a razor does over your face. I pulled my 
 bayonet out and sunk it in his neck before he had 
 time to strike me. If I had not killed him he would 
 have killed me. It is that way always. Night be- 
 fore last, I " 
 
 He told me many other things, this intelligent 
 private. Among them was how it happened that 
 frequently he forgot to fire when firing would have 
 been much wiser. Many who have died from bay- 
 onet thrusts have had cartridges still in their rifle 
 chambers. When a man comes to close quarters he 
 seems instinctively to grapple. He reverts from sci- 
 ence to nature, and nature's method. 
 
XXV 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 Within sight of the horrors of Hayentai I saw a 
 picture of perfect happiness and sanitary peace. It 
 was a Japanese soldier having his first bath for two 
 weeks. His head just showed above a big Chinese 
 earthen jar, filled with water hotter than any Euro- 
 pean could bear. His clothes were hung on some 
 poles nearby to dry. It was no polite Japanese 
 smile, but a boyish, gloating, open, guileless smile 
 that overspread his face. With many of his com- 
 rades of the Second Division, he had eaten his rice 
 unboiled when fires in sight of the enemy were pro- 
 hibited. After he was clean he was to have just as 
 good a dinner as he would have at his home in Sendai. 
 Though the Emperor works his troops hard, though 
 he can afford to pay them little, he feeds them well. 
 
 When the army had slept, it straightened out its 
 
 stiff limbs and rubbed its eyes. Had this orgy of 
 
 continuous fighting over the hills under the hot sun 
 
 actually taken place or had we dreamed it? In 
 
 proof of the reality, there was the old pagoda tower 
 
 318 
 
AFTERMATH 319 
 
 of Liaoyang cutting the blue sky in one direction, 
 while the range through which we had passed was 
 banked against it in another. We were on the plain 
 at last. The plain had been our goal. Now that 
 we had it we were beginning to appreciate its mean- 
 ing. Already Kuroki's men might well wish that 
 they were back again in camp in the mountains, 
 where there were springs and clear streams. Here 
 the drainage of the villages lay foul on the levels; 
 the only water was from tainted native wells. That 
 chill even now noticeable at night was a harbinger 
 of the cold northern winter, when frost would kill 
 many of the germ.s which had flourished in summer. 
 But another summer was coming, and the soldiers 
 who survived must fight that summer through on 
 these monotonous levels which, with the concentra- 
 tion of two vast forces, may breed pestilences more 
 deadly than shrapnel and bullets. 
 
 After the long and deep sleep came washing day 
 and cleaning day. Rifle barrels as well as yellow 
 faces shone again. The weary gunners stripped the 
 mud from the gun wheels and groomed their pet 
 pieces of steel. Oflicers examined the rifling to see 
 how much it had been worn ; drivers examined 
 the galls on their horses to see how serious they 
 were ; infantrymen found coats and trousers torn 
 
320 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and brought forth their needles. In fact, the whole 
 army took account of itself, looking in the mirror 
 questioningly, as a man does after a long debauch. 
 The stragglers who had fallen in their tracks came 
 wearily in. They had your deepest sympathy; for 
 they seemed to feel as if they had done a most shame- 
 ful thing. I did not notice one who had lost any of 
 his kit. In such a test of endurance the surgeon's 
 certificate that passes a recruit is little more than 
 superficial. The quality of endurance is born in 
 some men and not in others. No physical exam- 
 ination can identify its possessors. That soldier who 
 smiled from his bath (already fit for battle and 
 march) looked no stronger than those who had fallen 
 on the road. When I asked him what he thought 
 of the battle he said: '^They were a little obstinate 
 this time, but they had to go." He had never known 
 defeat, this little man; he had never been the one 
 who was driven; rather, he was the one who did the 
 driving. 
 
 After the cleaning and the washing, Nippon 
 Denji walked over the positions which he had won, 
 satisfying his simple curiosity as he would at the 
 booths of a fair. He identified the place where his 
 comrade had fallen; he placed a sprig of green on 
 his comrade's grave; then he wrote all about it to 
 
AFTERMATH 321 
 
 the folks at home. Then he took another bath and 
 slept again. I think that he wondered himself how 
 it was that he should be out of the sound of bullets 
 and shell-fire. For nothing was so impressive after 
 the battle as the silence of that great plain. Your 
 mind and your body, as well as your ears, had the 
 feeling which anyone will recognize who has been for 
 four or five days continuously on a train and finds 
 himself in a quiet room in a country house for a 
 night's rest. 
 
 From a point as far north as Yentai, and as far 
 south as Chusan, over all the space of fifteen miles 
 or more in breadth where the battle had raged, was the 
 quiet of a ballroom the morning after the ball. It 
 was the peace of exhaustion. The one hundred and 
 fifty thousand soldiers who had strained nerve and 
 muscle and used the most powerful implements of 
 destruction which mechanics and science have de- 
 vised for the slaughter of an army set against them, 
 were presently as far from thoughts of killing as 
 their mothers and sweethearts at home. Not one 
 out of five of them would see the provincial capital 
 that had given the battle its name and puzzled the 
 tongues of the world to pronounce. The First Army 
 was already on the other side of the Taitse, with 
 their faces turned northward. The left wing of the 
 
322 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Fourth Army and the right wing of the Second Army 
 were in occupation of Liaoyang. 
 
 Riding in from Kuroki's headquarters on the 
 morning of the 6th, I found the engineers already 
 bridging the river opposite the native city, which is 
 a typical Manchurian town. It stands to the east 
 of the old pagoda tower which is at the edge of 
 the Russian settlement. Its massive walls had been 
 breached in places by the Russians to facilitate their 
 retreat. The native population paid dearly in cas- 
 ualties for the municipal distinction of having two 
 unwelcome hosts quarrel in its suburbs. As the 
 Russian rearguard fought its way out, bullets and 
 shells did not discriminate between neutral and bel- 
 ligerent. Over a thousand Chinese were killed and 
 wounded. They were killed and wounded with- 
 out gain. That is the sad thing from the Chinese 
 point of view. Death they do not mind if it pays. 
 Their luck throughout the war hitherto had become 
 proverbial with both armies. No one knows quicker 
 which way the battle is going. On the afternoon of 
 the 3d, when the reinforcements from Mukden began 
 to press Kuroki's flank, we saw the Chinese who had 
 returned to their houses moving back over the hills 
 again. Frequently we have seen coolies nonchalantly 
 take risks in order to collect the shells and cartridge 
 
AFTERMATH 323 
 
 cases for their brass; but not until we were in Liao- 
 yang did I see a Chinese who had been injured by 
 the fire of either side. 
 
 If you trusted entirely to your eyes, you would 
 have thought that the people of Liaoyang were as 
 loyal to the Emperor of Japan as those of Tokio. 
 There was not a house without a Japanese flag. 
 Perhaps there will not be one without a Russian flag 
 if the Russians return. However pro- Japanese the 
 country folk are, the townspeople are too shrewd to 
 commit themselves. I can imagine the sleek mer- 
 chant having the alternative always up his sleeve to 
 fling to the breeze in front of his shop while he bars 
 the door. The Chinese of the worthless type set out 
 to loot their own town; but the new masters made 
 short work of these gentry. They strung up a few by 
 their pigtails in the street. The Japanese army is too 
 exacting a machine to be easy-going in anything. 
 With thievery it is wholly impatient. Petty larceny 
 has become quite out of fashion along the routes of 
 march of all three armies. 
 
