Chapter XIX: Introduction (17)

During the evening Hasegawa’s brigade went over the hills, and occupied the two eastern shore forts called the “Mule’s Jaws.” The following morning Yamaji’s first regiment marched around the lagoon and occupied the peninsula forts, which had been deserted during the night. Where the Chinese all vanished to, appeared rather a mystery to the victors. It was found that most of them got away along the beach past Hasegawa, and the rest westward in small parties under cover of darkness. In such a wide stretch of hilly country, it was easy for them to conceal themselves if they once escaped the vicinity of their foes. Port Arthur was in full possession of Marshal Oyama, with the fleet under Admiral Ito safe in the harbor.

Now comes the most painful recital of the war. It is difficult to reconcile in any one’s mind the pretensions to enlightened civilization which the Japanese had claimed, with the horrible atrocities committed by the victorious army during the days following the capture of Port Arthur. Let us glance at what had been the history of Japanese treatment of the wounded in previous battles.

It will be remembered that in a foregoing chapter of this work, the proclamation of the Japanese minister of war enjoining humanity upon all his soldiers was quoted, and that it was stipulated that the ignorance of the Chinese as to the true meaning of humanity would cause them to commit atrocities no doubt, which must not be imitated in retaliation by Japanese troops. At Hiroshima, the military headquarters of Japan during the war, was the principal military hospital and the establishment of the Red Cross society, which to investigators were a remarkable revelation after all that had been said about Japanese inhumanity and indifference to suffering. As long ago as 1877, when the Satsuma clan raised the standard of rebellion, a benevolent society was founded to aid and care for the sick and wounded, enemies as well as friends, after the manner of the European Red Cross societies. Subscriptions at once began to pour in, the emperor and empress helping greatly, and throughout the Satsuma war the young organization distinguished itself admirably. From that time special efforts were made to bring the society up to the high standard of its western models in every way; and when the government of Japan in 1886 declared its adhesion to the Geneva convention, the “Hakuaisha” was reorganized and formally enrolled on the international list of Red Cross societies. Since then it had made rapid progress, its membership reaching nearly thirty thousand in 1893, with funds liberally augmented by the emperor, and an annual income before the war with China of $70,000. Since 1887, a large number of women, including members of the royal family and of the nobility, have become qualified nurses of the order and have taken instruction in the making of articles for use in its work. The objects of the society, as set forth in the rules, are to help the sick and wounded in time of war, and to prepare for the same by organizing a trained staff in time of peace. The last activity of the Red Cross society prior to the war in 1891, was when the central provinces of Japan were devastated by an earthquake which caused the loss of more than seven thousand lives, besides untold suffering.

With the object of training a staff properly, the society in 1886 established a hospital of its own in Tokio, and three years later, when this one was outgrown, a new one was erected on a splendid site provided by the emperor and empress. The hospital itself covers some two acres, and the grounds about ten. After the war began, the membership funds and operations of the society were all multiplied about three times above normal. All the working staff was under the control of the army medical staff, and operated in conjunction with the army corps. At Hiroshima in the permanent military hospital, Chinese wounded by the scores and hundreds were received and treated with the same care that was given to the Japanese. For order, cleanliness, and convenience these institutions would reflect credit on any country. Just prior to the battle of Port Arthur, the female nurses of the Red Cross societies in Hiroshima numbered eighty-eight and more were soon to come from Tokio. Like the men they had uniforms of European pattern, and all wore the badge of membership. Many had other badges representing special qualifications or services.

In Corea there were two hospitals managed by the Red Cross society, one near Chemulpo and the other near Ping-Yang. At the seat of war the society had a staff of forty, consisting of a chief manager, a secretary, a treasurer, five doctors, two pharmacists in charge of the drug supplies and thirty male nurses.

To those who love contrasts, it will be startling to note the difference between the spirit of the Japanese Red Cross society, which was doing everything that humanity and science could suggest for wounded Chinamen, and that of the victorious army at Port Arthur in its atrocious butchery of unarmed fugitives.

