^i^-m - ■■'■A* J...^!^ ■ '. 3rv . -^ ;is--i *>'!?«!" -^i*,,'J,Sf « ASIA (50tncU Hmocraitg ffithrarg 3ltt;ara, ^tta $nck CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library DS 517.M15 From Tpkyo.to Jif!is,:unceng^^^^^ '■ 1924 023 037 330 ll rT From Tokyo to Tiflis % 3 /r~ Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023037330 ~i ^-f- Bring up the guns ! " \Frojiiispiecc. FROM Tokyo to Tiflis UNCENSORED LETTERS FROM THE WAR BY FREDERICK ARTHUR McKENZIE Special Correspondent of " The Daily Mail " LONDON HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD. 182, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C. 1905 All rig-Ail reserved PREFACE. This is a volume of uncensored letters, covering my ex- periences of the Russo-Japanese War and of the situation in Russia and in the Far East from January, 1904, until April, 1905. It is the duty of the war correspondent not to betray any military secrets that may come under his notice. In that respect — but in that respect alone — I feel myself as much bound in honour as though a Japanese censor were perusing these pages before they go through to the printers. Apart from that I am free. The armies which permit correspondents to accompany them invite criticism on their administration, methods, and results. The very fact that the people of Russia now regard England with deep disfavour and that English sympathy is so largely with Japan has made me the more careful to do full justice to the Russian position, and to the splendid courage of the Russian soldiers in the war. He would be ungenerous indeed who used the hour of the deep humiliation of a great nation as a suitable time for sneering and contempt. No man can write frankly of recent Russian movements without finding much to condemn. I have sought to word unfavourable criticism in the least oifensive fashion. vi PREFACE. A word of excuse, in advance, to my literary critics. This volume has been written under campaign conditions. Some of the chapters were recorded on battle fields, others amid the scarcely less distracting conditions of public riot and massacre. Several parts were toiled over when encamped in a Manchurian burying ground ; two or three were typed out when isolated in a lonely Korean hut; while others have been revised in Continental express trains. The necessary limitations of a travelling correspondent's life forbid the leisured phrasing and elaborate literary artifice which some may consider my subject demands. I can only offer the actuality of twentieth century war. F. A. Mckenzie. Tiflis, Trans- Caucasia. CONTENTS CHAP. I. — Japan before the War II. — First Glimpses of Korea . III. — The City of Strife . IV. — The Tyrant of Korea V. — The Coming of the Japanese VI. — The Au Revoir of M. Pavloff VII — Due North .... VIII. — With the Vanguard of the Japanese Army IX. — The Delights of Korean Travel X. — Pingyang XI. — The Way of Desolation . XII. — On the Banks of the Yalu XIII. — The Battle of the Yalu . XIV. — ^After the Battle XV. — Manchuria .... XVI. — Campaigning in Summer Time . XVII. — The Second attack on Motienling XVIII. — The Battle of Chia-a-tzu XIX. — The Russian Magersfontein XX. — The Battle of Tensuitien XXI. — ^The Respite of Russia XXII. — The Advance on Liaoyang XXIII. — The March of Death PAGE I i6 22 39 56 63 75 85 95 113 131 143 152 160 167 190 200 209 217 227 236 244 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAP. PASS XXIV. — The Capture of Liaoyang . . . .252 XXV. — Battle Pictures 259 XXVI.— War Makers and War Writers . . . 269 XXVII. — The Lesson of Newchw.\ng . . . .281 XXVIII. — The Heel of Achilles 285 XXIX. — How Russia treats Rioters .... 298 XXX. — The Revolt in the Caucasus .... 306 XXXI. — Will there be a Russian Revolution? . -317 XXXII. — A Japanese Triumph — and After . . . 328 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. " Bring up the guns ! " Infantry under shelter in the trenches . "Charge!" Russian town labourer Russian in winter dress ..... One of my Chinese boys ..... General Kuroki and staff holding a council of war in a Manchurian village .... Correspondents on an abandoned Russian military road . Japanese' soldiers erecting temporary bridge. Japanese iield telegraph at work during a battle . Japanese field artillery The city wall. Fengfangcheng .... Japanese soldier presenting an oifering of food for the spirits of the dead at official Shinto me- morial service. Fengfangcheng General Nishi, Commander of the Second Division, watching the battle of Motienling . Japanese infantry resting on the march Frontispietc Facing page I I 24 64 76 94 94 112 112 128 152 166 190 190 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Forsaken Russian trench^ showing shrapnel left behind at Towan Facing page 208 Overturned Russian gun at Towan . . . „ „ 208 Manchurian temple with Japanese transport soldiers outside ......„„ 236 Japanese soldiers resting during battle at mid-day under shadow of a temple after fighting since dawn ,1 ,. 236 Map of Russian movements — Liaoyang . . „ ,, 236 An outer entrenchment at Liaoyang after capture by the Japanese » » 246 The great railway bridge at Liaoyang partly destroyed by the Russians . . . . „ ,, 246 Russian defence works at front of Liaoyang. . „ ,, 252 The Bridge of Hope, boundary between Russian Poland and Germany at Myslowitz . . „ ,, 268 Wood and charcoal sellers. Russia . . . „ „ 268 A Russian shop-keeper „ „ 281 Russian troops guarding a railway-station during the strikes • » » 290 Market-place in Russian town. ....„„ 290 Trans-Caucassian merchants ....„„ 300 A typical Gourian in long sheepskin cloak , • „ „ 312 " The machine for squeezing out contributions." A prohibited Russian Red Cross cartoon . „ „ 324 Map of the theatre of war At end THE FIRINGi LINE AT MOTIENLIXG. Infantry under shelter in the trenches. Ai^'^^M FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. ^ CHAPTER I. Japan before the War. Two children were pattering happily down the narrow street, the sound of their clogs echoing clearly. The girl, looking strangely old-womanish with her hair done high, was arrayed in gaudy dress and carried a baby loosely, yet securely, on her back. The boy, as befitted manhood, wore more sober-hued apparel. Both were bare-headed, and both were waving their half-extended arms to the rhythm of a song. I listened to the words : — " Kill !■ Kill I Kill ! Kill ! Kill until the sword breaks. Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill ! " This was one aspect of the New Japan. What had I come out to see in these January I 2 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. days in 1904 ? The infant people of the earth, the newest babe in the hst of world nations, the islanders whose littleness, whose brightness, whose gay dresses, and whose artistic ways had been the delight of two generations of globe-trotters ? Had such been my purpose I would havfe been quickly disillusioned. This was no child nation, wandering heedlessly through sunny paths, but a great, grim, determined people," oh the eve of what all knew would be a long, hard, life-and-death struggle. The harbours were crowded with shipping, and the streets on these raw, cold January days were busy with much commerce. The newspapers, with their extras issued almost every half hour, were full of stories of war. The Japanese army, fully prepared from shells to surgical dressings and sheepskin neck coverings, lay encamped around Moji, or packed in transports in the harbour of Tsushima. The fleet, burning to repeat its exploits in the China campaign, was assembled near Nagasaki with everything ready for an attack on Port Arthur. The fathers had taken d.own the swords of their ancestors, the most valued of earthly treasures, and offered them, with their sons, for the country. The veneer of European scepticism was wearing thin, and the old Shinto dogmas, hidden in days of peace, were coming to the front once more.'' The deification of the Mikado, glossed over recently, JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. 3 was again emerging strong and clear, a great national spirit. In half a million households the old words of faith were being repeated, and before the ancestral tablets the old men told the young ^ of the deeds their race had done, and the great deeds they yet must do. An old woman, tottering, feeble, but unafraid, came to see her grandson in camp near Hiroshima. " My boy," she said, " I shall never see you alive again. Don't be satisfied with killing one Russian, before you die. Kill six, and then you will have proved yourself worthy of our stock. Farewell." She walked away erect and dry-eyed. A friend asked her if she did not feel sorrowful. " Why should I ? " she demanded, proudly. " My grand- son goes to die for his Emperor. What nobler ' death could our family wish than that ? " The press was already under strict censorship, and was compelled to deal in generalities. Freedom of speech was severely limited, for Japan, despite its attempts to pose as a country with representative ' government, is almost as much a bureaucracy as Russia. The twenty-odd daily papers in Tokyo were subject to rigid discipline. Even the cor- respondents of the foreign press had been summoned to the police quarters at Yokohama and warned in the most solemn manner of the penalties they would incur should they disseminate information which the authorities wished kept back. English I* 4 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. newspapers were as much restricted as were the native. In olden times the Anglo- Japanese journal had absolute freedom of expression. With the abolition of extra-territorialityj it came under the same rule as purely Japanese papers. But while the Government might watch the press, it could not check all outward manifestations of the spirit and desire of the people. In Japan one old mode of displaying sentiment was by popular street songs, and this still survives. Not an event happens of any importance but the street rhymesters lay hold of it. The prospect of war had produced a great crop of songs. The Government had already forbidden the further publication of songs directly denouncing Russia, but those attacking no one in particular and the enemies of the country in general could still be chanted. The individual was allowed to imagine whom they were aimed at. Thus we heard on all sides rhymes of war. Here was one : — " Revenge ! Revenge ! How cheerful and happy are we. We have conquered the enemy. We have killed them all. How joyous ! How cheerful ! We'll kill all our Mikado's enemies as well. Our Emperor, our nation, and our parents, They are all waiting for our triumph. Bravo ! flag of the Rising Sun, as you shake your folds in the air." JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. 5 Another song on an " Old Battlefield " touched a pathetic strain, the sword with the frost glistening on it, the silence of the dead, and the lonely grasses waving over the graves like the old flag. " These die," it concludes, "but the names of the heroes perished on the field will survive through eternity." Death was commonly spoken of as the desirable and anticipated thing in the service of the Emperor. " Don't mind whether you die or not," said one song. " Obey the Emperor and go ahead." " Death on the battlefield before surrender," was the refrain of another. Nor was this all empty talk ! Only a few days before I had been travelling in a Japanese ship. As we were some days out at sea we had no means of knowing whether war had broken out or not. In case of war we knew there was at least the possibility of our being intercepted by a Russian cruiser. "If we do meet with a Russian ship," the captain told me, " we must escape or go down. If I talked of lowering the flag, the very coolies in the engine-room would kill me. You don't surrender a Japanese ship." Who can deny that if fighting there must be, this is un- doubtedly the right spirit for a supreme fighting man ? The songs against Russia, while nominally sup- pressed, were still whispered from man to man. Let me quote a typical one, giving a literal 6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. translation, with no attempt to rhyme or measure in European fashion : — "Cut off the wings of the Eagle to preserve peace in the Far East. The Eagle can fly a long way, but the Rising Sun will illumine the whole globe. The Eagle's talons are very sharp, but once the Japanese sword is taken out of its scabbard, the Eagle will be driven off the Far East. When the Eagle's head is cut off, Russia will be sorry that she fought with Japan." I attended a great meeting "against Russia" about the middle of January in Tokyo. Japan is not yet accustomed to the orderly expression of public feeling, and the gathering was a strange attempt to apply a modified Western method to"^ an essentially Eastern people. The speaking was wholly in Japanese. We took our boots off in the doorway, and in place of using chairs, squatted on our haunches from noon until six in the evening. The gathering was called to denounce the peaceful attitude of the Government. Police, private and in uniform, were scattered over the hall. Two con- stables were on the platform taking down the utter- ances, and an inspector sat in front with power to stop the oratory the moment it exceeded what he considered fair limits. The speakers went as far as they dared, and the further they went the louder they were ap-' plauded. Much of the talk struck one as strangely familiar. There were denunciations of American trusts, particularly the Tobacco Trust, which the Government was then arranging to expropriate. JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. 7 Orators waxed eloquent over the virtues of social- istic legislation, and the theories of Karl Marx were trotted out and received with a hum of sympathetic approval. Hand-clapping, a thing un- known until recently as a means of expressing approval in Japan, was started time after time. But what went most to the hearts of the people was any reference to war or to the need of alert guardianship of the country's interests against foes without and within. Already, the first fury of spy mania was on us. Speakers read name after name of four hundred men in all ranks whom they denounced as Russian spies. " All Russian spies must die," one little man declared vindictively. He told of a newspaper editor who had dared to whisper Peace ; of a clerk who had lived some years in France before entering the Government service at home; and of the Marquis Ito, venerated yet fe?iyi|d> and,. .hated, who was suspected of wishing for delay, and even of avoiding war altogether. Each name was heard with that quiet, smiling hatred which is the most dangerous form of fanaticism. The extreme war party among the common people made no secret of the fact that it would, if necessary, murder any Minister who attempted to make the nation give way before Russia. One popular journal not long before had printed a poem plainly hinting that the Marquis Ito might be assassinated with 8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. advantage to his country. Not many days after- my arrival in Japan the leaders of one of the most influential anti-Russian parties expressed their desire to see me. I met them in their own rooms, and as we sat on the matting, warming our hands over the " hibachi," the charcoal box which affords a miserable substitute for a fire, we discussed the situation. " We are bringing such pressure to bear on the Government," they told me, " that it must fight." " What do you mean ? " I naturally enquired. " Your system of government does not give you power to throw the Ministry out. The Ministry can, with the Mikado's consent, even prevent your protests being heard in Parliament. To talk of public opinion influencing the Government in Japan is absurd. What do you propose to do ? " They told me of plan after plan. " And if they fail ? " " If these fail," came the deliberate reply, " two or three of our members must sacrifice them- selves." I asked for fuller information, and then, bit by bit, slowly and hesitatingly, they told me. In 1878, Okubo, the famous statesman who had done more than any other single Japanese to bring his country into line with the West, had been assassinated by men who believed they were doing JAPAN BEFORR THE WAR. 9 Japan service, who gloried in the act, and who justified themselves before all the nation. Still more recently another famous statesman had perished under the hands of a fanatic, and the people to this day regard the tomb of that politicals murderer as a shrine, and the man as a martyr and a saint. The fanatics of to-day meant, if necessary, to employ this method to enforce their will, or to avenge themselves against those who might disappoint the nation of its great desire. The people were already calling on the Govern- ment to impose fresh taxes. Individuals were offering subscriptions for a War Fund, although in a nation where nearly all are poor these sub- scriptions were of necessity small. Women were taking off their jewels for the national Treasury. Localities were proposing to rate themselves un-- asked at a yen (2s.) a head for the war. The statesmen were talking of peace, and the diplo- matists were discussing compromises. But day by day men, secretly called up, were going in peasant^ dress to remote military stations and dropping their own garments for soldiers' attire. Already we were having the first taste of what war might mean. Food had gone up in price. The dinner that a month ago cost 60 sen, now cost 80. In a hundred branches of trade the first signs of dulness were being felt. In innumerable homes the bread-winner had gone. Yet no murmur lo FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. was heard, no word of doubt, no suggestion of hesitation about the wisdom of the great venture, for the people had resolved to show what the Japanese national spirit is and what it could do. The heaviest blow that could have been inflicted on them would have been the avoidance of war. A week later I found myself at Moji, the Gibraltar of Japan. Whether you arrive by land or by sea, the place gives an immediate impression of culminating majesty. Great hills tower up in every direction, and behind them lie snow-clad mountain peaks proudly topping them. Here and there you spy openings on the rocky shore, artfully-concealed natural harbours. A well- protected channel takes you into the bay of Shimonoseki itself, and here, after a short journey, you come on the twin towns, Moji and Shimonoseki, on either side of the bay. The hills, black and lined with mist, stand grimly around. Stacks of Titanic chimneys on the low- levels of Moji vomit forth thick smoke, recaUing the horrors of Pittsburg. Myriad craft, from the 8,ooo-ton Harland and Wolff steamer to the antique junk, lie packed around. Stacks of coal, almost mountains in themselves, are one great centre of toil. An almost unceasing succession of trains JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. ii adds to them, while thousands of workers bear the accumulating loads to lighters near by. The loco- motives you notice are Baldwins, and the coal trucks are of the newest pattern — steel, automatic empty- ing. The open fires burn weirdly on the native boats. There was a feeling of haste in the air. In the harbour, both on the Moji and the Shimonoseki sides, the native craft were emptying and filling with great speed. Packages covered with matting were being raised on the backs of tire- less coolies or swung on ever-moving cranes. In the deeper water great steamers were lying, surrounded by coal barges, and an army of women and men were coaling them by hand with a rapidity no machinery can rival. This was not the sleepy Orient, but had the spirit of the bustling West. The multitudinous junks themselves were well worth notice. The rule here seems to be " one junk, one family." The family live continually on the great angular, unpainted boat, the wife helping at the tiller as she carries her baby on her back, and the children playing around. Here was a junk so large that half a dozen households could find home on it ; here one so tiny that its poor owner and his wife and children could only find ro6m to sleep at night by pulling matting over the bare deck. This junk was outwardly the replica of an old Spanish galleon, and this was the image of the pictured pirate craft which awesomely re- 12 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. joiced one's boyhood days. The sails of yonder craft were quilted like the curtains in a West Hampstead lady's drawing-room. Many had a dis- tinctive note of their own, proclaiming them the pride and holdfast of their inhabitants. Some may grow enthusiastic over the nimble women who fill the bunks of the steamships with coal. I cannot. Seen from steamer's deck, their appearance, as they stand in long lines passing up the small baskets of coal, no doubt has a touch of picturesqueness. A nearer view spoils the effect. These are adult women, all amazingly short and sturdy, all stunted in growth and aged in looks^ by severe and constant toil unsuited for their sex. As one watches the weaker of them drop down on the deck of their barges, exhausted after their work is done, the sense of the picturesque dies. It was hard to realise that around here was one of the most strongly fortified spots on earth. Every trace of the gigantic naval and military preparations proceeding in the neighbourhood was as carefully covered as possible. The hills, covered by fortifications and protected at every point by artillery, showed no open signs of guns. A thousand junks were landing supplies, intended, as we all knew, for miUtary use, but there were no men in uniform supervising. Tens of thousands of troops lay ready for the march near by, but there was not a soldier on the streets. JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. 13 Moji and Shimonoseki were as prosaic and as dirty as the worst parts of the Black Country. Everyone bore traces of toil. The streets, narrow and tortuous, had that indescribable " slummy " odour — the nearest approach to a description of it is the combination of the aroma of boiled cabbage and spilled paraffin — familiar in the back streets of London. The children showed plain traces that their mothers were too busy at other work to care much for them. The. roadways were witbout foot- ^atJis and on wet days were anything but pleasant. Drainage was^^ primitive. Every shop had its front open by day, even in those winter times. The streets were ever a tangled combination of pavement merchants, of patient coohes carrying heavy burdens, of laughing children, of rare horses or cattle carrying provisions, and of shouting rickshaw men. But to me the pre-eminent interest of these straits lay in the fact that they stood for two of the most momentous events in modern Japanese history. When, half a century ago, Japan reluctantly admitted foreigners to its territory, none resented the change more deeply than the Prince of the Choshiu, who controlled the territory around the Straits of Shimonoseki. Time after time his followers fired on foreign vessels passing the straits, and their hostility at last reached a point where 14 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the Western Powers had to assert themselves once for all. On the 4th September, 1864, three French, four Dutch, one American, and nine British ships drew up in front of the forts and opened fire. There had been long negotiations beforehand. Ito, fresh returned from Europe, and afterwards to become the most famous of Japanese statesmen, had gone a day or two before to attempt to bring them to their senses. The men of the Choshiu firmly beUeved — sothey have told me since — that the " foreign devils " had no heels to their feet, and consequently could do nothing on land. They knew that the foreigners were somewhat formidable on sea, but had no fear of the result even there. When, however, the guns of the foreign ships silenced the antiquated artillery of the Japanese forts, the Choshiu held conference, and decided on a strategic retreat. They would allow the foreigner to land, and then, when he had landed and lay helpless and heel-less on the shore, they would rush on him and slay him. The foreigners did land, and, to the amazement of the native soldiery, they moved freely, stormed point after point, and drove the Japanese back. One boat's crew rushed up on a formidable fort, spiked its cannon, drove the gunners out, and threw the powder and shot over the parapet before the men had recovered from their surprise. Ito there received his final proof of the power of modern arms, JAPAN BEFORE THE WAR. 15 and when the Japanese capitulated the birth of the .- New Japan had really begun. It was fitting that this bay should also see the consummation of the first great triumph of New Japan. In March, 1894, Li Hung Chang, the Chinese chief administrator, landed at Shimonoseki to sue for peace. Japan had proved her power and had humbled China in the dust. Here, too, Li was shot at a few days after his arrival by a Japanese fanatic, and here, by the conclusion of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan finally sealed her entry in the ranks of the world's nations. This was the triumph which every Japanese now believed would be repeated even more brilliantly in the near future, over a greater rival. The people had faith that as 1894 wiped out the bitter memories ' of 1864, so the victories of 1904 should make even the glories of the last triumph fade. For the modern Japanese did not hope for victory. He was firmly convinced, whether coolie or soldier, private . or general, that anything except victory was now impossible for his nation. i6 CHAPTER 11. First Glimpses of Korea. The long coast line from Fusan around into the Yellow Sea, and away up to the ice-bound Yalu River, proclaims the inhospitable and poverty- stricken nature of Korea. Picture the harshest seascape of Eastern Scotland, a wreck-strewn coast where the waves of the North Sea beat against the Bass Rock. Multiply that harshness manifold, stretch for hundreds of miles a succession of Bass Rocks and of hard mountains rising suddenly out of the water, depict the turbulent sea as murky, turbid, and of a dirty gamboge tint. There you have much of the coast of Korea — the terror of the mariner, the despair of the statesman. I Remember, too, that part of this coast is still un- surveyed, save by the Japanese Government, which has not made its surveys public. Bear in mind that there are harbours with few or no harbour lights, shoals unmarked, and landing places which the sea captain dares only approach at his own peril, and there you have another light on Korea. FIRST GLIMPSES OF KOREA. 17 For centuries the possession of Korea has been the ambition of Japan. Until a few years ago the Hermit Kingdom hved up to its name and rigidly excluded all foreigners. Here and there an enter- prising stranger managed to stay for a few days on the coast. Now and then a Catholic missionary would attempt to settle, usually but to meet with a martyr's fate. From 1845 Europeans made determined efforts to break the mystery of this land, but for long all effort seemed in vain. Ships touched on the coast, but the natives who had contact with them were often punished. As late as 1866, nine French priests were done to death with great brutality outside Seoul. In the same year the crew of an American schooner, attempting to penetrate the navigable waters by Pingyang, were all killed. In 1870 an American expedition attacked and captured the Kangwan forts which had fired on it when it attempted to open up communication with the court. In 1875 Japan secured a treaty with Korea, and within the next few years various European Govern- ments did the same. But all trouble was not yet over. In 1882 the Japanese Legation at Seoul was destroyed by a mob, and those Japanese who were left alive there had to fight their way to the coast, where they were rescued by a British ship. The action taken by the Powers after this convinced 2 i8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Korea that the days of isolation were over, and then the new era began. Korea is now in transformation, transformation proceeding so rapidly that those who knew the land even three or four years ago can scarce credit the change. Some of the harbours on the coast are good and accessible, as safe and pleasant looking within as they are minatory without. Such is FusaUj probably bound to be, within a generation,^ one of the great ports of Eastern Asia. To- day Fusan consists mainly of a neat and clean Japanese settlement, with a Korean town across the hill forming a somewhat startling contrast, and on the heights a few American missionary houses. When I landed there in January I found it governed in mixed fashion. The customs were Korean, the troops Japanese. About two hundred Japanese soldiers had their permanent barracks there, and three small Japanese vessels lay in the harbour. The neat breakwater was Japanese. Nearly every house had in front of it a Japanese flag. Yet in the Yamen over the hill the Korean court sat, and the Korean magistrate had in full play aU the familiar methods of Eastern justices. Fusan was busy at that moment pushing on the great railway to Seoul, which was intended to play so large a part in the Japanese domination of the peninsula. Before I had been in the place an hour, I realised that here was a land so alien that it might FIRST GLIMPSES OF KOREA. 19 well belong to another age or another planet. Ru- mours of tortures and massacres were brought in from every side. One man came with stories of the Tong-haks, the robbers of whom one was soon to hear much. Another mentioned casually some odd cases of official cruelty known to him. In the streets one saw no women of the better classes, and I was quickly informed that when introduced to a Korean gentleman I must not mention his wife. To do so, or to hint at her existence, would be the gravest insult. As for expecting to meet her, I might as weU cry for the moon. The people themselves arrested attention at every turn. The men, whose hats would do credit to the comic opera stage, were clad in dirty, volu- minous, white garments. The boys, smooth and fair-faced, were difficult to distinguish from girls. Now the magistrate was carried through the narrow roadways in state on his planquin by human bearers. Now the child slave, borne to the ground by a heavy burden, passed along. The shops displayed no- thing but the meanest goods, for this is the land of small manufactures. The people, curious yet good-natured, crowded round me. At every turn one heard beating, as though the hoofs of a squadron of cavalry were stamping on the ground. It was the sound of the washerwomen who sat in groups by every passing stream, beating the white linen of the country clean. Your Korean man may 3* 20 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. be earning nothing, or next to nothing, but he insists that his wife shall toil each day, whitening his garments, so far as they can be whitened, by much beating in the dirty city streams. Yet even here one saw the first great steps of progress. Telegraph wires abounded. There was a great open sewer in the main street, boarded over to make a promenade for foot passengers. The missionaries had built a fully-equipped hospital. On the outskirts of the town an army of Japanese coolies was at work cutting down a hill according to the most modern methods, with narrow gauge tramway and steam trucks, for the dock terminus of the new railway. I did not remain in Fusan many hours. Now that war was practically certain I knew that the first fighting must come around Chemulpho and Seoul, and that was my destination. A few days later, in the closing hours of January, 1904, we made our way slowly on the Santo Maru up through the floating ice of Chemulpho harbour and landed at that port. Chemulpho harbour was full of men- of-war, all assembled ostensibly to protect foreigners from a feared native rising at the Korean capital. Most of the Legations had, a few weeks before, drafted numbers of marines into their own build- ings at Seoul. The Emperor resentfully asked one Minister why he did this, since there were plenty of native troops on the spot to keep order. " I First glimpses of iCoreA. tt do it because you have so many Korean soldiers in the city," the Minister boldly replied. "It is they who make our greatest danger." I gazed with particular interest at the Russian cruiser, the Variag, and at her little consort, the Korietz. Few of us thought that, within a few days, both would be trapped and sunk. Here came a pleasurable surprise. A well-laid, broad gauge railway was ready to take us to Seoul. The cars were comfortable, spacious, well-cushioned, and steam-heated, brought direct from America. The freight trucks standing in the sidings were bigger and better than any I know on Enghsh rail- ways. The track was smooth, and I made the journey from the little port of Chemulpho to the capital of Korea in greater comfort than one travels as a rule from London to Dover. 22 CHAPTER III. The City of Strife. The wandering Mongol who first raised his straw hut on the site of Seoul had true instinct for the founding of a great city. Placed in a fertile, undu- lating valley, watered by a never-failing stream, guarded by great lines of hills, with a climate at once bracing, temperate, and dehghtful, Seoul should be the crown of Asia. The mountains rise high and rugged to the north, forming a natural guard against invaders from Manchuria and China. To the south-west they stretch with gentle and inviting slopes to the sea, making the capital at once strong to withstand its foes and open to its friends. To judge Seoul entirely from a Western stand- point is scarce to do it justice. At first one finds little save to condemn. From the hungry dogs that rake out the infant corpses and eat them on suburban burying-grounds, to the corrupt officials' who have fattened off oppression in the many royal palaces for so long, all excites repulsion. The cowardice of the men, the subdued and half-con- THE CITY OF STRIFE. 23 cealed women, the hovels that shelter most of the people, the open and malodorous drainage, the dirt, the sordidness, the poverty, chill a stranger. Appraised, however, as is fairer, from an Asiatic point of view, the verdict is much more favourable. When placed alongside the confined footways of Canton, the streets of Seoul are magnificent avenues. The dirtiest roadway there would be regarded as a model viaduct in Pekin. The poorest and filthiest alleys bear good comparison with the homes of the aboriginal tribes in British India. The cor- ruption of the Palace is, after all, an Asiatic com- monplace, and the main difference always between here and elsewhere is that in Seoul are found men willing to protest against it, and even to die for their protests. Seoul is, in truth, a strange combination of barbarism and modernity, of reform and of the grossest tyranny, of repulsion and of attraction. Its people are, as a whole, miserably poor, and the first impression one receives of them is that they are among the most cowardly on earth. Yet the fine buildings rise in many directions, much friendliness is shown to the Englishman, schools are flourishing, and the appliances of civilisation increasing. Conjure up a city where the men ride on electric tramways, and the better class women are never allowed to walk the street or to show their faces in public, where the Mayor is chosen because of 24 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. his skill as a sorcerer, and where he uses the ordinary newest pattern Swedish telephone to help him trans- act business with his colleagues ; where the King sits under the rays of an incandescent light while deciding the number of devils that shall be dis- played, and magicians engaged, for his mother's funeral. That is Seoul. It was my good fortune to see the city in the last days before Japan secured a controlling voice in administration. The worst abuses of the old regime still lingered. The court was ruled by place- hunters, magicians, and men skilled in the frighten- ing of evil spirits. The Emperor, cowed years since by the murder of his consort by the Japanese, was used as a buffer between the rival claims of Russian and Japanese Governments. The place was full of troops, and ten thousand soldiers from Pingyang, the bravest men in the nation, were parading the streets day and night. Already there had been riots. A few days before my arrival a crowd had attacked an electric tramcar, believing that its presence had disturbed the mythical tortoise which guards the city. The Legations were full of foreign troops, and English, American, Russian, and French soldiers and marines were constantly to be seen. There had been much want and hunger during the winter, and Seoul was a powder mine. No one knew but that any day there might be an attempt to repeat Russian town labouicr. \_To face page 24. THE CITY OF STRIFE. 25 the horrors of Pekin there. One of the most ex- perienced foreign Ministers in the city, a man who had hved many years there, assured me that if he and his colleagues had not obtained troops from their Governments, a rising would have been inevitable. As it was, few of us went abroad with- out seeing that our revolvers were ready in our hip pockets. The British and American Legations, arranging ahead the Anglo-American Alliance, had fixed up, that if fighting came, the marines under the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes were to act as one force. The first impression left by a walk around the city was of sordidness. The inner walls were built to resist attack, and under old conditions they did so splendidly. The monster gates, each now guarded by slouching, ill-clad soldiers, no longer close their studded, iron-shod doors at sunset, as they long used to. Apparently fully half the city is occupied by the grounds of many royal palaces, and they are constantly being added to, for rumour has it that the Emperor is convinced that on the day he ceases building he will die. There are prac- tically no temples, no amusements, and very few manufactures. The roadways are filled by bullocks bearing loads, usually furze and fire- wood. In the native city a hundred strange sights held one's attention at every turn. Here were half-a- dozen men walking quietly along, chained Ughtly 26 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. together ; they were prisoners who were thus allowed to wander in public during the day. Out- side the monster gates of the Palace a strange, wizened man sat instructing half-a-dozen ragged and miserable boys ; he was a teacher of beggars and these were his pupils. Two men, tall, upright, commanding, with sightless eyes, walked firmly along, stamping the ground in front of them with long wands ; they were bUnd, sorcerers and exor- cisers of devils, and members of the most feared and dreaded caste in Korea. Now one came on a man with monster hat, shielding his face by a smaU yellowish piece of cloth, stretched out on two sticks before it ; he was a mourner, holding aloof from the people. There are many mourners here, where the etiquette of sorrow is very elaborate. A man of means is fortunate who spends only half his life in ceremonial grief. The long white gowns of the men — often white by courtesy title only — become sadly monotonous after a time. The Korean man has not taken yet, however, to apeing the dress of the European, and the Korean gentleman does not lack a decided dig- nity of his own, although when the same gentle- man comes along, seated on a led pony, with one attendant holding a little white umbrella high over his head and with several hangers-on around, the sense of his might often gives way to an appre- ciation of the humour of his appearance. THE CITY OF STRIFE. 27 No young women, rich or poor, are to be seen in public, save on the rarest occasion, although the cl()S(;ly-shut s(;dan chairs passing frequently through the strecits no doubt contain them. Men have lived in Seoul ten years and not seen two young gentle- women thcrt!. Of young girls there are plenty, and numbers of middle-aged and elderly women go out freely, tlieir laces shrouded in bright-coloured jackets, worn with the arms hanging empty over their heads. Broad-faced and flat features, they c;ertainly rank among the most repulsive looking ^ ot their sex on earth. One might walk the streets of Seoul for a wcu^k without seeing a single attrac- tive face among thciiii. 'I'heir strange garb adds to their repulsivenciss, for the Korean woman shrouds her ..face but leaves her breasts (juito uncovered. The hoiiscis are low, one story being the almost univcirsal lule. The shops mostly have open fronts and their contents arc of little value. Brass orna- mental furniture ajid beaten brass work seem to exhaust the possibilities of Korean trade here. There is a peculiar inipracticableness about many of tlu! peoj)le which renders attempts to promote business among them difficult. Some time since a Korean went abroad and was much struck by the splendid stock on Ameiican farms, lie came home, saw the ItmptM-or, and strongly urged that foreign stock should be introduced to improve the breeds of cattle and jioulUy in the land. The Emperor 28 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. agreed, and some of the best and most expensive birds and beasts were brought over. The Emperor was well served, and the arrivals would have done credit to the finest estate in England. A stretch of land was put apart for their accommodation, and suitable buildings erected. A few weeks after- wards a foreigner who had supervised the arrival of the stock, went to visit the farm. Looking over the poultry yard he noticed with surprise that some of the best pure-bred birds, which had cost several pounds apiece, were missing. " Where have they gone ? " he asked a caretaker. " A magistrate came on a visit a week ago," the caretaker replied. " I had nothing to give him for a meal, and so I had to kill and cook some of the chickens." There is no temple in Seoul, save a Japanese one in their own quarter, for the erection of temples or the presence of priests within the city was long ago forbidden by law. Several Christian churches form prominent landmarks. There is a theatre, but it had been closed for some time when I arrived, on account of the national mourning for the Dowager Empress. The only other recreation — also then taboo on account of the death of the Empress — was the solemn dancing and singing of the ke-san, the geisha of Korea. Oriental as Seoul seems, it was, when I visited it, very different to even but a few years before. Many of the streets are straight and broad, old winding THE CITY OF STRIFE. 29 ways having been cut down to build them. The Legation quarter contains a succession of handsome European buildings. The electric tramways, which run through the streets, are due to the enterprise of Messrs. CoUbran and Bostwick. They are freely patronised by the people, although at first there was much opposition on religious grounds to them, their influence on the familiar spirits being greatly feared. There was a Japanese quarter, delightfully clean and fresh by contrast with the remainder of the town. There were two European hotels. The missionaries were building a good hospital, and already had a large stretch of native buildings in use for the care of the sick. Several stores, run by foreigners, offered a selection of foreign goods, and a club and reading-room afforded an admirable supply of papers. A minute sheet appeared daily in English as a newspaper, although one must con- fess that it was often hard enough to find any news in it. Since I left progress has, I understand, gone on much more rapidly. There is now a really credit- able daily paper in English and Korean. The in- fluence of the Japanese is leading to great improve- ments in sanitation. There has been for some time talk of an adequate water supply. Land is rapidly rising in value. The coming of the new railway to the north, and the opening of the Seoul-Fusan rail- 30 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. way will transform the country. Seoul bids fair to be in the near future the great city which its position shows that it should be. This was the city for whose control two great nations had struggled diplomatically so long. Russia through M. Pavloff, and Japan through Mr. Hayashi had been working in a hundred ways. Now their rivalry was nearing a crisis, and as I walked down the old streets and outside the gates in early February it was by no means clear whether in a week soldiers from Port Arthur, or others from Sashibo, should march in on us. All we knew was that the old order was on the eve of change. 31 CHAPTER IV. The Tyrant of Korea, " I WILL bow low when he enters," whispered my Korean companion nervously. " I will humble myself before him." We were seated in the reception chamber of Yi Yong Ik, the supreme Minister of Korea, the man whose name was cursed in a thousand villages, and whose shadow was feared in ten thousand homes Others had risen before in this land who had earned the name of oppressor and extortioner, but he surpassed them all. Twenty years ago ]ie„.,w^g. ,,?(,., xo.C!lie,,,Sw:e.§ping the ^yd of.,a-^eat Jioble. In the early days of 1904 he was the real commander of the army ; he held the public purse ; he had started national industries, and had given the Emperor money and himself power. Other Ministers had squeezed the people, as they thought, to the uttermost farthing, but when Yi Yong Ik caught them even paupers found funds somewhere to escape. If you can do naught else, 32 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. you can at least sell your children into slavery when the hand of the tyrant falls. From the room where we were sitting we could gaze into the inner courtyard of the palace. Picture a congerie of low, one-storied buildings. The outer approach is a narrow, filthy lane, leading off a main street. Armed sentries stand at either end of the lane, and a group of armed soldiers lounge near the entrance gate. It is not safe for a great Minister to go unprotected. Even the placid Korean turns sometimes, and the ruler who falls victim to a mob in Seoul knows during the last hours of life the cruellest agonies earth can produce. Past the entrances, one or two twists and turns through gates and archways bring you into the inner yard. On this afternoon there were soldiers and officers everywhere, and in the central square stood a number of white-robed Koreans, clients, suppliants, hangers-on. A coolie came in with a heavy load. " That is a present for the Minister," my companion whispered. " The Governors of the provinces send rich presents." A fawn crept daintily into the yard and played with one of the soldiers. A flock of pigeons, with home in the eaves, rose in flight. The room in which we sat was small. Yi did not waste money on display, and many a ruler of a small province had a grander house than he. The chamber had a polished brown floor, brown paper THE TYRANT OF KOREA. 33 sliding screens in wooden frames for walls, and a mat at one end to serve as seat. There was no other furniture. A soldier or a child would stare through the open door every minute or two. The whole scene was typically Oriental. Then, strange incongruity, a telephone bell rang. A shabby officer darted into the next room. " Who's there, who's there ? " he called in Korean. " Hullo ! What do you want ? Why don't you speak up ? I can't hear you. Hullo ! " At last he jerked the receiver on one side, just as you do in your office when the exchange will not put you right. Enter Yi Yong Ik, a tall, broad-shouldered, commanding man. You need no second glance at him to see that here is one who can accomplish things. There is none of the softness of the typical Korean in his face, and yet there is nothing revealing the character for cupidity and tyranny universally given to him. The cast of the features is Mongolian. One understands after seeing him how the coolie became head of the State. Yi speaks no English, but he shook hands English fashion, and beckoned us to squat down on the mats in the adjoining room. My interpreter humbled his forehead in the dust before him. Yi did the same to me, and I repUed as best I could. Truth to tell, I had real work to stow my legs away in unobtrusive fashion, as the others 3 34 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. did. Before our talk was over my violently com- pressed muscles were aching in a way that sadly interfered with my enjoyment. If you doubt it, try the experiment of sitting on the ground for an hour with your legs tucked under you. The Minister promptly cross-examined me. Did I believe there would be war ? When did I think war would come ? Why did I think so ? What were the Japanese doing ? This was courtesy on his part, and courtesy equally demanded that I should disclaim all knowledge, he knowing all before, and yet should tell him what I knew. Questions as to my own movements were easily answered. Then Yi spoke emphatically. " We believe there will be peace," he said. " There will be no war." I gazed at him. Did he not know that but an hour before the Korean wires had been cut at Masampho by Japanese troops landing there ? Was he unaware that at this moment Japanese transports were stealing up from Tsushima, full of armed men, and that Russian transports were filling with soldiers at Port Arthur ? I urged such points on him. " I thank you for your advice," he replied, without moving a muscle. " Advice," I replied. " Be it far from me to advise. I am but a youth, while you have seen many years. I am as nothing, while you are the ruler of many provinces. I dare not advise. I THE TYRANT OF KOREA. 35 only repeat to your Excellency what is on the lips of all men." " It is well," came the reply. " But what matter these things to us ? Let Russia and Japan fight ; Korea will take no share in their fighting. Our Emperor has issued his declaration of neutrality. By that we will abide. We are very glad that England has recognised our declaration, and we are glad to do all we can for Englishmen." " You have issued your declaration," I answered. " But what if the armies of Russia and Japan come ? What if their ships land men on your shores ? Can you drive them off ? W^hat will you do ? Will you appeal to the Powers for help ? " " Our soldiers are not strong enough to drive off the Russian or Japanese armies. But there will be no need for us to appeal to the Powers if our neutrality is broken. They will come without being asked, and will protect us." Here Yi stood. He resorted to his old and well- known trick of shutting his eyes to unpleasant facts. " The Emperor must grieve over the trouble in the East," I remarked. " Why should he grieve ? It is not our people who are quarrelling. If war did come, it would not concern us. Our Emperor does not grieve." After much more talk to the same effect our interview ended, and I slipped on mv boots to make 3* 36 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. my way to my rickshaw, while Yi went along to the Palace to his regular meeting with the Emperor at six o'clock. Twenty years ago, and less, as I have said, Yi was a coolie. Friends of my own can remember when he was engaged in the most menial offices in the yard of a great Korean. His master liked him and had him appointed tax-gatherer in a small district. Here Yi was in his element. A poor man himself, he knew all the tricks of the poor to avoid taxes. He was unsparing, and raised more money out of the people than anyone had done before. He was soon promoted to a higher place, for he who can squeeze best is a great man in Korea. In his new district he found some gold. Accounts differ as to how he found or acquired it. Possibly he lighted on a gold mine in the district — this, at all events, is what his friends say and what many believe. He took this gold to the Emperor, who, like all Eastern rulers, ever welcomes the man with money. Yi became a court favourite, and a place was found for him in the Ministry. He was made controller of the Emperor's finances, and then Minister of Finance for the State. He is a strong man, he has many good business qualities, and extortion is by no means the only side of his character. His methods can be illustrated by one example. There was a Korean at Chemulpho who, probably THE TYRANT OF KOREA. 