 Little effect of fire was visible within the walls 
 themselves. Many of the Chinese casualties occurred 
 in the suburbs. Within forty-eight hours, when a 
 battalion of the Fourth Army had settled into occu- 
 pation, while the Chinese police gtill napped on th§ 
 
324 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 street corners, there was a Japanese sentry at every 
 gate and a few of them patrolling the streets, where 
 every shop was open and the people were going and 
 coming as usual about their business. I spoke with 
 one Chinese merchant and asked him what he thought 
 was the main difference between the Russians and the 
 Japanese. 
 
 ''The Japanese are very quiet and the Russians are 
 very gay," he said. 
 
 That, indeed, outside of size and color, is the es- 
 sentially superficial contrast between the army that 
 had gone and the army that had come. One who 
 knew his Russia and the ways of Russian officers 
 felt this most of all when he went among the ruins 
 of the Russian quarter, where, for a week after our 
 arrival, the smoke from the burning piles of grain 
 which had been deserted made a haze around the base 
 of the pagoda tower. 
 
 The famous railroad station was a wreck from fire 
 and shells. Its restaurant had been the meeting- 
 point of Russian officers for many months. Enough 
 vodka and champagne had been drunk within its 
 walls to ruin any army except the Russian. Kuro- 
 patkin, his own inspector-general and scout, I was 
 told, had caused the posting of a notice here that no 
 officer was to stop except he was leaving or waiting 
 
AFTERMATH 325 
 
 for a train or had business to transact. The big- 
 roomed houses with their bare walls were as char- 
 acteristic of a big people, first of all, as little rooms 
 with decorations were characteristic of those who had 
 come in place of the old masters. All the buildings 
 seemed solidly made; everything about the Russian 
 quarter gave the lie to Russian treaty promises. 
 Their big stoves spoke of genial warmth in mid- 
 winter, while the samovar hissed on the table and 
 the piles of cigarette ends rose around the tea glasses 
 like the parapet of an earthwork. 
 
 There was a modernity in the Russian quarter in 
 contrast to the Chinese quarter that could not be 
 resisted. These houses, as well as the railway and 
 the sidings, belonged to our world. They stood for 
 progress in China — progress which ended at the door- 
 steps. The streets of this plot of Europe set down 
 in the Orient told the story of people who were accus- 
 tomed to walk. There was no paving and no flags. 
 Mud was knee-deep. 
 
 It was only a few nights before that drunken song 
 had risen from the beer garden. The garden be- 
 longed to a Greek, I was told. On the nights of 
 August 30th and 31st, when the Japanese infantry 
 were creeping closer and closer and with sleepless 
 acumen were watching for a break in the Russian 
 
326 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 lines, many Russian officers, it is said, returned to 
 Liaoyang and drank, and hugged and kissed one 
 another, and then rode back at dawn. On the 
 second morning they found their Hne broken. The 
 Greeks and the Armenians and the women and all 
 the paraphernalia of mediceval existence had passed 
 on up the railroad toward Harbin; while the only 
 camp followers that the new army had, exclusive of 
 the regularly appointed canteen men (who sell beer 
 but not sake), were the attaches and the foreign 
 correspondents. While the enemy's rearguard was 
 making for the bridges, Russian soldiers, who had 
 remained to loot the wineshops of the Russian quar- 
 ter, fell back before the Japanese advance in drunken 
 panic, firing wildly. On the morning of the 6th, 
 Chinese were still dragging their bodies out of the 
 moat for burial. 
 
 The pattern army of programmes settled into its 
 new position as quietly as an army of church deacons, 
 decorated with a Japanese smile. In the house 
 where the Grand Duke Boris had lived during his 
 short and stagey career at Liaoyang, before Kuro- 
 patkin sent him and the girls back to Russia, a flag 
 and a sentry informed the passer-by of the presence of 
 Oyama and his staff. Here I met General Fukushi- 
 ma, whom I had first known on the China campaign. 
 
AFTERMATH 327 
 
 We had a chat and a glass of Russian claret together. 
 Tanaka, the aide to Kodama and Fukushima, was 
 also there. It was he who was the buffer between 
 the correspondents and the staff in the early days in 
 Tokio — the tireless, smiling, diplomatic Tanaka — 
 now bronzed by exposure to the Manchurian sun. 
 In that time of our impatience, Fukushima had said 
 more than once: ^* Never mind; you'll see plenty of 
 fighting." I had come to tell him that I had seen 
 a skirmish, at least, and also to remind him of our 
 parting at Peking four years before after another 
 fortnight's terrible strain, when I told him that I was 
 going to Harbin with him some day. 
 
 The rooms of the adjoining buildings were full 
 of the boxes, innocent-looking little Japanese boxes, 
 which contained the records of the staff, which is 
 simply a big, movable business office, keeping ten or 
 fifteen miles behind the army. The correspondents, 
 however they may complain, saw the battle a great 
 deal better than Oyama himself. While the line was 
 engaged around Liaoyang, the minds directing the 
 army were hardly within sound of the guns. 
 
 Fukushima is one of the engineers, not one of the 
 men on the bridge. He is the second to Kodama, 
 as Kodama is to Oyama. The correspondents have 
 come under his direction, and officially he is the 
 
328 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 author of all their troubles. He is an old hand at 
 diplomacy as well as war. Since we had the glass 
 of Russian claret together I have wondered if he was 
 displeased that many correspondents hurried to the 
 cable offices in China, beyond the censor's control, 
 and sent messages to show that the Japanese had 
 suffered a moral defeat at Liaoyang. If their opin- 
 ions had anything to do with forming the conviction 
 of the Grand Dukes and Alexieff, which led to the 
 disastrous Russian effort to retake Liaoyang, with 
 the loss of fifty thousand men that followed, then 
 these correspondents had played a mighty stroke for 
 Japan. 
 
 «t^ ^^ ^^ »i* ^^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 ^^ ^» ^j^ *j* *^ r^ ^^ 
 
 I was not surprised — in an army where detail 
 filters into high places — to have him say that he had 
 heard that one of the correspondents had been lost. 
 This was ''Jimmy" Hare, who is a famous man in 
 Manchuria. I was looking for "Jimmy" myself. 
 We had campaigned together for five months. The 
 last I had seen him was on the night of the 31st. 
 ''Jimmy" is not tall. In Manchuria he has grown 
 a beard that fairly ambushes him. With a horse that 
 is sixteen hands high and an American saddle, as he 
 emerged from a field of kowliang only nice discrim- 
 ination by a Japanese skirmish line would save him. 
 
AFTERMATH 329 
 
 "I'm a photographer and I'm out here to deHver 
 the goods," he told the staff. ^'I might as well set 
 my camera up on Broadway and point it toward 
 Manchuria as to be five miles away from a fight." 
 
