Chapter II: Introduction: Nicholas II

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, WORRIED BY THE WAR ]

The Russo-Japanese War was notable for the fact that, although there were more men on the spot ready to transmit the news to the world than there have been in any other war in modern times, there never has been a war since the days of the telegraph and the professional correspondent the daily news of which the world at large knew so little. There is, therefore, a unique interest in so vivid and comprehensive a pictorial history as that gathered by Collier’s correspondent photographers and presented in the following pages. Practically all the photographs, with the exception of a very few of those depicting scenes in Russia’ and with the Russian forces, were taken originally and exclusively for Collier’s, and they have not appeared elsewhere except by special arrangement and permission. A large number of these photographs have never been printed in Collier’s, and they are published in this book for the first time. Even these were chosen from many hundreds of others, and they represent but a small part of the great mass of photographs which were secured by Collier’s indefatigable representatives at the front. In each weekly issue of Collier’s it was obviously impossible to devote more than a few pages exclusively to war pictures, and in such a small space it is a task of exceeding difficulty to convey to the casual reader any adequate realization of the unique value and the comprehensive extent of Collier’s Russo-Japanese War service. In this book the cumulative effect of many pictures helps to give at least a partial idea of the amount of material gathered by Collier’s correspondents, and it should be further explained that almost every one of the pictures herein reproduced is chosen from perhaps a dozen or score of photographs of similar scenes.

MUTSUHITO

EMPEROR OF JAPAN, WHO BEGAN THE WAR
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Since the days of the telegraph and the modern war correspondent, there has never been a war in which the work of the chroniclers was beset with such difficulties. During the early months of hostilities practically all of the correspondents were bottled up in Tokio, chafing at their delay, beseeching this official and that, buying winter outfits only to be compelled to change them for summer equipment, and wasting their energies during this fretful period of uncertainty in the description of conventional phases of Japanese life or of the entertainments given them by their inscrutable hosts of the Japanese war departments. It was only by some rare stroke of forehandedness, daring, or luck, by which he escaped temporarily from the Japanese watchfulness and censorship, that any correspondent was able at this time to do effective work. Of the little army of men who tried to chronicle the war, with pencil or camera, none more really “made good” than Collier’s photographer, James H. Hare. Mr. Hare worked in Tokio before war was declared, and he followed Kuroki’s army from its landing in Korea through the Yalu campaign and until the battle of the Sha-Ho. Mr. Hare is a specialist not in any sense a “button-pusher,” as he calls the amateur who carries a camera as an incidental. “When we stood on the heights of Wiju,” wrote Collier’s correspondent, Frederick Palmer, “the soldiers appeared only as the veriest specks to a camera lens. Jimmy wanted to see the charge as much as the rest of us. But the detail had to be shown and the photographer must be near the detail, so Jimmy slipped away when the censor wasn’t looking. I wonder if those who saw the realistic pictures of the groups of wounded around the hospital tents at the Yalu realized at all what they cost this little man, who is nearing his fiftieth year. He was the first of the correspondents’ corps to cross the river. He trudged through miles of sand up to his knees. His pony was worn out; his weary servant promptly resigned. But Jimmy himself was up the next morning at daybreak, ill and pale, developing the first photographs of the army at the front to be published.”

VICE-ADMIRAL ALEXIEFF

RUSSIAN VICEROY IN THE FAR EAST
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MARQUIS ITO HIROBUMI

JAPAN’S GREATEST LIVING STATESMAN
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Another of Collier’s photographers, Robert L. Dunn, was sent to Chemulpo before hostilities broke out and “beat” the newspaper and periodical world with his pictures of the first battle of the war and the landing of Japanese troops. The greater portion of the Russian pictures were taken by Victor K. Bulla, whose work in this country was controlled exclusively by Collier’s. Dozens of photographs which the reader may survey at his ease were taken only after long marches over frozen and wind-swept country. Films were developed in the field with the help of Korean coolies or Japanese commissary officers, and they reached Collier’s office only after being carried scores and perhaps hundreds of miles by coolie runners through a country where a mail service was unknown. Every one of the photographs printed in this book represents an outlay of time, energy, and money of which the uninitiated reader can have only a slight understanding.