37 alone among his fellows, had succeeded in business on a large scale. Yi ordered through him a hundred thousand dollars' worth of rice for the army. In due course the rice was bought, but not delivered, as immediate delivery was not wanted, and the mer- chant was paid. He signed receipts for the money. Soon afterwards Yi met the merchant in the Palace. " When are you going to pay back the hundred thousand dollars you had from the Em- peror ? " he asked, " We want it at once." The merchant could not understand what Yi meant. " Here," said Yi, " is your acknowledgment. You have had a hundred thousand dollars from us, we want the money back now." He produced the merchant's receipts for the money paid for the rice. Every argument was in vain. Yi demanded the money instantly. The British and American Ministers took the matter up, as the man had English and American business connections. To every representation Yi returned the same answer. " We want our hundred thousand dollars back." In the end the merchant had to flee the land, and now does business in Shanghai. Yi had apparently placed his trust in Russia. A Korean emissary was already, while we were speaking, on the way to Port Arthur to ask for Russian soldiers to guard the Palace. Yi and his friends were confidently reckoning that before the war broke out Cossacks and Siberian infantrymen 38 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. would be there to guard them. Yet only a few days later he had to sail in a Japanese ship to Japan, a semi-state prisoner. There he remained during the summer, conveniently out of the way. Then he returned to Korea and was given a provincial Governorship. What is to be his future none at this moment can say. Whether Japan will use him or ignore him lies in the future. Given a chance again, he will more than hold his own. His faults have been those of his environment ; his strong personality, his clear brain, and his mastery of men are merits of his own. 39 CHAPTER V. The Coming of the Japanese. We, in Seoul, knew less of the details of the diplomatic struggle than people in Europe or America. On the Sunday, when the newsboys in London and New York were shouting themselves hoarse in proclaiming the beginning of the war and the approach of hostile fleets against us, we were vaguely wondering whether war was really at last upon us or not. It was hinted that Japan had announced her intention of taking what steps she considered necessary to safeguard her own interests, but information from outside had practi- cally ceased to arrive. The telegraph wires from Fusan and Japan had conveniently broken down. The northern wire from China was not in working order. A strange paralysis seemed to have lain hold of merchant shipping, and the anxious faces of the Ministers told us that the worst was now inevitable. On Monday afternoon I was riding to the Lega- tions when a messenger ran up to me with word from my man at Chemulpho, that a strong Japanese 40 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. fleet had appeared in the bay with many trans- ports and warships. It did not take long to get first to the cable office and then down by rail to Chemulpho. Here a wonderful scene presented itself. It was already dark. The streets were covered with snow, and the harbour had much floating ice. All along the front of the town log fires were lighted at short intervals. Paraffin, continually thrown on iron cradles of coal fires on the wharf, sent up a blaze which illuminated the heavens and revealed the dark lines of landing boats in the water, full of troops, and long columns of soldiers already standing at attention on the shore. Everything had been carefully planned ahead. * Coolies, bearing paper lanterns, each numbered, stood at pre-arranged spots, showing where new comers were to land. Every Japanese house had a military lantern in front of it, and the officers, fresh from Japan, carried lists showing how many soldiers could go to each house and which rooms they were to stay in. The Japanese inhabitants had expected and prepared for their guests. There was silence and order among the troops. Scarce a word was spoken, and the soldiers on landing quickly marched off to their billets. The men looked in the pink of condition, with their new grey uniform, their dark, yellow-braided, star- ffonted caps, their white putties, and sheepskin THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 41 neck mufflers. They were in heavy marching order. I soon found what had happened. That after- noon, the Russians, alarmed by the non-arrival of despatches, had sent out the gunboat Korietz to make its way to Port Arthur. It left at ten past three, and at four o'clock the people on the shore saw it returning with a Japanese fleet behind and around it. First came a Japanese cruiser leading five torpedo boats, and then two men-of-war pro- tecting five transports, while three battleships anchored at the mouth of the harbour a mile apart. It was then said, and has since been repeated, that the Korietz was stopped by the Japanese fleet, and that it fired on them and was turned back. According to a Russian account, a Japanese torpedo boat fired across the bows of the Korietz. Sailors in the foreign warships in the bay heard no sound of firing whatever. It was clear, however, that the Korietz had been stopped and forced back by the Japanese. General Yasutsuma Kigoshi was in charge of the two thousand troops who landed that night. He made his temporary head-quarters at the Nippon Yusen Kaisha offices, and there I saw him shortly before midnight. He presented a soldierly figure in his dark, scarlet-Uned coat, his dark blue uniform with silver star, and his high boots. He and the chief Japanese were mutually congratulating them- 42 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. selves, as they had every right to do. The landing finished soon after midnight. The Korean fort was shrouded in darkness, and Korean policemen helped the strangers to come to shore. But what of the Russians ? The two Russian warships were caught like rats in a trap. All iiight long they had lain still, watching the movements of the Japanese troops, yet not daring to strike. They were surroundec^ by Japanese torpedo boats and other craft, ready to blow them out of the water at the first sign of action. But even yet they did not despair, for they were expecting that at any moment a strong Russian fleet might appear outside the bay to capture the daring intruders. Foreign critics have often since asked why the Russian captains did not make a bold dash in the darkness and trust to good luck to carry them through. But the passage of the channel was long and dangerous, the ships would almost certainly have grounded and they could scarce have gone three miles without destruction. What a night it must have been on board, as the Russian sailors watched the long lines of lights on the shore, and the dark uniforms of the Japanese troops showing up amid the snow. There could be no question of peace now. At seven o'clock next morning, Tuesday, February 9th, the Japanese Admiral sent formal notice to the THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 43 Russian commanders announcing a state of war, and declaring that if the Russian vessels did not leave the harbour by noon, the Japanese would attack them at four o'clock. At the same time a notice, informing them of the Japanese intentions, was sent to the captains of the foreign warships and to the foreign Consular authorities on shore. Captain Rudineff, commander of the Variag, immediately went on board the British ship Talbot, and a conference was called of the British, French, and Italian captains — the American captain, ap- parently not taking part in this gathering, refusing -- to participate in the proceedings. Captain Rudineff asked that the foreign warships should protect him against attack in the harbour, it being a neutral port, or should give him safe conduct outside. The foreign captains, there can be no doubt, genuinely sympathised with the Russians in their predicament, as brave men always will with others who are confronted by overwhelming force. But they could not take the responsibility of fighting for him, and so the request had to be refused. After a long debate, however, the captains decided to send a formal protest to Vice-Admiral Uriu against attacking in the harbour or firing across the bay in such a way as to endanger the town. The protest was taken in writing by one of the senior officers of the Talbot to the Japanese flagship. The Russian capta,in returned to his ship and 44 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. then followed a scene ever to be cherished among the memories of heroism of the Russian people. Captain Rudineff wanted to leave the slow gunboat Korietz behind and to make a rush for it with the-*" big and powerful Variag, but Captain Byelaieff of the Korietz, protested vehemently^ and begged that he, too, should be allowed to fight. This was a great mistake. The Variag, with her great speed, might have stood some chance, but bound as she was to stand by her weak and slow consort she could do nothing. The Variag and Korietz promptly jettisoned their woodwork and all encumbrances, so far as was possible in a brief space of time. Wood splinters are almost more dangerous in a close naval fight than steel fragments, and add enormously to the risk of fire. The crews were assembled, and the captain in a few words told them that they were going out to face the enemy. For once the terms of naval etiquette were released. They were now " brothers," going to die together. " We must fight to sustain the honour of the Russian flag," said the captain. " Remember brothers, we must fight to the last. There will be no surrender. May God help us ! Let us cross ourselves and go boldly into this fight..' for our Faith, our Czar, and for Holy Russia. Hurrah ! " The men, big, stolid-faced, peasant- like, were swept by a wave of national enthusiasm. They were going to die — well, they would at least THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 45 die bravely ! One started a cheer : the cheer soon grew to a volley of shouts^ now for the Czar, now for the captain, and now for their ship. Then the band struck up the National Anthem and they sent out their deep, bass voices, singing harmon- iously, as Russians ever do, some taking up the tenor and alto parts, making strange music over the bay. The ships steamed out. Now a new sound greeted them. "Hurrahs" and "Vivas" came ringing over the water, and the crews saw that along the sides of the English and French and Italian warships sailors and officers were crowded, some on the rigging, some on the decks, wherever they could obtain a foothold, waving their hats and shouting themselves hoarse. It was the preliminary to the Journey of Death. The Japanese fleet lay outside waiting, 6|- miles from the foreign vessels. The few small Japanese boats watching the Russian ships scuttled off, and the signals informed the waiting sailors that the foe was coming. As the Russians, advancing, emerged from the temporary shelter of Uol-mi-do Island, the Japanese armoured cruiser Asama opened fire with an 8-in. gun, missing with her first two shots. After the third shot, seven minutes later, the Russians repUed. The range was 8,000 yards. The Russians manoeuvred rapidly to avoid th^ fire, but five shells struck the Variag in rapia 46 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. succession, while the Japanese shell repeatedly swept the crews from the guns. A single shell killed or disabled all, save one, at the forecastle gun. One shell struck part of the after 6-in. gun nearly on the water-line, ex- ploding the ammunition and producing a sheet of flame as high as the after fighting-top. Another shell demolished the fore-bridge and set fire to the debris, compelling the Variag to cease firing for nearly five minutes while the crew went to the fire station. The bridge was torn to ribbons, as though it were paper, by a shell. Two shells penetrated at the water-line, one amidships, while another pierced the upper deck just above the forfemast. For the first time the new Japanese explosive, ghirngge, a preparation of the melinite type, was brought into play. Its effects were amazing. The shells split and burst into innumerable minute fragments, and the fumes of the explosive were deadening. One wounded man, alone, was afterwards found in the hospital to have over a hundred separate .pieees^-..04.«liell in liim. The shell bursting on the ship's side drilled myriad small holes in the steel, ^s though a machine gun had played at close quarters on wood. Both bridges were wrecked, and the third funnel was shattered. The scene on board was indescribable. The ship was a living hell. The Russians, following a modern THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 47 theory that gun shields increase the danger for the men, had no shields here. This left the gunners exposed and caused heavy loss. Time after time entire crews were swept from the guns. The concussion and the noise was deafening. The brains of the sailors became numbed, their sight almost blinded, and they reached the stage where they were acting more as automata than as sentient beings. But here discipline told, and the men, too shaken to think clearly, yet kept loyally to their guns and worked bravely. Bravely, but in vain! Their, gujj§„,,'!^et^,. out- ranged, and the fight was a hopeless one. The absence of telescopic gun sights prevented them from taking accurate aim, and their 6-in. guns would not carry against the heavier metal of the Japanese, who were able to stand beyond their range and bombard them at leisure. The strength of the opponents was so dispropor- tionate that the Russians had not a shadow of a chance. The Variag was a boat of 6,500 tons in which everything had been sacrificed to speed. Her armour was of the lightest description — a steel deck of from two to three inches thick protecting the lower part of the hull. The Korietz was a little gunboat of so poor a type as not to be worth anything at all. On the Japanese side there were five modern boats. Of these the Asama, with her seven inches 48 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of nickel steel on the water line and proportionate protection above, and with her heavy armament of four 8-in. q.f. and fourteen 6-in. q.f. could alone overwhelm the others. She was, however, helped by the Chyoida, and there were four other Japanese warships waiting to come in if necessary. The Russians could no more hope to pass them than a child could hope to beat in a heavy door with its bare fists. The noise of shot hitting the sides of the ship, the unceasing tearing of the shells through the air, the bursting of explosives on board the ship, the fires breaking out in various parts, all added to the horror. But worst of all were the signs of dreadful death on every side. Men were torn into pieces under their comrades' eyes. Sailors, bespattered with the blood and flesh of their fellows, had to push warm and disfigured corpses on one side to" continue their work. Two men were burned to death in sight of many. The bodies were incredibly torn. One Russian lieutenant describing it to me a few hours after- wards, summed it up. He himself was wounded and pale, but as he thought of those previous hours his pallor took a deeper hue. " There was blood, blood, everywhere," he said, " severed limbs, torn bodies. Here was a head, there lay a leg, not far away my comrade of yesterday was now ripped in two. The smell of blood pervaded all." THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 49 Meanwhile the Korietz, the Uttle gun-boat, was doing her best. She turned and fired her two old- fashioned 8-in. guns alternately, being handled very well. The Japanese took very little notice of her, concentrating their fire on the great cruiser. The Variag skilfully attempted to use the island as a protection, but there could be no safety from the unceasing Japanese shell. She and the Japanese ships finally got to within 4,000 yards of each other. The whole^^^fight .lasted, barely, . forty « -minutes. Finally a shell disabled the steering gear of the Variag. The captain, thinking then that honour had been satisfied, resolved to turn back and to destroy his ships so as to avoid capture or destruc- tion. They had held out as long as they could and the rescuing fleet had not yet come. Even now, however, the sailors buoyed themselves with the hope that before the end came the Sevastopol and the remainder of Vice-Admiral Stark's fleet would appear and show the enemy who were the real masters of the sea. Now came the gravest moment of all, a moment when the future of nations hung in the balance. Both ships returned to the harbour, the Variag showing a heavy list. They came on till the Variag was within three hundred yards of the British ship Talbot^ and the Korietz came still further in. Both vessels fired on the Japanese as they retreated. 4 so FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. At this moment word went round the British, the French, and the Italian ships to prepare for action. Whether the three foreign commanders meant by force to prevent the Japanese from coming* in and seizing the boats on the spot, or from firing over the town, can be left to surmise. Immediately the doomed ships anchored, the Talbot led the way by despatching surgeons and ambulance supplies. The other warships quickly followed, the American ship, which had. .,taken ^^.JSMX~...^Vi to "now, participating. A Holt Line steamer, lying in the bay, also sent aid. The scenes at the removal of the wounded were indescribably pitiful. The men, slowly carried up by their comrades, suffered tortures unspeakable. Most of them were hurt in several places, and a new horror seemed to have been added to war, for these wounds were such as men seldom dream of. Under it all, the^Russian -sailors showed splendid fortitude, and there was complete order anS discipline."" The greatest difficulty was experienced in taking the wounded into the boats and in getting them over the side. On the Variag 107 men were killed or wounded/ out of the 150 who manned the deck guns. Scarce a shell had hghted on the Korietz, the Japanese not having thought her worth troubling about, and the injuries on her were very slight. The Japanese officially stated that the Russian fire did THE. COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 51 n^-„taiJU±.-~,t33^iL, ships, and consequently they had no casualties of any description. This statement, like many other statements by the Japanese about the niimber of their killed and wounded, has been doubted by some. I may give two facts as sidelights on it. Soon after seven o'clock on the morning following the battle I was walking down the main street of Chemulpho when I met the principal doctor of the Japanese Legation at Seoul going towards the railway station. I knew him well, and as we walked along talking he told me that he had come down the day before to attend to the wounded, but since there was no|, a^^single Japanese, .hwrt, and the Russians were being cared for on the foreign vessels, he was going back by the eight o'clock train to Seoul. A second side light. Some weeks after the fight, an enthusiastic friend of mine, who has close official connection with Japan, was describing to me cases of the heroism of the people during the war. " For instance," he said, " I went recently to see the mother of one of our sailors who was killed during the battle of Chemulpho. She was dressed in her best to receive me, and treated my ^ condolences as one would congratulations on a happy event, for to her it was a triumph that her son should have died for his Emperor in the early part of the war. A* 52 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. " But," said I, in amazement, " there must be some mistake. Not a single sailor was killed in that battle, according to the official returns." " Ah," my friend replied. " That was so. No sailor was killed on the warships, but some of the Russian shells struck the Japanese boats that had been waiting around to watch the movements of the Variag. The sailor whose mother I visited was on board one of them, and was killed there." The Japanese now left the vessels alone, and the captain of the Variag prepared to destroy the ships. The men were accordingly removed to the foreign vessels. Two hundred and forty two of the crew were taken on the Talbot, including many wounded. Others were taken on the Pascal and the Elba. The Americans offered to take some of the wounded on the Vicksburg, but the Russians arranged to go on the Pascal instead. Probably the Americans were not very keen to help here, for the captain ' had received strict orders to avoid creating any complications by participating in the proceedings. The 'tween decks and the sickrooms of the foreign ships were turned into hospitals for the Russians. On our own Talbot there was not a sailor from the highest to the lowest who would not in those hours have given all he had to aid the dying men. At four o'clock, to the minute, the Korietz was blown up. There were two sharp explosions, one forward and another aft. A mass of flames arose THE COMING Of THE jAf ANE^E. ^j a hundred yards high, and then came smoke mount- ing to the heavens. As the sound of the explosion died away, the voices of the Russians were heard across the waters of the bay, singing their own National Anthem, their music broken by the splash- ing of the debris as it scattered around. The sunset of a beautiful winter afternoon lit up the scene. The crew of the Variag having already been transferred to the foreign warships, the sea cocks were opened and the ship gradually filled. The Japanese all this time stood outside making no movement. About five o'clock in the after- noon, a series of minor explosions began, and then growing flames arose from the stem of the vessel. At first they were but a flicker, but they grew and grew. Soon they appeared also on the fore part. The fire reaching the captain's cabin caused constant staccato outbursts among the 12-pounder ammuni- tion there. The list to port became more and more marked. The stern of the ship heeled gradually oyer, the flames rolling out and licking the surface of the waters. Then came a tremendous roar of the gear falling lee-wards, and finally the ship went right under, her guns still standing fast but now pointing heavenwards. No man there could witness the ruin of that great ship unmoved. As I gazed I remembered how, but a few days before, when we had arrived on the Santo 54 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Maru to Chemulpho harbour^ my companions had pointed out to me a great^ black, ugly and dangerous- looking boat. " There," they said. " There stands the Variag, the most powerful ship in our harbour. It could blow every man-of-war here out of the sea." And now we saw her wrecked under our eyes. Our hearts were still more saddened and depressed at the thought of the brave men whom we had known but a few days before so cheerful, and who were now maimed hulks. For myself, as I turned into the club house on the hill top, I felt sore at heart. The allies of my own country had won, but brave men had fallen, and for the moment the thought of their mortification blotted out all feelings of jubilation. Darkness was now coming on. The Russian mail boat Sungan, which was also lying in the bay, burst into flames. None attempted to check the fire, and for many hours, until past midnight, she lit up the harbour with her glow. The Japanese sailors kept out at sea. Next day I saw and had long talks with the Russians who had been rescued on the British ship. They seemed, even then, stunned and benumbed by their ex- periences. The deafening noise, the fearful slaughter in small space, the concussion of the gun fire on the ships, had temporarily dulled their senses, and men told me that when the Russian sailors had first come on board the afternoon before, THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. 55 they had appeared as though they were walking in a tranced state, their brains fogged and clouded by the terrific strain. A few days later the real meaning of war was brought home to me still more. The Russian sailors, badly wounded and taken on the Pascal, had been removed subsequently to Chemulpho, where the Japanese took care of them. It is im- possible to speak too highly of the great care and ? attention which the Japanese people showed these stricken enemies. A special hospital was fixed up. The Japanese ladies of the town volunteered as nurses and worked day and night. The task of the doctors was greatly complicated by the fact that a very large proportion of the cases had got gangrene during the few days on the Pascal. I walked through the wards and noticed the men. Here was one whom I had seen a few days before, the finest type of the smart and aristocratic sailor. Now he lay still, his face white as a sheet, his teeth ever clenched, his features already thinning, and a look of unutterable and almost intolerable pain in his eyes. Here lay another, a stolid peasant from the banks of the Neva, groaning in his semi- conscious delirium. And so on from bed to bed. This was war, this was hell — illumined solely by the courage and splendid self-sacrifice of the men who had thus dared and faced the inferno ! 56 CHAPTER VI. The *'Au Revoir" of M. Pavloff. A BITTER winter morning. A cold wind swept down from the Manchurian uplands. Thick snow lay underfoot and more snow was falling unceasingly. Outside the city wall of Seoul, in front of the railway station, two battalions of Japanese infantry stood at attention, their hoods white with the descending flakes. On one side were a few Koreans, mean men of the city, conspicuous for their height and for their fantastic dress. They had been sent by the native statesmen, afraid themselves to come, and they were timidly gazing at the great sign of changed affairs now visible in front of their eyes. On the platform, moving in their furs to keep themselves warm, were diplomats and attaches, familiar with every court in Europe, and with a hundred great scenes of barbaric pageantry in Asia. Picked men these — the representative of St. Germain, the trusted, quiet-spoken, firm- THE ."AU REVOIR" OF M. PAVLOFF. "57 purposed ex-missionary physician from Washington, the brilUantly uniformed sabreur from Rome, and the genial delegate from Berlin. A special train stood on the metal ways, and a long procession of Korean coolies came along bearing luggage. It was the farewell of M. Pavloff ! A week ago the Minister of Russia had been the most courted and apparently the most powerful man here. His great palace within the city walls, planted on a dominating height, surrounded by great grounds and high defences, towered above all others. The mightiest in Korea had stood humbly in his ante-rooms, and at his nod a waiting continent had responded. Nothing then was too great for him, and his friends already saw him the real ruler of the state, with the Emperor a puppet in his hands. Only a few months since, when he arrived home with his beautiful bride from Washington, all the riches of these dominions had been used to prove the affection and the admiration of the Korean statesmen for him. Now ! Now a Japanese guard stood waiting, and not a high Korean was to be seen near. In a night, power had slipped from his hands, and the smoking guns and burning ships at Chemulpho, the wrecked boats and bombarded batteries at Port Arthur, blazoned abroad his fall. He was to go, with the Japanese guards on his train, with Japanese troops 58 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS, lining his way, and with the sound of Japanese bugles announcing his quittance. Even the most violent opponent of Russia could not rejoice at such a moment. Those who knew him, not alone as a diplomatist, but as a brave and courteous gentleman ; those privileged to have met his girl-wife, who seems to combine the vivacity of Washington with the distinctive courtliness of the newer St. Petersburg ; those who appreciated the members of his train, good comrades all, had no pleasure here. " It is a funeral," one Minister whispered to me. " It only needs the arrival of the hearse to make it complete." Up to the last minute it had seemed impossible to the Russians that this thing could be true. For months they had laughed at the danger. " War ! " one of them had cried but a few days before. " Nothing amuses me so much as all this absurds talk of war. It is farcical, ridiculous. The Japanese ;: will never fight." The Russian Minister himself took the same line. " There will be no war," he had said repeatedly. " Even if there were, all that would happen could be that the Japanese would lose their fleet and then would have excuse for suing for peace." And now the Japanese soldiers stood at attention as he marched by ! To the Russians it appeared impious, incredible that the power of the Czar should be flaunted thus. Hour after hour since the Japanese fleet had entered THE "AU REVOIR" OF M. PAVLOFF. 59 Chemulpho harbour on the historic Monday evening they had strained their ears for the sound of rescuing guns. On the previous day the distant noise of Chinese crackers deceived them into the behef that a bombardment was progressing, and the members of the Legation spread hke magic the rumour that twenty-two Russian warships were now entering the harbour. But the sound of the crackers had died and the heavy guns had not been heard. They did not know, and most of those present did not know, that a Russian rescuing party had been captured by a Japanese war-ship when trying to reach the coast. They could not beheve that the Russian fleet had been beaten back under the forts of Port Arthur itself. There came a sound of Japanese bugles, and the smart little men in front of the station stood still more at attention. Then followed the arrival of well-mounted Japanese staff officers, and then a procession of magnificent sedan chairs, gaily decked, and carried by Koreans in coloured robes. The deckings of your chairs in this land constitute a sign of your importance. The man who wishes to humble himself, and to proclaim his own abase- ment, picks the dingiest and shabbiest chair he can for his visit. But there was no sign of abasement or of humility on the faces or chairs there. The Russians might be bitter at heart ; they would at 60 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. least show a bold front to the world, and one could but admire them for it. There was a laugh in their eyes and a look proclaiming their belief that they would soon come back, and that the guard of honour should then be their own. A word in praise of the conduct of the Japanese on this occasion. The large Japanese colony at Seoul did not come to proclaim over a fallen enemy. The civilian Japanese stayed away. There was not a shout or sign of rejoicing. The soldiers and statesmen did their work as quietly and as in- offensively as possible. The Japanese Minister, in plain morning clothes, stood, hat in hand, among the other M nisters to bid good-bye. A well-known Japanese general was deputed to escort the Russian Minister to the sea, and did not seem to enjoy his task. He might be excused for dishking it. The Russians kept smiling faces, but they could not exchange pleasantries with their enemies. They pretended not to see the Japanese troops, and they were conveniently blind to the presence of the Japanese general. On the journey from Seoul to Chemulpho not one occupant of the large saloon carriage exchanged a word with him. Most of those standing around the Russian group had a personal interest in the proceedings. In a great European city one man may know little of his neighbour. Among the foreigners at Seoul THE "AU REVOIR" OF M. PAVLOFF. 6i this cannot be. The Europeans and Americans are so few that they must become acquainted with each other. Each man's every doing is familiar to all his neighbours. The arrival of a strange face is known before the stranger has had time to walk around the city. The resident of a month is familiar with all, and the common dangers among a strange people make the lines between Briton and German, Russ and Italian seem very slight. Thus it was no surface grief that wrung hearts here. One of us had been humiliated, and whatever we thought of the quarrel between the two nations, all were hurt. " Au revoir." It was the word of the Russian Minister himself. The body of Russian subjects were already in the train. The sound of tramping feet proclaimed the arrival of the Russian marines carrying their arms. Big, broad-shouldered men these ; their faces wore frowns to-day. They came with fixed bayonets, and marched out with all the honours of war, but only the strictest discipline kept them from turning their bayonets on their foes around. There was no need to say that they would have preferred death to this. At Chemulpho the scene was much the same. There was a line of Japanese guards from ship to boat. Craft were waiting to take soldiers and refugees to the French warship Pascal ready to receive them, and last of all there was a launch 62 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. for the Minister and his party. They would not hurry. They had a word for every one, a laugh, a joke, a reminiscence for all old friends. None was more gay than the Minister's wife. And yet when at last she got on her launch and turned for a final farewell, it took no special vision to see tears welling in those eyes. " We will return," they whispered. Would they ? Who could say ? The future lay in darkness before us and the final word rested with the God of Battles. Yet for the moment, Au revoir ! 63 CHAPTER VII. Due North, The great Pekin road, the highway to the north, stood invitingly open. The battle of Chemulpho had settled the immediate ovedordship of central Korea, and day by day in the streets of Seoul we saw preparations proceeding among the newly- landed Japanese troops for an advance. Every arrival from the north brought stories of the march of the dreaded Cossacks from the frozen Yalu south- wards. Worn Koreans poured in with news of commotion in the provinces — Tong-hak revolutions here, local risings there, the murder of a magistrate somewhere else. Three of us impatiently awaiting events resolved that we too would go north. Here let me introduce the friends who shared the trip with me. They were two, Jack London the novelist, and Dunn from New York. Jack London had proved his grit by the way he reached Korea. Like most other correspondents, he arrived in Japan too late. He was forbidden to advance and found all the ordinary means of transit cut off. Un- 64 FROM TOKYO TQ TIFLIS. deterred, he pushed south from Tokyo, crossed from Shimonoseki in a small vessel, and then spent days travelling in Korean row-boats around the coast, with no companions but the rough and dirty Korean sailors, with no food but their rice and pulse, sleeping in the open night after night. It was typical of the author of " The Sea Wolf." Everyone knows his story, how after going through a series of amazing adventures in America, he took to the sea, spent some time enduring hardships in the Klondike, and then, while still little more than a boy, jumped to fame and fortune as a novelist. Already, in 1904, although the second month was not yet by, he had maintained his reputation for adventure. He broke both ankles when crossing the Pacific on his way to the war. He was arrested by the Japanese in Shimonoseki and detained there so long that he lost the last boat to Korea, and now he was to be the foremost in the advance. If ever a man deserved success. Jack London is he. Whatever came during the days of our trip north (and we had our share of the very rough) his open, frank face never lost its laugh. He had to learn riding, and before many days his flesh was raw with saddle soreness. Then he laughed the more, even though his teeth were clenched, only insisting that we should ride harder, and himself hardest of all. Jack London is Anglo-Saxon, American branch. Russian in winter dress. \To face page 64. DUE NORTH. 65 Dunn is American every inch. A Tennessee man, trained in New York, he will do anything, bear any- thing, go anywhere, to get a beat. He is capable of asking a General to delay a bombardment until the light grows better for picture taking. I am sure it was only an accident that he was not at the first military execution. Had he been there he would certainly have requested the prisoner, just before the firing took place, to " stand a little more for- ward and don't look at the camera ! " It was simple enough to resolve to go north, but the journey was not so easy to undertake. The inland road to Manchuria is far from smooth, and this was the worst season of the year for travel. The snow was thick, cutting winds from Siberia swept through the mountains, and the country was in a state of unrest. We had to go through dis- tricts where a foreigner was as rare as a Sioux Indian in Fleet Street. Worst of all, we had nothing ready. We had come hot-foot to the seat of war, one from the placid deUghts of a sun-kissed Californian valley, one from New York, and the third from a torrid AustraUan summer. None had tarried for outfit by the way, yet outfit we must have ; for on this journey we would be completely cut off from Western civilisation. The fashionable traveller who starts out from London with leisurely dignity, can obtain every- 5 66 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. thing by a brief visit to one of the great stores. A poUte gentleman will fit you out in an afternoon, and will burden you down, if you permit him^ with a thousand pounds of luxurious supplies. We, alas, were in a spot where European shops were but a memory. First came the problem of clothes. Riding suits, fur coats, high rubber boots in which we could wade unharmed through unbridged rivers, and fur caps to save the ears from otherwise inevitable frost- bite — all must be had. There is not a white tailor in Seoul, and no boat could set out from the sea coast for Shanghai. We gazed at the wares of the Korean tailors, the padded arm guards, the sheepskin socks, the sable breast covers. One of us, imaginative and daring, drew plans of a coat, and set a Korean to work on it. The outcome was interesting, but it was not a coat. Word was brought to us of a Chinese tailor, and we felt that we were saved, for the Chinaman is the one reliable and capable trader of the Far East. Bland and smiling Yuen Tai met us with a polite refusal. " Velly solly. Chinaman no work. Chinese New Year, plenty long holiday." And the noise of the crackers in the street and the fresh bright red mottoes on his door witnessed that he spoke the truth. " How long holiday ? " one asked. " Ten day, twelve day, twenty day. Boys no DUE NORTH. 6y work Chinese New Year." It was simple fact, and we ought to have known it. The Chinaman works seven days a week most of the year, and long into the night. But his annual holiday he will have. " Get it done, and I give you ten dollars more," cried one, thinking to solve the matter by the simplest Western plan. The bland tailor laughed. " You velly funny," he said. " This war time. Chow velly dear, every- thing velly dear. I pay man last month one dollar, now I pay him tree dollar. Boys all go back Chefoo, not like Japanese. You say, I pay ten dollar more. You velly funny." A happy thought struck me. " Yuen Tai," said I. " Don't you know that we are men who write books ? Make our clothes, and the ends of the earth will hear your name. We tell all white men of Yuen Tai, the tailor of Seoul." " You put my name in your book ? " he queried. I nodded assent. The situation was saved, and despite holiday the clothes were made to time, and well made at that. There were, it is true, Japanese traders in Seoul, _ but we soon learnt to avoid them. The great Japanese mercantile concern may conduct its affairs on the same scale, and in the same way, as any other, but the smaller Japanese business man too often lacks conscience, and by the lack of it pronounces 5* 68 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. hi 3 own commercial damnation. His goods are frequently shoddy and sham, and he sees no reason for putting a good thing in when a bad can be made to pass muster. He lacks thoroughness and sin- cerity, and he regards the foreigner as a simpleton, to be bamboozled and over-reached at every turn. For this there is a very good reason. Up to recent years the trader was regarded in Japan as little, better than an outcast. The conscience of the nation revolted at the idea of one man selling his surplus supplies at a profit, and so benefitting him- self by the needs of his neighbours. When foreign intercourse shattered this idea, the trader still found himself frowned down upon. Here is the strange contrast between Chinamen and Japanese. In China, Government is corrupt, but business on the whole is honest. In Japan, Government is remark- ably free from corruption, but business methods often will not bear close investigation. The best brains of China go to trade, and of Japan to official administration. All this we knew before. Now we re-learnt our lesson. For instance, we wanted saddles, and secured the best for sale in the Japanese town. Apparently they were admirable, but at the end of the second day's ride some of the straps gave way, in- viting serious accident. I ripped up a closed part of the saddle, only to find that where the joins could not be seen the Japanese makers had not DUE NORTH. 69 troubled to sew them together, but had fastened the leather with tin-tacks ! Horses, bedding, food, weapons, all must be had. The land before us opened up no prospect of pleasant picnic. Every day brought fresh stories of activity among the robber bands in the districts through which we had to pass. For food we would have to depend on what we took with us, unless we elected to live on eggs and rice. From sleeping sacks to soap for washing clothes, we must carry all our own stocks. Then came the problem of money. Our difficulty was not how to get money, but how to carry it and how to estimate its value. The man who would understand the different currencies in Korea needs to be an expert financier. In the southern provinces I had been told that I must carry cash, the poorest coins, of which it takes a donkey load to equal the value of £3 or £4. Happily in the north this was unnecessary. In Central Korea the Seoul dollar ruled. The leading fact about the Seoul dollar is that there is no such coin. It is a purely arbitrary figure, the equivalent of a hundred yang. One used the Seoul dollar in dealing with Koreans, but for foreign exchange the Japansee yen, a coin of fixed value, is the standard. To add to our troubles, the variations in the value of the Korean dollar day by day were amazing. One day you could buy two hundred and twenty- 70 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. five Korean dollars with a hundred yen. Four days later a hundred yen were worth only a hundred and forty Korean dollars, for the money exchangers had made a corner on account of the war. You would go abroad with your pockets full of the little nickel coins, unaware whether the latest rate of ex- change or market trade had made you a millionaire or a pauper. This was not all. There are many grades of nickels. First comes the good, honest, sound coin, then comes the good, sound counterfeit. The manu- facture of counterfeits is a regular business, and is said to have been up to quite recently largely patronised by high of&cials. Besides good counter- feits, there are bad counterfeits. There are others so bad that you could only circulate them in the north. Others still worse than these can only be palmed off after dark on stupid or drunken people. When a man pays you any sum of money, you hire an expert native to go over all the coins and slowly test them. The work takes both time and patience. The mere carriage even of the nickel five- yen pieces was a great burden. A few hundred dollars, or the equivalent of ^^20 English money, would be a heavy load for a man to carry. While we were working hard at our preparations, the stream of armed soldiers warned us that we must hurry. Already cavalry scouts were setting out north, and in the early morning we saw infantry DUE. NORTH, 71 tramping up the Pekin Pass. Now came more difficulties. The army had bought up almost all the live stock, and had engaged the coolies for fifty miles around. Interpreters, who a month ago could be had for fifty dollars a month, were now asking and obtain- ing one hundred and fifty. The soldiers had emptied the shops, and no steamers were coming in with further supplies. The Japanese saddles were useless, and we must hunt the district for old saddles of English or American make. Boys must be had, boys who were not afraid of war. Many pack ponies were wanted for our loads. The roadway in front of the hotel was all day long the assembly place of native dealers in horses. All the hopeless nags of Seoul were brought forward for our inspection. Mongolian ponies, sturdy and rugged, Korean ponies, slight but strong, ponies that would viciously strive to kill the man who sought to mount them, others so feeble that they apparently wanted holding up — all were trotted out. Among the many bad were a few good, and these were gradually selected. Then came the great question of picking inter- preters and " boys." Many pages would fail to give knowledge of fruitless work in endeavouring to secure these. My efforts to find a good inter- preter had, I admit, failed utterly until the Japanese Legation came to my assistance and secured for me 72 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the man I wanted. In my " number one boy/' Kim Mingun, I found a treasure. Overlord of my coolies, master of my horses, bodyguard and friend, Kim was a man of forty, a Korean of the north, brave, a good horseman, and a born leader of his own people. He knew every inn for five hundred miles round, and every trick of the natives. For long he clung to his native dress, and when he appeared in full clean attire I felt at once humbled and exalted by his magnificence. His knowledge of English was at first limited to a few score words, although he soon acquired quite an extensive vocabulary. He could make the best omelette of any servant around. He could attack a petty thief like a whirlwind, and when he got through, the thief would wonder how many pieces of him there were. When our supply of foreign food failed he could dress up native " chow " in appetising fashion. He would wash one's linen, and even try to iron one's suits. He would domi- nate the head man of a village who refused us shelter, or would sweep out a room, with equal facility. The sight of him riding along with gun slung over shoulder was enough to frighten off robbers. It is a commonplace in the Far East that every man has, in his own opinion, the best " boy " under the sun. I fight for premier place for Kim. Kim's chief assistant, Pak, was a coohe of very different cahbre. I had noticed, in my Seoul hotel. DUE NORTH. 73 one big, smiling-faced, clumsy-looking native, who attached himself to me. He was always at the station when I arrived, and ever followed me when he could. Finally he plucked up courage and announced his intention of entering my service. His knowledge of the English language was confined to an ingratiating smile, and one or two mono- syllables. " Do you not know," I said, in hard tones, " that I am going to war. Men will be killed, you may be kiUed ; men will go hungry, and you often may not have enough to eat. Don't you feel afraid ? " He looked up, and then smiled afresh. " Master," said he, " if you are there, I have no fear." After that, what could one do but let him come ? Pak's clothes were somewhat worn, and one day he ran to me brimming with the news that he could buy a second-hand European suit for seven yen (fourteen shillings). The country north was thick with snow, so a pair of rubber boots had to be found for him, and among my stores I discovered an European neck-cloth and cap. Was there ever boy so proud as he ? Whenever he imagined I was not looking, he would stand in front of the glass, arrang- ing his plum-coloured neck-cloth in newest style. He was promptly nick-named " The Duke," and attempted to live up to the name. Biit alas for vanity ! Pak attempted to crowd native clothes 74 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. underneath European. His trousers split^ and the days of his glory were over. Then came the morning of the great exodus. We three had among us eighteen ponies and thirteen men, boys and interpreters. We thought to be gone, but even as the loads were being slung on the ponies, the leader of the mafoos (grooms) came to us, demanding higher wages. At ordinary times, our men would have been well paid at ten dollars a month, they were now receiving twenty ; they wanted forty. There could be no answer to this demand but a curt negative. I might have compromised, but the spirit of my comrades fired me to fight. " These men are money mad," cried Jack London. " We're not going to give way." The men threw the packs on the road. They had thought that by springing their ultimatum at the last moment, we must yield. They had miscalcu- lated. Our servants stood by us. The packs were replaced, and the strikers found the procession of ponies starting north without them. 75 CHAPTER VIII. With the Vanguard of the Japanese Army. " This is not war/' said a man impatiently, as he watched the alert officers devoting their attention to details of rice supply, blanket reserve, and the purchase of pigs and cattle. " This is war," one who knew better replied. " War in its most vital point — new style." We had come expecting to hear the clangour of arms, to see the glory, the horrors, the splendours of a nineteenth century campaign. Instead we found that a new century had brought revised conditions. The first problem of the Japanese was, npLMiitm^}mLk§.^S, and all along our line of road the officers were devoting themselves to the solution of the problems of transport and com- missariat. Napoleon's dictum, that an army crawls upon its stomach, was never more true than to-day. Before we left Seoul the Japanese Minister there had told me that the first land battle was expected at Pingyang, about a hundred and fifty miles northwards. The Russians were reported to be in j6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. considerable strength on the Yalu River, a hundred and sixty-five miles north of Pingyang, and they were known to have sent forces of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, southwards, under General Mistchenko. It was impossible for us to land troops far north and push forward to meet them, for the coastal harbours above Haiju were frozen, and would remain so until the middle of March. Our only plan was to push troops overland from Haiju and Chemulpho. The possession of Pingyang was of considerable importance to the side that wished to hold Northern Korea, for it is a natural fortress in a commanding position. To the Russians Pingyang would have been of special value, for it was the natural centre at which the armies from Vladivostock and the Yalu might meet them when coming southwards. We were hurrying up to arrive there ahead of the Russians. We had not left Seoul a few hours before evidence of the completeness of the Japanese preparations were borne in on one at every turn. I found that long ago they had started Korean language classes in Tokyo, sending picked soldiers to them. ^ In the nineties, while some of the best Japanese officers were making their way to Mongolia, to organise and train the so-called robber bands there, others went all over Northern Korea. They lived among the people as natives, speaking the language, One of my Chinese boys. \To face page 76. WITH THE VANGUARD. yj and being regarded even by them as men of their own race. One settled as a doctor in an obscure village on the line of route, and lived there for five years before the day came when his services to the army were necessary. The Japanese knew not merely every road, but apparently every person. The German General ' Staff once surprised a British officer by informing him how many blacksmiths' shops there were in Oldham. The Japanese General Staff could easily surpass this. It had apparently a biography of every village elder. Now the advantage of this was felt. Thef Japanese knew the land, ^.ach officer had in his! ^ou£h,,aw. accurate and... mintite inap of .the part he'? was3aa;kiQFg...in. When a battalion marched into? a village it found on the borders a clean hoarding, i with a map on it showing every house, every path- | way, and bivouacs for all the soldiers. Doctors "\ went ahead of the troops and tested each well and .1 stream, marking them. Woe to the soldier whof^ dared to slake his thirst with unboiled water from a | well forbidden by the sanitary officers. Even before the landing at Chemulpho, a number of quiet men had gone in civiUan clothes to the villages and taken up their places there. The Japanese Uving near by, dressed as cooUes but armed with regulation rifles and bayonets, suddenly appeared on the streets. Theii leader now put on 78 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. his officer's war uniform (a uniform, that is, free from all superfluous decorations) and took possession of a temple or a palace. Then gigantic stocks of food and clothing rose, as it were, from the earth. Here was a mountain of red blankets, here an avalanche of coolie-loads of rice, here came men from fifty miles away bringing cattle. In Tho-san they were slaughtering chickens, and in An-hop they were gathering pigs for the coming soldiers, while the advance guard of the fighting men was eighty miles away. You entered a village knowing that it was at least two days before the first infantrymen, pushing on from Seoul, could reach there. At the entrance to the village you would find a newly-erected notice board, with a map of the district and minute directions for billetting. Ahead would be one or two cavalry vedettes, and a civilian bargaining with the Koreans about the purchase of their pigs and rice. At the magistrate's house, a commissariat officer would be seated, and armies of coolies would be arriving and departing, some bringing rice, some blankets, some stores of all kinds. These very Korean coolies demonstrated the thought and care given to details. They were decorated with stripes of red, to show that they were now in the service of His Imperial Majesty's Transport Corps. Their leaders, natives them- selves, would carry httle banners as rallying points WITH THE VANGUARD. 79 for their bands. Some of the cooHes would be marked on the cheek to distinguish them. The loads were made up to the exact weight for a man to carry. These weights were fully calculated in order that so many of them should go to a pony or an ox load. At this time the Japanese did not haggle over money, the coolies were paid wages scarcely dreamed of by them before, and the pi ice of pack ponies had soared high. I had to pay 144 Korean dollars for the hire of three pack ponies from Seoul to Pingyang ; at ordinary times I could have bought them outright for much less. The difficulties of the Japanese transport officers were greatly increased by the fact that they could obtain practically no supplies from the country itself. Korea, ever a barren land, was now at its most desolate point. Stocks of fodder and meat, ready to hand in almost every other country, were unobtainable here. The natives themselves were, many of them, eating crows — least desirable of all foods. Burden-bearing animals, horses, ponies, cattle and the like, were singularly scarce, for Korea — thanks to an epidemic — had been denuded of most of its ponies, and the oxen were wanted for food. " It has been very hard work," the head of a Japanese transport station confessed to me as we sat one afternoon talking the matter over. " Our first problem has been to get our supplies over 8o FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. from Japan. Every transport ship is wanted for the troops. There is scarcely anything to be had from the country itself, for the people are so poor that they have not got it to sell us." ******** The Pekin road begins at Seoul with the Indepen- dence Arch, the intended symbol of a new era which has not yet arrived. It was erected by the Koreans under orders from Japan, in the period of Japanese domination which followed the victorious war of 1894, and it proclaims the formal renunciation of Chinese suzerainty. In olden days Chinese legates came periodically to the outer stones of the city, were there met by a royal procession, and had homage and tribute paid to them. On that spot now stands the Arch, a forced national renunciation, a minatory and defiant pile of stones, erected with quaking hearts by the timorous builders. No man hated so much the building of the Arch as the King who had to command it. He did not want to do anything of the kind, but what is the use of being made independent if you do not cele- brate the occasion in some way ? So the masterful persuasion of Count Inouye prevailed, and the Arch now stands in witness. A sharp ascent brings you to a typical Asiatic mountain pass. The hills on either side stand guarded by high walls, reaching to their summits. WITH THE VANGUARD. 8i The black rock, covered with winter snow, frowned down on us as we passed by it, and the glamour of a winter morning lay on the capital below. The yellow dome of a palace caught the glint of a feeble sun, while the circular roofs of royal homes, the grey and heavy picture walls, and the flat lines of black roofs took new charm and picturesqueness. Crowds of country people were coming and going, mostly bearing brushwood and logs to the city. Japanese soldiers, here a few, there a company, and anon a lonely outpost, were everywhere. Now came a solitary Japanese in civilian attire, with ancestral sword carefully wrapped in yellow muslin tied in front of his pony load. This was a merchant, his mind full of schemes for cornering provisions, for dominating villages, and for conveying luxuries north to sell at fancy prices to the soldiers. At every cross road one could spy the yellow braid, the star-fronted peaked caps, and the grey overcoats of the invading army. My two comrades had gone ahead the day before, taking my pack ponies and coolies with them. I had been detained, with boy and interpreter, thanks to the incompetence of an Asiatic trader, who had failed to supply necessary goods up to time. Hence my start in the early morning, with blanket, tooth- brush, and revolver for outfit, and with interpreter and boy behind. Even in those late winter days, when the glory 6 82 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of the snow had gone^ and the brightness of the spring had not yet come, we could not fail to be struck by the majestic beauty of the land. Our road all day, and for days yet to come, was beside a succession of mountains. Now we were going through a small valley, now mounting the lower slopes of a great hill. The roadway, on the whole, was surprisingly well made, although often in a bad state of repair. Riding was by no means easy, for the ground was Uke a sheet of ice. To add to my difficulty my Mongolian pony was unused to foreigners, and regarded one in the fantastic dress of a European as an object to be knocked or bitten out of sight. I had picked the pony for its sturdiness, with full knowledge of its faults. The faults in England would have been fatal. First, it would heartily kick any stranger who approached it from behind. If you faced it, and tried to make friends, it would raise its fore paws to get at you, and vary that by biting. Then it stumbled somewhat badly, a fault almost universal in Mongolian and Chinese ponies. But it could go fast and far, and that atoned for all. The first morning had to be devoted to mastering the beast, while we were pushing ahead. He scored one round, and after he had thrown me heavily on my shoulder and got in two or three good kicks at my leg, I began to realise that even lively ponies have their drawbacks. But by afternoon we were WITH THE VANGUARD. 