 When ^' Jimmy" on the night of the 31st saw that 
 our Second Division was marching across the Taitse, 
 he concluded that he did not want to get out of 
 sight of the old pagoda tower till Liaoyang fell. The 
 Fourth Army had no correspondents, and "Jimmy" 
 attached himself to the Fourth's right wing when it 
 swung in toward the town. He was the first of us 
 to enter. From the correspondents of the Second 
 Army I heard of him, but just where he was no one 
 knew. I was about to sit down to dinner when 
 Kobayashi appeared at the doorway in the twilight, 
 with his quizzical face knotted into a smile. He 
 worked his hat brim in his fingers and said: 
 
 "All right. Mr. Hare he get good place to sleep 
 and plenty to eat. Very good to have plenty to eat. 
 Four days catch nothing but eggplant and corn. 
 Kobayashi damn near starve." 
 
 "Jimmy" had landed on his feet, as usual; and 
 while a campmate was thinking of his comfort, he 
 was thinking of a campmate's. I found him in 
 the house with the French fathers, comfortable and 
 chirpy. No soldier was ever more devoted to his 
 
330 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 work than ''Jimmy" in getting to the front and ''de- 
 livering the goods." There are no decorations for 
 correspondents; but if there were, "Jimmy" should 
 receive an order of the First Class. 
 
 * * * * * :JJ * 
 
 While we had seen the artillery duel along the 
 frontal lines on August 30th and 31st, we had seen 
 next to nothing of the work of the infantry. On the 
 plain where the harvest of death had been, the Chi- 
 nese were beginning to harvest the kowliang. Follow- 
 ing the line of barb- wire entanglements, of pits, of 
 trenches, and of redoubts about Chusan, only the 
 reports of eye-witnesses could convince you that, in 
 face of modern rifle-fire, the Japanese infantry could 
 have taken them. I was with Kahn at the time that 
 I rode over the line. Kahn and Wallace, of the 
 Second Army, had taken authority in their own 
 hands and found themselves in the thick of the 
 fighting. 
 
 "But they couldn't have gone through!" I kept 
 repeating. 
 
 " But they did," he replied. "I saw them." 
 
 Facing Chusan, in the very heart of the line, was 
 a redoubt. Behind the parapet the Japanese had 
 gathered ten bushels of Russian cartridge cases. 
 These were the fruits of the fire which had been sent 
 
AFTERMATH 331 
 
 over a zone of fifteen hundred yards in front, where 
 the kowliang, except for occasional stalks as markers, 
 had been levelled to the ground. It was like advan- 
 cing over the levels of a target ground. Beyond the 
 redoubt there were barb-wire entanglements ten and 
 fifteen yards in breadth. These 'must be cut before 
 progress was possible. Next to the parapet itself 
 were twenty yards of pits from four to five feet deep, 
 each with a sharpened oak stick at the bottom. Pits 
 and entanglements extended all the way around the 
 work. 
 
 "There didn't seem much use for a redoubt here," 
 I said to Kahn, still unconvinced. "The Japanese 
 never succeeded in getting through to the side and 
 behind this position.'' 
 
 "But they did," he said. 
 
 It was the movement in flank on the left that 
 finally forced the Russians to abandon it, however. 
 That does not interfere with the fact that the Japan- 
 ese did break this line. How was it done ? By the 
 same brute courage, used with a fencer's skill, that 
 captured and recaptured Hayentai. The tactics 
 were the old advance by rushes, which the great 
 armies of Europe, contemplating wars fought on 
 such a scale as this, have never abandoned. The 
 night was the foster mother of success. In the dark- 
 
332 WITH KUROKT IN MANCHURIA 
 
 ness, with their khaki the color of the ground, 
 the Japanese crept up toward the critical point 
 in the line, intrenching as they went, while the 
 guns and the rest of the infantry gave the support 
 of their fire. A dozen men would break from the 
 Japanese trench and run as fast as they could. 
 If all or half were cut down, the time was not yet 
 ripe. 
 
 In this way, by tossing human lives forward as 
 boys toss stones on a pond to test the newly formed 
 ice for skating, possible points of approach were lo- 
 cated. The heroism of sections which had to show 
 the way was so frequent as to centre on no one group 
 the glory which all deserved. Every yard of closer 
 approach meant that the enemy could fire more 
 accurately if he kept his nerves. General Nodzu's 
 report tells us how his men lay all day unable to 
 advance a step. Such work requires the confidence 
 of a veteran who is used to seeing the enemy give way 
 before his assault. 
 
 The advance into such a position must include no 
 thought of falling back. To hug the ground for hour 
 upon hour like a man at bay and never once expose 
 yourself requires the patience of the Oriental, which 
 in the Japanese goes with an aggressive spirit. But 
 if there had been no darkness the little men could not 
 
AFTERMATH 333 
 
 have succeeded. Their lack of nerves even allowed 
 them to rest under fire; and when the mid-watches 
 found the enemy napping they cast the fortune of the 
 battle in a night attack, which the European nations 
 had abandoned because of the fear of resultant con- 
 fusion. How far the bad marksmanship of the Rus- 
 sians was responsible for these marvels which still 
 puzzle the foreign world is one of the problems of the 
 war. I am yet unconvinced that against good shots 
 — against men who do not pour out a stream of 
 fire as if quantity alone counted — and a vigilance as 
 sharp as their own, the Japanese could have succeeded. 
 If they had failed in their frontal attack their num- 
 bers were insufficient to have forced their flanking 
 movement home. 
 
 If — if! Liaoyang has left its entail of subjunc- 
 tives. (If it had not rained at Waterloo; if Meade 
 had pursued Lee after Gettysburg!) If Kuropatkin 
 could have made use of the gap in our lines ; if Orloff 
 had caught Kuroki before he crossed the Taitse. The 
 point is, after all, that the Japanese did take Liao- 
 yang. Oyama put a strategically important river 
 between him and Kuropatkin. His losses in an of- 
 fensive action, in which inferior numbers would not 
 permit him to punish the enemy by pursuit, were no 
 greater than his adversary's. Tactically, Liaoyang 
 
334 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 was the first battle which the Russians had fought 
 — leaving out of the question Stoessel's skilful and 
 admirable defence of Port Arthur — without glaring 
 tactical blunders. 
 
 Here the whole army was under the eye of its com- 
 mander-in-chief. His forces were ample, with equal 
 efiiciency, to have repulsed Oyama and crushed Ku- 
 roki. But he had not equal efficiency. Realizing 
 that he could not depend upon subordinates for this, 
 he perforce chose safe, academic methods, which he 
 applied so well that he suffered this time no humiliat- 
 ing loss of guns or organization in retreat. An ob- 
 server on the other side of the line which pressed him 
 back could not help feeling that he was the man for 
 the thankless task to which he was sent. While he 
 was educating his army and driving it to industry, 
 he had to fight a cabal of incompetents who endan- 
 gered his authority. That handicap alone has won 
 sympathy for his personality, though not for his 
 cause. 
 