The execrable deeds which followed the taking of the place pushed into the background the question of how many hundreds on one side or the other fell in the battle. The massacre of the whole remaining population of Port Arthur, between two and three thousand, without distinction of age or sex, and that by the soldiers of Marshal Oyama’s army, for a time passed practically without mention in the newspapers of England and the United States. Three of the famous correspondents who entered the town with the Japanese army were Creelman of the New York _World_, Villiers of the London _Standard_, and Cowan of the London _Times_. The first detailed description of the atrocities witnessed by these correspondents was that made by Creelman, and for a time after his story was published, other leading American journals denounced it as false. One month later it was found that Creelman’s shocking story was true in every essential particular. No words except those from the lips of men who saw the acts of inhuman barbarity can justly describe the scenes. Said Cowan, in a letter dated at Kobe twelve days after the taking of Port Arthur:

“What happened after Port Arthur fell into Japanese hands, it would have been impossible and even dangerous to report while on the spot. At the earliest possible moment, every foreign correspondent escaped from the horrifying scene to a place where freedom of speech would be safe; and as we sailed away from Port Arthur on the Nagoto Maru eight days ago, almost astonished to find ourselves escaping alive from the awful epidemic of incredible brutality, the last sounds we heard were those of shooting, of wanton murder, continued the fifth day after the great battle. When the Japanese army entered Port Arthur on the 21st, beginning a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, the Chinese had resisted desperately till the last, retreating slowly from cover to cover, until they got back among the buildings on the outskirts of the town. Then at last all resistance ceased; they were thoroughly defeated, and made a stampede through the streets trying to hide or to escape, east or west as best they might. I was on the brow of a steep hill called “White Boulders,” in Japanese Hakugoku, commanding a close view of the whole town at my feet. When I saw the Japanese march in, firing up the streets and into the houses, chasing and killing every live thing that crossed their path, I looked hard for the cause. I saw practically every shot fired, and I swear positively that not one came from any but Japanese. I saw scores of Chinese hunted out of cover, shot down, and hacked to pieces, and never a man made any attempt to fight. All were in plain clothes, but that meant nothing for the soldiers flying from death got rid of their uniforms how they might. Many went down on their knees, supplicating with heads bent to the ground in kowtow, and in that attitude were butchered mercilessly by the conquering army. Those who fled were pursued and sooner or later were done to death. Never a shot came from a house as far as I could see, and I could hardly believe my eyes, for, as my letters have shown, the indisputable evidence of previous proceedings had filled me with admiration of the gentle Japanese. So I watched intensely for the slightest sign of cause, confident that there must be some, but I saw none whatever. If my eyes deceived me, others were in the same plight; the military attaches of England and America were also on Boulder Hill and were equally amazed and horrified. It was a gratuitous ebullition of barbarism they declared, a revolting repudiation of pretended humanity.

“Gun shots behind us turned our attention to the north creek leading into the broad lagoon. Here swarms of boats were moving away to the west, loaded to twice their normal limit with panic-stricken fugitives, men, women, and children, who had stayed too late in the beleaguered town. A troop of Japanese cavalry with an officer, was at the head of the creek, firing seaward, slaughtering all within range. An old man and two children of ten and twelve years had started to wade across the creek; a horseman rode into the water and slashed them a dozen times with his sword. The sight was more than mortal man could stand. Another poor wretch rushed out at the back of a house as the invaders entered the front door, firing promiscuously. He got into a back lane, and a moment later found himself cornered between two fires. We could hear his cry for quarter as he bowed his head in the dust three times; the third time he rose no more, but fell on his side, bent double in the posture of petition for the greatly vaunted mercy of the Japanese, who stood ten paces off and exultantly emptied their guns into him.