83 friendSj and henceforth — save when he had to be shod and even Japanese farriers refused to approach him — we had no more trouble. We had to push on far the first day. At noon there came an hour of rest on the floor of a native inUj but by sunset we had yet many H to travel. Kim had gone on ahead, looking for rooms, and as dark- ness gathered I noticed my interpreter becoming more and more limp. We had now to lead our ponies, to save their strength for another day. Darkness descended ; but as we were feeling our way along the desolate road the moon rose. It was an abode of profound solitude. We had passed our last village long before, and no other was in sight. The night wind grew colder, and our ponies could scarce retain their footing on the slippery way. The howl of a wild dog on the mountain- side echoed in melancholy strain, and the answer of its mate, miles away, replied. " I can go no further," a feeble voice, which I hardly recognised as that of my interpreter, declared. " Let us rest." Rest ? Where ? In the snow ? He had been eating snow from the mountain-side for the past hour, a mad thing to do. To rest here would be death. There was nothing for me to do but to get the reins of the two horses with one hand, and place my right arm around him, half carrying him on. Minute by minute he became more and more 6* 84 FROM TOKYO TO TIFITS. a dead weight, but it was not until I had borne liim along for over half an hour in this fashion that I remembered the obvious plan of helping him to mount his pony, and leading that along. A dozen times that night we thought we saw the lights of villages, and a dozen times they proved but fancy. Then, as we mounted a hill, there was no longer room for doubt. As I drew near I could hear the voices of my friends, who had gone ahead the day before, and were now shouting for us. We had caught them up, and our first day out was at an end. 85 CHAPTER IX. The Delights of Korean Travel. The conditions of Korean travel are already rapidly changing. The completion of the two railways running from Fusan to Wiju will soon make journey- ing there quite easy. We started, however, before the northern railway from Seoul was begun, and consequently had to progress in the old style. Our loads were boxed, and carried by pack ponies. Everything we wanted, whether bedding or food, had to be taken with us, down to an extra supply of horseshoes and nails. We early learned that farriery is an indispensable accomplishment for the man in outer lands. If you cannot shoe your own pony at a pinch in Korea, your journey may be stopped at any moment. The sage who wrote about taking his ease in his inn never visited Korea, or he would have revised his sentiments. Picture the guest room of the best inn in an ordinary village. The approach is usually a narrow, reeking lane, crowded on either side with one-storied, thatch-covered shops and huts. 86 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLTS. Mud is thick in the roadway, and the pecuHar odours of an insanitary people penetrate everywhere. One's room — the guest room — might pass muster as a decent fowl-shed at home. It is low and small, for your Korean does not understand the need for spacious private apartments. The walls are of mud on a wood framework, and the protruding beams are lined, Korean fashion, with the leaves of a printed book. Of fui-niture there is none save two small Korean stools. Why ask for chairs when you can sit on the floor ? Why ask for tables when you can eat off the floor ? Why ask for bed when you can sleep on the floor ? The floor itself is covered with matting. From the centre rafter of the ceiling hang two rows of oval-shaped, brown loaves, suspended by straw, a preparation of beans drying for future use. The floor matting is white and new, for here is an honoured guest to be treated to the best. But woe is me, this does not mean that the floor is clean. Beetles crawl up it and along the walls. Worse than beetles abound. Superfluous live stock and pungent smells are two of the main drawbacks of Korean life. Trouble with sleeping accommodation is a very real affair. The system of heating in the houses is to have a fire under the floor, converting the whole of the floor into the top of an oven. This ensures the proper warming of the room, but it also promotes THE DELIGHTS OF KOREAN TRAVEL. 87 the spread of undesirable live stock. When one is travelling at leisure, you carry your own bed with you, a light, folding cot, weighing perhaps 16 lbs., to keep you off the floor. But when you are travel- ling quickly, the cot has to be left behind, and blankets or a sleeping bag must suffice. Then it is one fully realises the drawbacks of a Korean room. The first night on a Korean floor is usually a memorable one. We early learned to submit ourselves to the friendly curiosity of the people. They crowded around us, timid and good-natured, making holes in the paper windows to spy our doings, and noticing our every movement. One man I met had an unfailing way of surprising them. He would sit at the open doorway, gazing vacantly at the crowd in front of him. Suddenly his mouth would drop, and the eyes of the people would dilate with terror as they saw his upper teeth slowly descending from his jaw and protruding from his mouth. Never had such a miracle taken place among them before, for dental aids are unknown to them. Then he would start up with a shout and the whole mob would fly helter-skelter in terror. Soon they would slowly return, each one pulling the other's teeth to see if they could not come out too, and the performance would be repeated until the stranger grew tired. He was raised to the rank of a great sorcerer in the estimation of the people. 88 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS, Our journey was made somewhat more difficult than usixal by the fact that suppHes of food had been cleared out for the troops^ and many villages were wholly taken up by the advance guards. One night Dunn had to keep out by sheer physical force a party of Japanese soldiers who wanted to take over our hut. In one or two places the people were very suspicious, for these were days of tumult, and they were not sure who we were. On the worst day of all we had started at dawn and travelled hard until evening, climbing over two stiff mountain passes in the afternoon, and keeping on for long after dark. At half-past eight we reached a small walled town, but the head man there abso- lutely refused to give us shelter. With eyes up- lifted he shook his long white garments as he called upon all the powers to witness that there were no stables and no accommodation for strangers. We were too tired to argue. I shifted my revolver from my hip pocket to the front of my coat, ostentatiously letting the head man see my every movement. Dignity would not permit of my addressing him direct, so I turned to my boy. " Tell him," I said in a purposely quiet voice, for the Korean suspects a man who blusters, " tell him we are going to stay here to-night, and our horses are going to have shelter here too. We will pay him well, but we stay." As if by magic, the head man's expression changed. THE DELIGHTS OF KOREAN TRAVEL. 89 His frown turned to a smile, and he leant over towards my boy with the most amiable countenance possible and beckoned him along. In a few minutes our horses were stalled, and a room was ready for us. Our horses were so worn out, although we had walked and led them for some hours, that without waiting for food they fell asleep before their girths were loosened. The villagers contemplated a deep revenge. We had done them no injury, but they desired to show once and for all that strangers were not wanted there. We left our horses that night well blanketed. Next morning we found that the blankets had disap- peared from every animal but my own. My favoiirite's trick of kicking fore and aft, and biting any stranger who approached him, probably ex- plained why he was left in peace. Not only were the blankets gone, but they had clearly been taken early in the night, leaving the poor beasts exposed to the cold. This was an unpardonable offence. The Christian religion requires me to forgive in- juries done to myself, but I know no part of its ethics which tell me to condone the harm done to my horse or my dog. Of course no one knew anything about the blankets. From the head man downwards all pro- tested ignorance, and expressed regret that evil men passing through their streets in these troubled days should have done us injury. The villagers made 90 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. pretence of searching, and laughed as they went to work. Then an old method used by Kitchener in the Soudan occurred to me, and I proceeded to put it into execution. I promptly arrested the head man, declared him prisoner, and announced that if in ten minutes the blankets were not forthcoming, we would tie him to our horses and run him into Ping- yang, where we would hand him over to the authorities. The villagers crowded round, shouting, gesticulat- ing, protesting. My two companions came up and produced their revolvers. Five minutes passed, and the scene was now pandemonium. The head man was warned to hurry up. Then he found him- self in a corner of the yard with my .38 Colt covering him, and my friends' revolvers covering the mob. It now dawned on the people that we really meant business. A sharp word was spoken, and suddenly a miserable stable boy knocked aside some snow, pulled away some matting, and revealed the blankets snugly tucked in underneath. We left our head boy to deal with the offenders, but we kept our own revolvers ready when half-an- hour later we rode out of the place, for there was a Korean regiment two hundred yards away, and at such a moment Korean soldiers have often an in- convenient way of siding with the mob. The troops, hurrying north, had their capacity to THE DELIGHTS OF KOREAN TRAVEL. 91 endure hardships put to full test. One passed them resting in the soft snow, bivouacing in open fields, pausing for the night in the open air around great fires. They could not find housing accommoda- tion, for houses were scanty on the way. A few broke down and before we reached Pingyang we came on little groups of sad-faced, worn-out privates, limping back to the nearest medical stations. The roadway up was at many points strikingly beautiful. I shall never forget the evening when one descended from the hills, and crossed the ice on the broad Impin River — as grand a stretch of mountain and river scenery as I have ever beheld. The mountain passes, too, were often very fine, and amid the glories of nature one forgot the sordidness of the houses and people. Song-do was particularly interesting as the great centre of the gingseng trade, which brings so much revenue to the Korean Government. Gingseng is a root whose medicinal properties are very highly valued in the Far East, although Western phy- sicians declare that they can find no merit in it. The best specimens grow in Korea around the Song-do district. The root is a Government mono- poly and the farmers raise it under a share system with the authorities. The best specimens fetch phenomenal prices. One notices in various Ameri- can magazines advertisements urging people to 92 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. grow gingseng in America itself, and saying that a fortune can be made from the produce of a very small space of ground. This however is not so. Gingseng can only be propagated by roots, and not from travelled seed, and the market is already fully supplied from Korea. The amateur who tries to raise the root in Europe or America is simply wasting his time and money. After the first day or two we had left our carts and boys behind and had pushed on with one native attendant, relying mainly on native supplies for food. The weather had been exceedingly trying. Several of our boys had broken down from the quick exertion. Dunn was struggling against an attack of pneumonia, and Jack London, who had only been able to obtain a miserable Japanese saddle in Seoul, was suffering severely from it. We had ridden through a heavy snowstorm, and, finally, as the sky cleared, we came on the city itself. Our pace slackened, and watching the flocks of wild geese rising from the river-bed, we fell into leisurely conversation. Let me own the truth : our talk was not of philosophy or politics, and did not even bear on the war. Our food for some days had been mainly rice and hard-boiled eggs and our dialogue drifted to things to eat. We were dominated by one great longing — the desire to find bread, white bread, without which all the rest of the good things of this earth are almost worthless. THE DELIGHTS OF KOREAN TRAVEL. 93 Each of us in turn described his ideal meal. One painted the delights of a cut off the joint in a London clubj a second plumped for the canvas back ducks of the French restaurants of San Francisco, while the third longed for nothing so much as the homely chicken when dressed by a Southern " mammy." When at last we reached the Japanese inn on the river banks at Pingyang, my companions decided that I was best able to go out and search the city on the chance of finding a loaf of bread. As I turned to go I slipped down the ice-covered stone steps, coming rather heavily on my right wrist. I ignored the affair for the time, but as I lay on the floor trying to sleep that night the wrist would not be forgotten. Hour after hour I had to vary my position, seeking how best to rest my arm so that its burning pain might slacken. Next morning we visited the missionaries, and the doctor there, seeing that something was wrong, felt the limb and soon had splinters out. "It is a CoUis's fracture," he said. " You are not going to have any use of that arm for three weeks to come." I would not mention this accident but that the story of it grew, and spread to the uttermost parts of the earth. The Japanese military authorities reported to Headquarters that I was injured, and Headquarters very kindly offered to send a hospital ship to take me back to Japan for treatment. A missionary who saw me walking through Pingyang 94 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. with my arm bound up wrote down to Seoul that I had broken it. One arm broken became two arms, then two legs, then several ribs as well. The story finally was that my horse had fallen on me, breaking a leg, then I had pulled it up, when it had slipped on the other side and broken my other leg, and then had rolled over me, smash- ing several ribs. The tale was cabled to Europe and America, and from there all over the world. When some weeks later I returned to Seoul, having almost forgotten the whole matter, I found a pile of sympathetic cablegrams awaiting me. To this day letters of condolence and cheer continue to arrive. Finally I am slowly being convinced that my legs really were broken after all, but that the occurrence slipped my memory. General Kuroki and staff holding a council of war in a Manchurian village. \..-!r.TT,r/-tV'-sj.7';j*.i;f i E*' -v-.'-'li^ 11 j^l^^g^^^ ^^ HHii^^-i ^ p,^. l*g /.v':::J^ M^M mMP ^-^:>t^ M ""^'^ ^■,iSte*.;;V-,y,, 1^ ffej^ -V' ^?-"- ■ - ■ - ..;>;■ -■■'■"''^^■^- K-- ;'"S ^^^i^Ji- :f^^Slk: -"'^^ ^ PP^ ^^ ..>t*ii,,:- Correspondents on an abandoned Russian military road. [ To face page 94. 95 CHAPTER X. Pingyang. PiNGYANG is one of the hidden cities of the world. Its history dates back to nearly twelve hundred years before Christ, when the famous Kit-ze, the empire maker of the Far East, conquered and ruled. He laid the foundation of the city in the days when Israel was ruled by the judges and when Saul and Solomon had not yet come into being : the days when stately Assyria was a world power, planning her campaigns of world conquest, and when Egypt still remembered the blow to her self-esteem caused by the exodus of the Hebrew serfs under Moses. Kit-ze, as the traces of his old city still show, was a prince of quite modern ideas, and the straight thoroughfares and fine memorials which still stand from his time, bear witness to his know- ledge and fore-sightedness. For over three thousand years Pingyang has been a cock-pit of the nations. The marauding bands coming from the mainland of Asia have found here their first great point of resistance. Foreigners 96 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. seeking to penetrate the Hermit Kingdom here met their due reward in torture and death. The men of the city are famed far and wide as hunters, trappers, and soldiers, and have cast off the sluggishness and cowardice which envelop the other Koreans from Seoul to Fusan. The women have more freedom than those of the south. Even in quite recent times Pingyang has played an important part in Asiatic history. It was here that the crew of the American ship General Sherman were attacked and destroyed, and the chains of the anchor of their vessel still hang in triumph over the city gates. I have seen and handled them myself. It was here in the early days of the Chino- Japanese war that the Japanese, coming from the south and from Gensan, attacked and routed the great Chinese armies with tremendous slaughter. Pingyang is a city of tragedy, of much warfare, and of constant destruction. It was but fit that we should arrive at this place during one of its tragic moments. On the last two days of my journey northwards, my attention had been arrested hundreds of times by the sight of families trudging through the snow, fleeing to the mountains. They shrank in among the trees as one drew near, not knowing whether I was friend or foe. The father, carrying on his back his house- hold goods, the mother bearing her babe, the little children, scarcely able to toddle, clutching hold of PINGYANG. 97 their parents' skirts, all were fighting their way through the snow and bitter cold. The Russians were coming ! News had arrived that they were first at Wiju^then at Sun-chon, then at An-ju, and then that they were riding towards the gate of Chul-syon. As the word went from mouth to mouth, people hastily piled their house- hold goods together, hardly stopping to gather up enough food for a day's journey, and rushed, twenty thousand of them, across the ice to the hills. It was a mad, irresponsible, needless panic. A few hours before I reached here, a small party of Cossack scouts actually had appeared in front of the northern gate of the city. But the Japanese were there before them, and had opened up infantry fire when the Cossacks were about a thousand yards away, making the scouts ride off. Pingyang, guarded on one side by a broad river, and to the east by precipitous hills, with high walls all around and many ditches, is well prepared for defence. It is a place of narrow, muddy, hilly streets and very poor houses. The two hundred and fifty Japanese soldiers, who had come so quickly to the city from Hai-ju, were now keeping strict watch. There were sentries at every approach, and foreigners were eyed with considerable suspicion. Every white man had to wear a coloured rosette so that the sentries might know him to be a friend. Time after time one was held up by soldiers, 7 98 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. and by the pioneer military police. The closest watch was kept for spies, and two or three were discovered by accident, one, strangely enough, a Japanese living in the city. A Japanese who will betray his own countrymen is so rare that his dis- covery excites fiercest outburst of anger among others of his race. The spies were, of course, quickly executed. If the people of Pingyang were only left alone, they would long have made themselves one of the most prosperous communities on earth. Un- fortunately the district around there has ever been one of the worst governed under the sun. In the outer suburbs there stands a new palace, almost completed. It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the north, and forms a striking foil to the miserable huts of the toilers around. It covers many acres, its sumptuous halls are decked with the most lavish, costly and splendid orna- ments, without and within. Its outer walls are high and exquisitely finished, and its stables and gardens are the wonder of half a nation. The palace cost, it is said, nearly two million dollars. It has been built not for a man, but for a picture — the portrait of the Korean King, or, to give him the title he demands. Emperor. The rulers of the north approached their Emperor in Seoul and begged the honour and protection of some resemblance to his august self among them. PINGYANG. 99 It was, of course, impossible for the Emperor to go north, for one so great as himself cannot run the risks of a journey in the country, nor would his humble servants ask him to do so. But let his portrait come. The Emperor assented, word of the joyful tidings went through the northern provinces, and at once every official tightened his grip. The poor farmer, who by hard work had accumulated enough food to last him through the winter, had now to starve for a time, for the palace of the King's picture must be built, and the savings meant for food must be handed over to Government officials. Scores of thousands of people went hungry. There was a little more rioting than usual, and a few more deaths, while a few dozens of officials added to their gains. No one, apart perhaps from the King himself, imagined that the idea of building a palace was to honour him. It was planned for " squeeze." You cannot spend, especially on a royal palace, without much of the money sticking to your palm. So the palace of the Emperor's picture was built, the roadway north was repaired to be fit to have the picture pass over it, and the picture was in- stalled in state. There a great staff was appointed to care for the stables and horses and banqueting rooms and pleasure-grounds of the Emperor's picture. The incident is typical of Korean methods. It is but by degrees that one realises how far corruption 7* loo FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. has gone in this country. " Squeeze " prevails from the highest to the lowest. The Governor of the province buys his office, and only retains it so long as he can placate with money the palace authorities above him. He becomes Governor, not for honour, but for profit, and he makes his profit out of the people under him. The Magistrate, who is practically the ruler of a county, buys his office and runs it at a profit. He has to satisfy both the palace authorities and the Governor, for both must have supplies of money from him. The Magistrate, as likely as not, has been put forward by a band of family friends who have subscribed money together and kept him for some time while buying office for him. He is expected to see that his friends have an adequate return for their investment, and his friends expect better returns than a real estate speculator in a western " boom " town. The Magistrate's assistants, the clerks, and " runners " also buy their offices, and so on down to the humblest helper. The result is that in- justice is systematized, taxation is farmed at a profit, and the tax gatherers have to raise sufficient, not merely to provide for the officials above them and for the necessary remittances to the Emperor at Seoul, but also to pay interest and profit on their own purchases of their office. The humble farmer, the little merchant, and the poor coolie pay for all, and starve in paying. PINGYANG. loi This leads, as a matter of course, to the buying and selling of justice. The Korean who is charged with crime has the charge worded according to the amount of his bribe, the punishment modified by pecuniary considerations, and the administration of the punishment similarly fixed. Everyone, from the yamen runner who makes the arrest to the assistant gaoler who flogs the victim, has to be paid, or woe be to the man. Take a thing which happens every day. An official notes that a merchant is doing well, and he comes to him with a polite request for a loan, usually a large one, the extreme limit of the victim's savings. It is refused. A day or two later the trader is arrested on some trumped-up charge. He is thrown into prison, and left there, being kept in one room, given only coarse food to eat, and severely flogged at regular intervals. He is not brought to trial. After a time, the poor man con- cludes that he had better make the loan. On doing so, he is promptly released. Of course the loan is never repaid. If he does not pay up, he may be left in prison for years, forgotten. It is a point of judicial honour not to release such obstinate people. This is not exceptional. In one town I found that the majority of the leading men had been imprisoned at one time or another on bogus charges, and that flogging had been the usual part of their treatment. I02 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. The small imitate the great. The yamen runner, who is an agent of the magisterial court, goes to a village to raise money. He arrests some poor resident on a minor charge, beats him, and starts to carry him off. The only way for the man to get off is to pay up promptly what is asked. There is no appeal and no protection. Pay or go to prison. Pay or have the sinews of your legs torn asunder in the torture room. Pay or be flogged until the flesh drops off the bone. Pay ! " Thank God for this war ! " a foreigner who knew the land well cried to me a few days after the battle of Chemulpho. " Nothing could be worse than what the country people have been enduring. I know the horrors that are coming — starvation, death from cold and hunger, outrages by soldiers, homes burned, possibly even children spitted. Better sharp torture than long misery. The people may die, most of them, but those who are left must have happier conditions than before." And when I thought over what I knew, facts one only dare hint at in public print, I could but admit that my friend's outburst was no mere hysteria, but sober truth. The corruption of the rulers is not the only great national calamity. The aristocracy — the yangbans — consider that they have a right to live off the people. When the young yangban desires provision to be made for his future, his friends go PINGYANG. 103 to court and demand that he shall be given some monopoly, or some power of taxation, that shall bring him in a respectable return, enough to provide suitably for him in his station in life. If his friends are in favour at court, this is done as a matter of course, and the unhappy farmers of one district find that they must pay a new tax — a levy each time they cross a river, or something of the kind. The people can do very little. The clever rich man makes friends in the royal palace, gets the ear of some favourite of the King, and then can live in safety, for none dares touch him. Villagers form local guilds and arrive at some understanding with the authorities, an understanding of course always liable to be shattered by a new accession of official greed. Then the people murder some yamen runners or a magistrate, or send one of themselves down to Seoul to make extraordinary efforts to bring their grievances before the Emperor. Thus, the winter I was in Seoul a man from Puk-chan went there and lit a great fire on the hills outside to show everyone that he had a grievance. This corruption has made brigandage the regular winter employment of large sections of many people, and has brought about the organization of the Tong-haks. Who are the Tong-haks ? What are they ? You hear their name everywhere spoken in dread, but the moment you try to come down to actual evidence you find httle. The Tong-haks I04 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. are a secret society whose main purpose, in the winter of 1903-4, was to murder all Christians and drive the foreigners from the north. Their leaders, who were only referred to in the most distant fashion, were said to be two old men living in the mountains of the north-east. Behind those old men great court favourites at Seoul were rumoured to be moving, and the name of one of the chief statesmen of Korea was more than once freely mentioned to me as being the real leader of the societies. In January, 1904, the Tong-haks had all ready for a rising. They were generally supposed to be sympathetic to Russia and anti-Japanese. They exercised much secret pressure on the native con- verts of missionaries in outlying villages, and they nearly brought off a successful revolution in the country from An-ju upwards. Their plans were disturbed by the outbreak of the war and by the presence of foreign troops. For the time they have had to pause. But the last has not been heard of them. To me, Pingyang was, and is, chiefly notable as being the centre of one of the most noted missionary works in the world. It was my good fortune during my several visits to the city to have many opportunities of studying the doings of the missionaries there. I had several of their converts in my service for many months in Korea and Manchuria, PINGYANG. 105 and I can speak of what I myself know. I am the more glad to do so because only a few months since a writer, whose work attracted much attention in England and America, took occasion to make a sweeping attack on the American Protestant missionaries in this land, charging them with greed of gain, luxurious living, and the taint of commercialism.* To myself, and to all of my fellow war correspondents with whom I discussed the matter after we had seen the daily lives of the men, the charges appeared so absurd that we could only explain them on the ground that the writer knew nothing of the subject. For self- sacrifice, for patient endurance in well-doing, and for a serene ignoring of personal risks, the American Protestant missionaries of northern Korea deservedly rank very high. Their converts, so far as one had opportunities of testing them in the daily life of a correspondents' camp, are straightforward, honest, and worthy of their profession. The missionaries themselves, I have no hesitation in saying, deserve admiration and regard in the highest degree. It is now about thirteen years since two Americans, Dr. Samuel Moffett and the Rev. Graham Lee, one from Maddison, Indiana, and the other from Illinois, came and settled among the people of Pingyang. At first they met with the usual re- ception accorded to strangers with new ideas. * Angus Hamilton's "Korea." (London, W. Heinemann, 1904.) io6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. They suffered a good deal of persecution, and had a rough, hard time while pioneering. They found the people of Pingyang different from the softer and more malleable folk of the south. These were ready, when angry, with a blow or a stone. The missionaries had a few periods of very great risk, and there was one moment in particular, when the Chinese and Japanese armies were fighting in the neighbourhood, when their earthly careers seemed over. But they stuck to their work. They came to the Korean with a new message. They told him first that the superstition and devil worship which shadowed and darkened his life were groundless. The fear of demons, which is the real base of native Korean religion, met from them a full contra- diction. For terror they offered hope, and for demon worship — Christ. To the Korean women, bound down under the real servitude of super- stitious fear, of sex subjection, and of intellectual darkness, their tidings seemed too good to be true. To these women it appeared impossible that learn- ing should be for them. The men were given a new ideal of home life, with the wife, not as a slave, but an equal. While the missionaries would not directly inter- fere in politics, they were two alert American men, and were acquainted with a thousand things which the people of Pingyang found would be of use to PINGYANG. 107 them. Mr. Lee is a clever mechanic^ and knew many devices in the way of carpentry and house building, saddle making, and the like, of which the isolated people of Pingyang had hitherto had no idea. Dr. Moffett is a man with a genius for finance, and people around soon found that his advice on secular matters was worth seeking and following. To-day, without using any of the familiar poUtical, educational, or social aids for the winning of people they have four thousand communicants in their circuit, and their Sunday congregation normally amounts to twelve hundred. A little army of native workers is spread throughout the province, and the discipline and tone of the church are far higher than in many English or American con- gregations. A famous American divine went up to Pingyang and examined the conditions of membership imposed by the native church there on its members. The divine nodded seriously. " I am by no means sure," said he, " that if I were living here your members would think me fit to join them, if they act up to all their requirements show." Before I left Seoul, I had been told that the American Minister was ordering the missionaries in the north to go down to the capital for safety. Soon after reaching Pingyang, I was present at a meeting of missionaries, held at Dr. Moffett' s house. io8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. The Minister had sent them a message leaving the choice with them whether they should go or stay, but suggesting that the women and children should go. Then the women spoke out, and one after the other quietly, without any sign of boasting or ostentation, declared that she would stay and stand by her people. It was not that these missionaries did not appreciate the danger which even then hung over them. All knew that a Japanese defeat would probably be followed by a Tong-hak rising, and a repetition of the Boxer massacre on a small scale. Hasty globe trotters may criticise them. I have seen too much of their work to do so. While at Pingyang, I had an interesting op- portunity of studying one aspect of the com- plexity of the financial arrangements of the country. In Seoul, it had been a grave problem how I should carry my money up northwards. To attempt to carry a few hundred dollars of money on my pack ponies would be a very serious matter. My interpreter suggested that he should obtain a banker's draft for me from a Korean in Seoul to another in Pingyang. To this I agreed, paying a small percentage for the consideration. Arrived at Pingyang, I sent my letter down to the banker, but the local interpreter returned saying that he refused to accept it. Accordingly I went down myself, Mr. Koons, Dr. Moffett's young colleague, kindly accompanying me. We were shown PINGYANG. 109 through a somewhat crowded courtyard into a httle typical Korean room. I offered my letter to the merchant, who was seated there with his two assistants. The merchant waved it back. " I can- not accept it," he said in Korean. " There is no obhgation on me to do so. This is simply a com- munication from another merchant in Seoul, asking me if I will give you that amount of money and so save sending money down to him. Under ordinary circumstances I would do so, but now no goods are going to Seoul because of the war, no exchange is wanted and I would lose over it. I will not take the letter." We argued for some time, and finally Mr. Koons turned to me. " Let us sit down," he said, " to show that we are in no hurry." Accordingly we squatted ourselves on the floor, and there for about an hour we talked with true Oriental leisureliness and dignity. But we might have saved our time, for no money was forthcoming. Up to last spring, this has been the only way of getting money between the two places. A Japanese bank has since been opened in Pingyang itself. From Pingyang I travelled over to Chinnampho and watched the disembarking of the Japanese army there. My home for a week or two was a filthy Korean hut, the entire hotel accommodation having been taken up by arriving Japanese officers. A despatch boat was to have come and met no FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. me from China. But although I waited day by day, it never appeared and no word was heard from it. The telegraph wires were in Japanese hands, and there was no way of my sending through to enquire about it. I quickly became aware that a growing atmosphere of suspicion was enveloping me. I found myself watched and followed. Official communication followed official communi- cation. My correspondence, I knew, had been kept under close survey from the first. I had nothing whatever to conceal, for my mission was a perfectly legitimate one, my purpose was known and I bore credentials from the Japanese authorities in my pocket. Yet, when I found myself aroused at midnight to hold conference with a high Japanese police official, or examined at mid-day by another, I felt that something must be wrong. It was not until a week or two later that I found out what had happened. My fellow correspondents, who had arrived in Japan, most of them, later than myself, found it impossible to leave there for the front, the authorities delaying their passes. When they heard that I and my friends were with the Japanese advance guard, some of them remon- strated with the authorities. " You must either send these men back," said they, " or let us go forward. It is not fair to us that they should be permitted to go on with their work while we],'are kept here." Personally I do not approve of one PINGYANG. Ill Englishman going to the Japanese authorities to complain about another Englishman, or striving to obtain limitations on his work. But that is a matter of personal feehng, where each man must act as seems to him best. The Japanese authorities naturally thought it less trouble to hold me up than to allow the other correspondents to leave for the front, hence my woes. A gun boat was sent out, unknown to me, to intercept and send back my despatch boat, and I was kept under supervision in Chinnampho. At last, one afternoon, the long expected came. A pohce official arrived with a written order of ex- pulsion, directing me to leave Chinnampho within twelve hours and to go back to Seoul or to Japan. There was nothing to do but to obey, and I was preparing to leave next morning on a Japanese transport when the silence of the evening was roused by shouts from outside. European voices were calling me. I stepped out and found Captain James and Mr. David Eraser of the Times and Captain Jardine, a British military attache, who had all just come in on the Times despatch boat, the Hamun. They were only permitted to stay for a few hours. Captain James very kindly in- vited me to go down to Seoul in his vessel instead of on the transport. Accordingly next day found me sitting down to the strange luxury of an 112 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. European meal, sleeping in an European bed, and having — chief luxury of all — a comfortable warm bath. I greatly valued, too, the opportunity of seeing the working of the very successful wireless telegraphic system between the boat and the station at Wei-hei-wei. Two days later I was in Seoul, and remained there nearly three weeks, until the moment when the correspondents with the First Army, to which I was now officially attached, should be allowed to join Headquarters. Japanese soldiers erecting temporary bridge. Japanese field telegraph at work dining a battle. [To face page 112. 113 CHAPTER XL The Way of Desolation. All this time the majority of foreign correspondents had been kept shut up in Tokyo. For weeks they had worked to obtain permission to go to the front, and finally, early in April, those attached to the First Army were permitted to leave. I joined them at Chemulpho, and we travelled up by sea together to Chinnampho, when we landed and made our way to Headquarters overland. There were in all sixteen of us, eight representing English papers, six American, one French, and one German. Of the English, E. F. Knight, of the Morning Post, was the veteran. He came out in this campaign with a terrible handicap, having lost an arm in the Boer War. His quaint humour often lighted up our dullest times. Once, for instance, when we were suffering most from what we thought were the unreasonable exactions of the censorate, the authorities got up a jugghng entertainment and invited us to it. At the end. Knight spoke up. "I, too," said he, "can juggle. Here is a 8 114 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. despatch as sent out from a correspondent," and a strip of paper about eighteen inches long appeared. " Here, again, is the same despatch after it has gone through the hands of the censor," and the strip of paper had suddenly shrunk to about half an inch. " But here," and the campaigner threw his eye triumphantly around, " here is the despatch as it appears in the paper." And behold ! a newspaper page with three columns of despatches from the fiont was before us. " Of course," said Knight, " it was an American paper ! " William Maxwell, then of the Standard, was the diplomat and organiser of the correspondents. Of my other comrades, McHugh of the Daily Tele- graph, David Fraser of the Times, William Kirton of the Central News, and M. H. Donohoe of the Daily Chronicle, what shall I say, save that, good friends and good comrades all, I hope to see them in many another field. Collins of Renter's, though nominally an English correspondent, was really American, the great news organisation working this field through its American ally, the Associated Press. My American comrades, to whom I send greeting, included Frederick Palmer of Collier's Weekly, Oscar King Davis of the New York Herald, William Dinwiddle of the New York World, John Bass of the Chicago Daily News, and Jack London, who had THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 115 come north with me, and who was acting for Mr. Hearst's group of daihes. Jimmy Hare, anothei representative of Collier's, was a new type of correspondent — the expert photographer, sent not to write but to take pictures. Since those days, Hare has made himself a European reputation and has more than justified the new departure. Captain Thomas, the correspondent of the Paris Temps, an expert cavalryman, found himself looked upon with some suspicion by the Japanese, owing to his nationality, and left after about two months at the front. The German correspondent, von Gottenberg, was already in ill health when we went to the Yalu, and soon had to leave. We landed at Chinnampho on April 12th. Most of my companions had been able to bring with them luxurious outfits from Japan, from collapsible bath- tubs to the newest bed-sacks. In addition, they had organised a correspondents' canteen, which for the sum of 15 yen (30s.) a day was to provide each correspondent with food, and a certain amount of transport. This I, for one, refused to join, and a couple of my colleagues who had been in Korea did the same. We knew that the conditions of the country made it impossible for correspondents who desired to move quickly to keep in touch with such a canteen. At first, I am afraid, we were regarded as acting the part of dogs in the manger. Within less than a 8* ii6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. week, however, opinion changed. The canteen proved an utter failure. Those who tried to keep by it found themselves hampered and delayed at every turn, while those who went on and left it behind were paying very heavy amounts for no- thing. Finally, the contractor sent in extra bills for transport, etc., totalling very large sums. This proved the last straw, and the canteen came to an end at Fengfangcheng, after having afforded my comrades abundant opportunities for wrathful debate. The country was now at its worst. The frost had thoroughly broken, there had been considerable rain and the land was a quagmire. Experienced travellers said the mud was thicker and the roads worse than they had known in any other part of the world. I cannot speak for all the earth, but only hope that if there are muddier roads elsewhere it may never be my fortune to fight my way through them. The journey from Chinnampho to Pingyang was trying. My pony sank down in deep mire at every step, rain was falling in torrents, and at constant intervals I found it necessary to take off my high boots to pour out the accumulated lain. Finally I quitted the valley roadway and struck across the mountains. Arriving at Pingyang, I found that my military pass had not yet come through from Japan, and I was obliged to wait in the city two or three days, THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 117 eating my heart oiit^ seeing mj^ colleagues set out for the fighting front while unable to advance a step. When my pass arrived, I left servants, inter- preter, and supplies to follow me and started from Pingyang with the lightest possible equipment, a pocket full of chocolate for food, a blanket for shelter, and a few cartridges for my revolver. Happily for me I had, too, my best help in the coming campaign— a new horse. When in Seoul. I had purchased a " Waler," left by M. Pavloff, the Russian Minister, when he had been obliged to quit the city. Quiet, steady, very fast, and capable of long exertion, " Traveller " carried me out of more than one tight corner. For the first few miles out the road was covered with endless processions of coolies moving north- wards, carrying military supplies. Greybeards and boys of ten, all had been attracted by the liigh pay offered by the Japanese. Agriculture had been for- saken, farms lay empty, and all the labour and the cattle of the country had been absorbed in this one great work. At Anju one came on patent evidences of national calamity. The country was indescribably war- stricken. The people had fled to the mountains at the first news of the approach of the Russian troops, taking everything with them. The houses were stripped of doors, windows and cupboards, and not ii8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. a portable article was left. Even the fowls had gone and the village dogs had disappeared. At Chong-ju one came to the spot where the first serious land skirmish of the war took place. Late in March a number of Japanese transports had appeared on the coast near here, and troops had landed from them on Korean junks. They occu- pied Chong-ju, the Russians retiring. General Mistchenko, who was in charge of the Russians, received a note of reprimand from his superiors, calling his attention to the fact that the Japanese were steadily occupying the country and he was making practically no show of resistance against them. He consequently advanced from Sun-chon, and attacked the Japanese on the 28th. Chong-ju itself is a walled city with extensive vacant spaces inside the walls. The main party of the Russians entered by the south gate and another party went round by the north gate. Their scouts reported that there was only a small force of Japanese in the place. The Russians seem to have moved very carelessly, neglecting to take adequate precautions against surprise. The Japanese, rein- forced, attacked them, drove them out and pursued them to a pass some miles northwards. This little skirmish brought out some of the main characteristics of both sides in these early days of fighting. The Russians were careless in their scouting. The individual Russian soldiers were THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 119 brave. Thus, when one heutenant fell wounded about a hundred paces from the Japanese, a ser- geant immediately attempted to rescue him. The sergeant was shot. Another at once ran forward ; he was also shot. Then two rushed out together and dragged in the wounded man. The Russians held a strong position on a hill to the north of the city. The Japanese, fewer in number, charged up the hill and drove them from it. That Japanese charge, native eye-witnesses told me, was irresistible. The soldiers did not mind whether they lived or died, but kept pushing on. As soon as one fell another took his place. No man could stand before them. The Japanese soldiers revealed here, too, that individual initiative which was afterwards to stand them so well. Thus, one Japanese private who had been isolated from the remainder of his comrades, discovered the main party of the Russians pushing on towards the south gate. He immediately hid himself and waited until the Russians were near ; then he deliberately shot at the Russian com- mander and hit him, throwing the force into con- fusion. The private escaped, but was wounded later in the day. Kasan I found a wilderness, the barns bare, many houses in ruins, every removable article gone. The women and children were hiding in the cruel moun- tains rising against the sky-line, veiled in blue haze. I20 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Tigers and wild cats were their companions, hunger their familiar spectre. They fled needlessly, both Japanese and Russians having behaved exceedingly well towards the natives here. Further on I came to places where the Koreans were beginning to return from the hills. The plain marks of hunger and exposure on their faces showed how great their sufferings had been. Everywhere I was received with the greatest kind- ness by the Japanese transport ofhcers along the line of route. With them the name of England was a passport to immediate friendship. " The thought that your people work for the comfort of our soldiers here touches us deeply/' said one. " You sowed the seed," said another, " we are the fruit." " England taught our navy to fight," said a third, " we trust we have not proved inapt pupils." Everywhere the note was " Banzai for England, the ally of Japan." From Anju onwards the lines of coolies ceased, and the roads were now filled with long military trains of supplies and ammunition, and with monstrous pontoons, whose dull clangour filled the hillsides. I found many rivers already bridged, and the roads from Pingyang northwards greatly improved. The torment of the unhappy natives had been increased by a record storm of only a few days before, when many were beaten down and drowned THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 121 by a terrific rainfall. The corpses still lay under the hedges. As I rode into the villages the people eyed me curiously, for as I got further north I reached points where no white man had advanced from the south since before the outbreak of the war. As I rested at mid-day men and women stole forth to see who I was. Gradually overcoming their timid fear, they drew nearer me. Then one young man, with face luminous with hope, spoke up. " Are you," he asked, " are you a Jesus man ? " To them the name of Christ then, as ever, meant comfort and safety. Now we reached mountain passes, grandly pic- turesque, with long columns of soldiers toiling up- wards to their heights. Now we came on the sadder side of war, occasional stretcher parties bearing sick soldiers, fresh little cemeteries thick with flowers and studded with wooden memorials to the men who had already fallen. The telegraph poles all along the main road were snapped or broken, the Russians having sawn them asunder. The Japanese, ready for any emergency, had supphed their place with fight, temporary poles sent through from Japan. At Sun-chon I stayed on Monday night with a little band of heroic missionaries who had remained at their post right through the fighting— Mr. Whittemore and Dr. and Mrs. Sharrocks. I was 122 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the first non-Russian European they had seen since the outbreak of war. Mrs. Sharrocks, who showed great bravery in ignoring the grave danger to her children threa- tened by a probable native rising, told me how glad she was they had stayed by their converts. " We felt a call to remain," she said simply. " At first there were many rumours, and people declared that the Russians were burning and destroying at every step. " One story was that the Russian troops had shot a Korean woman who was crossing their lines, fearing she would bring them ill-luck. Panic seized many of the people, but women gained confidence because there was a foreign woman with them. The Russians when they arrived behaved very cour- teously." Dr. Sharrocks gave me an account of the early movements of the Russians. " A party of twenty Russian scouts came here in the middle of February," he said. " Three hundred Cossacks swept down on the 2oth like chained lightning. They cut the wires and established posts three or four miles apart along the road. " On the 26th two thousand arrived. General Mistchenko and their colonel diiving up in comfort- able, four-wheeled carriages with two horses. They had many supply carts. " A camp kitchen followed. The wires were THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 123 repaired, and an office was established at Anju. About two hundred went south on the 27th. They expected infantry to follow, but until March 28th there was no news of their approach. " Then on the 29th, the infantry and a battery of artillery came, and the troops began to return, about a thousand stopping at Sun-chon until March 4th. They were undoubtedly misinformed by their Korean spies and interpreters, who deli- berately magnified the numbers of the Japanese to them, hoping to frighten the Russians out of the country. " The Russians behaved well here, there being only one known offence against a woman. The offender was arrested and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. The officer stated that they had orders strictly to suppress disorder among their own men, and they obeyed them. " The Russian officers, unlike the Japanese, talked very freely about their movements and aims. The Russian troops are badly drilled and poor marksmen, but very brave. They impressed me as not having sufficient to eat." A few hours later I reached Surenchen amid heavy rain, and came up with the Headquarters of the First Japanese Army. I found I was the first foreign correspondent to arrive, although within an hour Mr. Maxwell of the Standard came up, and we two were presented to General Fuji, the Chief 124 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of Staff, together. Thus for all practical purposes we came at the same time. The village was crowded with troops. General Kuroki occupied a small Korean house, and our home was a filthy little hut. We were very wet, very cold and very hungry. Nothing could be bought, and the only food available was rice and uncooked meat. We had no cooking utensils of any kind, bixt we kindled a blaze of sticks, threw the meat among the glowing ashes, sharpened a bit of stick to get it out, and reverted to primitive manners. That was our way of living for some days to come, until our camp equipment arrived. I have had more enjoyable times. The combina- tion of wet, cold, and inadequate food lasting over a week — particularly when it had been preceded by a week of very short food and extra work — did not add to one's condition. That night as I crouched down on the earthen floor on my hut, writing off a thousand-word cable for sending home, I began to realise that now I was seeing actual war. I had brought a Korean coolie with me from Sun-chon. He set out in the darkness with my message. He was met by other men at pre- arranged stages, who took the message to Pingyang, the nearest point from which it could be despatched. During the next few days the food problem was to us the most serious of all. Even when our carts arrived, we found it almost impossible to obtain THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 125 supplies for our boys or our horses. The country was bare. I sent forty miles back to a friend, asking for some eggs or a chicken. My boy returned with a sorrowful note. " There is not an egg or a fowl to be found in a day's journey around here," my friend replied. " But we have a packet of Quaker Oats which I send by the bearer." The Russians had retired across the Yalu, and a few days later we entered Wiju and made ready to cross the river. My cart and boys going astray, I was permitted by Headquarters to set out and search for them, and so found myself in Wiju itself on the evening before the day when the correspon- dents were to be allowed to enter. Many of the houses were in ruins, and others were full of troops. The Korean inhabitants and the soldiers flocked round me as I made my way through the narrow streets, for there had been no white face here since the Russians had left. Some of my friends un- kindly declared that I had lost my boys and cait on purpose, in order to obtain permission to push on first into the town. Here they did me an in- justice. Yet as I rode carefully through the road- ways covered with leaves to shelter men moving through them from the Russians, and as I gazed across the plains and river bed to the darkening hills opposite, my heart leaped within me. Now the moment had come for serious work. * * * * * * 126 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. At this point one may be permitted briefly to compare the movements of the antagonists up to this time. The first land operations had already resulted in the expulsion of the Russians from Western Korean territory without a serious fight. Why was this ? At the beginning of the war Ping- yang stood ready for the first of the combatants who might enter, and the side that secured it could only be dislodged at very heavy loss, for the place is a natural fortress. Pingyang lies at an almost equal distance between Wiju — the then Russian outpost — and Seoul, the point to which the Japanese had pushed their troops. The Rus- sians, however, were working from their own Man- churian territory, where they should have had horses and supplies ready. The Japanese had to bring everything from their land base in Japan, and at first could not push cavalry because they had none landed. Had the Russians been ready, Pingyang would have been theirs without difiiculty. At the beginning of the war a large force of Rus- sian cavalry, estimated by Koreans at eight thou- sand, crossed the Yalu, but remained around Wiju. The Japanese pushed a few vedettes up north to report, and one party of these. Major Togo and eight men, were sighted near Wiju and surrendered. Their capture was part of a careful Japanese design It was intended that they should be seen and be THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 127 caught, to give the Russians the idea that a heavy Japanese force was approaching. Meanwhile all Japanese women and children and old people had been ordered back from the line north of Pingyang and Gensan. The Japanese residents in each place were enlisted in a kind of Civil Guard. Two hundred and fifty Japanese infantry were landed at Haiju, the nearest possible landing-place free from ice, and raced for the city. They did the journey in four days, a remarkable feat for infantrymen, considering the terrible weather and the dangerous roads at the time. Not one man fell out by the way. The Russians acted as though they had never seriously believed war would come ; the Japanese had all their plans waiting. They were as prepared as were the Germans on the fateful day in 1870 when von Moltke drew from his pigeon-hole his scheme for the invasion of France. When at last the Russians shook off their apathy and pushed southwards, they were hampered by ignorance of the country, absence of maps, and lack of interpreters. The Japanese had trained their own people to interpret for them. The Rus- sians do not seem to have done so, for they were at the mercy of every chance rumour. Their In- telUgence Department had failed. On February 20th, about the same time as the Japanese occupied Pingyang, four hundred Cos- 128 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. sacks entered Sun-chorij the little town fifty-five miles south of Wiju, and no miles north of Ping- yang. They stayed the night, and pushed on south. They were followed by two regiments of cavalry and seven mountain guns. At the same time Rus- sian infantry marched southwards. The Japanese had advanced in light order, unencumbered by baggage. The Russians had heavy baggage wagons, and their general rode in a carriage. The Russians pushed on to Anju, and prepared to make it their headquarters. Telegraph wires, which had been cut, were repaired. Scouting parties were sent south, and on the morning of the 28th (Sunday), five of them came within eight hundred yards of the Chul-sung gate of Pingyang. The Japanese infantry on the walls fired on them before they came within effective range, and the Russians quickly retired. The first land fighting of the cam- paign was thus an insignificant skirmish, in which only one side fired, for the Russians did not reply. At this point a panic seemed to seize the Russian commander. He was in considerable force, far out- numbering the enemy. The Japanese were pushing up five thousand men from Chemulpho as fast as they could, but the nearest were yet a day's march from the small body at Pingyang. It can only be supposed that the Russian general had false news brought to him about the advance of a Japanese force from Ggnsan, which would cut off his retreat. Japanese field artillery. Japanese field artillery. [To face page 128. THE WAY OF DESOLATION. 