 On these frontal positions there were now none of 
 the horrors which we had seen in their freshness at 
 Hayentai. The dead of both sides had been buried. 
 This great battle had again demonstrated the mercy 
 of modern arms. The soldier dies almost imme- 
 diately, or science leads him back to health. The 
 
AFTERMATH 335 
 
 wounded experience none of the suffering of the days 
 of grapeshot and large calibre rifles, when antiseptics 
 were unknown. For the sights that make you shud- 
 der you must see the mangled bodies of a railway 
 wreck. 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 
 
 It is not within the limits of twentieth century 
 altruism that forty million people, overcrowded on a 
 group of Pacific islands, should devote their blood 
 and treasure quite unselfishly toward maintaining 
 the integrity of a country which is not loyal to its 
 friends and cannot raise a finger to help itself. 
 Whenever we think of the military or the naval 
 strategy of the campaign we must bear in mind 
 Japan's political ambition. Her first thought was 
 not China but Korea; and Korea she cannot control 
 without command of the sea. 
 
 At the outbreak of the war the combined Port 
 Arthur fleet and Vladivostock squadron were equal 
 on paper to the Japanese navy. Before a land cam- 
 paign might begin, the way for the transports must 
 be clear. Yet such was Japan's confidence in her 
 arms that she had a division afloat before she had 
 fired a shot. Had the Russians shown equal temper, 
 Alexiefl would have met Togo off Sasebo and there 
 
 risked all of his men-of-war for the great stake of all 
 
 336 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 337 
 
 the territory in dispute delivered into his hands by 
 a single blow. 
 
 While five first-class battleships remained at Port 
 Arthur, they were a "fleet in being." The effort, 
 gallant as it was, to block the harbor proved futile. 
 Had it succeeded, there need have been no attempt 
 to reduce the fortification by storm. Time and a 
 siege would have done the work. The effective use 
 of mines by the Russians in the waters immediately 
 around Port Arthur became a more important factor 
 than naval experts had anticipated. As Captain 
 Mahan pointed out at the time, the torpedoing of 
 the Russian fleet off Port Arthur on February 9th 
 had a theatricalism which led the public to a false 
 conclusion. A United States senator from a sea-coast 
 State even proposed that we cease building battle- 
 ships and turn our appropriations into torpedo boats. 
 
 Though the Japanese torpedo flotilla, excellently 
 manoeuvred, caught the Russian fleet unawares, it 
 did not damage any vessel beyond repair. On the 
 other hand, three battleships have been destroyed by 
 mines. This development has been entirely in favor 
 of the defensive force. A battleship, it is true, is a 
 vast, expensive piece of mechanism which may be 
 sunk by a single charge of dynamite. But battle- 
 ships and armored cruisers control the sea; and the 
 
33^ WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 purpose of a navy is to control the sea and not to hug 
 a harbor. An armored cruiser can keep its distance 
 and, without injury to itself, batter a protected cruiser 
 to pieces. 
 
 The loss of the battleship Hatsuse meant more 
 than the loss of a dozen second-class cruisers. It 
 made thinking Japan realize upon what a small capi- 
 tal the Japanese navy was working. It was not the 
 place of Togo or of any professional man to fall into 
 the public error that whenever a Russian ship ap- 
 peared a Japanese ship could jujitsu it on the spot. 
 His position was something the same as the Ameri- 
 can board of strategy in the war with Spain when it 
 refused to allow the blockading squadron to enter 
 the harbor of Santiago, on the excellent ground that 
 a battleship might be lost, which was needless as 
 long as the Spanish squadron was penned in beyond 
 escape. 
 
 Togo had always to realize that his country was in 
 the anomalous position of controlling the sea and 
 fighting on land against a power the strength of whose 
 navy was double that of the Japanese. It was simple 
 common-sense for him, so far as possible, to catch the 
 units of the Port Arthur fleet in detail, to wear it 
 down by siege and blockade, without risk to his own 
 fighting ships, which would be preserved to meet the 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 339 
 
 Baltic fleet if it should ever reach the Far East. The 
 armored cruisers of the Vladivostock squadron and 
 the '^ fleet in being" at Port Arthur have been, so 
 far as an outside observer can ascertain, the chief 
 sources of worry in high councils in Tokio. 
 
 North of the Korean Straits Japan has by no means 
 been in actual control of the sea. The landing of 
 troops on the northeast coast of Korea for a descent 
 on Vladivostock was out of the question as long as 
 the Vladivostock squadron was at liberty. When 
 Japan lost two of her best transports under Bezo- 
 brazoff' s guns it was a warning of how slight was the 
 thread that held her ascendancy at sea. History has 
 offered us few finer examples of a commander who 
 kept the whole situation in hand, who never allowed 
 the natural fighting impulse to outrun reason, than 
 Togo, patiently watching, month after month, off 
 the Elliot Islands. Probably no navy, no militant 
 force whatsoever, has been so well trained for a 
 special purpose as his, which boldly undertook to 
 make efficiency outweigh circumstances. Should he 
 fail, every victory won and every life lost on land 
 would be fruitless. 
 
 Once its landings were effected, the work of the 
 army has been less the subject of storm and chance 
 than that of the navy. Had the Japanese sought 
 
340 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 solely an early victory over an integral force under 
 Kuropatkin, their plan of operations might have 
 been different. Here, too, there has been a striking 
 mixture of caution and self-confidence. The first 
 premise was the military occupation of Korea. This 
 — and this alone — was possible at the season when 
 war was declared. For the army's purpose April 
 would have been a much better month for the dec- 
 laration of war. But with the seventh Russian 
 battleship, the Oslyabia, on the sea, it was neces- 
 sary that hostilities should begin before her arrival. 
 Indeed, Japan's political error in not giving Russia 
 an ultimatum a year before she did seems now un- 
 questioned; for she was in a position then to have 
 kept the sea absolutely clear. 
 
 In February and March all the coast of Man- 
 churia is icebound. The landing of an army is im- 
 possible anywhere from the mouth of the Yalu to the 
 mouth of the Liao, which includes the whole sphere 
 of possible operations in Manchuria itself. These 
 two months before the harbors were open afforded 
 invaluable time for Kuropatkin to get a calm grasp 
 of the situation, organize his forces and formulate 
 plans, and time for the mobilization of all the Sibe- 
 rian reservists east of Baikal and the despatch toward 
 the frontier of detachments to resist and delay the 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 341 
 
 Japanese. Had the Russians been taken as com- 
 pletely by surprise on May ist as they were on Feb- 
 ruary 7th, it does not seem wide of the mark to con- 
 clude that by the ist of September not only would 
 Port Arthur have been in Japanese hands, but a 
 Japanese force might have reached Harbin and the 
 two idle divisions which remained in Japan through- 
 out the summer might have been before Vladivostock. 
 Those who would fight battles with torpedo boats 
 should bear in mind that the balance of power shifted 
 by a single battleship was responsible for this. 
 
 It went without saying that Seoul, the capital of 
 Korea, must be occupied in order to secure control 
 of the Korean Government. A division of fifteen 
 thousand men was fifteen times enough for this pur- 
 pose. The public was under the impression at the 
 time that the Twelfth was making a race with the 
 Russians for Ping Yang. But the Russians had at 
 no time two thousand men south of the Yalu and 
 there was no question whatsoever of a conflict. No 
 more could they have resisted a landing anywhere 
 south of the Yalu if the season had permitted it. 
 The roads were still almost impassable, thawing un- 
 der the sun by day and hardening by frost at night. 
 