“More of these piteous deaths we saw, unable to stay the hands of the murderers; more and more, far more than one can relate, until sick and saddened beyond the power of words to tell, we slowly made our way in the gathering gloom down the hill, picking a path through rifle-pits thick with Chinese cartridge cases, and back to headquarters. There at the Chinese general’s pavilion, facing a spacious parade ground, Field Marshal Oyama and all his officers assembled, amid the strains of strange music from the military band, now a weird, characteristic Japanese march, now a lively French waltz, and ending with the impressive national anthem, “Kaminoga,” and a huge roar from twenty thousand throats, “Banzai Nippon!” All were overflowing with enthusiastic patriotism and the delight of a day’s work done, a splendid triumph after a hard fought fight; none of the Japanese dreamed that their guests from the west were filled with horror, indignation, and disgust. It was a relief to get away from that flood of fiendish exultation, to escape from the effusive glee of our former friends, who would overwhelm us with their attention which we loathed like caresses from the ghouls of hell. To have to remain among men who could do what we had seen was little short of torture.

“Robbed of our sleep on the eve of the battle, and utterly exhausted, we lay long next morning until the sound of shooting roused us. To our surprise and dismay we found that the massacre of Wednesday, which might have been explained though certainly not excused on the ground of excitement in the heat of battle, the flush of victory, and the knowledge of dead comrades mutilated, was being continued in cold blood now. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were spent by the soldiery in murder and pillage from dawn to dark, in mutilation, in every conceivable kind of nameless atrocity, until the town became a ghastly Inferno to be remembered with a fearsome shudder until one’s dying day. I saw corpses of women and children, three or four in the streets, more in the water; I stooped to pick some of them out to make sure that there could be no possibility of mistake. Bodies of men strewed the streets in hundreds, perhaps thousands, for we could not count—some with not a limb unsevered, some with heads hacked, cross-cut, and split lengthwise, some ripped open, not by chance but with careful precision, down and across, disemboweled and dismembered, with occasionally a dagger or bayonet thrust in private parts. I saw groups of prisoners tied together in a bunch with their hands behind their backs, riddled with bullets for five minutes, and then hewn in pieces. I saw a junk stranded on the beach, filled with fugitives of either sex and of all ages, struck by volley after volley until—I can say no more.

“Meanwhile every building in the town was thoroughly ransacked, every door burst open, every box and closet, every nook and cranny looted. What was worth taking was taken, and the rest destroyed or thrown into the gutter. Even Mr. Hart, Reuter’s war correspondent on the Chinese side, whom we found when we entered Port Arthur, was robbed of everything but the clothes he had on, while his cook and two scully boys in the same house were shot at their kitchen stove, while doing nothing but their regular work. Mr. Hart himself had told the Chinese hotel keeper before the battle not to leave the town, because the Japanese would certainly do no harm to citizens or property. So thoroughly had been the discipline maintained, and so perfect the show of civilized methods in warfare, that the present outburst of cold-blooded brutality was the very last thing to have been thought possible.

“The Japanese alleged that the populace of the town had been armed with guns and express ammunition, and that the army when entering the town had been attacked from the houses. I did afterward find cartridges such as these lying about; but I never saw one fired. I never saw any attack from the houses. I saw the Japanese firing before they entered, and as they entered, without intermission.

“The Japanese who had been wounded and killed or captured in several skirmishes before the day of the battle, had been horribly mutilated by the Chinese. We saw several bodies along the line of march, and it is said others were found in the town, with hands and heads cut off, stomachs opened, etc. And some were burnt at Kinchow, and one said to be burnt in Port Arthur. Moreover, placards have been found offering rewards and stating prices, for heads, hands, or prisoners. So the Japanese soldiers swore revenge, and they carried out their vow thoroughly in barbarous eastern style. All that can be said is that the Chinese committed nameless atrocities which the Japanese repaid a hundred fold.