129 For some reason or other^ he started a hasty back- ward movement. On the following Wednesday the people of Sun-chon were amazed to see the Russian cavalry and artillery once more pouring through their street^ this time retrea;ting north- wards. The Russian soldiers laughingly declared that they had come a long way to find some Japanese to fight J but finding none, they were going home again. The officers, plainly troubled, said that expected reinforcements had not arrived, hence their return. They thought that evidently other movements were going on in Manchuria which had caused their recall. At Sun-chon the retreat was stopped, and in a few days the cavalry vedettes again went south. Meanwhile the Japanese army was flinging itself into Pingyang. Each day now fresh regiments came up, after the long and severe journey through the winter-bound interior. By the end of the week fully five thousand were around the city, and it was secure. The breaking of the ice at Chin- nampho enabled that port, within one day's quick ride from Pingyang, to be used, and by the middle of March forty-five thousand Japanese soldiers, an army corps, were on the northern line. From here the Japanese moved on step by step, the Russians offering no serious resistance. While many of the Russian scouts showed reckless bravery, 9 130 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. their movements were marked by the apparent entire absence of a supreme controUing hand, or of a definite scheme. It was of the greatest import- ance for the Russians then to gain all the time they could. They had failed to take advantage of splen- did opportunities before them. The country lent itself to opposition to a forward movement and the Japanese could have been made to pay heavily in blood for every mile north of Anju. Equally the Japanese failed to take full advantage of their opportunity. They had seized Pingyang as quickly as they could. If they had shown celerity in advancing from Pingyang northwards, no serious battle might have been necessary on the Yalu. But at that time no one, not even the well-informed Japanese General Staff, knew fully how miserably unprepared the Russians were. 131 CHAPTER XII. On the Banks of the Yalu. " Get up," a voice called through the darkness. " Fighting begins at daybreak, and we must hurry." I turned uneasily, and groped my hand along the mud wall of my Korean hut, feeling for a match. It was the last Tuesday in April, and already the sound of firing warned me that the attempt to force the Yalu had begun. We had all been aware that this would be the dawn of great developments. Post, steamers and telegraphs had all been stopped for some days, a sure sign that a serious blow was impending. Rumours had come to us of Russian cavalry threatening our right flank, of great fleets of transports in Chemulpho and Chinnampho harbours, and of Japanese soldiers landing near to Port Arthur. We ourselves, from the outer heights of Wiju, could see the line of the Russian earthworks topping Kiuliancheng, across the Yalu, while our glasses showed us occasional cavalry riding across the plain below, and guns mounted on the heights above. 9* 132 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. For days we had been luUabied to sleep by shell fire, and the roadways had been crowded with marching men, long lines of artillery, slow moving, crudely coloured blue pontoons, and miles of trans- port wagons. Every house, save a few kept for the guests of the army, was full of soldiers, each roadway had its sentries, and the coming and going of many staff officers proclaimed the presence of General Kuroki, Commander-in-Chief of the First Army. The task before the Japanese was one which disciples of M. Bloch would have declared imjiossible. Here was an attacking army of fortj'^-five thousand men, a hundred field guns and twenty howitzers. It was faced by an enemy greatly inferior in numbers, but with a position that more than atoned for the disproportion. The exact number of the Russian force was not more than twenty-five thousand. These had to defend a line of sixteen miles. They were uncertain where the Japanese would attack, and owing to the very difficult nature of the country behind them, it was impossible to shift easily from point to point. They were weakened, too, by uncertainty about their move- ments. One General was for stout resistance, another for hasty retreat. One sent orders to one effect, which another ignored or modified according to his will. The Russians had about forty-eight field guns, eight Maxim-Nordenfeldts and some ON THE BANKS OF THE YALU. 133 Hotchkiss guns, but these, too, were scattered. Two Russian officers, prisoners, summed up the position afterwards. " Give us equal guns, and then see the result," said one to the Japanese Commander. Another took pencil and paper, and wrote two lines on it. 5,000. 45,000. Then he threw up his hands with the philosophy of a man who had told the whole matter. Between Wiju and the main road northwards in Manchuria there lay a river bed, in parts three miles wide, with many long flat islands in it, and with several streams running through its flat sur- face. The river, commanded in all directions for some miles from the Manchurian heights, gave little cover save occasional dongas, some light timber, and a few villages and solitary farm houses. The Japanese would have to cross this river bed, ad- vancing in the open against men lying behind earthworks on high hills. The main Russian position centered on the conical hill above the village of Kiuliancheng, faced in front and to the left by the broad and unsheltered bed of the Yalu and of its tributary, the Aiho. The position stretched on the river heights to the right to Antung, while leftwards it circled round with 134 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the bend of the Aiho. Along this line were earthworks, hidden forts and rifle pits. Between Antung and Kiuliancheng were earthworks, ir- regularly placed, in some parts rising terrace-like on the hills. On the banks of the Aiho were more earthworks, where the Russian left wing breasted a road leading to Hamatan, the Russian rear. Four batteries of eight guns each were planted, one near Antung, one on Conical Hill, one on an adjoining height, Makau, and one on the left wing. Across the Aiho, also facing the Yalu and the Korean border, were other heights, more inaccessible than Kiuliancheng. Here the Russians maintained a small force, apparently reckoning that the almost level face of the cliff would prevent the enemy from attacking it. On Tiger Hill, a promontory near the point where the Aiho, now divided into two streams, turned to flow into the Yalu, were some men and a mountain gun. Retreat was apparently secure to the Russians by the great Mandarin road running behind them. The nature of the land made it next to impossible for the Japanese to bring an adequate force against their rear without great loss of time, for in every direction, save on the few roads held by the Russians, it was hilly and trackless. The islands of the river were protected by the Russian outposts and advance guards, and on the island of Chong Kiang Dai, ON THE BANKS OF THE YALU. 13S immediately in font of Kiuliancheng, there were abundant men entrenched to resist any sudden storming party. All Monday night the Japanese worked at their opening move, the effort to bridge the first streams. Attempts were made at three points, upstream, almost directly in front of Wiju, and further southwards, towards Antung. Two of these were little more than blinds, the really serious effort being that to the north between Genkado and the island of Kurito, to the left of the Russian position. A force of infantry pushed across to the island before daybreak, and was discovered about four o'clock. The Russian sentries had been supplied with long torches swathed at the head with petrol-dipped straw. These they lit as an alarm, but they served too as guiding lights for the Japanese. The Russian soldiers on the island were already at breakfast. They sprang to arms. They were forced back, back, steadily firing, until at last there was nothing for them to do but to plunge into the river and cross to the other side, climbing the steep mountain side. Russian cavalry rode from Kiuliancheng to their aid, but too late. Some Russian staff officers came out, but the Japan- ese artillery, otherwise silent that day, opened on them. The Japanese advanced on the island of Osekito, and took the island of Kinteito, near Wiju, practically without opposition. The net result of 136 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. . the day's work was that the first section of the main bridge was completed by the Japanese, and the Russians temporarily retired from Tiger Hill. The next three days, until Friday afternoon, were spent mainly in preparation. There were constant skirmishes on the islands, the Russians recovering possession of Tiger Hill. The Russians kept up intermittent artillery fire, seeking to make their opponents reveal their gun strength, which they refused to do. Occasionally a few shells dropped into Wiju, setting houses on fire. The Russians refrained from destroying the town, as they could easily have done. The Japanese were sending continual scouts out to learn the depth of the rivers. These scouts were volunteers, and their mission was as perilous as soldier could want. Artillery was steadily being brought up. Here it was clear the Russians could claim the better arm. Had they only been able to use their artillery effectively great damage would have been done to the attacking force. But while the Russian quick-firing field gun stands among the first in the world, and certainly far superior to the Japanese weapon, the men behind it were not SO good. If the Russians had the advantage in the gun, the Japanese had it in the shimose explosive used by them, and in the skill of the~ gunnersT The Japanese were soon to alter the artillery position in striking fashion. They not only brought ON THE BANKS OF THE YALU. 137 up an overwhelming number of guns, but also with almost incredible exertion had dragged through Korea a park of 5-in. howitzers. These were kept carefully concealed. Rumours of them spread, but the Russians scoffed at the possibility of conveying such weapons through the horrible Korean roads. When therefore the Japanese opened on them with the howitzers on the Saturday, astonishment is a faint word to describe the Russians' feelings. By Friday afternoon, the Russian commander evidently realised that it would be a waste of men to attempt to hold the river islands, so he set fire to one great village on Chong Kiang Dai and drew in his troops. Flames burst forth from a dozen points simultaneously. The houses had evidently been drenched with paraffin, for they burned brilliantly. A great column of smoke drifted north- wards and veiled the whole scene. The glare and smoke might have been the signal for the beginning of the real Japanese attack. All that afternoon infantry had been pushing across the island of Kurito, and exchanging shots with the Russians at the foot of the mountain. Between five and six in the evening, masked Japanese batteries opened fire on the north-eastern mountain slope, while invisible Japanese infantry from the island kept up a withering fire at short range on the village at the mountain base. I was fortunate in obtaining a good view of the 138 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. whole move. Shortly before the fire opened, 1 chanced to make my way to an outer earthwork a little to the right of the main Japanese battery. With a sudden crash, about five in the evening, two masked batteries opened a terrific shrapnel fire on the face of the mountain opposite. The Japanese infantry, creeping closer to the Russians, poured a heavy rifle fire into the villages. The Russians were overwhelmed, and, though they struggled gallantly, were soon forced to leave the houses. They went straight up the mountain side in a gray stream, pausing every now and then to take breath on the precipitous slope. The shrapnel played over them with awful pre-, cision. I saw our projectiles bursting into conical balls of smoke and spurting perpetual blasts of flame above the heads of the Russians until the mountain front seemed covered with their glare. After some delay the Russian batteries at Kiulian- cheng and behind Tiger Hill awoke to the situation. Great shells came shrieking around us with pierc- ing screams, before and behind, and threw up the earth and sand in all directions, to the right and to the left. Two came plump into the Japanese battery, but many dropped harmlessly into the soft earth of the valley beneath us. So far as could be judged, the Russians were driven from the mountain base before darkness fell. ON THE BANKS OF THE YALU. 139 As I rode back, behind Wiju, the waiting Japanese artillery and supply trains were already lumbering up, and the move forward had begun. The next day's attack was to have opened at dawn, but a mist served to cloak the movements of the troops and to prevent effective aim. By seven, the air had cleared, and the Japanese guns opened. Then it was that the Japanese sprung their first surprise. The howitzers had been dragged during the night under the trees of one of the islands fronting Kiuliancheng and they directly attacked the Russian centre. The Japanese could now bring four guns for every one shown by the Russians, and soon shells were pouring like rain on the Manchurian earthworks, from the banks below and from the batteries around Wiju, while other batteries were pouring their fire on the northern heights, and on a clump of trees and some houses in the valley of the Aiho. The Russians actively replied, mainly concentrating the howitzers and troops on the river islands. The whole land seemed showered with puff balls of flame and smoke. Gazing at it, one felt that no man could stand and live under such a demoniac fusillade. "It is massacre," cried one Japanese at my side, when he saw a heavy rain of shell fall on an emerging troop of Cossacks. " There will not be a Russian left." Yet the casualties for the whole HO . FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. day were less than for a quarter of an hour next morning, when advancing troops came within rifle fire of their foes. Shell fire is nerve racking, specta- cular, demoralising. When it gets home, it inflicts horrible damage, and its wounds are of the most appalling kind. But it seldom ,e£ts home. It is easily guarded against, and if men are not compelled to come out or to advance against it, it is the least deadly of all modern forms of attack. As a general rule the shell is the loud-mouthed braggart of modern war ; the spitting rifle bullet is the sibilant death-bringer. This rule has its exceptions, and next day was to provide us with one. The artillery duel was the mask to the second blow. Two o'clock on the afternoon of the previous day, the Japanese had started pontooning the Yalu several miles up, out of reach of the Russian shell fire. The Russians had not expected this move, and were caught unprepared. The bridge was finished at eight in the evening, with great difficulty, for the stream was very rapid, and the Twelfth Division crossed over. This should have been the golden moment for the Russians. The Japanese army was now divided into two parts by a rapid, deep river. Had the Russians seriously resisted them, and thrown their weight against them, the division to the north^ might well have been destroyed. General Kuroki took a great risk, with his eyes open, for battles are ON THE BANKS OF THE YALU. 141 only won by taking chances. He had all his plans laid. Artillery were trained on the hills. Infantry were waiting to attack the flanks of the Russians if they tried to move from Kiuliancheng. Every man was concentrated near Wiju, and ready to move at a moment's notice. But the Russians did nothing. Now, on the morning of the thirtieth, the Twelfth Division moved forward. From where I stood outside Wiju, a long black line could be seen advancing southwards, on Manchurian soil, to- wards the Russian position. It was the Japanese infantry, making the culminating attack of the day. How they were allowed to cross so far without resistance, and come so far without the enemy discovering them, one cannot imagine. At last the Russians learned of their presence. There was a charging of cavalry across the sandy plain, and part of the Russian guns turned on the distant advancing men. The shells emptied themselves vainly against the mountain side, and it was not until much powder had been wasted that the range was found. All this time the Japanese had been steadily coming higher and nearer. One saw groups of them perched on clefts where only the mountain eagle had touched before. Now some were going, hand over hand, up precipices. Now, breathless, they rested before taking more daring moves. Frederick the Great laid it down as an 142 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. axiom that where the mountain goat goes, there can the soldier follow. Even the mountain goat might have hesitated here. The Russians soon realised the import of the move. Now their retiring cavalry were burning the village of San Tau Wan in the vaUey of the Aiho, now their battery behind Tiger Hill was working might and main against the oncomers. Still, the little men went on, and soon we saw them on the mountain top. Russian cavalry and guns were now retreating to the shelter of their own lines. Before long the rattle of the Japanese rifle fire was heard, as the foot men poured around the north-eastern slopes, seeking to hem in the main Russian strong- hold. The Japanese now turned all their guns on Kiuliancheng, and the open work of the day ended with a heavy artillery duel. On heights above, in valley below, Russian and Jap lay on bare earth, in open trenches awaiting the final clash of the morrow. 143 CHAPTER XIII. The Battle of the Yalu. Sunday, May Day, and a beautiful spring morning, saw the culmination of the fight. As in the, early hours we advanced towards the river, the brilliant moonlight merging into brighter dawn, it was hard to realise that this was to be a day costly in human life. The hills around were rich in flowers — English flowers, violets and irises ; while on the slopes behind we could see great masses of rhodo- dendrons. The trees were white with blossoms of peach and apple and pear. Then the rising sun gave golden glint and sparkle to the river below. Nature proclaimed peace — man, war ! Much had happened during the night. The Rus- sians had readjusted their position. They evidently expected that the attack, if it came, would take place at Antung to the south-west, and on the right flank of their position. Accordingly they had removed their guns from Conical Hill to a position about three miles back, and were holding the heights above Kiuliancheng with part of their forces, lines of infantrymen in the trenches. One 144 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. regiment was stationed at Antung, two pioneer companies were planted between Antung and Kiu- liancheng, two regiments stood in reserve at Hamatan^ three regiments of cavalry were sta- tioned on the wings and to the rear, and a force occupied Conical Hill, the heart of the Russian centre. General Kuroki had led his entire army across the river during the night. The Twelfth Division had been sent a great detour to the right, to catch the Russians in the rear. The Second Division and the Imperial Guard were led across the river by Tiger Hill and paraded in long stretches along the island of Chong Kiang Dai, the Imperial Guards in the centre and the Second Division to the left. They looked as though on parade, skirmishers to the front, supports behind and massed reserves in the rear. A Japanese battery was now under the shelter of Tiger Hill, while other batteries were on the river islands, directed by telephone by the corfimander, who sat on one of the hills outside Wiju, whence he could best survey the whole posi- tion. The hill slopes to the north-east of Kiulian- cheng, on the other side of the Aiho, were held by their infantry. The Russian position was still very strong, or would have been had those in command known how to make the best of it. There were trenches along the ridge of Conical Hill. To the left and front, the THE BATTLE OF THE YALU. 14S ridge sloped sharply down. To the right, the slope was more gradual. Here the surface was almost the shape of a giant scooped-out horseshoe, the scoop running down to the village at the foot of the hill. The ridge could thus not only be fired upon from the hills across the Aiho, but was partly com- manded and could be flanked by the next ridge to the right, while from this next ridge men could work round (as it were by the back of the horseshoe) and get behind the main frontal position. The Japanese were pushing home their attack, not merely on the front of Kiuliancheng, but all round the bend of the river and the banks of the Aiho. It was on the main ridge the great weakness of the Russians revealed itself. They had not en- trenched properly. The ground was rocky and exceedingly difficult to work, but they had had weeks in which to prepare for this day. They had contented themselves mostly on the hill-top with scraping shallow excavations which formed no shelter whatever from shell fire. For all the use they were, save from bullets striking directly in front, they need not have been dug. At daybreak, the Japanese artillery opened. Kiuliancheng made no reply. The hills that yes- terday vomited death now stood grimly silent, showing no sign of life or movement. The firing ceased for a time, re-opening about half -past six, 10 146 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. when the infantry, who had been taking up their exact positions, moved forward.. They had a long advance to make, clean over the sand. At first there was some cover, a village here, a declivity in the earth there, an old trench further on. The men knew that they were going forward to probable death. They had talked it over beforehand, when lying on the fields and sand the night before. They were the privileged soldiers chosen to die for their Mikado. The Japanese soldier is, as a rule, it must be remembered, an educated man. He reads dili-' gently, and follows the movement of the world after the same fashion as does the smartest bom- bardier in Dover Castle. It seems the rule for him to keep a diary, and each night when march has ceased, you see hundreds of men lying on the ground around their camp fires, writing the daily : record, for their children's children to read. The Japanese man in the ranks often speaks an European tongue, he has studied military history, and he has shrewd ideas of the tendencies and conclusions of modern strategic knowledge. He knew that morn- ing that he was making a movement which could only be justified by success, and must cost many lives— .a direct frontal attack. He knew, and the thought fired many hearts, that for the first time a really modernised Asiatic army was coming in direct contact with European THE BATTLE OF THE YALU. 147 soldiers on land. For forty years Japan had suffered and sacrificed for this day, ruthlessly breaking old customs, shattering tradition, reducing an aristocracy to poverty, enduring humiliations manifold. For this, her noblest sons had worked as coolies-in— ManGhur-ia, as barbers 4H-~Saui- Fran- cisco, as meniials_..in..H.e.w„ York. For this, they had sucked up the scholarship of Germany, the routine of France, and the mechanical skill of America, and had studied the sombre solidity of England. Now was the crucial time of test, the hour to prove whether the great experiment, begun fifty years since when Commodore Perry forced his ships into the waters of Uraga, should justify itself or not. The Japanese advanced, amidst the screeching roar of their own artillery and the steady rattle of their infantry, as they volleyed each sheltered spot before rushing it. We watched them, going step by step nearer to death, with strained hearts, with every sense acute, expecting each second the inevitable deadly reply. Not a Russian gun was fired, not a rifle spoke. Could they have deserted their position without a further blow ? we asked each other, knowing the folly of the question as we asked it. All the time they were lying still behind their trenches, their rifles, in no trembling hands, pointed at the foe, each cartridge clip full. They had been amazed at the celerity of the Japanese move and have since ID* 148 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. confessed so, but they faced the situation like men. They were expecting reinforcements from the north, and if they could but hold their own for a day or two, all would be well. Their plan was to wait until the Japanese drew close, and then sweep them off by rapid rifle fire, before they could cross the last sandy patch. And had they been properly protected, they might well have done it. But it was now that their terrible mistake in entrenching revealed its full consequences. The Japanese artillery poured shrapnel and common shell on them with cruel accuracy. The ground around those trenches proved days after how true, was their aim. All in front, all behind, right in the lines were constant rough indentations, show- ing where the rain of fire fell. Had the men been deeply and properly entrenched, even this would have done them little harm until they had to rise as the Japanese came near the final river. As it was, before the enemy drew near, the trenches were shambles, with bodies ripped hideously in all directions. Many were literally blown to pieces. Under it all, the men remained still. Not a rifle was fired, not a face shown, until the right moment came. Lack of skill there might have been among the soldiers of the Czar that day, but there was no lack of fine courage and splendid discipline. If these men were defeated they were not disgraced. At last the expected came. The Japanese had THE BATTLE OE THE YALU. 149^ reached the river between them and the Manchurian mainland, the Aiho, which here has turned and runs almost parallel to the Yalu before joining it. The sand before had been dark and slightly shel- tered. From now, after the river was crossed, it was the brightest yeUow and quite level. As the Japanese were plunging across the river, the Rus- sians spoke. There was a long " rip-p-p " from their trenches, and the nearest portion of the front Lne of the Japanese crumpled. The Aiho ran red. The blue-coated Japanese infantry- men responded by striking up one of their army marching songs as they struggled, sometimes up to their necks, in the water. The " pst " of a bullet penetrating soft flesh cut short many a note It was a terrible time. Twice the Japanese front was reinforced. Now some were under the shelter of the cliff, now some had gained the protection of the houses of the village. One appalling blow had yet to fall. After one party had passed the most dangerous part of the sands, working around the cliff, and was ascending somewhat thickly over a partly sheltered rise, two common ■ shells from their own side miscarried and fell among them. The destruc- tion was fearful. We could see the two quick ascending columns of black smoke, and the men falling back. Twenty were blown to pieces, and the torn blue strips of cloth around showed for long after the real horror of those moments. ISO FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Still, to the right and to the left, the skirmishers were extending around in growing curves, hemming in the Russian sides. Now some had reached a part of the hill so steep that the Russians atop could not see them. Others were making for the curving hill to the right, and circling round to the rear, enveloping the trenches of Kiuliancheng and Conical Hill. Where were the Russian reserves ? Where was the Russian artillery ? One battery of artillery attempted to open out, but before it had fired eight shots it was put out of action by a heavy Japanese fusillade. The troops to the left were already fully employed resisting a tremendous Japanese attack there, and though they did not know it, their retreat was in turn being threatened by other troops circling still further around. How many Russians were now left I cannot tell. That many died, the heaping graves piled surface high with corpses best testify. The hills to the left were raking them with rifle fire. Tiger Hill and the plains in front were shelling them, with the thunder of an unceasing line of artillery. On the heights behind, the enemy were appearing. Still they fought on until the Japanese coming behind commanded the trenches with their rifles, and then all was over. The keenest competition had existed among the Japanese battalions as to which should bear the flag first on the heights. The men were THE BATTLE OF THE YALU. 151 worn out by the time the first round was done, even the strongest being wearied. They had fought hard the previous day ; they had spent the night on the sand, and, finally, after wading through the river, soaking themselves to the skin, they had to run over the long stretch of burning sand under fire, their clothes clinging to them, and gathering much sand to their sticky surfaces. But soon an officer and man appeared on the ridge, bearing aloft a great white flag with a brilliant red central circle. Japan had conquered, and the coveted position was in her grasp. 152 CHAPTER XIV. After the Battle. The soldiers raised a deep Banzai. Chinamen came creeping from holes in the ground, and syco- phantly joined the cry of triumph, kicking the bodies of the dead Russians to show their contempt for them, and making ready, as camp followers have done since the beginning of war, to act the part of ghouls on the field as soon as they had sneaked from the watchful eyes of the soldiers. The doctors were now busy. Field hospitals were run up, the German-trained surgeons, alert and cool, opened their cases of instruments, and the quick work began. No time for dainty delays or finicking hesitation here. The field surgeon needs be prompt to think and to act. Men were dying around, every moment must be paid for in human lives, and what was to be done must be done quickly. Here was no joy of war. He who sings of the delights of the " hour of glorious strife " had rarely stood in the hospital tent immediately after battle, The city wall. Fengfangcheng. [To face page 152. AFTER THE BATTLE. 153 when the wrecks are being patched. Cossack in grey shirt lay still beside his erstwhile adversary in blue coat. A Japanese was carried along in a stretcher, close to a Siberian infantryman, the one shot through the leg, the other in the side. The first raised himself on his shoulder and gazed, smiling hopefully and bravely, at the other, who could do no more than turn his head. His looks strove to make clear his thoughts to the man of unintelligible speech. They were thoughts, if face proclaimed truly, not of triumph but of soldierly cheer, echoing that if bodies were now hulks, duty had been done. Here lay a young infantryman, his face wearing in death a look of childish wonderment, his bayonetted rifle close to him, where it had dropped from his sharply-paralysed hand. His legs were half drawn up, as his muscles had spontaneously contracted, in the moment when he was struck and before death took him. Here was a Russian officer, his silver-laced coat ripped off, and thrown lightly by the doctor^' over him, his face graved with pain, every half-conscious thought merged in the one determination not to show signs of his agony before his nation's foes. A Japanese, whose uniform proclaimed him high in the General Staff, came up and spoke gently and pitifully to him in his own tongue. The surgeon touched the shattered limb, and the man was wrung with sharp IS4 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. pain. " My God/' he called, his clenched and bit lips opening and forcing the words from him despite his volition. " Not that." And then the man was master of himself again, and there was silence. Heaven help us, my masters, it's a sorry world ! Close by him lay a German-speaking Russ, shot through the shoulder and through the head. What brought him from his Polish or Lithish province ? His mind went back to the smoke curling from his own kitchen, and to the one woman in the world praying there that day for him, and waiting for his return. " Meine liebe," he moaned, " meine liebe, meine liebe." His voice sank to a muttered prayer. Then he started up, and sought to raise himself. " Wasser, wasser ! " his hoarse and scarce audible voice croaked. A Japanese soldier ran to fill a tin pannikin, an Irishman by my side raised the man's head as tenderly as though he had been a woman, and water came, with its momentary abate- ment of agony. There were more horrible sights, scenes I can scarce dare recall, much less write about. The surgeons treated friend and foe alike. I watched their work, in hastily pitched tent in the village hospital, on the open field. For them the incoming wounded were not friend or foe, Jap or Russ, but sick men to be saved from death. AFTER THE BATTLE. 155 But the fight was not yet over. The cavalry of one division were ordered to ride down to Antung, where the Russians had expected the Japanese to attempt to cross, and had been waiting for them. The Russians, however, had already heard word of the decisive action, and by the time the cavalry came they had mostly evacuated the town, the Japanese having only a rear-guard action before securing the place. The reserves of two divisions were called up, and at one o'clock started in pursuit of the main Russian force, along the Mandarin Road. One company, advancing hastily, found itself con- fronted by a heavy force of Russians, with many guns. It did not hesitate, but opened an attack on them. Three out of every four of the men in that company fell, and ammunition was exhausted before the remainder of the Japanese forces came up. Then ensued a sharp, hard fight. The Rus- sians had guns, the Japanese none, for the moun- tain battery sent around with one division early in the day had been delayed by the many trackless hills to be crossed. The Japanese attacked on three sides, leaving the rear open for an attempted Russian retreat. They knew well that once the Russians started retreating, they could keep up with them, and the day was theirs. The Japanese themselves were loud in their praises of the bravery of the Russians here. Out- numbered, wearied, already defeated, their one 156 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. advantage was that they possessed field guns and Maxim-Nordenfeldts while their enemy had no- thing but rifles. But a rifle at short range is a deadly foe to any field gun, and the Japanese infantry crept closer, closer, through every vestige of cover. It was a last stand. Before long the artillerymen saw that all was lost. At least, they would not permit their uninjured weapons to fall into Japanese hands. Feverishly they tore breech blocks from guns, wrenched off the back parts of their Maxims, hammered sights and levers out of shape. Then came a final rush. The Czar's soldiers fired while their opponents were within twenty yards. At last bayonet work, brief, decisive, ended the scene, and twenty-one field guns, eight Maxim-Norden- feldts, and many regimental accessories, from painted Ikon to band instruments, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Japanese headquarters had been transferred that afternoon from near Wiju to Kiuliancheng. I was there in the evening when an officer rode in, smiling, triumphant, with the first news of the capture of the Russian guns. The Commander- in-Chief had that evening, for the first time, received -the correspondents of the foreign news- papers. " I waited," he said, simply, " until we had crossed the Yalu before we met." Just then the news came. AFTER THE BATTLE. 157 The scene will not soon fade from my memory. Most of us had been up and out since four in the morning, and it was now darkness again. Russian wounded were being brought in, and in one corner a group of Russian officers, prisoners, were being hospitably entertained by the Japanese Staff. A wood fire was piled up in the courtyard, and by its flickering and smoky light, men, seated on the bare earth, were busy altering their despatches to meet the accumulating events. We were tired, for we had ridden many miles over heavy country, swimming or fording bridgeless rivers, and evading quicksands ; we were hungry, for many hours had passed since bite or sup had crossed our lips. All were in the same case, from greatest to least, for in the hours of battle men have other things to think about than bringing up food supplies. But when the great news came, there was no look of weariness on any face. Every officer sprang to his feet and gathered around. The General was in the courtyard. His monosyllable of joy was brief, but his luminous face told how deeply he felt the splendid culmination of his plans. It was four in the morning before we got back. We had seen death and life, triumph and bitter defeat, the acme of victory and of agony that day. We had seen the man in the morning in the prime of manhood's strength, and, ere the sun had reached its meridian, a still clod of clay, or a heap 158 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of quivering agony. In fields around us, soldiers were sleeping in the midst of those whose sleep would have no awakening here. Next morning, as they went down to the river to gather water for their rice, they would find it tinged red, for men's hearts' blood had been washed by the night rains into it. Let me own the truth, however, that few such thoughts came to us that night. There were re- turning rivers to be forded, and two of our party were nearly swept away in the waters in the dark- ness. There was an irrepressible sense of weariness to be mastered, and I, for one, found myself dozing in my saddle, my knees clutching mechanically and keeping me from falling. Once home, there was work yet to be done, messengers despatched, letters revised, and the news sent abroad. New dawn had come before many of us could let sleep visit us. Sad spectacles waited us in the days to come. Saddest of all was the incoming of the Russian prisoners. As I watched these men marching along, giants most of them, guarded by the httle Japanese^ soldiers, I could feel no exultation. Here were Astrakhan-bonnetted Cossacks, in coats loose as dressing-gowns, here stolid-faced infantrymen, their peaked hats awry, their faces telling of fatigue and strain. Behind them came a little group of officers, pale, determined, with set faces and proud carriage. AFTER THE BATTLE. 159 No Japanese raised cry of triumph, and the very Chinaman kept silence. For myself, I forgot the old controversies between these people and my own. I could but remember that here were soldiers, akin to me, in the depths of humiliation. And when I stood later on the heights where the battle had been fought, saw the corpses still unburied, marked the hastily-dug graves, piled to the surface, with arms, legs, and sometimes whole bodies protruding, and gazed at the mangled humanity around, the meaning of it all sank into my mind. My horse, too, smelled the presence of death, and stopped, time after time, ears erect, nostrils dilated, its frame stretched in mute wonderment and terror. i6o CHAPTER XV. Manchuria, Our arrival at Antung was to us all an entrance into a Promised Land. Generals and officers and correspondents congratulated each other whenever they met. Here was a town with food, corn for our horsesj fresh vegetables for ourselves, meats to be bought, roomy houses to sleep in. Here were a people industrious and intelligent. Antung and Wiju are separated geographically by a river's breadth and a few miles of land. Actuallj^ there seems half a world between them. In progress they can scarce be compared. Northern Korea was a wilderness, Antung a Goshen. On the one side was the Korean, dressed in a garment which hinders work, lazily spending his day smoking and idling, with his women folk subservient, with manu- factures practically non-existent, with trade stag- nant. Across the river was the big, well-built. Shantung Chinaman, busy at a hundred trades, working hard, suitably dressed for work and flourish- ing. The attire of the men (not the women) is probably the best ever devised for human wear. MANCHURIA. i6i Practical, cheap, and yet lending itself whenever necessary to the most splendid ornament, it cer- tainly ranks far ahead of our own. I rode through the streets gazing eagerly and greedily at the contents of the shops. Then I started a search for European foodstuffs. After a time I thought I had lighted on what I wanted. One Chinese merchant, with great show of secrecy, took from his inner rooms some cases of goods. Armour's beef. Pacific coast salmon, French wines, Russian jams, and spirits with the mark " Mono- polnaia i." I was happy. But alas ! for me, I was not so happy when the things arrived at the temple in which I was staying, and I proceeded to sample them. The beef tin was an exact reproduction of the wares of the great Chicago firm, but when I tasted the contents I decided that I would try something else. Then I took up the salmon. This had the usual gorgeous cover, beloved by salmon-canning firms, down even to the name of the San Francisco lithographer in the corner, but its contents were the cheapest Asiatic fish with a little colouring matter added. The wine bottles looked very good, but having now developed caution I first induced a friend to sample the port. That friend fought shy of me for a month afterwards ! The Russian jams were good, and articles bearing a Russian brand proved edible. The others were nothing but frauds of a most im- II i62 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. pudent description. The Chinaman is an adept at imitation, and can reproduce the exteriors of the best brands perfectly. If he were more careful about the contents, he would sweep the world's markets. My temple home afforded the greatest contrast to the Korean huts in which I had lately been staying. Korea might be described as a land without temples, there being so few there, but Manchuria is surcharged with them. You can scarce find a village without one or more, usually the finest set of buildings there, ornamented with great and gaudy statuary, now an immense faced Buddha, now an ugly and minatory God of War, now a milder faced guardian of the river men. The temple in which I was staying was, I under- stand, erected by direct grant from the Imperial Court at Pekin. It was quite new, and was evidently exceedingly prosperous. There were many yards and inner temples, the buildings were splendidly made of weU-quarried stone, and the images and religious symbols were abundant and costly. We made our home, not in the inner sanctuary, but in the outer courts, and we soon became great friends with the Chief Priest — an old Chinese officer — and his assistants. He looked longingly and admiringly at the Japanese soldiers around, and recalled reminiscences of the old days when /-hina and Japan were at war. MANCHURIA. 163 Many worshippers flocked still to the temple, and our early morning sleep would often be disturbed by the beating of drums, and by the cries of zealous worshippers who with automatic gestures prostrated and abased themselves. Life in the town did not lack interest. The Chinese magistrate still exercised some functions, and the Chinese prison was full. On one never- to-be-forgotten afternoon I visited this prison, and after a little difficulty succeeded in securing entry into the part where the criminal prisoners were confined. A great chamber was divided in three by two rows of stakes rising from the floor to the ceiling. Chinese guards slept in the centre compartment, while the pens on either side of them were crowded with prisoners. The pens were in semi-darkness, and the chained and manacled wretches there had scarce room to move a few paces. There must have been several dozen in each small division. Their faces were pale as death, and they crowded against the bars with hungry cries begging for money or food. " These men will die," said the jailer to me in- differently, pointing out four or five of the party. " What have they done ? " " They are robbers. They have been here for four or five years, and we will kill them some time." " When ? " "Oh, perhaps two years, or three years' time." " I suppose," I suggested tentatively, " you will II* i64 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. do something with them before then ? " " Yes," the jailer said. " We may take them out and flog them occasionally." " And anything worse ? " I asked. At this the jailer entered a careful expla- nation that in Chinese prisons they did not torture men except to make them confess guilt. He did not add that for this purpose they inflict the most fiendish cruelties human ingenuity can devise. The place was a nightmare more horrible than the bloodiest war. Here were men, many of them far from criminals if human physiognomy tells any- thing, held for years for trifling offences, kept crowded and confined from January to December without work, with little food, with nothing to occupy the mind, with limbs never free. To me the place was a realisation of Hell. When we ventured forth at night time, we heard the whirring warning of the Chinese watchman announcing to all the world that he, the guardian of peace, was approaching, and giving robbers convenient notice to get away. One day a house burst on fire close to us. The firemen in gorgeous uniforms came along, noisily making many incan- tations to drive away the fire devil ; meanwhile humble and uniformless house-owners hastily raised ladders to the roof, tore down the straw and threw little buckets of water on the thatch of the buildings around to avoid the spread of the fire. The house in which the fire broke out was gutted. MANCHURIA. 165 We had expected quick advance and quickly renewed fighting from Antung, but these did not come. News was brought to us of Japanese land- ing on the Liaotung peninsula and of forces moving in many directions. Northwards occasional skir- mishes were going on^ and the Russians were now daily strengthening their armies by fresh arrivals from Europe. In time our headquarters were trans- ferred to Fengfangcheng, between thirty and forty miles inland. There we remained until the middle of June. This long delay impressed the majority of outside observers as being one point in the campaign where the Japanese strategists laid themselves open to much criticism. But if General Kuroki was not allowed to push on, he took care to confuse the Russians about his movements. Our very presence at Fengfangcheng was kept secret. We correspondents and the military attaches who had now joined us, were kept within strict and narrow limits, almost like prisoners. We had a long breathing time while spring changed to summer and winter cold to fierce heat. While waiting at Fengfangcheng we attended a solemn and official Shinto service in memory of the fallen at the battle of the Yalu. As many troops as could be spared came and paraded in a long valley. On a hill facing them, a temple had been built in the open. White strips of cotton were hung around it to frighten away the 166 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. spirits. Picturesque priests, who had accompanied the soldiers, performed their ritual. Offerings of flesh, vegetables, sweets and meats were laid on the altars for the dead. The surroundings were strangely impressive and yet the service itself seemed unnatural. None who has witnessed the solemn memorial service of a European army could fail to be struck by the gulf between that and it. Japanese soldiers them- selves explained the reason to me. "We have passed such things," they said, pointing to the Shinto symbols. " We are glad and proud to re- member our old comrades, but as for the religious / service " -■-:s^^'^. : : v;::..il ilSfeskuSk^MaA, ^^^^^^^^^KjmgS^BI^B-'"' -t'-^^v^ VT^Vp ^^^^^^^^KSStS^K^BSBS^^^^Y^jsi^'jitr ^k' /^jBrop^BJ^^^B ^ : .,,./....S^>i^WSiwi-'^. t ^^^Kj^r * '^^aSld^^S^^ <^Sp^|dK p-a- ^U:-lI|^ *■ ' -^ •pii jL-:i i:^S,.w iw,.