 When the Twelfth reached Ping Yang it was joined 
 by the other two divisions of the First Army, which 
 
342 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 marched from Chenampo as soon as that harbor was 
 open. This made in all forty-five thousand men. 
 Two of the divisions marched two hundred and 
 twenty-five miles and one division marched two hun- 
 dred and seventy-five miles before they met the enemy 
 in anything but a skirmish which did not require the 
 strength of a battalion. The Russians brought no 
 guns into Korea. They were in no position to make 
 even a delaying action. Kuroki was in Korea with 
 a large force because the Peking Road was the only 
 possible way to reach the Yalu at the season of the 
 year. For his purpose, Manchuria had no sea-coast 
 in the months of February, March and early April. 
 Once the ice at the mouth of the Yalu broke, Antung 
 became his base. 
 
 As soon as he was in Manchuria and was proceed- 
 ing along the Peking Road toward Liaoyang, with 
 only Zassulitch's routed forces ahead of him, the 
 Japanese made their lodgment on the Liaotung. 
 This was over three months after the declaration of 
 war. Kuropatkin himself had been in the East two 
 months. He still had Alexieff on his back, but he 
 was bringing a certain amount of order out of chaos. 
 The new fortifications at Port Arthur were built as 
 the result of his and Stoessel's counsels. Port Arthur 
 was well provisioned. It had a line of semi-perma- 
 

STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 343 
 
 nent fortifications at Kinchow, stretching across the 
 neck of the peninsula from sea to sea. Not until 
 these were taken could the fortress be said to be con- 
 tained, let alone besieged, nor could any Japanese 
 force march northward without danger of attack 
 from the rear. Putting the stopper into this botde 
 was the first act of the army after it was ashore. 
 The simply wonderful rapidity with which troops 
 were disembarked, the dispositions made and the 
 batde fought were important to success in taking a 
 frontal position which seemed impregnable. 
 
 The victory of Nanshan was sufficient to have 
 turned the head of any army. It led to the splendid 
 effort to take Port Arthur by storm instead of by 
 an engineering siege. But Stoessel proved that mod- 
 ern arms made a permanent fortification safe from 
 frontal attack, as expert opinion had long before 
 concluded. Port Arthur was worthy a mighty risk. 
 Could the fond expectations of its fall in early 
 July have been fulfilled, Togo would have had no 
 difficulty in destroying the Russian fleet when it was 
 forced to a sortie, and the Third Army, with a con- 
 tinual stream of reservists filling the breaks in the 
 ranks almost as soon as made, would have sent 
 Oyama northward with two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand instead of one hundred and fifty thousand men, 
 
344 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 which wou'd have been sufficient to have forced 
 Kuropatkin back to Harbin. This would have 
 taken place not in September but early in August, 
 at least, which would have left three months in which 
 to have approached Harbin itself and waged battle 
 there. The fact was clearly demonstrated soon after 
 the battle of Nanshan that the failure of the blocking 
 attempts to close the harbor and the danger of the 
 Baltic fleet must have been compelling factors in 
 trying to take the fortress by main force. 
 
 Japan was fortunate in facing an enemy which was 
 as completely unprepared for war as any that had ever 
 risked war by its pretensions. Yet Russian interests 
 in Manchuria were purely military. There was no 
 trade except that of supp ying the garrisons. Gigan- 
 tic sums had been spent on the harbor of Dalny and 
 on the railroad. Officials came to the East for the 
 profit which lies between contractor and auditor; 
 officers came for profit or because they had not the 
 influence or the money to remain at home. Easy- 
 going over-confidence and idleness took the place of 
 efficiency, both in the army and the navy. The reign- 
 ing spirit was that of inflation, with Alexieff as pro- 
 moter. 
 
 So carelessly had the defences of the ^' impreg- 
 nable" fortress been erected that men-of-war were 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 345 
 
 able to throw shells with impunity into the town. 
 As the plunger is under the delusion that stocks will 
 keep on rising, so Alexieff was under the delusion 
 that the Japanese would not fight. In fatty incom- 
 petence he sat tight in his conviction that the little, 
 slant-eyed islanders would never dare to beard the 
 big white men. After the torpedoing of the Russian 
 fleet, if ten thousand men could have landed on the 
 Liaotung Peninsula, they probably could have taken 
 Port Arthur. At the time, Russia had not more than 
 eighty thousand troops all told in Manchuria and 
 Eastern Siberia. This was in no professional sense 
 an integral army. It was clumsy, headless, un- 
 trained; but it was brave and it had good field 
 guns. 
 
 The first premise was to hold Port Arthur at all 
 costs. Even if this had not been good policy, Alexieff, 
 who was still supreme, required it, Port Arthur being 
 his pet child. While the Japanese transports had to 
 wait on the opening of the harbors, the single line 
 railway was measurably as potential in winter as in 
 summer. Kuropatkin had to bring troops as fast 
 as he could supply them and wait on the Japanese 
 to develop their campaign. Wherever they landed 
 he must make a show of force. He sent detachments 
 into Korea to give the impression that he meant to 
 
346 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 resist General Kuroki's column before it reached 
 Wiju. His own plan, indeed, seems to have been 
 clear in his mind from the first. It provided for de- 
 laying actions without submitting his main army to 
 a decisive battle until he had superior numbers, even 
 if he had to fall back on Harbin. 
 
 Meanwhile, he had literally to ^'make" his army 
 by developing commanders and bringing line officers 
 to a sense of industry. Every day that the Japanese 
 delayed the taking of Liaoyang was precious in 
 more ways than one to him. The railway problem 
 was not merely that of bringing troops. It was easy 
 enough to put five hundred thousand men into Liao- 
 yang, the difficulty was to feed them. Dependent 
 alone upon supplies direct from Russia, he had no 
 hope of decisively resisting the Japanese south of 
 Harbin. For six months the rich valley of the Liao 
 was at his command. Newchwang was open to 
 junks from the China coast, which responded freely 
 to the argument of high prices. There was not a day 
 in all this time when one and sometimes more long 
 trains loaded with provisions did not leave New- 
 chwang. At Sinmintun, opposite Mukden, over a 
 military bridge across the Liao passed a stream of 
 carts that tapped the rich country to the westward. 
 Herds of cattle were brought from as far away as 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 347 
 
 Mongolia, I am told. Every ton meant a ton saved 
 to the railway. 
 
 In the neighborhood of Harbin itself there is less 
 produce. With the lower half of the valley of the 
 Liao and the sea connection cut off, the Russians 
 were without their main source of native supply. 
 The Japanese have lived very little off the country. 
 They have fed their army largely from home. Their 
 commissariat has worked as well as their hospital 
 service. They are cautious; they never move until 
 they are ready. Indeed, caution may be said to be 
 a dominating quality on both sides. This has been 
 a war without raids and without brilliant exploits by 
 flying detachments. That is not saying that there 
 is a lack of the spirit for such things. Japanese line 
 officers are full of initiative and suggestions. 
 