-^ -< ..rfrfttfiiES^H jm^EBm ^r •: "*»'wi^,^i« . NlL^lffi :::v-:-^':^i^^ "18 ,»-' Japanese soldier preseiiling an offering of f;)ocl for tlie'spirits of the dead at official Sliinto memorial service. Fengfangctieng. \To face page i66. id7 CHAPTER XVI. Campaigning in Summer Time. The following three letters are printed as they were written at the time. Their only value con- sists in showing the details of our life with the Japanese Army during the summer months and the ideas then current among us about the progress of our campaign. A DAY WITH THE JAPANESE ARMY. Headquarters, Second Division, First Imperial Japanese Army. June 28th. Five o'clock on a. bright summer morning. The new chum turns uneasily on his temporary bed in the open field, sleepily wondering why everything is so damp around him, and why so many ants and beetles are running over his person. Then memory returns. His pillow is his saddle, and his horse blanket, supplemented by his water- proof, acts as a couch. The damp around is nothing but the heavy dew. A bevy of big, black ants i68 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. have climbed over the saddle and are disporting themselves on his neck. The air is full of scent from a wild rose bush behind his head, covered with hundreds of blossoms, a blaze of beauty. The smouldering lights in the distance are the dying camp fires of a Japanese regiment. Yesterday our carts, with tents, food and servants, were delayed by the movements of the artillery and heavy ammunition wagons. Hence we, in common with everyone else in the Army, from the General to the buglers, had to make the best of what we had, finding food in our saddle-bags, and shelter and covering in the saddles and blankets of our horses. There is many a worse lot than sleeping in the open in Manchuria in summer time, and once a man conquers the fastidious dislike of allowing ants and beetles and spiders to wander over him at will, the rest is easy. Some folk, it is true, might object to the snakes. We killed a beauty yesterday, over five feet long, as it wriggled rapidly between us. " It looks like a fight to-day," a foreign attache whispers, as we ride up to join the General's staff. A glance round confirms this view. The troops are paraded close together. Yesterday we were spread over a considerable extent of country ; to- day we are a compact mass, save for the wings of cavalry, moving ahead wherever the nature of the land will permit them. Ammunition wagons are CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 169 well protected. Our heavy advance guard, which yesterday was ten miles in front, is now scarce two miles away. Twenty-four hours since, the very spot where we now stand was occupied by Russian cavalry. On yonder hill, you can see the newly- made graves of two of them, with rough hewn crosses over. Probably these were Lithuish Catholics, for the shape of the crosses shows that they did not belong to the Orthodox Greek Church. On each cross is scrawled in pencil, in clumsy, peasant handwriting, a brief Russian farewell : " He laid down his life for the glory of Russian arms." Sleep, warriors, sleep. There are other things to do than to sigh over the dead. A careful scrutiny reveals our situation. All around are great hills, covered with green scrub, and ahead, in the distance, still higher mountains climb the heavens. Our advance guard has gone through the wood ahead of us, and other skirmishers are clearing the hills to our right and left, watchful lest at any moment a superior Russian force should show itself. These hills were made for resistance, but the enemy does not apparently think so, for none save handfuls of scouts is between us and our first destination, the Motienling Pass. Nov/ the General's staff is fairly on the way. A squadron of cavalry rides first, rifles slung over shoulders, and a small body of infantry marches during part of the day to our left. Behind the 170 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. General and his chiefs of staff come the military attaches, four foreign correspondents and a photo- grapher. The military attaches are from France, the United States, Germany, Austria and Italy ; the British representative is off elsewhere to-day, but will catch us up to-morrow. These men are the pick of their armies. They can talk pitifully with the Russian wounded prisoner brought in, or exchange compliments with a grave and courtly Chinese mandarin, with each in his own tongue. They can give you details of the last Imperial Garden Party at Tokyo, or stories of personal adventures in the last South American revolution. They can discourse on the delights of the dinners of the much-lamented Joseph, the merits of the Maconochie ration, or the tenderness of horse steak in siege time. Some of them have the reputation of being able to wheedle information out of stone walls, and it takes one time to realise that under their frank, guileless demeanours are concealed eyes that see everything, brains that never forget, and reasoning powers that will mould the final judgment of this generation on the conduct of this war. The ride is very leisurely. We cannot go faster than the main body of the troops, and armies must move slowly. But while the pace seems poor for us mounted men, a glance backwards shows that to the infantryman it is otherwise. A khaki CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 171 coated regiment marches along, not with the heavy, swinging stride of the English troops, but with a quick, nervous motion all its own. As the sun mounts higher into the heavens and pours down its fuller heat, the soldiers loosen their coats, as far as discipline will allow. Before mid-day, the backs of many of the khaki jackets are drenched with perspiration, and the shoulders black with stains from their rifles. This is no holiday parade. The deeply-tanned faces, the weather-stained and often patched clothes, the boots that have long since lost their gloss, the once white and smooth putties, now stained with many muds and marked with many creases, give an impression of real war, truer than any parade smartness could do. These men look different now from what they did on the day when they landed at Chinnampho, speckless, trim, new shod, new clothed. Their backs no longer jib at the weight of heavy marching order, their hands have forgotten the dainty work of their artizan tools and learned familiarity with their rifles, and home and home-land have sunk into the dim background of their lives. Every ear is strained to catch the ping of rifle shots or the ripping tear of artillery, but no sound of firing reaches us. Soon we come on half-a- dozen Russian prisoners, seated by the roadside, with sentries around them. The fresh blood on the bandages around the face of one and the arm 172 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of another show that there has been some recent skirmishing near by. The prisoners^ disarmed, weary, with big -eyed, mournful faces, stand the scrutiny of the passing soldiers well. No Japanese throws taunt at them, for it is not the custom of the Japanese to triumph over a fallen foe ; and their bearing had a simple dignity about it which com- mands our respect. We are now in very sparsely settled country. Few houses are to be seen, and the frequent hills prevent more than a limited portion of the land from being cultivated. There are no signs of poverty, and the little children running around the farm-houses seem all well fed. What land is tilled, is farmed with intelligence and industry. The furrows are drawn with a straightness which the ablest Norfolk farm hand might envy. There are few weeds in the fields, and evidently hand labour is not spared. Generally, the Chinese take little notice of us as we pass through their villages, being too busy attending to their own affairs. But to-day blue-f rocked peasants gather at many corners, staring at us. They stood thus a few hours since, when the Russians fled through. As the foreign attaches pass, they point eagerly at them, believing them to be Russians, prisoners of the Japanese. A half -whisper passes from one to the other as the newspaper corres- pondents come along, telling our nationality. " Ingooa, Ingooa," " English, English." CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 173 One bold Manchu points first at the shape of his own head and nose, and then to that of the Japanese and the foreigners, showing that his is like the Japanese and unlike our own. It is his way of claiming . kinship with the victorious sons of Nippon. Soon we mount slowly up a great pass, 1,500 feet high. The road has been newly made by Japanese pioneers, and even now it will be far from easy to take artillery over it. Down the other side, a valley comes into view, two miles across, with the usual high, wooded hills on either side. Are the enemy in those woods or not ? Through our glasses we watch the cavalry stretching out, and the infantry pressing forward in line. Behind them are the regiments in column formation. A force of foot men has stationed itself behind us, every man ready. But as the minutes drag on, and the troops advance, it becomes clear that the Russians have fled beyond the hills, and our march is resumed. Even an untrained eye cannot fail now to see the precautions taken, the double sentries stationed at many spots, the troops sweeping in one direction while we move in another, the pauses while the situation in front of us is examined. As we ride on, we notice the ashes of the Russian fires, scarce cold, and the corn left in the troughs where the Russian horses were feeding. Many times in an hour one asks oneself why the Muscovites should 174 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. thus almost ostentatiously leave the way open to us, in positions naturally so strong for defence. Can it be that the movements of the Japanese Generals and the advance of our men from so many sides has struck panic into them, or has upset all their plans ? Yet we have no grounds for believing that they are acting from cowardice, for lack of courage is not a Russian fault. Can mere stupidity or unpreparedness be at the bottom of it, or is it all part of a carefully designed scheme ? Are we setting a steel trap, or are we walking into a trap cleverly set for us ? We are not to have a long advance to-day. Early in the afternoon we pause while battalion after battalion pours through a devastated village. Word goes around that this is to be our stopping place, and in a few minutes arms are piled and the troops dismissed. There is a shout among the soldiers like among boys given an unexpected holiday, and they run for cover and shade from the pitiless sun to the woods on the hills. Their clothes are dripping with perspiration from the weary march in the heat of the day. The river near invites us to swim, and hardly are we out of the wood before a welcome signal proclaims that our cart, with tent and supplies, is approaching. Now for food at last. The Chinese and Korean boys with the cart were on the road all last night, waiting to get on, and are fit for nothing but sleep now CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 175 It does not take long to pitch one's tent. To look over the box of provisions and choose some novelty from among the tinned foods there is a work of leisurely delight. The soldiers are already eating their portable rice ration from the little wicker baskets they carry with them. Now twilight is gathering. Camp fires in rows send up their sparks on three sides of us. The setting sun throws the shadow of the mountains on our faces. " Our tent makes a splendid mark," an old border fighter murmurs. " If the Russians have any snipers on the hiUs, we wiU have some bullets among us before morning." His warning falls on unheeding ears. A gentle snore interrupts him. The camp is already asleep. THE JAPANESE ADVANCE IN MANCHURIA. June 29th, 1904. The Japanese advance into the heart of Manchuria has begun in earnest, and the Army is marching northwards. For six days now we have pressed towards Liao- yang, through hot sunshine and heavy rains, sleeping at times in untented fields, wading through un- bridged rivers, now up passes thousands of feet high, now in valleys where summer rains have transformed roadways to roaring torrents, and fields to sodden lakes. Each day has brought its " tidings of further 176 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Russian retreat and persistent Japanese advance. Every morning we have started with the expectation of battle, only to find by the close of the day that the enemy are still further back. We set out in bright sunshine, with roads hard and dry. We are continuing our march in dreary rain. Experts assured us that the rainy season would not commence for at least a fortnight. If what has come on us after the last three days, however, is not that season, it is an amazingly good imitation. For forty-eight hours the heavens have been open, and rain pouring continuously, save when for a few moments it has ceased for gusts of stormy wind. My tent arriving at this village in time to be pitched (a thing that does not always happen on the march), I selected the centre of a big stony field, where there was an elevated sandy patch, for its site. Already the valley around is a succession of little lakes. The rocky roadway in front of the tent, dry as a bone two days ago, is now a mad, whirling, roaring, tempestuous stream, fed from a hundred mountain points, and making passage for itself to the river half a mile away. The rain washes sand and soil from one's tent pegs, and when the wind blows we constantly expect the canvas to collapse about our ears. Yet we are fortunate. An attache who camped a few hundred yards from here has now a lively stream running through the centre of his tent. CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 177 To say that the Japanese soldiers started out cheerfully, is to repeat what now must be a common- place to English readers. The Japanese soldier is always cheerful and ever eager to meet the foe. For weeks the men have longed for real movement. The little skirmishes between Siuyen and Saimatsu, the long outpost duty, the great halt, did not suit them. They knew that the outpost encounters amounted to very little, and most men in the ranks believed that if they were pushed forward, nothing could stand before them. A feeling of invincibility had grown among the troops, a con- fident assurance of victory which helps to bring triumph. " You believe, do you not, that one Japanese is worth two Russians ? " I asked one Japanese soldier yesterday. " Yes," he replied. " Two— and the rest ! " To the men in the ranks, to the Japanese Tommy Atkins, the order to advance was the most welcome of all. The three divisions of the First Army, moving along three roads converging on the Motienling Pass, were all charged with one spirit, confidence in their leader and in themselves. An European observer who studied the equipment of these men for the first time, would have been struck by many differences between them and ourselves. In the essentials of arms, dress, and equipment, the Japanese soldier generally follows the common model of modern armies. His summer 12 178 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. dress is khaki, his formations are mainly on the German plan, and his transport is much indebted to the model of the Indian Army. Transport is not so complicated a matter here as with us, for the soldier lives more simply. A rice ration forms the basis of his food on the march, with additions of meats and pickles when possible. Rice is portable and easily cooked. The highest officers share the simplicity of the men, when occasion makes it necessary. You may visit the General late in the evening, after a heavy day's advance that started at daybreak, to find that he has not yet dined, and his only resting place is a bare room in a half- wrecked Chinese house. He would not have his own food pushed forward while the artillery were needed at the front, and there was only one narrow road on which they could come. Visit him later, when food had arrived, and you will see that his meal is little more varied than that of his soldiers who are sleeping around the camp fires outside. Two things impress one about the dress of the Japanese officer. Every officer carries a sword, and carries it as a weapon of offence. On the belts of many of the officers a very small calibre revolver hangs, in a neat leather case. " Why do you carry such a toy weapon ? " I asked once an officer on the line of march. " I prefer a heavier weapon, that will stop a man when it strikes him," and I touched my .38 Colt as I spoke CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 179 " We do not carry this to kill our enemies," the officer replied, " but to suicide ourselves, if we are placed in such a position that we must die or surrender. The Yamato spirit requires that a Japanese officer must never surrender. He must die first." At first it seems to an Occidental very comic that a soldier should carry a fan, and use it. Yet hundreds of soldiers in every regiment here do, and a very useful thing they find it on hot days. Each soldier carries a little box of " Russian invasion medicine " (to give it the Japanese name on its lid), a preparation of creosote made up into pills. Every man is required to take one pill three times a day, directly after meals. The pills are not popular with most of the soldiers. Every soldier also carries on the march a folding mosquito net, which he can put around his head at night time. There are very few mosquitoes in this part of Manchuria, and the nets have been chiefly useful in keeping flies away. The soldiers are anything but complimentary about these nets. They complain that they are hot and uncomfortable, and they have nicknamed them " fly fighters." Fengfangcheng, our point of departure, is an old Manchurian town that for some weeks has been the headquarters of the First Army. Like the rest of Manchuria we have so far travelled through, it affords a striking contrast to the sordid poverty 12* i8o FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of Korea or to the crowded cities of China proper. The old town is surrounded by a high wall, in a very good state of preservation, and with two hand- some gates, one to the south and one to the east. Within the walls there are mostly of&cial and rich private residences, many with beautifixl old gardens. The working district lies outside the walls. Both within and without, the houses are well constructed, mostly of stone, and with very handsome and well ornamented roofs. The roadways are broad, and well kept. One might truly say that the meanest alley in Fengfangcheng would be a street of palaces in a Korean town. The Chinese of Fengfangcheng promptly set about making a profit out of the invaders. Here we could buy eggs and chickens and even fresh mutton, with lettuce and radishes. No one can understand the supreme joy of eating fresh meat until he has been entirely confined for some months to tinned foods. We appreciated our good fortune in Fengfangcheng, but we did not appreciate it enough. The full measure of our luck only dawned on us after it had passed. A day's march from the town, and we found ourselves in a district absolutely barren. The Russians had not left so much as an egg or a pound of flour behind them in their north- ward retreat. They did not touch the growing crops in the fields, but the houses were stripped and the barns emptied.. When one offered the CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. i8i Chinese money for an egg or two they laughed, and showed their empty hands. "The Russians took everything," they said, " and they paid us nothing." At first the sympathy of the Chinese common people was on the whole with the Russians. They had been impressed by the show of Russian arms, as the Japanese army had not impressed them. The Japanese troops rarely made a great display together, and so the Chinaman only saw a few regi- ments at a time. " Russians eat um all up," said one, contemptuously. " Russians plenty men, Russians plenty big guns. You few. Russians there, and there, and there," pointing in three directions as he spoke. " Russians soon come here. Then you go." But when the Russians did not return, and when it became plain that the Japanese Army was ad- vancing, Chinese feeling underwent a change. The natives began to discover their kinship with the newcomers. It will only take a few more Japanese victories to make the Manchurians the most ardent Russophobes. From Fengfangcheng, our path has been far from an easy one. During the past few weeks, thousands of soldiers have thrown aside the rifle for the spade, cutting roads in all directions. This country, however, is one constant succession of high mountains and great hills. Choose what direction you will, and the narrow roadway soon grows 1 82 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. narrower, and starts winding up some steep hill. The roadways are not really roads in any proper sense of the name. They are simply tracks of soft earth and rough boulders. In fine weather, you can travel along them with difficulty. In rainy seasons, passage is almost impossible. The rivers are practically all unbridged. In the early summer they do not need bridging, for they can be easily forded. In July and August, when the rains come, no bridge within the power of the local people to construct could stand the floods. The natives have solved the bridge problem by leaving it alone, and by staying at home when the rains fall. Liaoyang lies ahead of us. What the full purpose of our advance is, none of us knows. It may be, as seems on the surface, that the capture of Liaoyang is but part of our purpose, and that behind it lies the surrounding and capture of the Russian force now between Liaoyang and the Second Army. These points will be fully known soon, and to speculate on them with our limited information at the front would be folly. The difficulties awaiting us depend as much on the weather as on the Russians. If, as from present indications seems certain, the rainy season is fully on us, our advance will be heavily handi- capped. With roads destroyed, with tracks feet deep in mud, with rivers swollen and deep, it will CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 183 be impossible to move rapidly. The constant wet is bound to affect the health of the Japanese troops, despite every precaution. If, however, the con- tinuous heavy rains are delayed for two or three weeks, as in normal seasons, then this great Army will have ample time to complete the preliminaries of its great movement, and to take up a position where weather will be a secondary consideration. THE POSITION IN MANCHURIA. South of Motienling Pass. July gth, 1904. The Manchurian campaign is on the eve of its second and more serious stage. Decisive as the fighting has been so far, within its limits, we have as yet seen but the preliminary moves of the real tussle. As I write this. General Kuropatkin, with the flower of his army, is reported to be faced and flanked by the united Japanese forces. He has defied all the prophets by clinging to an apparently dangerous position between Haicheng and Kaiping, instead of retreating northwards to inglorious safety. Port Arthur is nearing the eve of assault. The great north-western movement of the Japanese Army, by which it was hoped General Kuropatkin would be surrounded, has been allowed to continue a large part of the way without genuine opposition. 184 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Our forces are being strengthened all along the line, drafts have arrived to fill the places of those fallen by the way, and positions that we expected to buy with much blood are ours without loss. All has gone well. Everything has come to pass as we hoped, save for the retirement of the Russians. But it is the very perfection of realisation that makes us hesitate, and ask what it all means. Are the Russians before us such simpletons as they are trying to make us believe, or are they in turn setting a trap, and baiting it with surrendered posts and retreating soldiers. It is because we have not yet found the answer to this problem that the Japanese forces have paused before closing the trap of steel that would hem in Kuropatkin and his force. While there is still some confusion about minor details, the main facts of this campaign, up to date, stand out in simple relief. Immediately after the battle of the Yalu, the First Japanese Army captured Antung and advanced on Fengfangcheng, which the Russians abandoned. Early in May, a division landed at Takushan, and the Second and Third Armies arrived to the north of Port Arthur, isolating and besieging the fortress. Had the Russians possessed the large forces around Liaoyang they were credited with, they could, in the first fortnight of May, have thrown their entire strength on the then isolated First Army, and might possibly have CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 185 overpowered it by sheer weight of numbers. They did nothing, from which it can only be concluded that their strength was then much less than semi- official estimates stated. The Japanese quickly secured themselves against this peril. Their armies got into touch. The division landing at Takushan advanced to Siuyen, where it was joined by part of the First Army. The Second Army stretched to the right, thus making a line from Saimatsu to Port Adams, with the sea and the line of retreat through Western Korea behind it. General Kuroki's Army made its headquarters at Fengfangcheng, scattering its three divisions over an immense front, about seventy miles in extent, from Saimatsu westwards. Bent on con- fusing the Russians as to its point of attack, it sent out scouts and advance parties in every direction, even to within eighty miles of Moukden. The divisions were spread out from Fengfangcheng like radiating spokes from the axle of a wheel. The very presence of these men, without a blow being struck, threatened General Kuropatkin at a score of points. While the front line of the Japanese was en- gaged in constant skirmishes, thousands of men were building roads front and rear, laying a Ught, narrow-gauge railway from Antung to Fengfang- cheng, bridging rivers and storing supplies. The i86 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Japanese showed here the thoroughness of their behef in trenching tools. Pick and shovel were in use often within a quarter of an hour of gaining a position, and wherever the Japanese soldier settled a trench was seen. When the Japanese completed their preparations, they no doubt hoped that the Russians would attack the First Army in force. Nothing then would have suited them better. Many moves were made to invite General Kuropatkin, but in vain. Had he accepted the invitation, the Japanese could have hurled their other armies up the line of railway with overpowering effect. General Kuropatkin had other plans. Russian scouts formed a semi-circle around the First Army, and spies cut the wires between Antung and Feng- fangcheng. Troops further back improved roads and fortified the southern approaches to the Motienling Pass. On the eastern side, in the neighbourhood of Saimatsu, Renenkampf, a cavalry General of European fame, was placed in command of a cavalry division, and is doing his best to justify his fame. His Cossacks have come to within a few miles of Fengfangcheng itself, and are a con- stant menace to the communications of the Army. This force in the east is one of the unknown factors in the campaign. Not until the second week in June did Kuropatkin show his hand. It had been generally expected CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 187 that he would retreat on Liaoyang or even to Moukden. BeUeving that the best defensive is a vigorous aggressive, he went south, following the line of railway. The Japanese advanced, and the front line of the Russians was defeated at Telissu. As there were no independent witnesses present, neither military attaches nor foreign correspondents, many desired details of that fight cannot be ob- tained. Plainly, it did not affect the Russians so gravely as was at first anticipated. The Japanese did not immediately follow up their victory, and the Russians continued pouring troops south- wards. The move of the Russians to the south enabled the Japanese to act in another direction. The First Army, after its long wait in Fengfangcheng, ad- vanced forward in the last week of June, converging in three columns, along almost parallel valleys, towards Liaoyang. It was known that the Russians had strongly entrenched positions, with the head- quarters of two divisions south of the Pass, and fighting was expected there. But the Russians abandoned their positions again with no more fight than slight rear-guard skirmishes, and we entered into almost peaceful possession of MotienUng. The Japanese had thought to put a steel girdle around Kuropatkin's forces, and to compel him to retire northward to protect his rear. By their retirement, the Russians invited them to do so. r88 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. The invitation was so ostentatious that the Japanese, suspecting a trap, paused. The pause yet con- tinues. What is to be the outcome ? An unknown, but apparently growing body of Russians is now inter- vening between us and the remainder of the road to Liaoyang. The force to the east, beyond Sai- matsu, is showing great activity. General Kuro- patkin, according to the news reaching here, is apparently still moving troops south. Either he is charged with the madness of despair, and is staking all on a desperate move, or he has a much greater force with him than his enemies have believed. His very invitation to the Japanese gives us cause to ask ourselves if there is not some unknown factor, upsetting all our calculations, influencing him. It is never wise to suppose your foe a fool, or to reckon on his madness. General Kixropatkin was not in former years thought a simpleton. In Eastern Europe they nick-named him " The Fox." The only theory fitting in with the action of the Russians is that they now have a very large force, large enough to justify them in attempting to destroy the Japanese Armies to the south, while holding the army to the north. If General Kuro- patkin does not retreat soon, his day of possible retreat will be past. If he is defeated in his present position, he practically gives himself over to CAMPAIGNING IN SUMMER TIME. 189 destruction, for retreat to the north will then be exceedingly difficult, thanks to the presence of the First Army on his north-eastern flank. Here we have a situation presenting a hundred possibilities. The rainy season is now partly on us, greatly accentuating the difficulties of trans- port and of supplies for both sides. The Japanese are at a disadvantage in being of necessity some distance from their base of supplies, but they are striving to remedy that by improving roads and by increasing the means of transit. Those of us who have watched the splendid strategy of the Japanese at point after point during the past few months cannot but now see that they approach the greater struggle with considerable advantages.. The spirits of their troops have amazed us, while their calculated daring, their prudence, their abso- lute disregard of self, and their apparently flawless application of the best rules of scientific warfare, have left us astonished. Yet the glamour of the repeated successes cannot blind us to the fact that this is to be a fight, and not a walk over. Triumphs such as the Japanese desire cannot be obtained without the taking of great risks. These risks they are now wel- coming. 190 CHAPTER XVII. The Second Attack on Motieiiling. Sharp, pattering sounds beat steadily against the sides of my tent. " More rain," I sleepily muttered to myself, turning in the semi-darkness of the early dawn. The sounds persisted, and even to sleepy ears they took form, now a ripple, now a burst, and now but a mere splutter. In a moment I was on my feet. Rain ? This was no rain, but the crackle of many rifles. The Russian attack had at last begun. There was a thick mist outside, which served well to carry the sounds from the direction of the Motienling Pass, about seven miles away. For three weeks we had waited here for this. Late in June we had advanced from Fengfangcheng, the Russians abandoning the line of the Motienling defences, almost without a blow. Scarce had they done so, apparently, before they repented their act. Day by day since then the forces in front of us had increased. Thirteen days since, the Siberian Infantry had made a blundering and costly *53f ,. -1: ' General Nishi, commander of the Second Division, watciiing thie battle of Motienling. Japanese infantiy resting on tfie march. \^To jaic page ic THE SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIENLING. 191 attempt to trap our outpost westwards of the pass. It was clear that our first dream of reaching the defences of Liaoyang without a serious fight was not to be reaHsed. It had slowly dawned on us that we, yesterday the aggressors, might soon be the attacked. Now the attack had come ! It took but a few minutes to rouse the camp. One early learns that at such a time it is not wise to rush off, post haste, for the scene of fighting. Battles usually last long, and a hungry man and an empty horse soon drop out. So the horses were given an extra meed, breakfast was quickly swallowed, and then — we were off ? Not so ! With the Japanese Army, military attaches and foreign correspondents could not then come and go as they would. " You must not leave here until permission arrives from the staff," was the message already brought up from the divisional headquarters. And soon an eager party of foreigners stood outside headquarters, waiting for the word. Have you ever seen a hungry tiger's cub, caged, striving through iron bars to reach red raw meat just beyond the range of its claws ? Picture, then, our little party, resentful at delay, eager to depart, craving permission to hurry to that which we had travelled so many thousands of miles to see. " Let us go ! " we begged. " It will be all over before we arrive." 193 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. " You must be patient," came the reply. " You might be killed or taken prisoners." Good heavens ! do these men take us for babes in arms ? My comrades, soldiers and writers from seven nations, have among them seen every fight of any importance since the Franco-Prussian War, yet they would keep them back because bullets are flying ! Signs that the fighting was growing harder in- creased. Chinamen, shaken out of their usual calm, were hurrying their wives and children back on the road to Fengfangcheng. In many houses preparations for departure were proceeding apace. At the commissariat offices soldiers were busy packing, the infantry swept on, the ammunition boxes still hurried forward, and then the word came to us. " You can go." There were no laggards among us on the road to Motienling that morning. What had been proceeding all this time in front of us ? The Japanese spread their outposts and pickets in the valleys radiating from the descent from Motienling, and held two temples north of the pass, while their main fighting position was on the top of the line of hills. About half-past twelve on the morning of the 17th, word was brought to them that the Russians would probably attempt a sur- THE SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIENLING. 193 prise before dawn. Two hours later a force of a hundred and fifty Cossacks, backed by a large body of infantry, swept towards the pickets. Acting on instructions, the outposts retired on their supports, which in turn went back to their main body atop of the pass. Three Russian regiments, the 34th, the 24th, and the 9th, moved upon the central position. The presence of the 34th regiment was specially interesting, as this forms part of the regular European Russian Army. The others were Siberian corps. The Russians lost no time. Dawn came about four, and by then they had already secured posses- sion of the two temples, and had pushed their ad- vance right up through the woods, almost to the very summit of the left side of the ravine. At day- break the Japanese could see many Russians around the old temple and in the valley below. They had gained much, almost without a blow, and but for the ravine they could have rushed on the Japanese, and possibly have crushed them by mere weight of numbers. Since the ravine stopped this, they started working up the leftward woods, trying to get round the Japanese position. The story of the fight that followed will never be fully known. The men were within^ a few hundred yards of each other, and each side was sheltered. Otherwise annihilation must have resulted. A heavy infantry duel followed, and was 13 194 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. maintained until nine o'clock, the Russians adding constantly to their forces. At about a quarter to seven the Japanese guns came into position, and opened on the massed Russians around the old temple. The Japanese used shimose and shrapnel, and' their fire was very effective. The velocity at that short range, and in a downward direction, was tremendous. Most of the shells went among the forces behind the temple, rather than in the building itself. So far as I could trace, only four shells struck the temple, one destropng part of the ornaments of the roof, one penetrating the thick outer wall and bursting in the courtyard, and two failing to penetrate the wall. Why did the Russians, having come so far, not swing around the few hundred yards remaining, and so get in direct contact ? The probable ex- planation is that the very heavy fusillade made it impossible for men to stir across that zone of fire either way. Here the fact that the Japanese had artillery and the Russians none gave the former a great advantage. How heavily the Russians suffered can only be realised by those who after- wards saw the massed corpses. Meanwhile, fighting was going on elsewhere along the Une. The Russians had hurled their forces at various points, covering a front of fifteen miles. General Count Keller, the newly - appointed com- THE SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIENLING. 195 mander of this army, himself directed operations. Under him were parts of the 3rd, 6th, and gth Divisions, including parts of the 9th, nth, and 12th East Siberian Regiments, the 22nd, the 24th, and 29th regiments of sharpshooters and the 34th and 35th regiments of the regular Russian Army. In all, the Japanese estimate that there were 21,000 Russians present. On the Japanese side was one division, that commanded by General Nishi. This statement must not be interpreted, however, as meaning that the Japanese force was of the strength given in text books for a Japanese division. A unit in the Japanese forces, from company to army, is elastic, and can be greatly reduced or augmented, as occasion may require. The Japanese military authorities guard few secrets more closely than the strength of their fighting forces at different points. At Taitongkou, a battalion and a half of the Russians attacked a single company, under the charge of Captain Suyematsu. The Japanese had a carefully-chosen position, and stubbornly resisted. Every officer was shot, and finally a sergeant- major took command. The Russians threw con- siderable forces against the Japanese right, and a most stubborn conflict followed. Here things went very hard with the Japanese for a time. The Rus- sians got to within a hundred yards, and it seemed likely that the Japanese would have to give way. Thus, at nine in the morning, the Russians had 13* 196 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. scored substantially. Despite their absence of artillery, they had won and were holding strong positions immediately facing the Japanese. The Japanese had fought magnificently, but at this stage of affairs it seemed as though they would have to abandon their artillery atop of the pass, and retire. Just then, to the astonishment of everyone, the order to retire came to the Russians, and they started slowly falling back from their left. What had happened ? Little more than a very successful bluff ! A company had been sent out from the Japanese left in the early morning, from near Shiniling, and met a battalion of Russians. It was driven back, with considerable loss, until it came on reinforcements, bringing the strength up to nearly a regiment, when it in turn attacked the Russians and drove them back, Russian supports not arriving in time. Having driven his opponents back, the colonel in command thought that he might well go to the assistance of the remainder of the Japanese, and he moved towards the centre. The only possible theory is that the Russian General, seeing the arrival of these newcomers on his flank, concluded that another Japanese army was on him. Hence the order to retire, which immediately followed their appearance. There was no haste or confusion about the Russian . withdrawal. They moved as orderly as though on parade, each moi^ement being protected adequately. THE SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIENLING. 197 At the first signs of retreat, Japanese sprang out in pursuit. They were caught by a cross-fire from a waiting Russian force, and had to find another way. The Russians had already carried off most of their wounded, and possibly many of their dead. It was after the retreat had begun that the foreign attaches and correspondents arrived on the field. The scene that met our eyes as we descended the further side of the pass was heart-chilling. The air was full of summer scent, and the bushes were dotted with gorgeous flowers of the crowning days of a Manchurian July. A bright sun was beating down pitilessly, for there had been no fog here. The bushes were marked with stiffening corpses, blue-eyed, light-haired, and often with eyes wide open in death. The Russians had committed the folly of coming into battle this day in heavy order, each man carrying his thick overcoat, folded around his shoulder. Overcoats, water-bottles, and black and purple earth stains marked the road. Here would be a patch of ground almost yellow with the empty brass cylinders of used cartridges. Innumerable little splatched and dented oblongs of white metal lay around, bullets that had been poured on the place. Now we were out on a slope just above, where a splendid^ panorama unfolded itself. A long trench in front of us was crowded with soldiers, all lying low, well under cover, their officers sitting or 198 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. standing on the slope, directing them. Myriad cartridge cases were around, and the perspiration poured down the blackened faces of the men. The Russians, below, were retiring through the nearest village. One section would turn and fire on us, while the other went further back, as coolly as one sees at Aldershot or Shorncliffe. There was an amazing air of leisureliness about it all. The heat, the wounded, the unceasing fire, even the whistling bullets that flew threateningly over our heads, could not remove the impression that something was missing. The Russians in the further valley moved slowly around, as though at a reception. One Russian, going back, stopped to fix his shoe-lace. It might have been-' Salisbury Plain, were it not for the symbols of death around. When the word came for our men to advance, they vaulted out of the trenches with the happy air of schoolboys on a paper chase. Could this be the final appeal of nations ? Hour after hour the fight went on. The Japanese mounted the hills. On the ridge to our right more troops were advancing. The Russians, it could now be seen, had several guns with their rear- guard, and when the advancing Japanese appeared too threatening, they paused, and started as though to unlimber the guns and recommence the battle. But the only time they really used their artillery was during the. afternoon, when they searched a THE SECOND ATTACK ON MOTIENLING. 199 ridge with shrapnel, fired from their old position^ the hill above the tower. At the time one was amazed that the Japanese did not follow up more closely, and attempt to turn the retreat into a rout. Reflection shows that the Russians were too strong for this to be attempted, and any pushing forward that afternoon would have been attended with the gravest dangers to the Japanese themselves. And though the poHcy of allowing the Russians to go back at leisure lacked picturesqueness, it was, under the circum- stances, the safer and wiser one. Despite the failure of the Russian attempt, they showed on this day tfe©--m09t"^soldier4ike "qualities they had yet revealed in any fight with the First Army. They pressed forward well, and displayed ability to endure heavy loss without shrinking. Highest quality of all, they were enabled to main- tain discipline in face of failure and retreat. We realised that we were meeting a new kind of Russian. Their equipment gave the lie to the stories that I were widely circulated about the lack of provisions and equipment among them. The men looked in the best of condition. That night the Russians held the further village. Next day they retired to their old line. And we knew that another move had been made in the great game where men are pawns and king- doms are the prize. 200 CHAPTER XVIII. The Battle of Chia-a-tzu. We had scarce returned from the battle-field of Motienling before news came that a heavy engage- ment was in progress between the Russians and our extreme right flank. I asked for permission to ride to the scene of the engagement and it was granted. My Japanese friends warned me, how- ever, that the journey would be far from a pleasant one. On account of the proximity of the Russian scouts along our front line, I was forbidden to cross it, but compelled to make a great detour^to the rear. While we had been advancing towards Motienling the right wing of the army had taken another route across the mountain paths and had lain for some days face to face with the enemy at Chia-a-tzu. Here it was that the fighting had been. I found the forecast of an unpleasant journey fully realised. The weather was wet, and the roads were bad. I soon arrived at the happy condition of being so wet that it did not matter how much more THE BATTLE OF CHIA-A-TZU. 201 rain fell. The first nightj a Japanese transport officer very kindly took me in and found the shelter of a tent for my interpreter and myself. Much of our time was spent dragging our horses up precipitous passes. Twice I found myself held up. The Japanese soldiers were not accustomed to foreign guests, and mistook me for a Russian. The first notice I had of trouble was when a chal- lenge rang out in unintelligible but distinctly threatening Japanese. Looking up, I saw that all around me, behind each tree, were men, and in the hands of each man a rifle pointed in my direction. Meeting an officer afterwards I expressed a hope that the next time his men surrounded me they would find out their mistake before they started shooting. " They won't shoot you," he said lightly. " They may knock you about a bit if you don't speak quickly enough, but they will be too anxious to catch you alive to put a bullet through you unnecessarily." In this country brigands, too, were troublesome. The transport officers at my first stopping place warned me always to keep my revolver ready. " Two of our sentries," they said, " not far from here have been set upon at night time by bands of Chinese robbers who attempted to kill them, in order to get their arms and ammunition." The second evening I rode into the Headquarters of the division. A few minutes later Captain 202 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Jardine, the British mihtary attache, and the only foreigner who actually witnessed the battle, was making me at home in his Chinese hut. He was alone among the Japanese and had bravely settled down to Japon-ize himself as much as he could, being aided by a good knowledge of the language. His home had one drawback. The roof was full of little beetles which fell on one at all moments. I started writing at his table, but had to stop every second or two to brush some fresh beetle off. When at night I lay down on the wooden platform of the room to sleep, he warned me to put my socks over the bottom of my trousers and to put a neckerchief around my neck, in order that the beetles might not be able to get down my neck or up my legs. The warning proved very neces- sary ! But these are trifles. They make the lighter side of war, however, and provide a pleasant subject of conversation during campaign time. Next morning the Staff gave me full information about the battle, and a Staff Ofi&cer took me over the field. The Russians were still lying on the hill just beyond us, and were even then firing at our outer patrols a mile ahead in the valley. The battle, of course, was already over, but in going across the positions one was well able to understand the nature of the fight, particularly as many of the men who had taken part in it gave me THE BATTLE OF CHIA-A-TZU. 203 their accounts while the story was yet fresh in their minds. The two days' battle was a triumph of the stay- ing and marching powers of the Japanese infantry, who executed one of the finest turning movements "^ recorded in modern warfare. The Russians, despite their gallant and sustained resistance, were driven from a position which could not be taken by a frontal attack. It was well guarded by entrench- ments and adequately protected by artillery, which lost heavily. The Russian position at Chia-a-tzu consisted of a ridge, the maximum height of which was 130 feet, running leftwards from the mountain range and gradually sloping towards a river bed. The front of the ridge was precipitous, but at the rear there was a gentle slope into the valley, where two valleys met. In front was an open space whose narrowest part was 3,500 metres across. Farther to the right of the Russian position were difficult moun- tains. Leftwards of the line were almost insur- mountable hills, presenting straight, unclimbable sides towards the valley. Behind the ridge the valley was over three miles long. On the afternoon of July i8th a Japanese batta- lion attacked Chia-a-tzu and the hill, resulting in severe fighting, which lasted until the evening, when the Russians finally retired upon the ridge. The Japanese losses were 300. 204 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. The Japanese brigade commander, observing signs that the Russians were evidently intending to retreat, determined upon his own responsibiUty to attack them immediately. The Japanese ad- vanced through fields, on which maize grew high, and seized Chia-a-tzu. The Japanese despatched two companies to attempt to scale the mountains on the Russian left, while two battalions made a detour round the Rus- sian right. At dawn of July 19th the Japanese infantry at Chia-a-tzu opened fire. The Japanese artillery taking up two positions upon hills 3,500 and 2,600 metres distance from the ridge, opened fire at five o'clock. The Russians promptly replied, and fire ceased at 7.30 o'clock, but was renewed at 8.30 for twenty-five minutes ; thereafter it was intermittent until the closing scenes. The two companies sent round the Russian left found progress difficult over the pathless and pre- cipitous hills. They finally met two companies of Russians, and after considerable rough fighting the Russians were forced to retreat, but not, however, until late in the afternoon. The Japanese who were attempting to flank the Russian right reached a village eleven miles from Chia-a-tzu at 11.30 o'clock, whereupon they ad- vanced in side formation, endeavouring to enter the valley about a mile behind the ridge. The day was exceedingly hot — the hottest day of the year — and THE BATTLE OF CHIA-A-TZU. 205 the roads were indescribable. Great boulders, un- bridged rivers, and three high mountains had to be negotiated by the troops, who poured with perspira- tion. Their khaki uniforms were stained almost black with dirt, and their leggings were soaked by the streams. But they pressed on to the Russian position until they neared it about three o'clock. Meanwhile the Russians upon the ridge were in distress, as they had little shelter and suffered severely from the heat and from thirst. The Chinese say that when the officers saw their men waver they declared they would shoot the first man to leave the trenches. The statement, however, is probably untrue. The Russians were fresh from Europe, and were keen to come to grips with their enemy. The Japanese flank attack now began, and when the Russians reahsed the nature of the movement, their infantry slowly retired from the ridge, first in small, then in larger numbers. As the Russian retreat became more general the Japanese artillery advanced to a better position, 1,700 yards from the ridge. The Japanese infantry soon showed themselves upon the mountain to the right of the ridge, and the men holding Chia-a-tzu gradually crept though the maize fields to within 1,000 yards in extended formation. At five o'clock the order was given for a general 2o6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. advance. The Japanese sprang up, and marching in company formation, with their colours in the van, formed a long line across the valley, and rushed forward at the double. They plunged across a river, four men being drowned. The Russians had already abandoned the ridge, and now quickly retired their artillery, the Cos- sacks attempting from higher up the valley to cover the retreat. Some retired up a small valley to the left of the mountains. The Russian soldiers showed the greatest reluctance to retire, despite the sharp orders of their officers. Several remained on the ridge until the last, thus losing any chance of escape. Twenty Russians on the lowest part refused to retreat, preferring death. They threw them- selves into a Chinese house, surrounded by high stone walls, and waited until the unsuspecting Japanese approached. Then they opened a mur- derous fire, killing several. They scorned sur- render, and fought until all were shot down. The Russian companies reformed in the valley in close order, thus presenting splendid targets for the artillery. The Japanese, who quickly reahsed the possibihties thus given, rushed more artillery forward and opened with shrapnel, which was murderously effective. The Japanese right and left now pressed down upon the Russian rear, and further west two com- THE BATTLE OF CHIA-A-TZU. 207 panies from the central column appeared, although too late to participate in the fighting. The Russian retreat towards the end became confused and broken. The Japanese buried one hundred and thirty-eight Russian dead, and the Russians had previously carried away many more. Some Russian dead lay still unburied between the two positions. The Japanese who attempted their burial were fired upon. The Japanese losses were seventy-two killed, including Major Hiraoka, the Japanese attache in the Boer war. Four hundred and fifty-one Japanese were wounded. An examination of the books and papers left by the Russians upon the ridge showed that some of the soldiers were Jews. All the Japanese taking part in the action, from staff officers to private soldiers, agreed in praising the individual courage and bearing of the Russian soldiers, whose admirable fighting qualities were completely negatived by the *'' Russian general in command not having provided an adequate protection on the right flank. " Now we have met and defeated the best troops of the Russians," cried a Japanese staff officer triumphantly. H: 4: 4: if 4: 4: The afternoon, after I had been over the battle- field, I rode back, this time across the Russian lines. The valley was awesomely splendid, and the cliffs on either side of the winding river were 2o8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. beautiful beyond description. Our interest was quickened by the double echoing sound of a rifle and the spit of a bullet which flattened itself on the cliff just above our heads. A Russian out- post was practising, with my interpreter and myself as his mark. I returned to camp happy. I was the only cor- respondent who had gone to Chia-a-tzu, and had what should prove a great story. Alas, for the news- paper correspondent ! My couriers, did the journey down to Pingyang in record time — five days for two hundred and fifty miles — and then the Japanese telegraphic authorities held my story up for a fort- night before they allowed it through to London, although of course it had been approved by the censors before it left our camp. " • r n iiy^'i^i'f iiMi I iii^illi'trr ^A.iSr3£*N; ^■■■l.■-- Forsaken Russian trench, showing shrapnel left Ijehind at Towan. Overturned Russian gun at Towan. \_To face page 208. 209 CHAPTER XIX. The Russian Magersfontein. We had waited at Lienshankwan, on the southT eastern side of Motienling Pass, for a month, every day expecting a further advance. Twice we had been aroused by Russian attacks, and once our right had driven the Russians back from the strong position at Chia-a-tzu, where they had threatened our main hne. Occasionally we climbed up to the top of the pass, and along to a plateau on the other side, from where we could see the half-white tower of Towan, a few miles away, the headquarters of the Russians. General Kuroki's force was acting as the wedge of the Japanese armies, the strong end pushed far forward among the mountains, which at once cleared the way for the others and compelled the enemy to divert a large portion of its forces to guard against it. Ours was the post of danger and the post of honour, a menace to the Russians, not without the risks which must attend all such bold moves. A portion of our troops had to remain in a district where it could only be reinforced or retire with great difficulty, and where it was almost 14 210 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. isolated from the remainder. We had to maintain a long and difficult line of communications between Motienling and Antung, a line threatened at many- points by the Cossacks of the north-east. Why General Kuropatkin did not realise his opportunity earlier is a mystery only explainable by the supposition that the Russian intelligence department had again failed. But in the last days of July it became clear that he was awakening to the situation. The Russians at Anping were being greatly strengthened, and a movement had plainly started from there eastwards. This could only have one purpose, to flank our right wing. Had such a movement been properly carried out, it should have crushed our right and driven us out of Motienling, if book laws go for anything in war. The danger became apparent on the 29th, and that night movement was visible all along our front. On the afternoon of the 30th, orders were given for a general attack, to start at dawn next day. There is something strangely thought provoking about a night ride before a battle. Few who rode slowly through the moonlight there could fail to be stirred to the depths. The road was deserted most of the way, for every available soldier had been advanced. Here stood a solitary sentry, here a forsaken camp fire was still burning, and here a chance Chinaman, oppressed by the strange THE RUSSIAN MAGERSFONTEIN. an silence, crept from his house to see what this thing could mean. Scarce a sound save the croaking of the frogs broke in on us. The clear moonlight re- vealed the stately outlines of the great hills around. Then fog came down the valley, fog as dense as the average November mist in London, and blotted out everything. Now we were advancing through broad fields of millet and Indian corn, ten feet high, the damp foliage soaking us ; now we were picking our way over marshy land ; now we found ourselves slowly climbing up the great pass. Then the fog cleared and daylight imperceptibly grew. When we reached the top we gazed entranced on the valley under our feet, a valley covered with beau- tiful clouds, as though it were a sea far beneath us. But it was not scenery alone that occupied our thoughts. We were advancing, we knew, to a battle, and therefore to a tragedy. Before night fell, many thousands now waiting within a few miles of us, in the full heyday of their manhood, would be under the sod or lying in agony in rough, makeshift hos- pitals. War quickly hardens a man. We gazed now with at least an assumption of indifference on sights that six months since would have produced heartache and misery. But in the hours when darkness and dawn mingle, indifference wears thin, and the real meaning of things comes home. The Russians facing us held two main positions, Yantsuling, on the pass above Towan, and Yushu- 14* 212 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. ling, about nineteen miles further north. Baron Kuroki's army was centred around three places. General Inouye's column was at Chia-a-tzu, facing Yushuling, General Nishi's column had its head- quarters at Lienshankwan and guarded the Motien- ling Pass, while General Hasegawa's column to the left was in the neighbourhood of Papauling. The whole covered a front of about twenty-six miles. The strength of the opposing armies can only roughly be given. The general estimate of the Russians fronting us was four divisions, eighty thousand men, thus making them about the same strength as Kuroki's army. But nothing like that number could have been in battle. It is practically im- possible that on the comparatively limited fields where we fought, so great a force could have been used to advantage. The Russian positions coming under my personal observation were certainly not overcrowded with soldiers. Whole lines of earth- works, fully prepared, lay empty during the day. The Japanese plan of battle was to move the right column against Yushuling, supporting it by a flanking movement carried out by three battalions from the centre. Simultaneously, the left column was to attack the Russian right and rear at Yant- suling, if possible driving the enemy back. Then the main body of the central column, which had been lying hidden in the hiUs, was to advance and attack the retreating men on the flank, and destroy them. THE RUSSIAN MAGERSFONTEIN. 