 As an army whose parts, acting with automatic 
 precision, make an efficient whole, it is questionable if 
 the Japanese has ever been equalled. It leaves no 
 loopholes of attack; it does its work completely as 
 it proceeds. Yet in equipment it is without first- 
 class field guns and without suitable horses to draw 
 them. However well trained the Japanese cavalry- 
 men are, they are heavily handicapped by their 
 mounts. The Cossacks have wholly failed to justify 
 their reputation. They made a ride through Korea 
 
348 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 to cut a line of communications which no longer ex- 
 isted and were sadly punished by the small garrison 
 at Anju. That was the limit of their exploits in 
 the first season's campaign. 
 
 Before one says that the Japanese took longer than 
 was necessary to close the port of Newchwang as a 
 source of Russian supply and to occupy Liaoyang, 
 he must understand Japanese policy; he must know 
 the plans of the General Staff. Transportation diffi- 
 culties largely hindered a more rapid advance. In 
 May Kuroki was at Feng-wang-cheng with forty- 
 five thousand troops. He could have marched to 
 Motien Pass without opposition could he have fed 
 his army. Despite Kuroki' s position, owing to 
 orders from above, Stakelberg went south to the 
 relief of Port Arthur, and met with the disaster at 
 Tehlitz, where he was outgeneralled and outfought. 
 The folly of this diversion from Kuropatkin's plan 
 at that time has been made evident by the prolonged 
 resistance of the Port Arthur garrison. If after 
 Stakelberg's rout both the First and the Second 
 Japanese armies could have moved on Liaoyang, 
 it would have been theirs almost for the marching, 
 and the southern valley of the Liao would have no 
 longer been a Russian granary. 
 
 The Japanese were limited to the highway. They 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 349 
 
 had captured plenty of rolling stock, but no locomo- 
 tives. It is said that several broad-gauge locomotives 
 (bought specially to draw this rolling stock) were 
 on a transport sunk by the Vladivostock squadron. 
 At all events, the Japanese were compelled to cut 
 down the gauge and bring locomotives from home, 
 where they were sadly needed, before they could 
 make any use of the railway. '^Why do they wait? 
 Why don't the Japanese come?" was the question 
 continually asked in Liaoyang after Tehlitz. The 
 Japanese, however, kept to their programme. They 
 sent three armies by three different roads from 
 three different bases to the common centre of Liao- 
 yang, where possibly a hundred and fifty thousand 
 men on September ist could have done the work no 
 better than a hundred thousand could have done it 
 in the middle of July. 
 
 In July, Kuropatkin became strong. His Euro- 
 pean corps were arriving. On August ist his entire 
 force was very nearly equal to the three Japanese 
 armies; on September ist, it was unquestionably 
 superior. Naturally he made each of the three 
 Japanese armies fight its way. This was done un- 
 skilfully in every instance. Hamatan was by no 
 means the last occasion when the active Japanese 
 infantry caught retreating columns in close order 
 
350 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 from the hillside. At Motien Pass the Russians made 
 one attack in reconnoissance on the Japanese and a 
 second attack in earnest to recover the pass. Recog- 
 nizing that the First Army was on their flank, they 
 gave it a great deal of hard fighting. Yet they always 
 suffered more casualties than the Japanese, and theirs 
 was the loss of morale; while the Japanese came to 
 Liaoyang with the utmost confidence. 
 
 It was in July that Kuropatkin sent his famous 
 telegram to the Czar that he was at last in a po- 
 sition where he hoped to stay our advance. But 
 he was never lulled into over-confidence. He had 
 come to know the nature of his army and also that 
 of the Japanese. His retreat from Liaoyang was 
 a masterly piece of Fabian tactics. I would par- 
 ticularly insist that it does not raise him at all to the 
 standard of another defensive general who retreated, 
 foot by foot, from the Wilderness to Appomattox. 
 There is, of course, the hypothesis that the Japanese 
 wished to hold Kuropatkin at Liaoyang and there 
 deliver him a telling blow. My inclination is to think 
 that the Japanese had never expected the rapidity 
 with which the Russians would be reinforced during 
 July and August. Their excellent intelligence ser- 
 vice could only report what its spies saw. It could 
 not ascertain the plans of the Russian staff or foresee 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 351 
 
 the Russian determination — still hoping to relieve 
 Port Arthur — to bring a vast number of men to bear 
 at a given time, regardless of permanently supplying 
 them. Those who fell in the Russian offensive 
 movement at Yentai needed no food. Here, Kuro- 
 patkin, no doubt against his will, was drawn on, 
 as Stakelberg was, with the same disastrous result. 
 The sailor was recalled while the soldier was left to 
 repair the damage he had done, and the relief of Port 
 Arthur was farther away than ever. 
 
 By working year in and year out eight hours a 
 day at his profession, the Japanese officer has set a 
 new standard by sea and land. Results have shown 
 officers of other armies who look upon their calling 
 as the leisurely occupation of gentlemen, that he 
 who leaves all to his sergeant-major and neither toils 
 nor spins will one day come to such a reckoning as 
 Hamatan. Never have hard work and skill played 
 such a part in war as to-day. Their importance is 
 a great factor for peace, for it makes the weak give 
 way without recourse to arms. There are heads of 
 nations in Europe to-day who know that the national 
 habit has afflicted their forces with the careless- 
 ness of the dilettante. The campaign in Man- 
 churia has, again, shown that it was no accident 
 but a new era which the German General Staff in- 
 
352 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 augurated in 1870 with the simple gospel of work 
 and organization. That plodding, text-book appli- 
 cation to detail of the German Army, which still 
 excites the smiles of some critics, is a force which 
 prime ministers may well gravely consider before 
 they advise war. 
 
 "If you work as hard as the Japanese, what is the 
 use of living ? You might as well sit on a stool and 
 keep accounts," a Russian officer is reported to 
 have said. But he is learning that he must work 
 if he would win victories. 
 
 In considering the caution — the thrift of strategy, 
 it might be called — of the Japanese, it must be borne 
 in mind that the loss of guns and equipment is a much 
 more serious matter to Japan than to Russia, which 
 in her vast home army has an almost inexhaustible 
 supply. While the Second Army had Port Arthur 
 behind it, there was always the hope that, Alexieff's 
 counsel prevailing, the Russians might try to fight 
 their way through, as they did try beyond Yentai, 
 with the result that the Japanese had desired. An 
 army that is thoroughly beaten in an offensive move- 
 ment gives the army on the defence, if its losses are 
 relatively slight, a great opportunity. No one knows 
 that it was the plan of the Japanese staff originally 
 to go to Harbin; and, believe me, my comment on 
 
STRATEGY AND POLITICS OF THE WAR 353 
 
 the campaign is offered with the hesitancy of one 
 who has been actually in the field. 
 
 With Port Arthur and Korea in her hands, Japan 
 will have the main selfish points of the war. They 
 furnish her a striking ground for the mightier con- 
 flict that may come in a future generation. Her 
 army at home is always literally on the flank of any 
 Russian movement in Korea. If Japan takes Har- 
 bin, she forces the Russian base back to Irkutsk. 
 Vladivostock then must fall of its own weight. Thus 
 the war will be ended by a blow. No one at all 
 familiar with the situation can, for a moment, ques- 
 tion that Russia must maintain an army of five 
 hundred thousand men in order to force Japan to 
 Kinchow and the borders of Korea. I myself, such 
 is my confidence in the Japanese, say that a million 
 is nearer the mark. 
 
 If after repeated attempts Russia fails, then from 
 sheer exhaustion on both sides peace will come. If 
 she succeeds, the line of least resistance for her by 
 which she can re-establish her prestige in the East, 
 is to swing in flank upon Peking, while Germany 
 at Kiauchou and France in southern China will 
 not say her nay. England and America cannot run 
 their battleships over the plains of Chih-li. The 
 limit of their power is the range of their naval guns, 
 
354 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 unless they land troops. Port Arthur with her harbor 
 open to reinforcements and supplies is an impreg- 
 nable fortress. Russia cannot take Port Arthur or 
 Korea with Japan in command of the sea. If Eng- 
 land and the United States are so far negligent of 
 their selfish interests as ever to permit Japan to lose 
 command of the sea, England will no longer be a 
 power in the Far East and the United States might 
 as well cede her Pacific coast to Mexico so far as 
 trade or influence on the eastern shores of the Pacific 
 are concerned. Russia's pride is bitten deep. She 
 will have no honest truce with the Anglo-Saxons now. 
 Our course is clear. 
 
XXVII 
 
 SAYONARA 
 
 When I left Liaoyang on September loth, no one 
 thought that an enemy which had been driven out of 
 a strong defensive position v^ould be ordered, on the 
 advice of a sailor, to play into Japanese hands by 
 throwing itself on the bayonets of its victorious foe, 
 in the desperate movement which cost the Russians 
 fifty thousand casualties between Yentai and the 
 Sha River. The first stage of the war seemed at 
 an end. With five months of campaigning behind 
 me, on the back of my good pinto pony I said say- 
 onara (farewell) to the staff of the First Army and 
 started for Newchwang. 
 
 The railway as far as Tashikao, though intact, was 
 without traffic as yet, while along the highway the 
 native carts passed in sluggish current. The stations 
 were occupied by the transport corps; the plat- 
 forms were piled with Japanese stores. In the land 
 of the Chinese, who looked on and had nothing at 
 all to say about it, the little men had driven the big 
 men out of their new buildings and made themselves 
 
 355 
 
356 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 perfectly at home. To the artistic eye of the little 
 men, the untilled. bare yards of the Russian settle- 
 ments stood for utter barbarity. It made them 
 realize how beautiful their homeland is. The Rus- 
 sian is as strange to the Japanese as the Japanese is 
 to the Russian, but not quite as strange as both are 
 to the Chinese. 
 
 From Tashikaoto New chwang the Japanese cool- 
 ies were busy changing the gauge of the railway. 
 With the Russians, this is above the standard; with 
 the Japanese, it is below. When you have set one 
 rail over so that it is only three feet six inches instead 
 of five feet from the other and you cut off the end 
 of the ties, there is no need of ripping up the road 
 if you have to retreat, for the Russians themselves 
 will have to do that before they can lay new ties. 
 There are advantages in being small and in living 
 in little islands, where you economize in land for 
 the sake of your garden plots. 
 
 At Newchwang — well, at Newchwang is Henry 
 R. Miller. The last Americans I had seen were 
 the good missionaries at Ping Yang and the next was 
 the good consul at Newchwang. In troublous times, 
 with Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, influences at 
 work. Miller has held the course of wisdom without 
 offence to racial prejudices and time on time has 
 
SAYONARA 357 
 
 gained his point. This, I beheve, is diplomatic suc- 
 cess. I hope that the President and the Secretary 
 of State will read these lines, if for no other reason 
 than that they will realize the earnestness of a citizen 
 who has seen many bad consuls in singing the praise 
 of one good one. Your national pride suffers some 
 severe shocks when you meet some of the men (and 
 hear of their doings) who live under the flag in China 
 coast ports. 
 
 Newchwang is not a pleasant place to live. It 
 is a Chinese town on the soft earth bank of a muddy 
 river, where the foreigners have no concession and 
 their houses stand among those of the natives, and 
 life is bearable only because of good fellowship and 
 grouse-shooting on the marshes. Here, as elsewhere, 
 the Russians, at the railway terminal, which is a half 
 mile away from the town, gave an earnest of their 
 intention to evacuate Manchuria by many permanent 
 buildings, which the Japanese now occupy as land- 
 ing depots. Newchwang has been too near the front 
 to be as prolific of rumors as Chefoo, but she has 
 given the world enough fakes, recorded and unre- 
 corded, to fill many morning editions. On the other 
 side of the river the correspondent is in neutral 
 territory, where he may send as many cables as he 
 pleases. 
 
358 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 In the early days of parlous uncertainty, when 
 Alexieff was master one day and Kuropatkin the 
 next, the Russians dragged siege guns through New- 
 chwang and then dragged them back; they concluded 
 to resist a landing and then concluded they would not. 
 When the Second Army took Tashikao, the port's 
 fate was sealed. A few hours after the Russians de- 
 parted, a Japanese non-commissioned officer with 
 some troopers rode through the streets, and found 
 himself a hero among the English and American 
 residents. Newchwang immediately became one of 
 the bases. Every incoming transport brings its quota 
 of reservists in their fresh winter jackets, which 
 seemed stagey and unreal to one who had just come 
 from a veteran army clad in stained khaki. 
 
 I returned to Japan on such a ship as I went to 
 Korea, an inter-island steamer now in the service of 
 the government. That four days' voyage spanned 
 as sharp a contrast as any in the world. From the 
 train window in the rail journey northward from 
 Shimonoseki I looked out upon the year's rice crop 
 ripening; upon a land cultivated to the doorways 
 and to the hilltops, when the hilltops were not growing 
 pine or bamboo. Again in touch with your familiar 
 Japan, you felt more than ever the Japanese point 
 of view in the struggle of these overcrowded islands 
 
SAYONARA 359 
 
 against a country that has more land than she can 
 develop for a thousand years. Working in the fields 
 were men in kimonos and getas who to-morrow might 
 step into blouse and boots and march away to battle. 
 Productive industry — for no Japanese ever seems 
 idle — came as a relief after the purely destructive 
 processes of war. Over the straw-thatched cottages 
 whose shiny mats you saw through nearby windows, 
 floated the Sun Goddess's flag. Every local resident 
 knew which cottage had sent a son to Manchuria; 
 which had had a son die there. On the down track 
 were train-loads of reservists, eager and happy. On 
 the up track were trains with the wounded, out of 
 blouses and boots into wool cloaks and sandals. At 
 certain stations volunteer nurses administered to the 
 comfort of the heroes with the affection of their pa- 
 triotism. No newcomer would have thought that 
 these gentle, soft-spoken women could bear a race of 
 Spartan courage and hardihood. 
 