213 The plan was delightfully simple, as most really great strategy is. Only the rugged nature of the country, and the obstinate defence of the Russian right, prevented it from full completion. The Japanese found it difficult to obtain gun positions and to convey their artillery to them when fixed. Here the Russians had every advantage. They could choose their own sites, and had picked them well, with precipitous sides and good defensive fronts. They had had weeks to construct earth- works ; the Japanese had to throw up a few partial and hasty entrenchments in a brief spell in the early dawn. The gun positions had to be selected by the Japanese while scouting through the enemy's country. On the night of the 30th, infantry were sent out to improve the roads, after advance guards had swept the outposts of the Russians back. In this primitive land, decent roads are rare, and, toil as they would, the Japanese found it impossible to improve them adequately in time. The guns were dragged up by the greatest effort, but ammunition wagons could not be brought forward. Shell had to be carried along by hand, causing the Japanese guns to be short of ammunition for most of the day, and forcing them time after time to slacken their fire, and even to make long pauses. The Japanese right, General Inouye's column, detailed a force on the hills near Chia-a-tzu to meet an expected Russian attack from the Moukden 214 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Road. Such an attack was made, though not apparently in great force, and was repulsed. The main body of the column was divided into two wings. The right wing, advancing about five in the morning, drove in the Russian outposts, and discovered the enemy's position to be facing due east, on a very steep hill to the west of Yushuling, with an advanced post about two thousand metres in front. A frontal attack was plainly hopeless, so the right wing had to content itself with holding and threatening the Russian front. Meanwhile the left wing of this column, leaving Chaotaopotsu, to the south of Chia-a-tzu, at day- break, reached the village of Henlin occupied by two Russian regiments, and artillery firing opened shortly before seven. After severe fighting, the Japanese forced the Russians to retire shortly after nine. The flanking force of three battalions, which had been sent from General Nishi's division, meanwhile was working its way upwards from the village of Gebato. It pushed forward to occupy the pass of Chobaipai, a very steep hill to the south of Henlin, and the key to any flanking movement to the south of Yushuling. The Russians were also moving to occupy this pass, but the Japanese, hurrying up the opposite slope, reached the top first, and at once opened a withering fire on the ascending Russians^ forcing them back. THE RUSSIAN MAGERSFONTEIN. 215 A part of this Japanese flanking force had moved around the rear of the pass, and had taken up a position atop of a cliff commanding a valley through which the Russians would have to go when retreat- ing. The three regiments from Henlin and Chobai- pai unsuspectingly marched back, in close forma- tion, with bands ahead. Although they did not know it, they were marching into the valley of death. The Japanese from Henlin harried their rear, and artillery was hurrying up to join in the fight. Sud- denly, without a whisper of warning, hundreds of rifles from men concealed in the cliffs above opened on the close mass of Russians, sweeping them from bandsmen to rear guard. The trap had caught its prey! What followed was not a flight but a slaughter. The soldiers of the Czar could do nothing, for the concealed Japanese were so protected by the cliffs that they could be neither reached nor their fire returned. The Russians fell in heaps. The Japanese kept up their merciless fusillade, shouting and making the valley ring with banzais, as the total of the dead grew. Then the Russians began to run. Men threw away rifles, overcoats, accoutrements, everything that obstructed them, in their furious, excusable panic. Over a thousand fell here, the Japanese loss being thirteen. Yushuling will rank with Magersfontein as among the most bloody and sue- 2i6 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLTS. cessful traps of modern war. Had the Japanese guns reached the place in time^ the slaughter would have been even greater. The Russians quickly sent three red-cross vans^ with many ambulances, to the field, and they worked over the removal of the wounded and the dead until evening, the Japanese permitting them to continue undisturbed. The left wing of General Inouye's division now united with the detachment from the centre, and together they tried to execute a sharp flanking movement upon Yushuling, to cut off the Russian force holding the front line. Despite every effort, this failed, the country being so mountainous as to prove impassable. Later in the day, the left wing determined on a wider flanking movement. The Russians did not take their punishment lying down. Despite the terrible disaster to their right, they began a counter attack on the right of Inouye's column, mainly directing themselves against a low hill immediately fronting Yushuling. This hill was attacked frontally and in flank, and heavy firing was maintained from soon after midday until darkness fell. The Japanese held their own, but not without heavy loss, most of the casualties of General Inouye's column occurring there. When darkness fell, the Japanese, in battle for- mation, rested on the field prepared to renew flank- ing movement and attack at dawn. 217 CHAPTER XX. The Batde of Tensuitien, While battle was proceeding around Yushuling, an equally vigorous attack was being pressed home at Yantsuling. The Japanese central column began its advance from the direction of Motienling about 7.30 on the evening of the thirtieth^ moving down the path to\s^ards the river bed which faced the Russian position. On its way, it met and fought two small detachments of the Russians. One outpost waited near the river until the Japanese approached quite close, and then opened fire. The moon had not yet risen and aim was difficult, so the Japanese rushed forward with fixed bayonets and over- whelmed the little vanguard, losing sixteen men. All night long, the work of repairing roads, carrying ammunition and marching infantry into position continued. The artillery of this column took up two positions. One portion of it found a good place in the corn fields to the left of the village of Hoyen, from where it could fire across the valley and cover the movements of the right wing, while 2i8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. being itself largely shielded from the Russian artillery fire. The other part mounted some hills to the right of Hoyen^ firing across the river on to the lower Russian batteries. The infantry, aided by the fire of the guns, advanced early on the village of Seishiling, to the left of the Russian position, and drove the Russian troops out of it. The infantry of the central column then took up positions in various well-sheltered knolls and waited for de- velopments elsewhere, making no further advance until late in the afternoon. ^The Japanese left column, the Imperial Guard, had the most arduous task of the day. The first Brigade, under Major-General Asada, marched all night on a wide circling movement, to attack the rear of Yantsuling. It was for a time swallowed up by the mountains, and not until well in the after- noon was word heard of it. The Second Brigade, commanded by Major-General Watanabe, started from Shinkailing during the night. As it ap- proached the enemy's lines, it divided into two sections. The main force, with Major-General Watanabe at its head, acted as right ; while Colonel Ohara commanded a considerable wing, acting as the centre of the attack. The Russian position, which the Japanese were attacking in this fashion, was naturally a very strong one. Yushuling is one of the principal passes in a line of hills stretching north and south. Opening THE BATTLE OF TENSUITIEN. 219 at the village of Towan, it rises sharply, with steep hills on either side. At the foot of the pass is the famous tower to which reference has already been made. The tower is one of the ornamental structures built on the road through which the delegates of subject nations used formerly to come on their journeys to Pekin, when bearing tribute and homage. Its foundation is white, its sides are decorated with Buddhas and with much florid de- sign, and it forms a prominent landmark, visible far. To the left of the pass is a knife-like ridge. The Russians had entrenched all along it, digging rifle pits out of solid rock, and placing gun positions behind, also constructing a very complete system of roads for retreat. There were places for six guns here. To the right, strong earthworks were made on top of a high conical hill, levelled for the purpose. Here were three gun positions, one for eight guns, and two others, each for four guns. Slightly be- hind the right of To wan, two other batteries were placed, on lower ground, one for two, and the other for four guns. To the right side of the pass was a great quarter circle of trenches for riflemen, many of them disguised and covered with branches of trees. Nor was trickery lacking. Near the tower of Towan, another seeming Russian battery was visible. It consisted, however, of nothing but blackened cir- cular logs of wood, mounted on old wheels of Chinese wagons, intended to attract Japanese fire. 220 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. The Watanabe force took possession of Mak- menza and the surrounding hills by daybreak^ but the artillery was not in possession until soon after seven. Trenches were dug as soon as the troops arrived, and fighting began at 7.20. Fire was concentrated on the lower Russian batteries to the right of Towan, the guns from the central column joining against them. The Japanese, by indirect fire, made it most difficult for the Russians to locate them, and the Russian artillery wasted much ammunition at this time on unoccupied fields. So successful was the Japanese fire here that within an hoiir, four out of six guns were silenced, and before nine the lower Russian batteries passed out of action for the time. A great artillery battle followed. The Japanese out-numbered the Russians in guns, but the precision of the Russian fire from the hill batteries was the surprise of the day. The Russians proved again, as they proved at the battle of the Yalu, that, gun for gun (apart from shell and apart from the men handling the guns), they had the better weapons, surpassing the Japanese in lange and in rapidity of fire. The Russians got their range against any visible mark immediately. They sighted a Japanese battery, and soon compelled it to shift its position, the shower of shrapnel rendering it impossible for the men to stand by. The Ohara detachments got a battery in position THE BATTLE OF TENSUITIEN. 221 beyond Suiteyanza. Scarce had the battery un- Umbered before Russian shells came straight into it, falling full on the mark. The Japanese gunners gallantly stuck to their weapons, but found them- selves outranged, and their reply fire useless. More effective shell were sent for, but did not arrive for four hours. The Japanese artillery were severely injured here, losing many men, and having some guns damaged. The one criticism that might be fairly passed upon the Russian artillery was that it clung too ex- clusively to shrapnel. Its action, I am well aware, was in accordance with modern text-book teaching, but the experience of the Japanese in this war is rapidly proving that text - books and accepted theories wiU have to be revised here. Common shell, charged with high explosives, is most effective for occasional use under such conditions as those presented in a battle like this. If the Russians had employed some common shell against the Japanese batteries, the results would have been better. The Watanabe brigade soon found itself at a standstill, and the silencing of the lower Russian batteries did not enable it to move. The men tried to advance through the high corn, but the Russians around Yamolinza stood so firm in their trenches that advance was impossible. To go across the open against them was certain death. The Russians searched the corn fields with rifle bullets, 222 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. and the smallest sign of the presence of a -Japanese brought down a hail of fire. There was nothing for the men to do but to seek shelter and wait. The Ohara detachment met with even greater difficulties. At every step of its movements that day, its advance was terribly hampered by the bad roads. One battery had to be left behind by Colonel Ohara, because it was impossible to get it along. As the detachment approached Suiteyanza, it found itself faced by a strong, well-entrenched Russian force across the river. Time after time the Japanese tried to advance here ; time after time the Russians counter-attacked. The rival infantrymen sometimes were within a hundred and fifty yards of each other. The Japanese suc- ceeded in taking some hills at Chujapooza, and attack and counter-attack followed for four hours. Then, as though by common agreement, both sides paused. A fresh regiment and a moun- tain gun hurried up to aid the attackers, but despite every effort the Russians were still in their trenches when darkness came. The fighting brought out some of the character- istics of both sides. The Japanese is coolest when fighting is hardest, and the tighter the corner he is in, the more unconcerned he seems. Behind the guns and behind trenches, in places where they were acting in a body, the Russians proved themselves THE BATTLE OF TENSUITIEN. 223 excellent-, but where situations arose demanding individual initiative, they did not come out so well. , For instance, a Japanese company was sent to attack some Russians who were guarding a further flank. The Japanese spread themselves out. A couple would wriggle along on their belUes up a dry rivulet, another would slip through the underwood and so on, until they were firing on the Russians from every direction. The Russians naturally imagined that an enormous foice was on them, and retired, before what was actually a much inferior number. The Russian artillery I have already mentioned. The Japanese themselves admitted that the firing was a revelation to them, and foreign officers who ^ witnessed it were equally emphatic in their praise. The rifle fire also was on the whole good. Both sides were brave to a very high degree. >~ Both showed their ability to endure great exertion and severe physical discomfort over a sustained period. Here, the Japanese came out ahead. The Japanese soldier can stand prolonged exertion, as can no other soldier I know. It must, however, be borne in mind that the nature of the land admirably lent itself to the Japanese advance. Apart from the long line of the valley, there is scarcely a level yard of ground, the country rising and falling like broken waves, affording splendid shelter everywhere. The severity of the fighting was terribly accen- 224 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. tuated by the fierce heat. Sunday was one of those consuming, piercing, sunny days when everyone is bathed with perspiration, even while sitting still, and when the desire for drink overwhelms every other sensation. Men fell from sunstroke and from heat exhaustion, and those who were so placed that they could not obtain water, had a time of torment. One incident can illustrate this. A company advanc- ing found itself, when descending a hill, suddenly ex- posed to Russian rifle and artillery fire. The men rushed to the foot of the hill, where there was some shelter, many falling by the way. Their water bottles were empty, and they had been for some time without drink. A few score yards ahead flowed a cool, clear river, but every yard of the way thither was exposed to the Russian fire. With a com- mon impulse, the thirst-stricken soldiers rushed across the fire zone to the water. Many died before the water was reached, many were shot as their lips touched the stream, but the rest drank their fill. Water at such a time was worth the risk of death. Up to four in the afternoon, the result of the day seemed doubtful. The Japanese, it is true, had few doubts. The General and staff had sent baggage forward, and supplies were waiting by the pass to take into the villages still in Russian hands. Then came firing from the rear of Yantsuling, show- ing that the flanking force had at last arrived. THE BATTLE OF TENSUITIEN. 225 Already the infantry of the central column were marching forward to the assault in open formation. The Russian communications were threatened, and for them to remain longer would be madness. The Japanese flanking movement had plainly compelled them to change their plans. Batteries were hastily being withdrawn, and men were re- tiring on the left from the outer trenches. Here a gun, attempting to take a sharp curve at high speedj toppled over and had to be left. Here another gun, at the moment of limbering, had a charge of Japanese shrapnel burst full over it, sending it backwards down the slope behind. Now the columns of General Nishi's infantry, on the right, could be seen, stretching out in wide for- mation and advancing. The Russian batteries to the left of Towan searched their way with shrapnel, but the men advancing by rushes took shelter everywhere, so that the fire, accurate as it was, did little damage. Across the valley. General Watanabe gave the word " Advance," and the long-waiting Japanese soldiers plunged into the zone of fire. Many fell, there was fierce fighting, and not until six-thirty did the Guards occupy Yamolinza. Even then the Russians still held their trenches and fought from them until night. Meanwhile the Japanese right had occupied Tensuitien and the first line of the Russian left, the batteries above having to retire with such 15 226 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. speed that they left many unfired charges of shrapnel on the embankments. We spent the night on the field of battle. Men on both sides were utterly exhausted. Even the veterans of half-a-dozen campaigns scarce troubled to move from the reek of the half-buried dead left from the battle of a fortnight before, but sank down to happy unconsciousness under the first convenient tree. We knew that, despite the brave fight of the Russians, assured victory was now with the Japanese. While the enemy had not been driven from their main positions, their flanks were so threatened that they must retire. So it turned out. We moved at daybreak, only to find that at both Yushuling and YantsuUng the Russians had fallen back during the night. Pursuit followed, and before the Monday was over we had 269 Russian prisoners. The battle cost the Japanese a thousand men, killed and wounded. The Russian losses can only be roughly estimated. We buried six Russian officers and 506 of their men, so that their casualties could not have been less than two thousand. The Russian retirement was made in the direction of Anping and Liaoyang. Within three days we could hear the sound of dull blastings, showing that the enemy was presenting a new front to us, and making new earthworks behind which further to resist the triumphant Japanese advance. 227 CHAPTER XXI. The Respite of Russia, The battle of Liaoyang should go down in history as the respite of Russia. At the hour when her dimmed military glory seemed threatened with final eclipse, the skill of her great general secured for her another chance to retrieve all. For area of conflict, for duration and for number of combatants, one must go back a century to Leipzig, the battle of the nations, to find a parallel ; -for vohime of •.artillery-, iire,.. e,Y,eo ,§„§.daa.. preseruts but ,a.^00.r-rival, while Waterloo could have been fought out in an odd corner of this field. On one point alone does Liaoyang fail to stand among the world's major battles. The total of deaths sinks into insig- nificance when compared even with the early struggles of the Franco-Prussian war or the battles of the American Confederacy. Nearly four hundred thousand men fought for twelve days, their front extending at times as far as from London to Canterbury. The weapons of all the ages were called into use. Classic stone 15* 228 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. throwing was employed with deadly effect, crashing boulders horribly mutilating hundreds ; hand grenades, long regarded as much out of date as arquebuses or bows and arrows, scattered death in entrenchments ; while electric currents and electric lights were allied with high explosives and rapid fire guns in the work of slaughter. Electrocution and death by impaling on upright spikes in hidden pits threatened advancing troops. Fully fifty thousand men were killed and wounded. Hundreds lay mangled and untended in the open fields for days, until kind death ended their agony. The ultimate consequences of Liaoyang were far reaching. Technically and nominally, it was a victory for the Japanese ; but with a few such victories the Japanese would have been no more. The forces under Marshal Oyama succeeded in ejecting the Russians from Liaoyang, and in cap- turing lines of entrenched positions, which, properly held, should have been uncapturable. The Japanese troops displayed gallantry as great, initiative as daring, sustained courage as splendid, as ever in this war. Once more they proved their right to rank among the finest infantry in the world. But, despite all, the major plan their leaders had set themselves, the capture of a large portion of Kuro- patkin's forces, completely failed. At point after point they were forced to reahse that courage and daring, however great, cannot do all. THE RESPITE OF RUSSIA. 229 The vital revelation of the battle was the proof it afforded of the renewed strength and marvellous staying power of the Russians. Here were men fighting under every circumstance calculated to damp their spirits. For months since the thunder- clap at the Yalu, they had endured constant rebuffs. Their early pride had been humbled, and it could have been no wonder had their first contempt for their Asiatic opponents turned to fear. Yet when they made their stand, no fear revealed itself. Though they were fighting a retreating battle, they showed no signs of shirking. Time after time they charged the Japanese positions with courage and dan equal to that of their opponents ; at point after point they withstood constant attacks lasting for days. Taken with the prolonged resistance at Port Arthur, they proved that Russia was recover- ing from the effects of the heavy blows in the earlier stages of the war, and was making ready, with second wind, to carry the conflict to bloodier and more prolonged issue. When ultimately they retired at their leisure, it was carrying their wounded with them, leaving scarce a single gun behind, and defying the efforts of the enemy at pursuit. ^C 3|5 •!» S|C Vfi SjC The First Japanese Army had been waiting for nearly a month around Chia-a-tzu and Kinchapotsu. We arrived there on July 31st, after the battle of Towan, and were compelled to make pause for 230 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. ammunition and food. All supplies had to be brought a hundred and fifty miles from the Yalu, over many steep mountain passes ; the July rains had made the roads bogs and the valleys lakes ; while little streams were swollen until it was im- possible for carts to cross them. The transporta- tion of adequate stores through this waste of terri- tory for our great force taxed every resource of the army. Before sufficient could be had, the August rains fell, far heavier than those of July. Newly-erected bridges were swept away, and dead Chinamen and wrecked carts along the river banks proved the perils of the deep waters. For the time movement was impossible. Day after day we waited, some under scant shelter on the mountain sides, some in repulsive houses, and a fortunate few in campaign tents. The Russians were not far ahead, impassable rivers were behind. But the enemy could no more advance on us than we on them. About the end of the third week in August, move- ment was visible among us. The rains by now had ceased, and the rivers were falling as rapidly as they had risen. Company after company of infantry were sent out, night after night, skirmishing around the country, the purpose of this being to acquaint our men with the nature of the land ahead of them, and to keep the Russians in constant suspense, not knowing at what moment a genuine attack would THE RESPITE OF RUSSIA. 231 come. On August 23rd our left flank, the Guards' Division, began its advance. The problem before the Japanese was far from an easy one. General Kuropatkin had concen- trated on Liaoyang with a force estimated by us at thirteen divisions, probably (allowing for the depleted ranks of the Russian divisions) less than two hundred thousand men. Three Japanese armies were concentrating upon him, the second against his right around Anshantien on the railway, the fourth, or Takushan Army, on his centre, and the First Army against his left. It was our business to grapple with his left, to clear the east bank of the Tang-ho river, enter Anping, move north and then westwards, breaking the railway and cutting off his retreat. fi| Kuropatkin held entrenched positions ; we, with probably inferior numbers, had to attempt to corral him. His great weakness was the long line he had to defend. At first he had a front of over sixty miles, starting west of Anshantien and making an arc to the banks of the Tai-tse river, on the north- east of Liaoyang. The country held by the Russians in front of the First Army was a succession of mountain ridges. This added materially to our problem. There were no decent roads for the advance of our centre, and it was impossible for us to take field artillery forward. Accordingly the Second Division, the 232 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. centre of the First Army, handed half its field guns over to the Imperial Guards, who were moving as a left wing along the Pekin Road, and took only moun- tain guns with it. The Twelfth Division moved as the right wing of the First Army. The Japanese resolved to make a wedge-like attack with their centre, with two side attacks diverting the attention of the Russians and scattering their forces. The Imperial Guards took up their position and began their attack on the morning of the 25th. On the afternoon of the same day we foreigners attached to the Second Division moved forward a few miles, and spent the night on a mountain side. The need of the greatest care had been impressed on us before leaving. We must not take neighing horses, there were to be no fires, even pipes were not to be lit, and we were forbidden to bring as much as a coolie with us. The precautions were need- less, however, for our advance was strictly limited. From half way up the mountain we watched the long lines go on. Then we were ordered to stay for the night, and next morning we were- informed that there had been a night attack on the first Russian ridge beyond, capturing it at the point of the bayonet. The move, it afterwards appeared, had been a striking one. The infantry of the entire division was employed, thus making one of the greatest night bayonet charges known in history. They did not fire a shot, but made one tremendous sweep for- THE RESPITE OF RUSSIA. 233 ward in the darkness, carrying the ridge after an obstinate fight. They could not get, however, beyond the lower ridge. Morning found the Rus- sians planted on an entrenched, high, double moun- tain top, about 1,200 feet above the valley. The lower ridge to their left was already occupied by Japanese mountain guns, and the Second Division was slowly and cautiously converging through the valley, up hills, in woods, upon their position. The Russians suffered from two disadvantages. They had evidently not expected artillery to be brought against them, and had not prepared their trenches to resist artillery fire. Then they had no guns directly bearing on the infantry advance. Russian batteries to the east and south-east of Anping shelled the ridge occupied by the Japanese guns, but could not deal with the infantry. The Japanese troops advanced to a certain point, and then there remained an open space for them to clear, which could not be crossed without heavy loss. Japanese guns were already covering the Russian trenches with shrapnel. Then two Japanese guns were moved up to a sheltered position in the corn right under the Russian works. Common shell after common shell plumped full in the rifle pits, and the Russian position was made untenable. By eleven, the Russians were retiring on the bank of the Tang-ho, and the blood-red centred flag was waving from the hill top. 234 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. But though the hill was captured, fighting was not yet over. The Second Division had to endure constant artillery fire from the Russian batteries. On our left a tremendous artillery duel was raging, marking the severe struggle of the Imperial Guards, and sounds could be heard of other battle to our right. Both Guards and 12th Division had met a less kindly fate than ourselves. The Guards had been fighting along the main Pekin Road for two days, being brought to a dead stop by the Russian defensive works north of Sojigo. It had half the artillery of the Second Division, besides its own, but could make little impression against the Rus- sian works. At one time, it seemed likely that it would be overwhelmed, and the entire reserves of the First Army were sent to its assistance. The Russians believed this to be the Japanese main attack, and their infantry repelled every attempt at storming. Our right, advancing from Chia-a-tzu, had also met with stubborn resistance, and after storming the first line of the Russian defences had found itself unable to go on, the Russians holding an apparently impregnable ridge in front. Afternoon was drawing on, and clouds had for some time been gathering. Then a thick mist fell, and a very heavy thunderstorm, with thick rain, broke on us. The thunder, mingling with the deep bay of the artillery, echoing through the mountains, THE RESPITE OF RUSSIA. 235 produced an effect long to be remembered. But physical discomfort dulled its glories. We could not advance further in the fog. Everyone was drenched. The soldiers hastily erected shelter trenches and bivouacked on the field of battle. The rest of us, wet, tired, miserable, searched until long after darkness for shelter. 236 CHAPTER XXII. The Advance on Liaoyang, The position of General Kuropatkin in the final days of Augus't was charged with terrible possi- bilities. Three Japanese armies flushed with victory were concentrating upon him. Defeat might mean the final ruin of all the Russian hopes. He was at the point long indicated in Russian despatches as the picked field for the great battle, but his best hour for fighting had not yet come. Large reinforce- ments were on the way from Europe, and every day's delay added to his strength. He had a long line to defend, but the natural strength of his position seemed to justify a belief that the Japanese could be held back for a time. Rivers on either flank made attack difficult. Anshantien to the south was so strong naturally that thousands would have died in any attempt to storm it. Along the Pekin Road were lines of good defensive points, and to the north-east the Russians occupied a line of picked hills and ridges. Manchiirian temple with Japanese transport soldiers outside. %. Japanese soldiers resting during battle at mid-day under shadow of a temple after fighting since dawn. [Ti> fate ^a^v 236. ■i.§ II I THE ADVANCE ON LIAOYANG. 237 The quick and successful blow of the First Army at Kincholing, on the 26th, broke Kuropatkin's outer line at a stroke. This was followed, the same night, by the right wing of the First Army storming and capturing an important ridge fronting it, under conditions which made success a brilliant feat of arms. The Japanese advancing through the fog, climbed an apparently unclimbable front, the Rus- sians pouring great boulders down on them and killing and wounding hundreds. Then they drove the Russians from the top, capturing seven guns there. The Russian left was now slowly driven back on the Tang-ho. Realising threatened danger, Kuro- patkin quickly readjusted his position. The left fell back rapidly, allowing the Japanese to advance to Anping and cross the Tang-ho after a mere show of resistance. Anshantien was evacuated, the Russian front retiring to the hills immediately facing Liao- yang. This greatly shortened Kuropatkin's line and strengthened his position. Had he not made such a move, there can be little doubt but that Liaoyang would have been a second Sedan. At one point the Japanese found themselves kept at bay, and that point largely wrecked the main Japanese scheme. The left wing of the First Army could not for some days carry the Russian positions around the Pekin Road. It had a heavy force of artillery, including not only its own ordinary supply 238 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of guns but half the batteries of the central column, and a special battery of Russian guns captured earlier in the war. But the Russians were so much stronger both in position and in men that more than once the attackers seemed near utter defeat. The reserves of the First Army were sent to their sup- port, and, later, half the central division was turned to help them. The combined forces attacked the Russians, and after severe fighting carried one hill in the darkness. The temporary victory proved almost worse than a repulse. The hill was com- manded by others. The Russians turned electric lights on it, and a hell of enfilading fire was concen- trated on the doomed men there. There was no shelter, and the quickest pioneers could not hope to scoop out trenches in time. No troops in the world could remain. The Japanese fell back, their ranks swept by fire from many points, hill batteries and concealed riflemen catching them at many angles. Next day the fight was renewed, and for the time it seemed merely the bruising of open hands against granite walls. But the retirement of the remainder of the Russian front and the advance of the Fourth Army was making the Russian position impossible, and during the early dawn of the First of September the men sullenly and lingeringly fell back. The other Japanese forces had been moving apace. The Second Army was already on the Russian right ; an enormous line of artillery formed an arc around THE ADVANCE ON LIAOYANG. 239 the front of Liaoyang, vomiting death in response to the Russian guns facing it. The First Army, or what could be spared of it after providing the men necessary for the attack on the Russians on the Pekin Roadj had struck north and gone fourteen miles to the north-east of Liaoyang, on a flank attack. Here the Japanese showed an inability to adjust their plan to altered circumstances, thus subse- quently enabling the Russians to escape. The original Japanese plan had undoubtedly contem- plated serious Russian resistance at Anshantien, but a quicker Japanese advance along the Pekin Road. Looking back after the battle, it is clear that the Japanese should have made a minor and con- taining demonstration upon the prepared Russian front, while throwing the great strength of the armies around the Russian flanks. Instead, Marshal Oyama threw his main force against the front of Liaoyang, and sent little more than half one army on the extreme right, to cut off the Russian retreat. A division and a half of the First Army, it will be remembered, was still employed against the Rus- sians on the Pekin Road. A column had been sent out against the Russian mixed brigade to the north. This left the right wing and one half of the centre of the First Army for the main part of the flanking movement, supported later by the remainder of the First Army. Against these. General Kuropatkin, with a railway along his line of communications, 240 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. could send as many men as he pleased. A division and a half of Japanese were expected to drive eight divisions of Russians out of entrenched hill posi- tions, and to drive them back upon their main body. It was an impossible task, but the army did its best to accomplish it. For months, since its advance guard landed one winter evening on the ice-bound beach of Chemulpho, I had watched the doings of the First Army. I was with the first few hundred scouts who threw themselves in Pingyang, expecting to find ten times the number of Russians ahead of them ; I had seen their amazing triumph at the Yalu, and their victories step by step, till they seemed an all-conquering army. But never had they shown themselves to better advantage than now, when they were marching to what, according to all the rules of war, bade fair to be their annihilation. Now in single file over hills, now along valleys where, had the Russians dreamed of their presence, they could have swept them out of existence with near artillery fire, now on the banks of the Tai-tse river itself, they made their way. By the morning of .September ist, their pontoons were laid, their artillery occupied a line attacking the Russian rear, hills across the river had been seized, and the infantry were advancing on the foe. Meanwhile a great struggle had taken place on the Russian right. Here they occupied the final hills to the west, an offshoot from the unbroken THE ADVANCE ON LIAOYANG. 241 succession of mountain ranges to their south-east. To the front and right and rear of these hills was a great plain, through which the railway ran ; to their left, they joined the mass of mountains ; their own left was a ragged, precipitous double hill of rough, greenish stone. On it and another hill just by, the Russians planted their guns. Facing it was a high mound, where they had dug lines of deep trenches, well placed and well made. At the main points, the lines were double, with connecting links. At the bottom of the mound were lines of pits and thick entanglements of barbed wire. It was a Spion Kop. The Second Army, planting its artillery by the hills to the south-east, opened a bombardment. Then the infantry advanced to attack, making short rushes from point to point, throwing up shelter pits wherever possible, one man dying in digging, a second finding safety in his work. Now they used rifles, now shovels, and now they were cutting wires, happy if the hand that clasped the nippers could use them once ere bullet came home. Soon after seven in the morning a small party of Japanese darted past the pits and reached the top of the hill. But the Russians, immediately rein- forced, drove them out. The Japanese made no far retreat. The men, driven out, went back as short a distance as they could, taking the first available shelter and waiting. 16 242 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. They scattered about the ground like moles. Oificers disappeared, all shot down, and their places were taken by sergeants. It is at such a time that the Japanese infantryman shows himself at his very best. He acts on his own initiative, he needs no , orders and no encouragement, and while he seeks every available shelter, and uses a thousand ruses to trick the foe, he does not, in that moment of excitement, value his life a scrap. If there .-were only two-soldiers-left in an -attackr«.tfe©'"9e.n-ior.. would constitute hjmgfili commander, ..aR,d.,.e»Ql¥e....a new scheme for retrieving the fortunes, of the day. We still tell, in hushed accents, how when two batta- lions were surrounded by the Russians lower down the line, and capture seemed inevitable, the men, after they had fought to the last, turned face to face in double ranks, and fell on each other's bayonets. But to return to the attack. The Japanese again opened on the hill with artillery, and started pushing men to the west of the railway Une. Time after time the infantry renewed their advance ; time after time they failed. Some companies lost every officer ; others set out in the morning numbering hundreds, and returned in the evening, tens. By early in the afternoon, they reached the top again, this time in some force. They at once became the target for the Russians on the hills close behind. From three sides shells fell on them. The top of the THE ADVANCE ON LIAOYANG. 243 mould became a pyramid of mangled men. By evening the frontal attacks had cost the Japanese two thousand men, and the mound was still in Russian hands. Again flanking succeeded where direct attack had failed. The left wing of the Second Army, pushing through the millet and around the railway, advanced until it would soon be able to move behind the side of the hill. Realising this, the Russians retired their guns under cover of the early darkness. Undaunted by their heavy loss, the Japanese again moved forward that night — the hill was theirs. 16* 244 CHAPTER XXIII. The March of Death. Was Liaoyang to be another Sedan ? As the first dawn of September broke this question rose in many minds. To-morrow would be the anniversary of Prussia's great victory. Had the fates ordained that September 2nd should also be known as the day of the final eclipse of Russia ? Hope ran high. Already the Japanese had cleared Kuropatkin's forces from the hills south of Liaoyang, and only the entrenched plain lay be- tween them and the city. Three redoubts on the plains, connected by rifle pits and artillery positions, guarded the southern side. The redoubts were almost permanent fortifications, thoroughly made, with bomb-proof casements underneath, with ditches and wire entanglements all around, and with rows upon rows of deep pits, gruesomely spiked to trans- fix those falling into them, standing as traps for all who attempted to pass them. The redoubts were so strong that it was impossible to carry them by THE MARCH OF DEATH. 245 direct assault, yet the Japanese infantry tried the impossible. The Japanese advanced from the hills. The Russians had broken down the fields of giant millet, bending the strong stalks so that they would catch and impede all who tried to get through them. The dried autumn kowliang leaves are sharp like knives, and the jagged stalks cut. A three days' infantry fight followed, backed on both sides by a Titanic artillery duel. The Japanese forward movement was made in the face of the most tremendous obstacles. It took the men three days to cover three miles. Hour after hour they kept on, from dawn until darkness, and again after dark- ness fell. They moved, not as on parade, in symmetrical formation, but each making his inde- pendent run for cover near the enemy. Pioneers would bravely advance in the open, feverishly digging with trenching tools, and throwing up shallow pits. Most died as they dug, but others came after them. A rush would be made for a house, and it would be utilised as a centre for the next advance. Now a miscalculation would bring a small party into the sweep of the Russian fire ; now the soldier, lighting upon unexpected shelter, would shther on the bare earth, and open out with his rifle upon the Russians in front. Advance after advance was swept back, only to be renewed after brief breathing space. The heat 246 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. was fearful now, thirst was tormenting, and food was scarce, for it was perilous work, costly in lives, bringing up supplies to the front. The sickly, sweet smell of the dead became more and more pungent. Life to these soldiers was one unceasing roar of thundering artillery, one steady march of death. What of the Russians on the front, enduring this attack ? The best one can say — and it is high praise indeed — is that they showed themselves to be no unworthy foes of the men assaulting them. If the attackers displayed bravery and dash »of the highest order, the attacked stood with a steadiness revealing supreme manhood. The Japanese artillery was playing on their ramparts with cruel accuracy. When shrapnel bursts — as the Japanese shrapnel often burst — right on the edge of the ramparts, the finest trenches were no protection. Soon the redoubts became shambles, I was not here during these hours of crisis, my post of observation being elsewhere on the field. But I saw the earthworks soon afterwards, and their swept surface told its own tale. The ramparts torn with innumerable shell, the steel-bitten earth- works, the blood-soaked shelter points where the wounded had been carried, the hastily-sundered and deeply-stained linen, rent by hot fingers to stay the flow of gushing wounds — all proclaimed An outer entrenchment at Liaoyang after capture by the Japanese. The great railway bridge at Liaoyang, partly destroyed by the Russians. \ To face pare 246. 'is"' THE MARCH OF DEATH. 24; the culmination of conflict. But horrors within were not allowed to weaken the guard without. When the Japanese threw themselves against the suffering lines, the steady sweep of the Russian rifle made a final dash impossible. The Japanese artillery had after a time to cease from bombarding the outer earthworks, lest it should injure its own men. It turned its attention on the city. Shells fell thick and fast around the railway station, where many smoking locomotives told that Kuropatkin had already begun to evacuate. Trains were carrying the wounded north, and it seemed that there was no end to their number. Great stocks of food stuffs were being saturated with oil in the sheds near the station. Mines were laid under the sleepers of the railway bridge. Wooden bridges were being burned. Foreign houses were being marked for destruction. Every minute the Japanese shells fell thicker. Not alone were the soldiers the victims of the bombardment. Soon cries of pain and of mourning were heard in innumerable Chinese homes, mothers lamenting their shrapnel mangled babies, infants trying in vain to feed off breasts that would never suckle again. A fever seized men. It was enough for a Chinese to rouse the suspicion of a passing Russian for him to be given half a dozen bayonet wounds. Some soldiers in the town broke loose, and creeping from 248 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. authority, began to plunder and to slay. When they had drunk enough, the meek, placid Chinamen pounced on them in quiet corners, gouged their eyes out, and stabbed them until vengeance was sated, or tied them up and did them to slow death. Now the pressure was growing upon the Russian right, and Kuropatkin was finding cause to rejoice that he had decided to retire. On the Russian left, the annals of heroism were receiving a new chapter. The right and half the centre of the First Japanese Army, which had begun the attack here, was being reinforced by the division and a half which had finally taken the Russian position on the main Pekin Road. The Russians centred around three spots on the north-east of Liaoyang, a line of hills by the river, a low, broad mound with a cone in the centre, promptly named Manjayama, " Rice Cake Hill," by the Japanese tommies, because of its likeness to a rice cake, and another line of hills further north. After a heavy artillery duel, lasting aU the morning, the Japanese infantry advanced across the broad plain, several miles wide, towards Manjayama. Their advance was covered by six batteries of Japanese artillery standing out boldly on a ridge in the valley, engaging the Russians on the hills. None who saw it can ever forget that artillery THE MARCH OF DEATH. 249 duel. The heavens appeared covered with bursting shell as with a curtain. The Russian guns fired thousands of rounds on the exposed Japanese batteries, and to us, standing behind, it seemed that not a man could be left alive. When the full chorus of artillery began, and each second had its nerve-racking explosion, we held our breath, while taut nerves and electrified brains pictures the scene below. Right over the gunners, under our very eyes, the line of shrapnel burst. " My God, my God ! " burst from the lips of one at my side. Could man live there ? Yet when the Russians made momentary pause, quick reply came. First one gun spoke, and then came a succession of flashes right along the line, while the responding explosion of fiery white cones on the Russian heights proclaimed that the charges had gone home. Again the Russians spoke. The Japanese gunners, jumping into narrow pits they had dug by their standing places, watched the shell bursting over them. Then they were again to their feet, and round after round was poured out. So the fight went on, hour after hour. Now the fields of millet were resounding with the crackle of infantry fire. Some of the Russian guns turned their attention to these fields, searching them with sweeping Unes of shells and peppering every spot showing a sign of life. It was a grand 2SO FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. spectacle, but few of us then had thought for the spectacular side. In those slow passing hours men ran through the whole gamut of life's emotions, and the angel of death became one's own familiar comrade. The sun sank behind the heavens, and darkness came. A tremendous crackle, caused by thousands of men volley firing, fell on our ears, and the lines of spitting brightness showed that the Japanese infantry attack on Manjayama had began. The attack lasted until two in the morning. The Japanese infantry, who had been creeping closer through the miUet, rushed the village at the foot of the hiU, and prepared to ascend. Happily for them there were gullies on one side up which they could creep. Under the heavy fire that greeted them even the Japanese infantry paused. There came moments when the advance bade fair to be a retreat. But the soldiers knew that the brigade commander himself was among them. Word went round the ranks that the glorious hoin: had come to die for Emperor and Fatherland. Of&cers, seizing the moment, rushed ahead of their men upon the entrenched foe, shouting encouraging patriotic cries. On the Russian side, beating drums bade the soldiers stand fast ; on the Japanese, piercing bugle calls encouraged advance. Shouts of ex- ultation, of encouragement, of defiance and of agony, rent the air. THE MARCH OF DEATH. 251 A night attack has horrors all its own, and the horrors of many night attacks seemed concentrated here. The hill sides were already slippery with human blood. Men found themselves hampered by the still forms of the dead lying around. In deeds of heroism each side rivalled the other. But the Japanese, alert, athletic, reckless, were the stronger, and before dawn came they were masters of the hill. 252 CHAPTER XXIV. The Capture of Liaoyang. For eight days the Japanese armies had been fighting continually, now soaked with rain, now making forced marches through roads deep in mud, now vainly seeking shelter from a torrid sun. Every man was almost worn out, and our one source of satisfaction lay in the knowledge that the enemy must be as weary as ourselves. The days had been a time of greatest strain. Food had been scarce, and corn fields had been our daintiest shelter. The staff officer, wearied with long hours of standing, watching through field- glasses, would fain have dropped where he stood. The very stretcher-bearers had been labouring so long, day and night, often under fire, that limbs refused to respond. At the end, they could scarce lift their feet from the ground and would knock against little boulders on the path, dropping their burdens from their nerveless fingers. And in the movement of battle many a man, fallen in the firing line, had to be left to die where he lay. THE CAPTURE OF LIAOYANG. 253 The soldiers suffered greatly. It was difficult to bring food up to them, and at times they were re- duced to their emergency rations. When rice came, it was often impossible to cook it, and men had to eat it raw. Never shall I forget the angry dis- appointment of a little mess of infantry who had attempted to cook their rice in a hut just behind them. The rice was almost done when a shell burst on the roof, fragments of it smashing the pot, and the debris spoiling the rice. Strangely enough, not a man there was hurt. But that was little consolation to the starving group. Tired or fresh, fighting must go on. The morning of Septernber 2nd saw a quick renewal of battle all along the line. The column facing the Russian mixed brigade to our extreme right was obtaining some success against the Russians opposing it, but found it impossible to push on as far as they had hoped. The division forming the right wing of the First Army met with very strong resistance, the Russians having greatly increased their strength in front of it. Had Kuropatkin been given any idea of the actual strength of the Japanese force on his left wing, he doubtless would have thrown the main weight of his army against us. In that case, our position must have been a serious one. A river, unfordable over most of its length, lay immediately behind us, and substantial reinforcements could not have 254 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. arrived for some time. It can only be supposed that Kuropatkin vastly over-estimated the strength of the Japanese right. A partial counter-attack was begun. With break of day, the Russian guns opened on Manjayama, Rice Cake Hill, which we had captured during the night. All day long a terrific artillery fire was maintained against it. The Russian batteries could enfilade the position, and there was little shelter upon it. Many of the Japanese soldiers crouched all day in the gullies, up which they had climbed the previous night. They had also thrown up shelter trenches during the night on the hill itself, but these were a very indifferent defence from the unceasing guns. They lay, waiting, en- couraged during the day by messages from head- quarters telling them of success elsewhere, and bidding them hold on. ^i Meanwhile the Japanese attack on the river- side hills, to the left of the First Army, opened. Here the Russians had an ideal position, impossible to flank, and where the front could be quickly changed to meet changing attacks. First came some low, smooth sloped hills. Behind them, lay the higher main position, its slopes mounting steep and straight, without a vestige of cover. Why a day frontal attack was attempted on such a spot, must remain a mystery. The lower heights were carried by early in the afternoon with heavy THE CAPTURE OF LIAOYANG. 255 loss. One battalion was caught, having run out of ammunition, it is said, and was practically annihi- lated. The Russians had laid electrically charged wires, which proved very effective, not so much in their actual death-dealing power, as in the horror which an unexpected form of death produced among those who witnessed it. Finally, the Japan- ese found themselves at the bottom of the steep glacis, and could go no further. The advance had been repulsed. That night, the long artillery punishment of Manjayama was followed by an infantry advance. As sunset approached, the strains of the Russian national anthem floated across the valley from the hills opposite. It was the hour of evening prayer, and the massed Russian troops had turned from battle to call on God. The Japanese, misunder- standing, took the sounds for a sign of flaunting defiance. They had no bands, but, undismayed, they assembled their buglers, and with equal defiance played a Japanese national air. Darkness fell. The Japanese soldiers crept from their gullies, and lined the trenches around the hill. They waited with ears strained for the slightest sound. Suddenly, right from the ground im- mediately in front of the trenches, lights flashed out. The soldiers jumped to their feet to fire down. As they rose, and loomed up in the darkness, bombs were thrown on them, ex- 256 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. ploding with horrible effect wherever they touched. Russian pioneers, sacrificing their Uves for their Fatherland, had crawled up right under the trenches with infinite care, and had thrown hand grenades full into the Japanese line. The Japanese front was shaken. Behind these pioneers came the pouring ranks of the Russian storming party. Now followed the fiercest fight of all. Pen fails to convey the slightest impression of the horrors of the next few hours. A collection of the weapons and dress left on the field might do something. Here were rifles, splintered at the magazine case, where the soldier had been shot as he raised his weapon to fire ; others with shattered stocks ; bent bayonets, hats riddled, drums with holes through and across them showing where bullets had gone. The Japanese rallied, and as the Russians advanced on their second line they met with a steady fire. Line after fine of the Russians fell, as though the Angel of Death had drawn a straight line along. The ground became — and remained for many days after — literally gorged with blood. Now men were firing at one another within a few yards. Now rifle stock did work more deadly than bullet. In the end the Russians retook the hill. But they could not hold it. Other movements of the THE CAPTURE OF LIAOYANG. 257 Japanese were threatening them, and early next day they had to retire. Our first dream of the capture of Kuropatkin's army was not to be reahsed, but it became plain that Liaoyang was now as good as ours. Kuropatkin was plainly carrying out a retreat, but he was managing it with great skill. Inside the city there might have been — and we knew well afterwards there was — confusion. Facing us was a deter- mined line of brave men. Every attempt to get behind the Russians and cut the line of rail- way failed. Gradually and reluctantly we had to admit that our flanking movement could not accomplish its major task. Our men were still pressing themselves on the Russian front, and our artillery maintained its fire upon the city. Gradually our leftward pressure threatened the rear of the plain redoubts to the south, and by the night of the third the Japanese found themselves at the gates of the city. The gates were opened and the Russians had gone, leaving burning stacks of pro- visions, wrecked foreign houses, and a desolate city as our spoil. The first Japanese, advancing on what they had thought a forlorn hope, found that they could enter without a single Russian challenge. A famous Japanese engineer officer, the same who had blown up the gate at Tientsin during the fight there years ago, had advanced quietly on the Liaoyang 17 258 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. gate to open it with explosives. His services were not needed. Kuropatkin had escaped. Our flanks and front hurried against him in vain, for his was no hasty retreatj but a well-planned retirement, leaving his strength almost intact. The battle of Liaoyang was over, but the great decisive battle of the war yet remained in the unknown future. 259 CHAPTER XXV. Battle Pictures. The chief feature of a great battle, lasting over many days, is physical exhaustion. In it we have men working feverishly under the most dreadful and minatory stimulants life can give. Death stands by, and at any moment may take you. Your comrade of an hour since is silenced for ever now, and chance words from other parts of the field tell you that men you knew well have now gone where human companionship is no more. Pain unspeakable confronts you on all sides, [the whinnying, shell-ripped horse, the white-faced wounded whose torn garments tell of surgeons' work. The scent of a great battle — once smelt it lingers with you for ever — grows more and more overpowering. The ceaseless roar of the artillery dulls hearing. Whips of scorpions are urging you on. You are hungry, for however carefully transport arrange- ments have been planned, it is impossible to have full supplies of food. Half a biscuit seems a natural 17* 26o FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. meal. You sleep where and when you can, and you give thanks if you have ample water to drink. When human endurance seems to have reached its limit, some great development comes, and every man starts afresh. But in the end, the stimulants fail. Death can threaten in vain. The fatigue that comes on an army after some days of fighting is not ordinary weariness, but more closely resembles the absolute exhaustion of nerve and physical force displayed by a patient after a major surgical operation. It was the night of August 26th. High atop of the great ridge of Kwansalin lay many companies of Russian soldiers. Grimy gunners had dropped limply beside their worn and muddy weapons of death. Lines of unwashed infantrymen wrapped in great grey coats were stretched on the ground around, with heaps of big stones before them, on the edge of the ridge. The men were too battle worn to care much for the thick mist and penetrating rain that made the mountains around them a blank, and the valley beneath their feet a dark void. They had faced death all day, they had repulsed constant attack, and had successfully kept the enemy back. On the hills opposite were the Japanese — the right wing of the First Japanese Army— bitterly BATTLE PICTURES. 261 conscious of failure. The keen territorial rivalry fostered by their army system had made the hours of rest a purgatory for them. They had been up most of the night before^ and had fought con- tinuously through the heat and the wet of the long day. They had had little to eat, for rice could not be cooked. Limbs were leaden with much exertion. But it was not these things that drove the iron into their souls. Word had gone round that the central division of the Army had succeeded to the south. Could it be that the Kiushu dansi, who had fought and won for the Mikado during the great revolutionary wars, should be surpassed by the To-hok, their hereditary rivals, who 37 years ago had been in arms against them to maintain the Shogunate ? The youngest soldier could picture the triumph of the people of Sendai and of Shibata, the shame of their own Kokura. Let death come, but not such humiliation ! At midnight, the longed-for word went forth. Slowly, stealthily, in scattered ranks, the men of Kokura moved out, determined to uphold the honour of their island. With mist blinding them, the rain beating in their faces, they moved from rock to rock, near to the base of the ridge. There was to be no surprise that night. As the Japanese moved out the Russians raised them- selves, took their exact places on the ridge top and 262 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. waited. There was grim amusement here, for a new thing was to be tried in modern war, and it appealed to the moujiks' sense of humour. Now the Russians had reached the foot of the slope, and now began toilsome ascent. The angles of the hill forbade effective rifle fire, and the men must have congratulated themselves in coming so far in safety. Once they could get into close grips with the foe, there would be no fear of the result. Suddenly there burst on the ears of the astonished soldiers, not the tearing explosion of shell, not the deadly pist of rifle bullets, but the crash of many boulders pouring down the hill. On and on came great stones, jerked forward by the Russians at the top, gathering momentum at every yard, striking bigger stones on their way, splintering them and making them join their avalanche until at last, with irresistible dash, they tore through the Japanese ranks. Alas for the men they met on the way! A rifle bullet does not, as a rule, kill, and shell wounds can often be healed, but the doctors after- wards said that few whom the stones struck drew breath long after, the velocity and jaggedness of the weapons making men mangled pulp. Even this did not stop the Japanese who were left. Planting their feet in the muddy slopes, clinging to the wet, slippery mountain bushes, they still advanced. Thousands came on, and Uke a flood they swept the hill. None asked, none gave quarter BATTLE PICTURES. 263 in that charge. Russian gunners died by their guns, and the infantrymen gave death or died indifferently. At last the Russians were forced down the opposite slope. Now the Japanese had their innings. Boulder after boulder crashed down upon the descending Russians. Twice the soldiers rallied and tried to re-storm the hill ; twice they were driven back. But when the dim, misty day broke, and the Japanese checked their muster, they found that nearly four hundred would never answer the roll again. He was a young lieutenant, known throughout Japan as " the hero of Motienling." At the Russian attack on that pass on July 4th he slew a bakers' dozen with his own sword. In the advance of the flanking forces on Liaoyang he was among the foremost. Charging, with his men, through a field of giant millet, he was struck by a splinter of an exploding shell, which tore away part of his lips, shattered teeth, and wounded the tip of his tongue. He was ordered to retire, and behind a slight shelter the field surgeon did quick work. Despite his pain, the man was seen to smile and attempted to mumble some words in his now blurred speech. The surgeon bent down to catch what he was striving to tell. The young 264 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. lieutenant's smile deepened, and he made a motion with his head towards his hands and feet. " They are still there/' he thickly murmured. " I can still fight the Russians." The war correspondent had ridden away from his fellows, in order to see war at its closest range. For days, defying regulations, he mingled with the soldiers in their trenches and on the first fighting line. The men shared their scanty rations with him, and he went hungry and thirsty with them. He was among the foremost to enter Liaoyang, and then rushed to his typewriter to write out his story. But before he could strike a key a bad attack of dysentery took him. Brain could not think, hands could not write, and he could not ride a hundred yards, much less the hundred miles to Yinkow telegraph office. Yet one thought pos- sessed him. " I must write my story, I must ride down the line." He tried to rise, but a spasm of pain shook him. The story is not yet written. ^F n^ ^* n* •** ^F •!* I* The battle was over, the Russians had retired, and we were making our way into Liaoyang. Suddenly, full behind us, came the sharp burst of an explosion, and the cart carrying Sir Ian Hamilton's campaign kit scattered in many pieces in the air. A live shell, left on the roadway, had BATTLE PICTURES. 265 done the work. Two men and three horses were blown to bits, a third man died soon after, and a fourth Ungered but a Uttle longer. The General and staff of the First Army stood on top of the hill watching the battle below. Im- mediately behind them a field telegraph was busy at work. Suddenly a soldier jumped to his feet, and ran down the slope into the corn fields below. A Chinaman there darted off like a rabbit, but the soldier was too quick, and soon had him secure. Several Japanese came up, there was a brief, ani- mated conversation, the Chinaman screaming piteously all the while, and then " the Chinaman was forced on his knees, the soldier's sword flashed, and in a moment the man's head had fallen and a gush of blood spouted out from his severed trunk. They made a slight hole where he fell, and forced the body into it, covering it over with millet stalks. Then the soldier wiped his sword clean, and went back as though nothing had happened. The Chinaman was a telegraph wire sniper, sent by the Russians, and had cut the wire below, not realising that the station was just above. Seven Russians came out of the casement. Sur- rounded by the Japanese Army, for thirty-six hours they had defied every effort to capture them. When 266 FROM TOKYO TO TiFLIS the Russian forces had retired to Liaoyang these men threw themselves into a bomb-proof passage in the redoubt, piled up sand bags in front of them, and waited. When the Japanese entered the earth- works, the men from their shelter opened out with magazine rifles upon them. It was impossible to storm them, without much loss of life, so the Japanese, avoiding the line of fire, waited, firing in on them from odd corners. The men had no food or water, save the little they carried on their persons, and as hour after hour passed their thirst grew to agony. They had to keep constantly on the watch, and at last they had to own that there was nothing to do but to surrender. The Japanese came up, and gingerly took their rifles and bayonets over the sand bags. Then the men stepped out. They were ghastly, save for the grime which long fighting had put on them. Every soldier respects courage, and there was no sign but of respect for them as they marched into captivity. A young Chinaman rushed out in front of our horses, cr5dng like a birched schoolboy. " Ma, ma, ma," he cried in rising accents, the tears flowing faster than ever, and the face assuming every contortion of agony. " Horse, horse, horse ! " he went on. " Don't take our horse away." He pointed as he spoke to a Japanese soldier leading BATTLE PICTURES. 267 a white horse off. The father, too, hurried up. He had no tears, but his face told his misery. He kneeled in front of us, abasing himself in tlie dust. Then he ko-towed, hitting his forehead against the ground with force enough to make loud thuds. Soon an elder son came up and joined the plea. But what could we do ? " They have a Russian horse," someone explained. " They say it is theirs, but the soldiers say it is a spoil of war, and are taking it away." We could only ride on, the lamentations echoing in our ears. One's horse was arrested by the sight of an unarmed Russian, wounded, half lying, half sitting, on the roadway. His leg had been smashed, and a cord had been tied round the broken limb and then round the man's neck, evidently for support. It was two days since fighting had taken place in the wood here, and he must have lain two days waiting for relief. His cheeks were sunken, but he was cheerful now. He beckoned his hand to show that the soldiers had gone to the nearest village for an ambulance stretcher. His brave bearing was worthy of Napoleon's Old Guard. The smoke ascended to the heights, thick, acrid, nauseating. In the little valley below they were 268 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. burning the dead. They were lain, row upon row, with wooden beams between, and piles of wood at either end. Soldiers were employed bringing up fresh wood, and two other soldiers stood as stokers with long poles in hand, regvilating the flames. All day the smoke arose, and for many days, not only here, but on other heights and valleys around. As I looked, the vision of another scene came before me, the long military trains going through Japan, the cheering soldiers in the carriages, the decorated railway stations, the enthusiastic crowds, the choirs of daintily-dressed maidens singing patriotic songs to the departing men. This was the end. Yet better the death they died than the self-centred existence which seems the sum of our modern civilisation. The Bridge of Hope, boundary between Russian Poland and Germany, at Myslowitz. .'"'1 Wood and charcoal sellers, Russia. [ To face page 268. 269 CHAPTER XXVI. War Makers and War Writers. The woes of the war correspondent have been dinned into the ears of English and American people until they must be tired of them. The father of our craft, Sir William Howard Russell, has, I under- stand, declared that the day of the war correspondent is over ; many unhappy men who spent months waiting in Japan and had to return home without witnessing a single battle, agree with him. We have been told that the Japanese acted with duplicity and insincerity in dealing with the foreign press. Writers who in February were holding aloft the subject of Mutsuhito as examples to all mankind, were in September berating them as fit only for the fate of the Kilkenny cats. It may, therefore, be pardoned if one correspondent who was with the Japanese army from the com- mencement of the war, and who suffers from no sense of personal grievance, should give his ex- perience. Until the eiid of December, 1903, the great majority 270 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of English and American newspaper editors were convinced that there would be no war. The leading financial house of Europe, without whose aid war is generally considered impossible, declared for peace. Following its lead, almost the whole of the news- papers neglected to send out their special writers until too late. They began to arrive in Tokyo about the last week in January, only to find that steamer services to Korea and Manchuria were already stopped, and that they were bottled up, hundreds of miles away from the fighting, without chance of advancing further. The correspondents presented their credentials, and applied through their Legations for their passports. They received polite speeches, great courtesy and abundant hospitality. They became insistent, and the number of banquets was in- creased. It was the beginning of April before the correspondents with the First Army were permitted to leave Japan ; those with the Second Army I only arrived at the front in time for the battle of Liaoyang ; while those with the Port Arthur Army were kept back still longer, and were not allowed to send a single message through from the front until the early winter. From the point of view of the newspaper corres- pondent and proprietor this was a very serious matter. The papers were incurring heavy expense without securing any return. A war correspondent WAR MAKERS AND WAR WRITERS. 271 of the first rank is a costly luxury for any but a wealthy paper. His salary is usually from £100 to £150 a monthj and his expenses on the field — in a campaign like the present — may come to £100 a month more, apart from the cost of telegraphing his messages. Telegraph fees may, in a special week, mount up to £1,000. Of course there are correspondents who are paid much less than these figures, and certain journals have a reputation for securing young men imbued with a love of ad- venture, on practically nominal terms. Some American papers are rumoured to pay salaries far beyond the maximum I have named. One magazine commissioned a prominent novelist to proceed to the front and study the situation there. He reached Tokyo and was delayed for months. He wrote two articles, telling nothing of the fighting, for he had seen nothing of it. The two articles had cost his paper, up to when I last heard, not far short of £1,000 apiece. A very successful American author and play- wright was sent by a weekly paper to the front. ■He arrived at Tokyo in March, and waited there until July. He was then permitted to join the Second Army, and after some weeks drew near Liaoyang. The Second Army correspondents were not given a good chance to witness the early fighting during that battle, and at the end of the first day the distinguished writer declared that he would leave 272 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. if he were not permitted to see more. The Japanese courteously asked at what hour next morning he would take his departure, and he had to go. But such things, important as they are to the individuals concerned, could scarcely guide the policy of a nation engaged in a life-and-death struggle. The Japanese are at war for their own benefit, and not for the profit of English or American newspapers. The point for them was how far in their own interest it was wise to permit the accredited representatives of the foreign press to witness their movements, and that was all they could be expected to consider. Judged solely in this light, the Japanese now realise that they made a mistake. They succeeded in alienating or weakening the sympathies of many men whose position enables them to exercise some influence on the opinion of the world. Had they said at first that they would permit no foreigners to accompany their forces, , they would, without question, have laid themselves open to certain accusations, but none could have charged them with lack of straightforwardness. What was the reason for the delay ? There was not one reason but many. At the beginning it was a natural precaution on the part of the Japanese. A proportion of their army had been drawn from remote districts, where foreigners are seldom seen. History has repeatedly shown a certain national fanaticism among a few of these WAR MAKERS AND WAR WRITERS. 273 people. It was possible that, if serious defeat came to the Japanese forces at the outset of the war, some extremists in the ranks might attempt to wreak vengeance on the foreign guests, just as during the Chinese peace negotia- tions a fanatic attacked Li Hung Chang when he landed at Shimonoseki. Such an act would have been a calamity, and in their desire to avoid the slightest possibility of it the Japanese held the correspondents and attaches back until the army had drunk the wine of victory. The authorities at Tokyo were undoubtedly overwhelmed by the total of applications from so-called correspondents. The number asking to be sent to the front was so considerable that it was manifestly impossible to take all, and the task of selection was very difficult. One other thing ought to be told in justice to the Japanese, and yet I approach it with much re- luctance. Several of the men posing as war corres- pondents at Tokyo should not have been there. Some had never seen war, and had never seen the inside of a newspaper office. Some were younger sons seeking adventure, some were rolling stones, some were lads in their " wander jahr " desiring fame. Traders forsook their counting houses, lawyers resigned hopes of briefs, officials obtained leave from their governments, men who had never before dreamed of their fitness for any profession 18 274 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. now discovered themselves fully equipped for this, one of the most difficult of all. The regular, fully trained men found themselves swallowed up in a crowd of irresponsible outsiders. These latter freely took the names of great papers, often with little reason. A few were loud-mouthed, bragging, tactless, and even worse, and gave offence at a hundred points. Some shouted anti- Japanese sentiments in Tokyo bar-rooms. One young fool was ever demanding that his friends should drink a toast with him — " To the White Horse of Fusan." The White Horse of Fusan you afterwards learned was Kuropatkin's horse, when in the future he stood on the cliffs of Fusan, having seen the last of the Japanese soldiers driven into the sea. Another man sent out, as ill luck would have it, by one of the most conservative and reliable English dailies, on account of his supposed knowledge of Japanese affairs, had to be sent back by a sub- scription raised among his colleagues. These, be it noted, were not proper war corres- pondents but mere posers. I am proud of the real workers in this field. I have watched their endurance, their daring, and their serene courage, and I pray that I may be fit to be ranked as one of the least of the members of the calling they adorn. But my admiration for them is the measure of my scorn for those outsiders for whose doings all of us afterwards had to suffer so much. / WAR MAKERS AND WAR WRITERS. 2^5 Every foolish word was faithfully reported to the authorities. The Japanese have an elaborate and perfect spy system, but besides the regular spies, ' aU men considered themselves bound to watch foreigners. Coolies, hotel waiters, interpreters, all acted as agents of the secret police, and detailed, often doubtless with great exaggeration, every doubtful act or word, until the authorities became suspicious. Much trouble was caused by the fact that the Japanese mode of expression is different from our Western way. When a Japanese has to refuse your request, cpurtesy forbids that he should reply with a direct negative. He points out to you the difficulties involved in your plan ; he fears you may suffer if you obtain what you want ; he expresses a cordial wish that if you still desire it, it may be possible to grant it in a day or two. Such ex- pressions, from Japanese lips, mean "No." Corres- pondents, imperfectly acquainted with Japanese thought,, took them to mean " Yes." Hence endless misunderstandings, and many charges of bad faith. Another source of trouble was the bureaucratic methods of the Japanese Government. Japan, as I have emphasized before, is a bureaucracy. Every little or great official has his rights, his routine, his privileges. The Commander-in-Chief may desire to grant you a favour, but if the minor officer in whose department the matter lies does not see i8* 276 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. a fit, the desire of the Commander-in-Chief goes for nothing. The statement sounds an exaggeration, but it is not. I have had the Chief of Staff of an Army give me information in the presence of a censor, and tell me that I could send it on. I have written out the telegram at once, and handed it to the official, only to be met by a blank refusal to forward it. " Your own Chief of Staff gave me permission just now in your hearing," I have re- monstrated. " If he knew the facts we know, he would not have done so," came the reply. " We are responsible and we refuse it." When the fully authorised correspondents, re- commended and guaranteed by their Ministers and accepted by the Japanese Government, reached the front, their troubles were by no means over. The chief difficulty of all — the great distance from an available wire — was outside the power of the Japanese to remedy. But there soon came troubles in personal relations. Some of the heads of the army were as friendly and considerate as it was possible to be. Others had conceived the idea that foreign correspondents and military attaches were not desired by Grand Headquarters, and that it was their duty to keep us in the dirk, and to check our work as much as possible. They did not fully understand us, and probably we did not understand them, for I am the first to admit that the faults were not all on one side WAR MAKERS AND WAR WRITERS. 27; A hundred petty irritations and restrictions goaded us. We felt deeply hurt, for instance, that Japanese servants should come secretly around our tents at night time, listening to our chance conversations,'' and then go and report them to the officials. It did not fit in with our code of ethics that officers in responsible positions should catechise our inter- preters behind our backs about our doings. " You treat us as enemies," one indignant correspondent declared. " Anyone would think that we were Russian spies instead of responsible men from your ally, England." The Japanese takes kindly to supervision in a way we do not. It seemed quite a matter of course to the authorities, during the long wait at Feng- fangcheng, that a short area of land should be marked around our camp, and that we should / be ordered not to go outside that line without permission. At first, it was amusing that we should be permitted to swim on one side of a narrow stream, but not on the other, and the like, but the amusement soon wore thin. Many disputes followed. I am far from agreeing with all some of my fellow correspondents did at that time. In one great piotest I refused to join, feeling that the language u'jed by one of the speakers was unfair and too provocative. Another protest I opposed to the end. Yet the fault in those days was not mainly on the side of the correspondents. 278 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Each was being educated to the other's point of view. Sometimes our awakenings were starthng For instance, a Japanese officer did not know how to ride, and was anxious to learn. I casually invited him to come to my camp some afternoon, when I would gladly give him a lesson on a quiet horse in my stable. I made the offer as innocently as I would have done to a fellow countryman, and with no second thought, for it was a very little matter anyway. The officer came, and had his lesson. " I am very grateful," he declared as he bade me farewell. " And although, you know, I '^ cannot accept this as a bribe " " What ! " I cried in amazement. Then my tongue found rein. I think the officer still wonders at the cause of my indignation. To those of us who highly appraise the many splendid qualities of the Japanese soldiers, the main cause of regret was that these tactics steadily alienated sympathy from them. No newspaper writer worthy of the name would allow his point of view consciously to be affected by personal grievances, but yet constantly repeated personal grievances do have an effect in the end on those who suffer them. When, for instance, I had retired from a painful interview with a Japanese staff officer, after being told that the military authorities did not really desire our presence in the field, it would take a strong effort before I could dissociate WAR MAKERS AND WAR WRITERS. 279 the personal issue from the greater one, and could at once do justice to the fighting men whose deeds I had seen. Some correspondents abandoned the task almost at once, and returned home. None, I believe, with the First Army allowed the personal issue to creep into his work. We all felt that, sore as we were^ far greater issues than our well-being were at stake, and at these we must look. The mistakes of the Japanese authorities were, however, very excusable when one considered that this was their first great experience in a new field. They displayed a grudging suspicion at times when they might well have placed a little confidence in us. They long refused us facilities granted by other armies everywhere. But these were misunder- standings and mistakes, not breaches of honour, and I should be sorry to convey an opposite im- pression. The men who were foremost in re- striction proved afterwards, when their Emperor had commanded that we should be treated differently, that they could be foremost in kindly consideration. They had imposed restrictions be- cause they believed it their duty ; when the word came that they had misunderstood what was required of them, they proved abundantly, and in many ways, that they would gladly treat us other- wise. In the end the Japanese learned that the policy of antagonizing the press did not answer. After 28o FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the battle of Liaoyang, when many correspondents left the army and made a great outcry, the Emperor of Japan took the matter under his direct personal supervision. The result was an Imperial rescript, directing that the foreign guests of the army should be given all possible facilities that would not en- danger military operations. The authorities at the front had already discovered, too, that the real war correspondent — not the dilettante amateur, or the mere sensation-monger — has his use. They had learned to trust the right men, and to make an end of the others. A Russian shopkeeper. [ To face page 28 1 . 28l CHAPTER XXVII. The Lesson of Newchwang, Five weeks after the battle of Liaoyang I was in Newchwang, the famous Chinese port, for some time at the beginning of the war in the occupation of the Russians, and later taken over by the Japanese. My journey there was partly along the old Siberian Railway, now, in that section, under Japanese control. The lines were being trans- formed to narrow gauge in order that Japanese locomotives might run on them, the Russians having left no broad-gauge engines behind. The Japanese military authorities kindly provided me with a " coolie special." This sounds very magnificent, but the magnificence lay mainly in the name. The carriage was drawn along the line by a great army of Chinese coolies on either side, but it moved so slowly that from nine in the morning until eight at night we scarcely covered thirty miles. Then, quitting the train, a friend, Mr. Donohoe, and I took a Chinese cart and travelled all night southwards. The cart was only big enough for 282 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. one, so we took turns in it, one man sleeping for two hours while the other walked, and so on. We were not sorry when the journey was over. The English colony in Newchwang had much to say of the Russians who had held the port right up to late in the summer. There had been exciting times there, especially in the few hours after the Russians left and before travel-stained and weary Japanese scouts rode in. At one time it had seemed as though the whites were about to face a Chinese rising. The Europeans were all agreed in their expressions of friendship for the Russians, and in appreciation of their good comradeship. They were equally agreed in their contempt for the Rus-^ sian military organisation. The account we heard was what most of us who had watched the Russian forces from the other side expected. Many of the Russian officers in Newchwang had given up their time to drink and to pleasure, leaving drill to their subordinates. The soldiers, even during the months they were awaiting the Japanese force, were handled in poor fashion. They would, for instance, practise rifle firing without any cartridges in their rifles, aiming carefully at running targets and pulling^ their triggers with an empty click. The artillery was never practised with ammunition, save once, the whole time it was there since the beginning of the war. What hope had such men against the perfectly-trained and splendidly-disciplined Japanese THE LESSON OF NEWCHWANG. 283 troops, against officers who made their profession their one great love, and against men who to supreme courage added supreme technical skill ? At Newchwang, too, we came for the first time in touch with the famous Hung-hutzes. I had previously heard from various sources about the co-operation between the Japanese authorities and the Mongolian and Manchurian robber bands. It was freely stated before the war broke out that Japanese officers had months before proceeded to Manchuria to organise some of these bands, and that one distinguished Japanese general had gone to take command. All the facts discoverable at New- chwang seemed to confirm this. The Hung-hutzes — the Red-beards — are not, however, one united host. There are numerous robber bands all over the country, well mounted and whoUy reckless. Some of the leaders claim to be able to bring thousands of men to fight for them whenever they wish, and there is little doubt but that they can do so. No doubt it is some such bands that the Japanese secured. While the bands work under separate com- manders, there seems some union between them, or a sort of agreement which causes each body to respect more or less the rights of the others. A well-known character in Newchwang acted prac- tically as the business agent of the Hung-hutze chiefs. If you wanted to arrange for the safe 284 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. passage of a cargo down the river or across country you went to him. He charged a certain percentage on the value and gave you either a guard or a certificate. You might safely reckon then that your goods would reach their destination untouched. From Newchwang I reached Japan in a collier. The country there was changed indeed, and no ^ one going through it now could question the im- mense burden the war was imposing on the people. Wounded men were everywhere ; each city had its hospitals, and temples were converted into asylums for the sick. This city had ten thousand wounded, that six thousand, and so on and so forth. Some Japanese acquaintances made careful calculation and put the number of wounded then in the country * at a hundred thousand. All the information I could gather showed that this was not far wrong. Internal trade I found largely paralysed. People were buying practically nothing, and on all sides there - was severe and undoubted distress. The people, too, were cruelly disappointed over the long delay in the fall of Port Arthur. Yet there was no hesi- tation about continuing the war, and no murmuring at the sacrifices demanded. Feeling was practically unanimous that even if the last pence of the people *" were demanded, the war must be carried to an end. 285 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Hed of Achifles. The uniformed messenger, bronzed and grey haired, the veteran of many a war, knelt by the holy statuary in the snow on the road side, praying for his people. The shopkeeper hastily brought Ikon from his upper room and placed it in the window as a protection from the mob. Now there came a crackle of rifle fire. Ahead, one could see a dozen rioters rushing towards a solitary cab, seizing the horse, and bundling the rider out into the roadway. From the roof of one's hotel the sight was awe- some. Whole stretches of Warsaw lay in darkness, for the mob had smashed many of the street lamps. Here and there a flickering light grew to a blaze, revealing where people had set the Government alcohol monopoly shops on fire. Some streets were strangely quiet, others seemed as though in the hands of all the furies. It was down the Marsalakowska that the tumult ran fiercest. As dusk came, a party of boys had smashed every lamp in it. Then a strange, hungry, fierce group of men and women came out from the surrounding slums aiid gathered in the broad 286 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. roadway. At first they attacked the street shops alone, and here they had the sympathy and help of many of the more respectable people. Appetite grew with what it fed on, and soon there started a systematic raid on shop after shop. The great iron railings barring the windows were torn out by the strength of a hundred arms. Men, still with bottles of spirits in their hands, struggled in the doorways in the darkness, tearing, looting, destroying, wrecking for the mere pleasure of wrecking. Now it was a jeweller's shop they attacked, and soon nothing remained but broken glass and iron. Then a gramo- phone establishment was the object of their sport, and from it they turned for variety to a delicatessen shop. The man who has been pouring strong vodka down his throat has not much appetite for sausages, but he can at least tread them under foot or throw them in the gutters. The boys, with keener zest, plunged their hands in the barrels of caviare and ate it greedily, smearing what they could not eat over each other's faces. The mob had reached a great shoe shop. Iron doors were torn down, and a crowd was wrecking the big premises, when a new sound came on their ears — a steady tramp of drilled men. The soldiers had at last arrived — the big, brown-coated in- fantry men who for days had been waiting for this. Their officer in command, standing erect in his long THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 287 grey coat, was in no humour for pleasantries. His voice rang out in sharp command : " Clear away or I will fire." A few of the more sober went, frightened by the sight of the still and disciplined soldiers. The majority continued their work scarcely disturbed. After all, the officer spoke in Russian and they were Poles ; why should a good Pole heed what a Rus- sian says ? Then the Captain turned to the men. Instantly the long magazine rifles were raised, and volley after volley poured into the massed robbers. The white snow outside became suddenly red, and the darkness rang with cries and groans and a pitiful wailing. Those unwounded shrank back, the men feeling for their knives, and waiting for the first oppor- tunity to have their turn on the soldiers. Never since the early sixties had Warsaw known such a day as this last Saturday in January, 1905. On the previous morning a great political strike had begun, not only here but throughout Poland. The people were tired of the shortage of food and of work caused by the war, and all over the province the revolutionary committees suddenly came to the front. On the Tuesday following the massacre at St. Peters- burg a deputation had arrived from that city to confer with our workmen. On the Wednesday a committee had been appointed. On the Thursday sub-committees were secretly organising their work, 288 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. each man in them knowing that discovery meant Siberia. Then on the Friday the blow had fallen. Early in the morning a deputation of workmen went to the manager of each factory requesting him to close. " We are not striking because of quarrels with you/' the deputation said, when asked their grievances. " This is not an ordinary strike but a political one ; we desire to show that we are dis- satisfied with conditions generally." It is not good to resist the mob in a country like Poland, for if you do, death as certainly follows as night follows day. So the managers closed their works. The bakers ceased to bake, and people one and all rushed to the shops to buy up the stocks of bread, until they had to be guarded by troops. The gas men and the water-workers drew off, only to find their places immediately taken by infantry, and the gas-works and water-works protected by heavy forces of soldiers with artillery. The tram- ways were stopped. In a short time every factory was shut down. On Friday evening the first skirmish between the troops and the people began. A party of cavalry r.ode to disperse a little mob of rioters in the Clodna district. The men seized a cartload of bricks then passing, and hurled them at the soldiers, wound- ing three. The cavalry opened fire, killing four and wounding ten or twelve. Near by some men attacked a bread cart, while a group of Cossacks THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 5^9 stood looking on laughing. A gendarme reproached the Cossacks for not stopping it, whereupon a work- man coolly shot him dead. The poUce now began to make discoveries. When a solitary constable would draw his revolver on a troublesome workman he found himself covered with a better weapon, for the police revolvers were old, and the rioters had Browning automatic pistols of the best type. The revolutionary committees had smuggled in five thousand of them. On Friday night the troops did not quite know what they were to do. By Saturday morning there could be no mistaking their intentions. The city was swarming with soldiers, each police-station yard was packed, and infantry with fixed bayonets were marching and counter-marching everywhere. Bands of Caucasian Cossacks, in full semi-barbaric Asiatic dress, with their long, close-fitting frock- coats and high astrachan hats, were parading the streets. Men looked askance at their long rifles covered with sheepskin slung on their backs, at the bright long daggers stuck in their belts, and at the yataghans hanging from their sides. Ural, Baikal, and Don Cossacks and Hussars rode through the city. Strong forces of infantry were everywhere, each man equipped for war service, knapsack full of food, five ball cartridges in the magazine of his rifle, and pouches filled with ball ammunition. 19 290 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. And yet the mob still ruled. No newspapers were now issued, work had ceased, and in the early morning word went around that every shop must close. The shops shut as if by magic. Then further command went out from the revolutionary organizations that every carriage must stop. I was driving in a sleigh about midday when I heard constant hoarse cries of execration being shouted by the crowd at my driver. I saw other horses forcibly seized, almost under the noses of the soldiers. By four in the afternoon there was not a vehicle on the streets save the tumbrils carrying the dead, the ambulance carriages running to aid the wounded, and the food carts of the soldiery. The mob and the soldiers were both beginning to taste blood. The workmen's committee had in- tended to make an ordinary revolutionary demon- stration against Russia, but the control of things was taken out of their hands by the worst elements from the lowest quarters, which indulged in whole- sale robbery. The automatic telephone stations in the streets were torn to pieces. Whenever the soldiers were out of sight people would turn towards the shops and wreck them. The soldiers in turn committed many outrages. When there was an officer in charge the troops were generally kept in hand, but little parties of two and three and four were about everywhere, and seemed to dehght in attacking inoffensive citizens. The British Con- Russian troops guarding a railway station during tlie strike Market place in Russian town. [ To face fia^e 2qo. THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 291 sul-General, Captain Murray, and one of his assist- ants, were attacked, both in separate parts of the city, and the assistant was seriously injured. One Httle wedding party, returning from church to wedding feast in the hotel where I was stay- ing, was set upon by a group of soldiers and cut about badly. By evening a reign of terror ruled, and few dared to go out in the streets save the rioters and soldiers. When I walked around from point to point at midnight, I saw the military bivouacking in the snow in the roadways every- where. The great streets were as though a hurri- cane had passed down them, and the shops left untouched had in front of them holy ikons as guards. Before these ikons the fiercest rioter paused, and with hasty genuflexions turned to other houses. The authorities had hesitated, and in truth the situation was so complex that hesitation might well be excused. The strike in Warsaw was nominally one of the working men, but it is not too much to say that at first, until the outrages of the mob had alienated public sympathy, and afterwards when the effects of police brutality had been felt, the sympathy of the entire people was with the work- men. Even the manufacturers against whom they struck generally took their part. Most curious of all was the action of the school-children. All the higher schoolboys in Warsaw, and throughout 19* 292 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Poland, numbering between fourteen and fifteen thousand, went on strike, ostensibly on political grounds. This strike soon became one of the most serious factors of the whole, for the boys were the mouthpieces of the people. These young demon- strators took themselves with strange seriousness. Thus, when they planned to include the private girls' schools in their strike, they sent a deputation to the mistresses, ordering them to stop. All obeyed. One bold mistress demanded of the leader of the strikers why she should take any notice of him. " Madam," he repUed gravely, "it is not for you to ask the reason ; I command, you obey." And she obeyed. The story of the schoolboys' strike was related to me by one of the students, a tall, strong lad of sixteen, of German type, with light hair and merry eyes. He spoke with lively manner, and laughed as though it were a football " scrum " he was describing, rather than an uprising of a nation. One or two of the minor details of his narrative have been questioned by other boys, but essentially it gives a faithful picture of what went on during those days. " I belong to the Commercial School," he said. " Our strike started at half-past ten on Saturday morning. We had all talked the matter over with the students of the gymnasia the day after the great trouble in Petersburg. We had settled in THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 293 our minds that if anything happened in Warsaw we would help. " So on Saturday morning some other fellows came outside our school and made a row, and we all got up and demanded that our professors should let us go. ' Sit down, you rioters and thieves,' a pro- fessor said. But he had no chance of abusing us any more, for one student went right up to him and slapped his face. The little fellows in the small boys' class rushed at their professor, punched him in the ribs, slapped him, and beat him. We all got out in the big passage and went for the cloak- room, eight hundred of us. The cloak-room door was locked, but we broke it open and got our coats. " When we were going out we found the director (the headmaster) standing half-way up the stairs, and he ordered us back. ' Down with the director,' we all shouted. Those behind shoved those in front forward, and in a minute we had pushed the director downstairs, and were all out in the street. " Then we went to the girls' school and shouted outside it. The director there sent out to know what we demanded. We told him we wanted the girls to leave school, so he very politely let them all out. " The girls joined us, and we marched to the Fifth Gymnasium. The workmen in the streets stopped and cheered as we passed. We took the Russian signs ' N. 2.' out of our caps, and struck up the 294 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. Socialist song, ' The Red Banner.' I tell you, it was a great time. " The boys of the gymnasium opened their windows, and shouted to us that they were all dressed ready to go, but were locked in, and could not get out. So we marched round to the back way. An officer of police stood there, and when we came he drew out a revolver and pointed it to us. At first we drew back, but one of our fellows made us go on. ' There can only be one sacrifice among us,' he said. ' He may kill one, but then we will shoot him with his own weapon. Let us rush the beast.' When the officer heard this he was much alarmed and lowered his revolver as we rushed. One of us caught his wrist, forced the revolver round against him, pointing right at his head. ' You servant of the Czar,' the boy said, ' shoot yourself.' But we couldn't manage to break open the doors of the gymnasium. " Then we went to other schools. They had sent for the police, and the soldiers came too. When the soldiers came we called after them and told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves for acting as bobbies. I tell you, the soldiers didn't like that. Some of the officers blushed like girls. " Then a lot of policemen came up, and they cut through us, so as to split us up into one big party and one small lot of about fifteen. A policeman caught one boy by the coat. The boy unbuttoned THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 295 his coat and slipped out of it, running off while the policeman stood keeping hold of the empty coat. Another started running after one of us, when one of our fellows caught the policeman's coat to stop him. The policeman pulled out his sword and slashed the student right across his face. " Another of our students was caught, one of the small lot, and we tried to rescue him. But there were many police now, and they drew their swords. They got away with our man, and we have seen nothing of him since. I suppose they are keeping him in a fortress as a prisoner. " Now we got properly to work. All the schools came out that morning. We told the girls to go back home when things began to be rough. You don't want girls about when the gendarmes are draw- ing their swords and arresting people, do you ? We looked out for all the Russian official notices we could find, and tore them from the walls. Then we looked for Russian signs of all kinds and tried to get rid of them. Some of our students were caught in the crowds when the cavalry were charging, and eighteen or twenty were killed. Some were shot, but most were cut down by Hussars. Many of the older students have been arrested during the past few days. The police usually come to the house at night time, when everyone is asleep. Before the people know properly what is the matter the stu- dent who is wanted is caught and taken away. 296 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. We know that a lot must have been taken, because they are missing, and are not among the dead. " One of our students got shot accidentally in a fight between the working men and the troops. The working men carried his body home, and offered to wash it and lay it out. But his mother replied that she had other sons to do that. They had barely done it before the police came in and took the body to the station-house. They kept it there a day or two and then sent it back home, saying that the parents might bury it, but must have a quiet funeral. On Saturday a number of infantry accompanied the funeral, to prevent a demonstration. On the way the commissary of police noticed that there was a red streamer attached to the wreath, with an inscription, ' Sacrificed to the Russian Autocracy.' He stopped the funeral, and had the streamer torn off the wreath." " Now tell me," I interposed, " what are you making all this trouble about ? What are you students striking for? " " We want the right to use our own language. We say that in Poland the Polish students should have the right to go to classes spoken in their own tongue, although there may be other classes in Russian for those who prefer it. Then we want the liberty to get together libraries of Polish books. Our libraries at present have to be all in Russian. We do not want to have the official agent of the THE HEEL OF ACHILLES. 297 Russian Government controlling all our schools. And we want some liberty. We want to be allowed to form our own societies, to debate freely among ourselves, and to think for ourselves. All the schools in Poland are joining us in our protest." 298 CHAPTER XXIX. How Russia treats Rioters, " We live just over the courtyard of the pohce station," said the girl with a half-suppressed shudder. " So we could see it all." She was a young clerk in the office of a friend of mine in Warsaw. She was very quiet, and appeared "somewhat dazed by the horrors of the past few days of riot. Her German ran smoothly and fluently, and there was an unnatural calmness about her manner. " Our home is not far from the Wola district," she said. " You know that this was one of the centres of the trouble, and there was a good deal of fighting near us. I stayed in as much as I could, but as the police station lay just under our windows I could not help seeing what went on there. " Our worst time was on the Saturday afternoon, when the police started bringing in a number of prisoners, men they had caught in the streets. The soldiers beat the men forward with their rifles, and the policemen drew their swords and struck the HOW RUSSIA TREATS RIOTERS. 