 Outside of the flags, which are up until the war 
 ends, and the coming of the wounded and the going 
 of fresh troops, you saw the Japan of peace time. 
 Only three hundred thousand men, out of a popula- 
 tion of forty-five million (with five hundred thousand 
 excess of births over deaths), had been withdrawn 
 from industry. The others were busy in workshop 
 
360 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 and farm or going to school. In Tokio all the new 
 tram lines were running; the building across from the 
 Imperial Hotel was completed; the foundations of 
 others had been laid since my departure in April. 
 The increased taxes were being paid without com- 
 plaint by the well-to-do and the poor alike. No- 
 where did I see signs of reaction. Still the nation 
 smiled; still it did not gesticulate. This people had 
 not entered upon war from impulse. War had 
 meant no plaything of popular passion of which they 
 might tire. They knew from the beginning that it 
 was to be the work of more than one summer. 
 
 The cost is great. That was expected ; that is a 
 part of the risk. Japan is poor. A brigadier-general 
 gets scarcely the pay of a first-class clerk at home. 
 In all the islands the army does not possess a single 
 building as costly or as imposing as a State armory 
 which I pass frequently on Fourteenth Street. The 
 limitations of its purse may well teach the staff the 
 value of the great wealth of an England or an America 
 in buying guns and equipment and supplies. This 
 war is fought on flesh and blood and self-denial and 
 skill. But in a land that feeds its own troops largely, 
 when confidence is supreme, funds must be forth- 
 coming. 
 
 Ordinarily, the mortgage on the customs for a for- 
 
SAYONARA 361 
 
 eign loan would have sent a cabinet flying out of 
 office. Now the necessity is resignedly accepted by 
 this proud people. The days of peace when the 
 genius of the nation shall turn to the development 
 of Korea will bring the prosperity which will be a 
 lasting memorial to those who fell. Then the 
 parliament will again have fervid debates and pub- 
 lic discussion will resume its old place. For this 
 is a land of constitutionalism; a land in which you 
 may travel without a passport; in the streets of 
 whose towns a woman is safe at night. If Japan has 
 brought any message to the world, it is that a consti- 
 tutional government kept clean by criticism, which 
 centres authority in a crisis, is a better war machine 
 than an autocracy kept foul by suppression, which is 
 of many minds in a crisis. 
 
 Though Japan wins, Russia must win also, if there 
 be in her people the strength and the somnolent prog- 
 ress with which they are credited. She needed a war 
 to open the festers of official corruption and incom- 
 petency; to lift up the Kuropatkins and dismiss the 
 Alexieffs; to bring out the heroism of her priests at 
 Hamatan and change the customs and ideals of her 
 line officers ; and to lay the foundation for those popu- 
 lar prerogatives which are the test of a modern civ- 
 ilized State. Medicine will not always do; war is the 
 
362 WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA 
 
 surgeon that performs major operations. Those who 
 shout loudest for universal peace may be promot- 
 ing a form of death that is far worse than any form 
 you will see in Manchuria. 
 
 As our steamer passed out of Yokohama harbor, 
 many lights twinkled on the water. It was the night 
 of a bon matsuri — a festival for the dead. Tiny 
 boats bearing food for the departed were being set 
 adrift on the floodtide. Some of these must travel 
 far: to Togo's fleet, to the fortresses around Port 
 Arthur, to the armies of Kuroki, Oku, and Nodzu. 
 If the givers could follow their gifts they would find 
 that their beloved dead had fallen in a manner 
 worthy of a people who mask their sacrifices with a 
 smile. 
 
By FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 j'jtk Thousand 
 
 THE VAGABOND 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher 
 i2mo, $1.50 
 
 " It is an ample story, containing many pictures 
 deliberately drawn. The vagabond was a loyal 
 and strong character, and it is interesting to read 
 about him. Love, plot, and the strenuous work of 
 glory — these are here, not in too tremendous fash- 
 ion, as the case sometimes is with our war stories, 
 but in a fashion reasonable and controlled. The 
 reader will like it." — The New York Sun, 
 
 '' There is a new ring in ' The Vagabond.' It 
 gets away from the ordinary type. It is-out of the 
 common, above mediocre, very well worth while. 
 Again — the best criticism of it is the advice — read 
 it." — The 'Journal^ Indianapolis^ Ind, 
 
 " Peculiarly fresh and invigorating." 
 
 — Liverpool {Eng,) Mercury. 
 
 " The ' vagabond ' hero is a very engaging youth 
 in all the stages of his career ; his straightforward 
 ingenuousness makes friends for him both within 
 and without the book, and serves him far better 
 than either subtlety or craft would have done." 
 
 — The Dial, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK 
 
By FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 THE VAGABOND 
 
 Illustrated. i2mo. $1.50 
 
 " The story, as a whole, is invigorating, clean, 
 and taintless as the mountain air for which its hero 
 longs." — The Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " American writers are too often inclined to 
 caricature their fellow countrymen. Mr. Palmer 
 is contented to exhibit them as they are." 
 
 — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " It is a book that will live; whose success will 
 depend on nothing else than its merit ; whose good 
 quaHties will be told enthusiastically from friend to 
 friend." — Philadelphia Evening Telegram. 
 
 '"The Vagabond' is typical of all that is best 
 in the best American." 
 
 — Manchester (^Eng.^ Guardian. 
 
 " A good story from start to finish, with vitality, 
 vigor, and action enough for three books of the 
 average type." — Louisville Courier-'Journal. 
 
 " Revives the flagging interest of the jaded 
 reader and convinces him that there are yet stories 
 worth reading in the world." 
 
 — Gazette^ Birmingham. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK 
 
By FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 'jth Thousand 
 
 THE WAYS OF THE 
 SERVICE 
 
 Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy 
 i2mo, $1.50 
 
 " Almost am I persuaded you, too, must be a 
 regular — so accurate is every detail. I have read 
 and reread it- — and sent it to others who read — 
 and the verdict is the same. It's the best yet." 
 
 — General Charles King, 
 
 *' Mr. Palmer has made a volume of such read- 
 able stories that no one who opens it will leave it 
 unfinished." — The Nation. 
 
 " We do not hesitate to say that ' The Ways 
 of the Service ' is the best book of American war 
 stories written in late years." — Boston 'Journal. 
 
 " A book to entertain and to delight ; a book 
 that will be found to be of absorbing interest and 
 no little beauty." — Louisville Times. 
 
 " Eight exceptionally bright, strong, entertaining 
 stories. The author gives a lifelike description 
 of the beings and doings of certain cliques in our 
 armv and navy in the Far East." 
 
 — Philadelphia Telegraph. 
 
By FREDERICK PALMER 
 
 IN THE KLONDYKE 
 
 INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF A 
 WINTER'S JOURNEY TO DAWSON 
 
 With many Illustrations 
 i2mo, $1.50 
 
 *' Mr. Palmer has made a sensible and interest- 
 ing book. His pictures of life on the trail, at 
 Dawson, and in the diggings are obviously true to 
 reality and infused with local color. His story in- 
 dicates the possession of the sense of humor, pa- 
 tience, and persistence which go far toward the 
 making of a good comrade and successful traveler 
 on any trail." — The Nation. 
 
 " It holds lively pages and gives a rough-and- 
 ready idea of how the pioneers in the northern gold 
 fields lived and worked and enjoyed." 
 
 — Chicago Evening Post, 
 
 " An exceedingly entertaining volume." 
 
 — Boston Advertiser, 
 
 " The book has all the attractive qualities of a 
 novel of adventure." — The Outlook. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK 
 
 C 116 
 

 
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