299 prisoners with the flats of them. The poUce yard is surrounded on all four sides by houses, and they drove the people into the corners of the yard until they could take them inside the rooms of the station. " We could hear loud cries coming from the rooms inside, as though people were being beaten badly there. Of course, we could see nothing of what went on inside, but the yard was quite bad enough. The soldiers in the yard had their long whips threaded with lead, and knouts. They kept hitting the people across the faces and shoulders. " Four women were brought in. These were treated just the same as the men. They said that one of them, quite a young girl, had shot an officer. They beat her very badly, punching her with clenched fists, striking her with whips, and kicking her. The Cossacks beat all the women. " The noise was so great that we could not settle down to other things. Then it became dark and we could see no more. But the cries and the groans and the shouts, the cut of the whips and the noise of the blows, kept up all night." Was this young woman exaggerating in her account ? I resolved to find out, so far as I could, for myself. So I made enquiries, and discovered one or two men who had been arrested and released. The first was a well-to-do young fellow who had got into a squabble with a soldier on the night of the worst rioting, and was fortunate enough to be 30O FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. arrested instead of being shot. He had been kept two days in a cell, and then was released. He laughed good-humouredly at my questions. ' ' Beating prisoners ? Of course, prisoners are beaten when they are arrested, and before they are convicted. The police do it to induce them to speak out and to tell the truth. I was not beaten because I was too well dressed. The whip is usually kept for the poorer men. But my cell, where I was con- fined with twenty-three others, was next to the room where prisoners were examined, and the yells and cries didn't give us much chance to sleep. When a rioter was brought in, and did not answer the questions as the officer liked, the warders threw him down, one held him by the shoulders and the others by the legs, and they beat him with a whip or a lump of rubber piping until he was in a right frame of mind. One man, I know, annoyed them very much. They declared that he had so thick a skin that they had to beat him for an hour before he would come to reason. Several of the men in the cell with me had their faces all torn with the whips. " What happened to us was this. Those of us who were arrested were examined, and were beaten or not, as the case might be. Then we were shut up in cells, as many as could be crowded in. There was no room to sit or lie, for we were in too tight, so we rested against one another. There we were left for two or three days, when some were sent to Trans-Caucassian merchant^-. [ To face page 300. HOW RUSSIA TREATS RIOTERS. 301 fortresses, some to outer prisons, and some released. I had money and influence with the police so I got released. Please don't ask me exactly how I managed it." My next search was for one who had felt the full weight of the police wrath. This was more difficult, but at length I heard of a young workman who had just come from prison. I found him in his house. At first he would not answer the door, for he was too cowed and broken, and feared a fresh police messenger. The lad's face was cut right down from skull to jaw with one tremendous blow of a whip. His body was seared horribly. Gradually I won his confidence, and he told me what had happened. " You know that I am a mechanic," he said. " I took no part in the strike, but remained at home. On Monday night I went out to buy bread. The Jew who keeps the shop asked me five times as much as usual, and I told him it was sheer robbery. A policeman told me to go away. I paid for the bread, and told the policeman that I was not afraid of him, for the police well knew me to be a quiet, respectable man. " Then the policeman called a sergeant and arrested me. They bound my hands together and led me along, soldiers beating me as we passed. When we reached the station I tried to explain, but they threw me down and beat me very, very badly with a nagaika (a leather whip with a piece of lead 302 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. at the end). They tore my cheek open, and struck me all over the face and body, and said that I was a thief and a scoundrel. Then they searched me, and took everything away, even my handkerchief, and I was bundled into a cell about twelve feet by ten, where there were twenty-one other men. All the other prisoners had been beaten too. I tried to stop the bleeding of my cuts by tearing my shirt and wrapping it round the wounds made by the whip. " Next morning I persuaded a warder to believe that if he would take a message to my sister, she would pay him well. My sister came and saw the superintendent. He was very grave, and told her that because of what the sergeant had said I was to be sent for six months to prison. He advised her to see the sergeant, and she did, and paid him ten roubles. Then the sergeant said it was all a mistake, and I was released." I was curious to see the prisons myself. The task was not easy, for Russian prisons are not open to the first newcomer at such a time as this. At last, by making friends of some of the warders, I secured admission. The scene will never fade from my memory. One cell I entered had already lost most of its prisoners, but a few, with faces and bodies clearly marked by the whip, crouch miserably within. I had brought a few small coins and some cigarettes HOW RUSSIA TREATS RIOTERS. 303 with me. When I handed them to those nearest, the miserables flocked around me, kissing the hem of my garments, showing by their fawning spirits and their seared hmbs clear evidence of the inferno they had gone through. And as I stood there, seeking to suppress my nausea from the evil-smeUing surroundings, my heart went out in hot anger against the system responsible for this torture of men. The gaoler took me to another cell, the size of an ordinary room. "We packed seventy of 'em in here," he said gleefully. The stench was so intense that I fled hastily. Six weeks later I was again in Warsaw, and there saw the aftermath. The city was still in the hands of the soldiers, and at early morning one was awakened by the call of the bugles. Fully armed companies, in scattered units, paraded the main streets day and night ; they dared not walk en masse, for bomb throwers now made that too danger- ous. In the small hours, picked files descended quickly on marked houses, and pulled men from their beds to move them by the dozen to fortress and to prison. The talk in the cafes and in the theatres was of little but civil strife. Each hour brought its rumours of plot and of counter-plot, of conspirator arrested, or of policeman killed. Now came news 304 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of a round ten dozen of bombs discovered by the gendarmerie in an ancient tomb. Here a nodding acquaintance brought from his pocket a copy of a minatory announcement of the revolutionists, dropped in five thousand letter boxes last night. Now, under the lamp lights you could see a collapsing man, wounded and bleeding, being carried into a droschky by the police. Now the quick pattering of horses struck one's ear, as the ambulance hurried to a spot where the bomb throwers had been more or less successful. Cossack nagaika, policeman's whip, bullet, and prison cell had done their work. Rebellion, driven from the streets, had taken secret forms, and the party of outrage, shielded and protected by the whole city, was taking slow and careful vengeance. On the previous Sunday the anarchists had lain waiting for Baron Nolekin, Chief of Police, and he was between life and death now with a hundred and twenty wounds in him. The knowledge of coming dynamite outrage was common to all but the victims hours ' before it occurred. Men of all ranks secretly condoned the work of the dynamiters. " You do not understand our people," one eminent savant exclaimed to me when I ventured to hint disapproval of bomb rule. " It is a psychological effect we are after, and the bomb produces it." The life of the city went on much as usual, despite all. The streets were as full as ever of HOW RUSSIA TREATS RIOTERS. 305 handsome and beautifully - dressed women. The cafes were crowded, although the talk in them was somewhat more strained, and higher voiced than usual. Warsaw, the Paris of Central Europe, is ever a delightful city, and in those early spring days it took on a fresh allurement. One's attention was strangely divided between the natural charm of the place and the ferment beneath. Yet that ferment strangely lacked point and purpose. The people were thirsting for revenge, and policemen and soldiers were continually being killed. The movement, however, more resembled a great wave of discontent than a systematic revolt. Warsaw was bitter, and Poland was ready to make trouble. But between the discontent which finds its expression in murder and outrage, and the rebel- lion which overthrows a great empire, there is a deep gulf fixed. 20 3o6 CHAPTER XXX. The Revolt in the Caucasus, Trans-Caucasia is a land of armed men, of hardy mountaineers, of brigandage and of frequent out- rage. In few other places on earth is life held so cheap or taken so readily. Given a hot-blooded Oriental people, passionate and fully armed, and trouble must be frequent. In one or two places, it is true, such as Tiflis, the Government has en- forced the non-display of weapons in public, but elsewhere every man carries his gun and daggers and revolver as a matter of course. While Russia rules outwardly, revolutionary committees exer- cise secret, but great power. Blackmail, thinly disguised under a political veil, is general. Many diverse peoples, hostile by race, religions and habits, maintain perpetual war, none the less keen or bitter or bloody because its outward display is limited by the presence of troops. To Russia, Trans-Caucasia is of special import- ance as the road to the south, and as the stepping-off place for the great national schemes of advance THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS. 307 against Turkey and Persia. Baku, with its enor- mous oil fields, is a constant source of wealth to the Government, and Batoum is the shipping port for one portion of Asia. The country is a great mine, and even though its mineral treasures are as yet scarcely scratched, thriving ports and cities have sprung up in many parts. With settled government and firm administration, it would quickly become one of the richest provinces of Russia. At present, however, the Caucasus shares with Finland and Poland the place of greatest anxiety in the near East for the Petersburg authorities. During the weeks I was there in the spring of 1905 the whole province was unsettled ; every racial hate had been revived and blown to white heat, and every bitterness against Russia was finding ex- pression. At Batoum and at Poti revolutionary strike committees had paralysed work for weeks, threatening with death any who dared resist them. Right across the peninsula revolutionary committees exercised their secret powers unflinch- ingly. It is difficult at first to understand the extent of the power of these revolutionary committees. They have one weapon to secure their will — murder of those who differ from them — and this weapon they use with the utmost freedom. While I was in Baku, two men were being tried for the murder of 20* 30g FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. an Armenian merchant the previous summer. This was a case very typical of the country. The revo- lutionary committee had sent a representative to the merchant, demanding a hundred thousand roubles. He bluntly refused. They gave him three days to pay, but he went on with his work as usual and took no more notice of them. At the end of the third day he was shot while walking in the public garden of his city. Two men were arrested and brought to trial, but all Armenians said they were innocent. The committee had seen to it that the real assassin escaped. The Armenian is largely at the bottom of the trouble in Trans-Caucasia. It is natural for the English Christian to sympathise with the Armenian Christian, who is so often the victim of Mohammedan oppression. But the almost unanimous opinion of Europeans in the Near East is against the Armenian. His very virtues make him disliked. He is clannish and thrifty, and a hard worker. To these qualities he adds others less amiable. He is the Jew of the= East. He has the restless irritability of a poetical people, and often he does not lack the meaner qualities which are the inevitable outcome of centuries of oppression. For some time the Caucasian Armenians were greatly favoured by the Russian Government, but two or three years ago the then Governor-General altered his attitude. He became suspicious that THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS. 369 .they were using their church funds for political con- spiracy. Cases of arms were bought with church monies, smuggled in the country by the Armenians, and concealed by church of&cials. The arms were intended for service against the Turks. The Government used this as an excuse to take con- trol of the enormous church funds, and it now -supervises their expenditure. This has made the Armenians, almost to a man, enemies of Russia. The revolutionary committees, which had for some time been busy fighting the Sultan, now turned their attention to Czardom. The committees thought that they saw their opportunity in the defeats coming upon the Russian arms in the Far East. " Russia is finished," they said to one another bluntly. Then Russia took the opportunity of striking at them the most deadly of blows. The story of the February massacres at Baku cannot be fully told in public, for some of the details are unprintable and can scarce be whispered from man to man. There can be little doubt but that the Russian authorities at least connived at the racial rising of the Mohammedan Tatars against the Armenians. Many of the Tatars were armed .during the riots with the Russian Army Smith- Wesson revolvers, and they were permitted to go ahead unchecked for some days in a way that throws grave suspicion on the authorities. 3 10 PROM TOKYO TO TiFLIS. The tragedy began in the most sordid fashion, in the love episodes of certain Armenians and Tatars. These led to quarrels and murders, and murders in turn led to reprisals. The Armenians brought in from Turkey a young bravo who was particularly noted as an expert assassin. The coming of this bravo was well known, and as he swaggered down the streets each day, always walk- ing in the centre of the road, people looked at him askance. Soon man after man of the leading Tatars disappeared, or was found dead, but in each case the murder was done so skilfully that it was impossible to bring it home to anyone. Alarmed, the Tatars met together and chose one young fellow to murder the Armenian bravo. He succdeded by a ruse common in the East. But the murder epidemic was now fully started. A famous and popular Tatar chief, against whom the most degrading accusations were brought, was arrested by two Armenian soldiers. As they were driving to prison one of his captors whispered to him that he had been bribed to allow him to escape, and that when they came to a certain point the man could jump out of the carriage and would be allowed to get away. He jumped out at the spot appointed, whereupon the soldiers deliberately shot him dead. The Tatars seized the body and carried it around their quarters with great lamentation. Word THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS. 311 spread like wildfire that nothing less than the annihilation of their race was meant. Messengers went out to the villages with a call to arms and before long hosts of men poured in, fierce, well- armed, accustomed to death. Then the city was suddenly turned into a shambles. The Armenians were caught at a disadvantage. They had no organisation to meet a concerted attack, they had not sufficient arms, and no common plan. They defended themselves as best they could in small bands and in scattered parties, but they were hopelessly overborne. For three days the authorities held their hand, and in spite of the fact that they had abundant troops around would do nothing. Houses were put to the flames. Women were mutilated. Whole families were shot down or burned. A cowering mother was done to death while she sought to drag her scanty frock to conceal her child in a dark corner of a room. One merchant stood siege for over two days, shooting all who dared approach his house. Then there came a sudden rush, torch was applied to the door, and of all, himself, his wife, children, and dependents, not a single one was left. Women were shot as freely as men. In short, there was one great outburst of vengeance and hatred. After three days the authorities began to think it time to interfere. A young Russian captain 312 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. '■ would stand it no longer. " I will go out," he said, " and stop this, even if they court-martial me afterwards." He went out with his company and acted effectively. Then the acting Governor took a hand, and the Armenian and Mohammedan priests fraternised publicly in the streets. A few hours later the fighting was over, but not before two hundred and fifty-eight Armenians had been killed. The revolt had done its work. Many of the leading Armenian revolutionists were dead, and the idea of an Armenian revolution against Russia had been for the time at least delayed. ****** In the country, the Government .meanwhile had to deal with a strike of the peasants. . Over two years ago the Gourians, a large tribe on the western border of the Caucasus, objected to the terms of land tenure and refused to till the soil. Their land is mostly used for the cultivation of maize, and the rent paid took the form of a certain quantity of grain each year. The peasants claimed, apparently with some justice, that in bad seasons they did not raise enough corn even to pay their rent. They had other causes of dispute also. The Georgian tribes in Trans-Caucasia do not take kindly to government. Their life is patriarchal, and they prefer the home rule of the village elders ; parti- cularly they object to outside taxation. For cen- luries they maintained constant war with the rest A typical Guurian in long sheepskin cloak. [ To face page 312. THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS. 313 of the world, and even to-day, when a railway is run through their country and Russian military roads make the movements of outsiders easy, they are still suspicious of outer peoples. They adopted the readiest means of protesting against the terms of their tenancy. They simply refused to till the land until they obtained the concessions they wanted. In the end, the landlords gave way and substituted a greatly reduced rent in the form of money for the old corn exactions. But meanwhile the Gourians having discovered their own power, went further. They decided that they would do without Russian government altogether. '.' What do the Russians tax us for ? " the people asked. " They say that they build our roads ; they do not. They eat our money and give us nothing in return. We will make our own roads." Accordingly they started to make their own roads and are still doing so. When a public meeting is called now, the ostensible purpose is to repair the roads, affording the people a good excuse if they are come down on by the soldiers when gathered together. The most arbitrary captain dare not shoot a peasant for mending the path near his house. The people refused to take their cases to the Russian courts ; they appointed councils of their own elders, to whom they refer all their quarrels. Some landlords and others, it is true, attempted to 314 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. appeal to the Russian authorities. To stop trouble, they were shot or stabbed. Some priests were suspected of betraying the plans of the people to the Russians, and even of revealing the secrets of the confessional. They, too, were killed. One surprising feature of the outbreak has been that the rebel districts have for the time become safer for an ordinary traveller than they ever were before. Roads have been better kept, and even brigandage — usually regarded as a com- paratively innocent relaxation — has been sternly punished by the irregular authorities. Thus recently a Greek merchant was travelling through the disturbed country, when his carriage was held up by two men, who took 1,500 roubles (about £170) from him. The merchant complained to the village elders. They formed a committee of inquiry, and on the following Sunday morning two houses were surrounded by an armed crowd, and their owners dragged out and made, under threat of death, to confess their guilt. A search in the roofs of the houses revealed most of the stolen money. The Sunday was a feast day, when everyone goes to church. While service was in progress, the robbers were brought to the church porch, stripped, tied to the shafts of the cab they had held up, and had two horses harnessed in front of them. The cabby got on his box-seat, and, as the villagers THE REVOLT IN THE CAUCASUS. 315 started emerging from church, crack went the whip over the men's shoulders, and off they had to go, shouting as they went (for this was part of their punishment), " We stole the money. We stole the money." They had to tear their hardest to keep up with the horses and save themselves from being dragged along the ground. The slightest sign of slackening brought the cabby's whip on them. Finally they were released, more dead than alive, the money was restored to the merchant, and they were further fined two hundred roubles each for the good of the community. Brigandage is now at a discount in that village. In another case two men stole a cow. They, too, were brought outside the church on a feast day, and were tied back to back, and then firmly secured to the back of the cow they had stolen. Their punishment was to stand thus, helplessly trussed, and sing in chorus. " We stole the cow." The people came out of church, firing pistols in the air, as usual, to celebrate the feast, and jeering at the cow thieves. Then the cow, unaccustomed to powder, and startled by the shots, tore off at a mad gallop. Before it could be stopped the men were kicked and knocked almost out of shape. The Russian authorities are very anxious not to proceed to extremities. A considerable force has been gathered in the rebel district under the com- 316 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. mand of a general famous as a crusher of revolt, but for the time the troops are held back, and com- missioners from Tifiis are going among the people, seeking to learn their grievances and to discover methods of conciliation. 317 CHAPTER XXXI. Will there be a Russian Revolution ? Those who have read this book so far will scarcely accuse me of seeking to suppress the truth about the more dangerous sides of the Russian situation. I have purposely, in the three chapters immediately preceding this, detailed the story of two of the most terrible recent Russian risings. One of these I witnessed from its inception myself, and in the other I was on the ground not long after the fighting began. Do such signs portend a Russian revolution in the near future ? I am very doubtful if they do. It is difficult for an Englishman to under- stand the point of view of the Russian peasant and workman, who are the vital factors in this situation. Things which to us are of over- whelming importance are to them but trifles, while points and rights which we would willingly let go they cling to tenaciously. My own decided impression, after travelling in many parts of Russia and discussing the future with people of all classes, is that the likelihood of a revolution is 3i8 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. not nearly so great as many foreigners think. Of course, further disasters or further mistakes of administration may at any moment cause a rising throughout the country, but this is not probable. During the past few months the various revo- lutionary organizations have undoubtedly shown amazing fresh activity. They have suddenly be- come possessed of abundant funds. Exiles who a year or eighteen months ago were lying perdu in Ishngton or the purlieus of Tottenham Court Road, in Montmartre, or in the back streets of Geneva, are now dwelling on the Russian borders of Austria or Prussia, well dressed and comfortably fed, conducting their campaigns. The revolutionary organizations may be divided into two classes — the terrorists and the constitu- tionalists. Beside the two main Russian bodies there are separate organizations for Poland, of which the chief are the Polish Party of Socialists, and the Bund — a league made up mainly of Jews — and there are also other organizations in Armenia. The Armenian patriots have in the past fiercely quarrelled among themselves, but they now claim that they have for the time sunk their minor differences in the common cause against Russia. It has been my lot to come in contact with more than one of the revolutionary organizers. They make little secret of their plans or methods. Their associations are generally moulded on the " centre " model devised WILL THERE BE A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION? 319 by Stephens, the famous Fenian leader. A com- mittee acts as the pivot of the organization, holding all the funds and planning campaigns. Immediately under it come provincial committees, each with one delegate from the centre. No member of a pro- vincial committee needs know any member of the centre committee save its representative on his own body. He may not know any member of any other provincial committee, and is possibly ignorant even of the names of his own companions, for aU work by numbers. The provincial committee has under it in turn a number of district committees worked on the same plan. These district committees are made up of representatives from a group of circles. A circle may be composed of twenty members ; it meets secretly, and usually each time in a different place. It is under the entire control of the district committee. If any member of the circle turns out a traitor, all he can do is to tell of his own score of companions. This method largely baffles the investigations of the Russian secret police. The revolutionary organizations mostly find their supporters among the literary classes, the Jews, and the working men. Poland and Trans-Caucasia stand by themselves, but even in Poland it would be difficult to persuade the mass of the people to change discontented complaints into revolutionary action. The Polish peasant knows weU who pays 320 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. the price of revolt, and the recollection of the terrors of the sixties is still seared on his brain. He remembers, too, the stories told him by his fathers of the way the old PoHsh nobles oppressed the people under them. The literary classes have a voice abroad wholly out of proportion to their numbers or influence. It ' is they who clamour for a free press, and demand constitutionalism. To. the mass of the Russian people free press and constitutionalism are little more than meaningless phrases. A Voltaire may produce a French revolution, but not until a genera- tion after. In the course of a few years the teaching and the agitation of the literary men may have effect, but it is at least unlikely that this effect will be immediate. The world has never yet seen a revolution led by college professors. The Jews stand on a very different plane. They present a far graver menace to the autocracy than do the teachers and writers. It is not for me here to repeat the old story of the indignities heaped on them, or the many reasons which convince some of the most thoughtful Russians that entire freedom for the Jews would mean wholesale hardship for their own people. The controversy has been thrashed out often elsewhere. The position of the Jew in Russia to-day— outside Poland— is one that may well stir him to anger. He lives at the mercy of the poHceman, and he must either bribe or WILL THERE BE A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION? 321 suffer continually. He is not left alone by his fellow Jews in other lands, and blows against him have a way of recoiling. He belongs to a great international brotherhood, and his co-religionists in Austria and Germany have done much to aid him. Without the Jew, most of the revolutionary organizations would fall to the ground from mere inanition. The workman, Russian and Polish, is the main hope of the revolutionary parties. He has shown power to organize himself and to demand and enforce concessions in a way that not long since would have seemed impossible. This has been strikingly dis- played recently in some Polish towns, particularly in Lodz, the great textile centre. There the men, under the bidding of a secret committee, acted as one. They struck in peaceful fashion. They main- tained order throughout the town, they refused to be tempted by the police agents into movements which would give the troops excuse for attacking them, and they carried out a long strike with skill and good generalship, worthy of the oldest trade organizations of England. Strikes similar to that at Lodz have been common throughout the country. These strikes have been used by the revolutionary organizations as a means for impressing the world with an idea of their power. But are the strikers revolutionists ? Do they want to overthrow the Government ? All my enquiries have gone to show that the sole aim 21 322 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. of the overwhelming majority of them is the more prosaic one of better conditions and higher wages. " Less work, more pay, and less trouble from the police," might sum up the workman's demands. Here again there is a possibility that the revo- lutionary leaders will succeed in securing the allegiance of the mass of workmen to a programme of general revolt. The revolutionists are smuggling arms into the country and are securing quantities of old Government weapons in Russia itself. The working classes have undoubtedly been greatly disturbed by the incoming of new conditions. For the first time they have felt their power and found their ability to force from the Government and from the employers great improvements in their con- dition. They have tasted freedom, and found the taste of freedom sweet. It is almost certain that for some time ahead they will give constant trouble. But even if they do their worst, revolution need not follow, for they only represent between two and three per cent, of the population. The peasants — the overwhelming mass of the population — are certainly not anti-dynastic. Many of them are hungry and angry, but their anger is directed against local of&cials and is associated with a feeling of the most intense loyalty to the Czar. Here the influence of the Orthodox Church acts as a bulwark for Czardom. The peasants in many of their local revolts have professed to work WILL THERE BE A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION? 323 in the name of the Czar as against his local ill- advisers and misrepresentatives. The real cause of the peasant troubles is land hunger. The great increase of the rural population since serfdom came to an end has terribly strained the resources of the available land. An enormous amount of rural Russia is held by the nobles and by the State. It is proposed that the new National Assembly should, as its first measure, hand over a vast extent of State land to the peasants on a forty- eight years' purchase plan. If this is honestly carried out, and if it is followed by another measure securing the appropriation on equitable terms of land now held by nobles in excess of all their wants, the peasant troubles will quickly be allayed. One of the darkest features of the situation from the Russian point of view is the general discontent against local officialism, and the general disbelief in the honesty of the administration. At first the stranger in Russia is inclined to discount the general stories of public corruption. But the longer he remains there the more he becomes convinced that this is a national canker. If the Russian soldier shows Russia at its best, the Russian official shows his country at the worst. Apart from certain exceptional departments, ruled over by specially good men, one is struck at every turn by an absence of public conscience. One example will illustrate what I mean. There 21* 324 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. should be no cause more sacred than the help of the wounded in war. Russia has a great Red Cross Society, under the control of the Grand Dukes, and under the direct patronage of the Czar. The Society is supported by voluntary contributions, and by taxation. Every railway traveller, for instance, has to buy a Red Cross tax ticket. At first the Russian people helped the Red Cross fund freely ; to-day it is a bye-word from one end of the country to the other. A prohibited cartoon, now being secretly circulated, sums up public opinion on it. " Machine for squeezing out contributions " is the title, and the drawing represents a boiler with pipes. At one end you see officials voluntarily contributing, and peasants having funds squeezed out of them. Two million roubles are thus raised. By the time this has passed through the collecting authorities it is reduced ten per cent. ; then come the head provincial authorities, who take half a million roubles from it ; then it reaches the Czar at the centre, but even under his hand Ministers and high officials reduce the remaining 1,300,000 roubles by a million, leaving only three hundred thousand to go forward. Then all along the route to Manchuria are leaks in the pipe. At the end we see a group of haggard and suffering nurses, doctors, wounded men and officers waiting for aid. But the machine has been drained dry, and nothing comes out for them. (& er a, ^ 1 ^ < ■^ <■ M 1 ^ ^Z 1 s? «\!e- S f <*^ wi .■a t< .2 1 " < S cr o ■5 1 =r i3 )k f K -^ :\ o ' \ U 1 I A 3 "— ' WILL THERE BE A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ? 325 The same prevails in business. It is taken as a matter of course in all parts of the land that the police shall be regularly bribed. The shop- keeper who wishes to be left alone must give the sergeant of the district a monthly allowance ; the big merchant must make his peace with the higher officials. The sergeant of police, whose \ salary is 25 roubles a month, lives in an apartment costing five hundred roubles a year, and no one is surprised. I recently asked a friend of mine, a foreign manufacturer in a Russian town, what he paid for police bribes. " We have a regular scale," he said. " We pay it, not because we are doing anything illegal, for we are not, but simply because^ it is necessary to keep friendly with the officials. We give the Commissary (the chief district officer) 200 roubles a year, the principal assistant 100 roubles, the secretary fifty roubles a year, and the sergeant six roubles a month. Then of course we pay out odd sums for special services." That this bribery goes on in every buying depart- ment of the Government is so notorious that one need only mention it. The honest officials who fight it find themselves hopelessly overcome. Great attempts that have been made in the past to improve matters have only resulted in the creation of more officials to bribe. Russia, in short, does not seem to possess a pubhc conscience. The Russian in his private capacity 326 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. is the most charming of men. He is good-natured, kindly, sympathetic and friendly. The Russian woman is among the most winning and warm-hearted of her sex. They will go to endless trouble to aid or to please a stranger, without the faintest ulterior motive. Here and there, too, one man stands out in splendid relief, as a faithful public servant, as, for example, Prince Khilkoff, the Minister of Rail- ways. But when very many men touch public affairs they seem to change. In far too many cases officialism is rotten. One final point remains to be emphasized for the Englishman who would try fairly to understand the Russian situation to-day. A large propor- tion of the accounts published in the European press of outrages and risings in Russia are wholly^ false. This, I am well aware, is a grave thing to say, but I speak of what I know. I was present in the most troubled regions of Russia during the critical times in the early months of 1905. We had calamities so bad there that it seemed almost impossible to exaggerate them, yet even this was done. For every true story of revolt, at least half-^ a-dozen false ones were put in circulation. These fabrications generally started in some German papers and were telegraphed by Berlin correspondents everywhere. Shght conflicts with the troops all over Russia h£ive been magnified into serious riots.. Towns have WILL THERE BE A RUSSIAN REVOLUTION? 327 been represented as in revolt which have known no trouble. The death of one man has become, by the time it reached Paris or London, the assassination of a hundred. These exaggerations and fabrications have been so systematic that it is impossible not to look for some organization behind them. In part at least we may suspect the influence of certain circles which have made a deliberate and sustained attack on Russian credit. The force of discontent in Russia must eventually produce a change. Unless the Government by liberal concessions — concessions which need not be along the constitutional lines expected in other lands — mollifies the people, an uprising sooner or later is certain. Already it is practically impossible to mobilise fresh troops in districts like Poland and the Caucasus. The agitation among the working classes is bound within five years to produce an effect upon the army if no administrative improve- ments come, and once the army is weakened the autocracy has gone. 328 CHAPTER XXXII. A Japanese Triumph — and After, Japan has won her victories by the disciphne of her soldiers, the simphcity of their hves, the self- sacrifice of the entire nation, and by elaborate preparation. Russia has lost (so far as the war has yet gone), despite the courage of individuals, because she despised her enemy, refused to pre- pare to meet her, and believed that a policy of bluff and of bluster would carry her through. The men who acted for Russia in the Far East before the war betrayed the cause of the white races. The war, it is true, is not yet over, and the results are not as yet assured. But even in the event of Japanese exhaustion and defeat, the position of the Oriental cannot be the same in the future as before. The Eastern races have learned the possibility of standing up successfully against the West, and the lesson of Japan is being to-day conned and absorbed by her neighbours. What will a Japanese victory mean ? The English public, save that part of it which has lived in the Far East, is so fully convinced that all the A JAPANESE TRIUMPH— AND AFTER. 329 right in this war is on one side that he who ventures to hint at anything to the contrary can scarce expect a sympathetic audience. Yet I would point out a few root facts. First, the Japanese are essentially a military nation, with the virtues and vices of such. They are hardy, proud, supremely brave, and have an unconquerable belief in their own might. Men who have seen no distance below the surface talk glibly of Japan having thrown off her Orientalism. In truth Japan is the most Oriental of all the nations and the most firmly rooted in the conviction of her own superiority. For the moment it suits Japanese statesmen and publicists to take smilingly the patronage of the West. But already in the Japanese press, and among the younger Japanese people, a different tendency is plainly manifest. " It is our task," the younger Japanese say, " to impose our civilisa- tion on the West. We will make the cruelties and barbarisms of your old life in time impossible. We will bring you not the Yellow Peril, but the Yellow Blessing." Let me quote from one recent Japanese writer, to show the thoughts that have been coming to many of the people during the past few months. " The pitched battle between the Orient and the Occident will be unavoidable, however highly it may be desired to avoid it. Compromise will be 330 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. impossible, until one side or the other yields to| the superior force. It is now the Orient's turn to| shine . . . The Orientals, when their sinews! wax strong under careful nursing by Japan, will|. oblige Japan to lead them in invading thej dominions of the Caucasian races for the double' purposes of military and civil conquests. For the', military purpose, 4,000,000 of troops can be raised: out of China's 400,000,000. When trained by thev Japanese officers, the 4,000,000 Chinese troops will? make an army sufficient by itself to defeat theJ combined forces of the Europeans. For civili purposes, Japanese statesmen will in all respects; be better qualified to administer the state affairs' of Eiirope as well as of Asia. The tyranny of the-; rulers, under which the Poles, the Finns, and otheH small races in Europe are suffering, will be a thing! of the past. The political dishonesty to which the| people of the Western states are subjected will be; wiped out and the world will be brought nearer to': a state of perfection for the benefit of all classes of people." Events have moved rapidly during the past few months. Already the Eastern political problem has been completely transformed. We no longer talk glibly of the partitioning of China. Anti- Japanese legislation in Australia is being relaxed. Similar proposals by Canadian provincial govern- ments are being vetoed in Ottawa, Supremacy on A JAPANESE TRIUMPH— AND AFTER. 331 the Pacific has been suddenly transferred to the new world Power. Japan is but at the beginning of her world-wide designs. In any scheme of world supremacy, Japan must largely count on China. The dominance of China by Japan undoubtedly presents many difficulties. The Chinese are as proud a race as are the little islanders, and for centuries have looked upon them with contempt as a group of insignificant tribesmen on their borders. If Japan secured peace with Russia and had a free hand, it would be easy enough for the Japanese troops to sweep away the present Manchu dynasty and put their own nominee in its place. But such a step would probably be fatal. The more likely way is to pro- mote the gradual growth of Japanese influence, the appointment of Japanese officers in military /'service, and the securing of special Japanese trade t concessions throughout China. " We are going to do io£K>.,thje.,.Chinesfii,.what.you have done for India," Japanese officers have told me. " Their men will make splendid soldiers, we will organise them, give them their own officers and ourselves act as supreme commanders as you do with your Indian native regiments." No one believes that Japan will in the near future attempt to fight other Western Powers, unless forced thereto. Her immediate progress after the war will be along the lines of commer- 332 FROM TOKYO TO TIFLIS. cial expansion, backed by a greatly augmented fleet. Japanese domination represents, far more than does Russian, the gradual stifling of European trade. This has been clearly seen in Japan itself. In the early days, a large number of European firms estab- lished themselves there. -Within the last few years these have steadily been- driven -out. Notices are constantly appearing in the Japanese press announcing that certain old English houses have been taken over by newer Japanese ones. Japan <^ill not permit .,tJie. foreigner to own real -es-tate wij;hin her own territory, outside of .Qld. Treaty Eort -..eights. Japanese commercial legislation aims, very naturally, at keeping Japanese trade in Japanese hands, and at securing all the foreign trade possible for her own people. Within the last few months, Korea has afforded a still more striking example of this, and it is not too much to say that the ' Japanese dominance of Korea has already gone very far to kill European trade there. I for one do not blame the Japanese for this. They have as much right to attempt to secure the supremacy of the world for themselves as we have. They do well, from their own point of view, to fight for all the trade they can secure, and for all the territory they can conquer. But when I see a strong military nation coming into the front rank of the world powers, I ask myself how far her A JAPANESE TRIUMPH— AND AFTER. 333 advance will work against the well-being of my own people in generations yet unborn. It may be that by the future possible conflict of East and West, a higher and a greater human civilisation will be worked out. But that is open to question. An overwhelming Japanese victory in the present war is surcharged with possibilities of world disturbance. The plane of civilisation on which Japan stands is not ours. A victorious Japan means within half a century, a ,feriag,p.ting^ India and^,„ih;;eat.ened Australia . To many of my own people I am well aware that views such as those expressed m this chapter must seem Uttle more than idle folly. But from the Eng- lishman who sees Japan through distant haze, and from the chance tourist who comes home declaring even the miserable and stunted women coal carriers of Moji picturesque and attractive, I appeal to those other Englishmen who, by long residence in the Far East and by close business association with the peoples there, know. Should Japan carry the war to a successful issue, her expansion will be phenomenally rapid. For the time, we are working together in an alliance, ^glanngcL, and imposed on us by the Elder Statesnien at Tokyo., ,"\Vj.thout ,thi&alliance,- it, we may be at any time embroiled.FJiti-Qur,.JEufQpean neighbours. I, for one, am convinced that much 334 FROM TOKYO TO TiFLlS. of ■ the ,iu,iui:e,., growth .of Japan will be at the cost . of,. Qur. .Eastern trade, oujc., . prestige, .-and, eventually, our. territory. This nation is not to be despised. But if we look fully at her power, if we mark the ambition of her statesmen, the aims of her younger men and the might of her armies, it may yet be that, should the great hour of conflict come, we shall have no cause for fear. THE END. INDEX AiHO (tributary of the Yalu), 133. 134, 139, 145- An-liop, 78. An-ju, 97, 104, 117, 120, 130. Anping, 210, 226, 231, 237. Anshantien, 231, 236, 237, 239. Antung, 133, 134, 143, 160, 184 ; communications between Mo- tienling and, 211 ; prisons in, 163 ; wires cut at, 185. Armenians, 311. Artillery duels, 245, 249. Asada, Major-General, 218. Asama (Japanese cruiser), 45 ; attacks Variag and Korietz, 46. Author : at Chinnampho, 109 ; at Newchwang, 281 ; at Tokyo, 6 ; at Warsaw, 285, 303 ; buys ponies, 71 ; buys saddles, 68 ; interviews Yi Yong Ik, 33 ; leaves Seoul, 76 ; meets with an accident, g^ ; purchases "Traveller," 117 ; reaches Surenchen, 123 ; returns to Japan in a collier, 284 ; speculates on the pro- bable result of the war, 328- 334 ; under supervision, 11 1 ; visits Fusan, 20 ; visits Seoul, 21. Baikal Cossacks, 289.- Baku, 307 ; massacres at, 309. Bass, Mr. J., 114. Battle pictures, 259-268. Battles : Chia-a-tzu, 200 ; Liao- yang, 227-258 ; Mijayama, 250; Telissu, 187; Tensui- tien, 217 ; Yalu River, 143- 151 ; Yushuling, 215. Battle songs, 5. Bloch, M., 132. Bribery in Russia, 325. Brigands, 201. Browning automatic pistols, 289. Byelaieff, Captain, 44. Campaigning in summer time, 167-189. Canton, 23. Caucasian Cossacks, 289. Caucasus, revolt in the, 306. Censorship in Japan, 3. Chaotaopotsu, 214. Chef 00, 67. Chemulpho, 20, 36, 51, 76, 240 ; harbour at, 20 ; landing troops at, 40 ; Variag and Korietz destroyed off, 52. Chia-a-tzu, 209, 212, 229, 234 ; battle of, 200 ; Japanese losses at, 203 ; Russian posi- tion at, 203. China, 22. Chinnampho, 109, 171 ; author kept under supervision at, III; breaking up of the ice 336 INDEX. at, 129 ; war correspondents at, 115. Chobaipai, 214, 215. Chong-ju, 118; skirmish at, 118. Chong Kiang Dai (island), 134, 137, 144- Choshiu, 13. "Chow," 72. Chujapooza, 222. Chul-sung Gate, 128. Chul-syon, 97. Chyoida (Japanese warship), 48 ; attacks Variag and Korietz, 48. Clodna district, riots in the, 288. Collbran and Bostwick, Messrs., 29. Conical Hill, 134, 143, 144. Davis, Mr. O. K., 114. Dinwiddle, Mr. W., 114. Don Cossacks, 289. Donohoe, Mr. M. H., 114, 281. Dunn, Mr., 63, 88. "Elba" (Italian warship), 52. Emperor of Japan, 280. Emperor of Korea, 24. English colony at Newchwang, 283. Fengfangcheng, 116, 165, 179, 184, 185, 277 ; telegraph wires cut at, 186. Field surgery, 152-154. Finland, 307. " Fly fighters," 179. Foreign Legations at Seoul, 25. Eraser, Mr. D., iii. Fuji, General, 123. Fusan, 16 ; description of, 18 ; Japanese barracks at, 18 ; railway from Seoul to, 18 ; telegraph wires cut at, 39. Gangrene among Russian wounded, 55. Gebato, 214. GenercUSherman (American ship), 96. Genkado, 135. Gensang, 96, 127. Georgian tribes, 312. Gingseng (root), 91. Gourians (tribe), 312, 313. Haicheng, 183. Haiju, 76, 127. Hamatan, 134, 144. Hamilton, Sir Ian, 264. Hamun (despatch-boat), 1 1 1 . Hare, Mr. J., 115. Hasegawa, General, 212. Hayashi, Mr., 30. Henlin, 214, 215. Hermit Kingdom, 17, 96. " Hero of Motienling," 263. " Hibachi " (charcoal box), 8. Hiraoka, Major, 207. Hiroshima, 3. Hoyen, 217. Hung-hutzes, or " Redbeards " (robbers), 283. Ikons, 291. Impin River, 91. Independence Arch at Seoul, 80. " Ingooa "= English, 172. Inouye, Count, 80, 212, 213, 216. James, Captain, iii. Japan : before the war, 1-15 ; censorship in, 3 ; patriotism INDEX. 337 m, 3 ; spy mania in, 7 ; war fund in, 9. Japanese Government, bureau- cratic methods of the, 275. Japanese Legation at Seoul, 17. Japanese soldiers, 177 ; arms, dress, and equipment of, 177, 178 ; at Moji, 12 ; capture seven guns at Kincholing ; landing of, at Chemulpho, 42 ; strategy of, 189. Jardine, Captain, iii, 203. Kaiping, 183. Kangwan Forts, 17, 75. Kasan, 119. Keller, General Count, 194. Ke-san (the geisha of Korea), 28. Khilkoff, Prince, 326. Kim Mingun (author's servant), 72, 83. Kinchapotsu, 229. Kincholing, Japanese attack on, 237- Kinteito (island), 135. Kirton, Mr. W., 114. Kit-ze, 95. Kiuliancheng, 134, 138, 141, 143, 150, 156 ; Russian earth- works at, 131. Kiushu dansi, 261. Knight, Mr. E. F., 113. Knouts, 299. Kokura, 261. Koons, Mr., 108. Korea, 16, 270, 332 ; a hermit kingdom, 17 ; brigands of, 201 ; description of coast of, 16 ; Europeans attempt to settle in, 17 ; first glimpse of, 16-21 ; inhospitable nature of, 16 ; Japanese treaty with. 17 ; mourning customs in, 26 ; travelling in, 85 ; wild geese in, 92. Korean ponies, 71. Koreans : description of the, 19 ; dress of, 19. Korietz (Russian gunboat), 21, 41 ; attacked by the Asama and the Chyoida, 47 ;• blown up, 52- Kowliang leaves, 245. Kurito (island), 135, 137. Kuroki, General, 132, 165, 185, 209. Kuropatkin, General, 183, 186, 188, 239, 244, 248, 253 ; concentrates on Liaoyang, 231 ; defeated at, 252-8 ; evacuates Liaoyang, 247 ; position of, at Liaoyang, 236. Kwansalin, 260. Lee, Rev. G., ios>-. Liaoyang, 175, 182, 184, 187, 188, 241 ; advance of the Japanese on, 241 ; battle of, 227-258 ; number of men engaged at, 227 ; Russians retire on, 226. Lienshankwah, 209, 212. Li Hung Chang, 273 ; sues for peace, 15. Lodz, strikes at, 321. London, Mr. J., 63. McHuGH, Mr., 114. " Mafoos " (grooms), 74. Makau, 134. Makmenza, 220. Manchuria, 160, 270 ; position in, 183. Manchurian robbers, 283. 22 338 INDEX. Manchus, 173. Mandarin Road, 155. "March of death," 246. Marsalakowska (street in War- saw), 285 ;, riots in the, 281;. Masampho, 34. Massacre at St. Petersburg, 287. Maxwell, Mr. W., 114. Mijayama, or " Rice Cake Hill," 248 ; attack on, 250 ; attack renewed on, 254 ; Russians recapture, 256. Mikado, 2, 8. Missionaries at Pingyang, 107. Mistchenko, General, 76 ; ad- vances to Chong-ju, 118 ; arrives at Sun-chon, 122. Moffett, Dr. S., 105. Mohammedan Tatars, 309. Moji, 2, 333 ; coaling at, 10 ; description of, 13 ; mountain peaks round, 10 ; the Gib- raltar of Japan, 10. Mongolian robbers, 283. Motienling Pass, 169, 186 ; Ja- panese capture, 187 ; second attack on, igo. Moukden, 185, 187, 213. Murray, Captain, 291. Mutsuhito, 269. Nagaika (whip), 301. Nagasaki, 2. Newchwang, 281, 283, 284; English colony at, 283 ; the lesson of, 281-284. Nippon Yusen Kaisha, 41. Nishi, General, 195, 212, 225. Nolekin, Baron, 304; Ohara, Colonel, 218, 222. Okubo (Japanese statesman), 8. Osekito (island), 135. Oyama, Marshal, 228, 239. Pak (a coolie), 72. Palmer, Mr. F., 1 14. Papauling, 212. Pascal (French warship), 52 ; Russian wounded taken on board the, 55. Pavlofi, M. (Russian minister), 30 ; au revoir to, 57. Pekin, 23. Pekin Pass, 71. Pekin Road, 80, 232, 234, 248. Perry, Commodore, 147. Pingyang, 17, 91, 240 ; Chul- sung gate of, 128 ; descrip- tion of, 96 ; Japanese occupy, 127 ; missionaries at, 107 ; palace at, 98. Poland, 305, 307. Political strikes in Warsaw, 287. Pontooning the Tai-tse, 240. Port Adams, 185. Port Arthur, 2, 229, 284. Poti, 307. Prisons in Russia, 302. Puk-chan, 103. Railway construction, 185. " Red-beards," or Hung-hutzes (robbers), 283. Red Cross Society (Russian), 324- Renenkampf, General, t86. Revolutionary societies at Ba- toum and Poti, 307. Rhymes of war, 4. " Rice Cake Hill," or Mijayama, 248 ; attack on, 250 ; attack renewed on, 254 ; Russians recapture, 256. INDEX. 339 Rickshaws, 13, 36. River bridging, 185. Rudineff, Captain, 43. Russell, Sir W. H., 269. Russian spies, 7. Saimatsu, 177, 185. St. Petersburg, massacre at, 287. San Tau Wan, 142. Santo Maru (ship), 20, S3- Sashibo, 30. Seisluling, 218. Sen (coin), 9. Sendai, 261. Seoul : brasswork of, 27 ; com- pared with Canton and Pe- kin, 23 ; description of, 23 ; French missionaries murdered at, 17 ; Independence Arch at, 80 ; Japanese Legation at, 17 ; Japanese traders in, 67 ; land rising in value at, 29 ; sights of, 25 ; the city of strife, 22 ; trade in, 27 ; water supply of, 29. Seoul-Fusan Railway, 29. Sevastopol (Russian battleship), 49- Shantung, 160. Sharrocks, Dr. and Mrs., 121. Shibata, 261. Shimonoseki, 10, 273 ; descrip- tion of, 13; treaty of, 15. Shimonoseki, Bay of, 10. Shimonoseki, Straits of, 13. " Shimose " (Japanese explo- sive), 46, 136, 194. Shiniling, 196. Shinkailing, 218. Shinto service, 165. Shogunate, 261. Siberian Railway, 281. Siuyen, 177, 185. Smith- Wesson revolvers, 309. Socisilist organizations in Ar- menia, 318. Sojigo, 234. Song-do, 91. Spion Kop, 241. Stark, Vice-Admiral, 49. Stephens (Fenian leader), 319. Strikes : at Warsaw, 287, 291 ; at Lodz, 321. Suiteyanza, 221, 222. Sun-chon, 97, 118, 124; Cos- sacks enter, 128 ; General Mistchenko arrives at, 122. Sungari (Russian mail-boat), 54. Supplies, 185, 246. Surenchen, 123. Suyematsu, Captain, 195. Taitongkou, 195. Tai-tse (river), 231 ; pontooning the, 240. Takushan, 184, 231. Talbot (English cruiser), 43, 49, SO. Tang-ho (river), 231 ; Russians retire from the, 233, 237. Telissu, Russians defeated at, 187. Tensuitien, battle of, 217, 225. "The Fox" (nickname of Gen. Kuropatkin), 188. " The Red Banner " (Socialist song), 294. Thomas, Captain, 115. Tho-san, 78. Tientsin, 257. Tiflis, 306, 316. Tiger HUl, 134, 136, 138, 144, ISO. Togo, Major, 126. 340 INDEX. To-hok, 261. Tokyo, 3, 170, 270, 333 ; meet- ings in, 6 ; papers in, 3. Tong-haks (Korean robbers), 19 ; revolution of the, 63, 103. Towan, 209, 211 ; battle of, 229 ; Russians shell, 225 ; the tower of, 219. Trans-Caucasia, 306. Transport Corps (Japanese), 78. "Traveller" (horse), 117. Tsushima, 2, 34. UoL-Mi-DO (island), 45. Uraga, 147. Ural Cossacks, 289. Uriu, Vice- Admiral, 43. " Variag " (Russian cruiser), 21 ; attacked by the Asama and the Chyoida, 47 ; sunk, 53. Vicksburg(h.rs\erica,n warship), 52. Vladivostock, 76. Vodka, 286. Von Gottenberg, Herr, 115. " Wanderjahr," 273. War correspondents, 269 ; at Chemulpho, 113; at Chin- nampho, 115 ; enter Wiju, 125 ; salaries of, 271 ; woes of, 269. War Fund (Japanese), 9. Warsaw, 285 ; strikes in, 287- 291 ; the Paris of Central Europe, 305. War songs, 5. Watanabe, Major-General, 218, 225. Wei-hei-wei, 112. Western Korea, 185 " White Horse of Fusan," 274 Whittemore, Mr., 121. Wiju, 85, 97, 156 ; heights of 131 ; Russians shell, 136. Wire cutting, 241. Wire entanglements, 241, 244. Wola district, 298. Women coaling at Moji, 12 Yalu River, 16, 229, 230 ; battle of the, 143-151 ; car- nage at the battle of, 148-9 ; English flowers on the banks of the, 143 ; frozen, 63 ; pon- tooning the, 140 ; Russian prisoners at, 158. Yamato, 179. Yamen runners, 18, loi, 102. Yamolinza, 221, 225. Yang (coin), 69. Yangbans (Korean aristocrats), 102. Yantsuling, 211, 217, 218, 224 ; Russians defeated at, 226 ; Russian prisoners at, 226. Yasutsuma Kigoshi, General, 41. " Yellow Blessing," 329. Yellow Sea,, 16. " Yellow Peril," 329. Yen (coin), 9, 69. Yinkow, 264. Yi Yong Ik (supreme minister of Korea), 31 ; author inter- views, 33 ; a tyrant, 37. Yokohama, 3. Yuen Tai, 66. Yushuling, 211, 214, 217, 218; Russians fall back from, 226, Russian prisoners at, 226 ; the Russian Magersfontein, 215. 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