“It is unavoidable that innocent persons must be killed in war. I do not blame the Japanese for that alone; Chinese soldiers dress as peasants and retain their weapons, and attack when they can under cover of disguise. It therefore becomes excusable to some extent to regard all Chinese as enemies, with or without uniform; in that the Japanese are plainly justified. But regarding them as enemies, it is not humanity to kill them; they should be taken alive. I saw hundreds killed after being captured and tied. Perhaps that is not barbarity; at any rate it is the truth. On the day of the battle, soldiers fresh from the excitement of a hard struggle cannot help being somewhat bloodthirsty, perhaps. At any rate their nerves are tense, their blood is up, they are violently excited. Not that it is right to be so, but it is usual. But the battle was on the 21st, and still on the 25th, after four nights’ sleep, the slaughter was continued. Some allowance must be made for the intense indignation of the soldiers whose comrades had been mutilated by the Chinese. Indignation is perfectly justifiable; the Japanese were quite right to feel incensed. But why should they express themselves in the very same barbarous manner? Is it because they are also barbarous at heart like the Chinese? Of course they say ‘No.’ Then they will have to prove it, for the fact remains that a dozen white men saw these Japanese commit these savageries for four clear days after the day of the fight.”

Creelman’s story was as graphic and as shocking in its details, and included many of the same sights which were related by Cowan. He says in part: “The story of the taking of Port Arthur will be one of the blackest pages in history. An easy victory over a Chinese mob, and the possession of one of the most powerful strongholds in the world, was too great a strain upon the Japanese character, which relapsed in a few hours back to the state from which it awakened a generation ago. Almost the entire population found in Port Arthur have been massacred, and the work of butchering unarmed and unresisting inhabitants has continued day after day until the streets are choked with corpses. The march upon helpless Peking or a surrender of China to her foe is a small matter in its vital significance compared with this appalling crime against the nineteenth century, at a moment when Japan asks to be admitted as an equal into the family of civilized nations. The Japanese lost about fifty dead and two hundred and fifty wounded in carrying a fortress that would have cost them ten thousand men had it been occupied by European or American troops, and yet the sense of uncontrolled power which let loose the savagery which had been pent up in the Japanese under the external forms of civilization, has proved the utter incapability of the nation to stand the one sure test. Japan stands disgraced before the world. She has violated the Geneva convention, dishonored and profaned the Red Cross, and banished humanity and mercy from her councils. Victory and a new lust for dominion have set her mad.

“All attempts to justify the massacre of the wretched people of Port Arthur and the mutilation of their bodies, are mere afterthoughts. The evidence is clear and overwhelming that it was the sudden breaking down of Japanese civilization under the stress of conscious power. The tremendous facts revealed by the war so far are, that there is practically no Chinese army in existence; that Japan has been arraying herself in the outward garb of civilization, without having gone through the process of moral and intellectual development necessary to grasp the ideas upon which modern civilization is founded; that Japan at heart is a barbarous nation, not yet to be trusted with sovereign power over the lives and property of civilized men. Up to the moment Port Arthur was entered I can bear witness that both of her armies now in the field were chivalrous and generous to the enemy. There was not a stain on her flag. But it was all blind sentiment. The Japanese were playing with the Red Cross as with a new toy and their leaders were never weary of calling the attention of other nations to the spectacle.

“When Port Arthur fell, not even the presence of the horrified British and American military attaches and of foreign newspaper correspondents served to check the carnival of murder. I have again and again tried to save helpless men from slaughter by protest and entreaty, but in vain. The sign of the Red Cross was jeered at, and in the midst of the orgies of blood and rapine, with troops tramping over the bodies of unarmed victims who lost their homes, the fat field marshal and his generals paced smiling, content at the sound of rifle shots mingling with the music of the national hymn and the clink of wine glasses. I am satisfied that not more than one hundred Chinamen were killed in fair battle at Port Arthur and that at least two thousand unarmed men were put to death. It may be called the natural result of the fury of troops who have seen the mutilated corpses of their comrades, or it may be called retaliation, but no civilized nation could be capable of the atrocities I have witnessed in Port Arthur. Every scene I have described I have looked upon myself, either in the presence of the American and British military attaches, or in the company of Mr. Cowan or Mr. Villiers. The field marshal and all his generals were aware that the massacre was being continued day after day.

“We watched the Second regiment as it marched into town, firing volleys as it advanced. Not a shot was fired in reply. The soldiers had made their escape, and the frightened inhabitants were cowering in the streets. As the troops moved on they saw the heads of their slain comrades hanging by cords with the noses and ears gone. There was a rude arch in the main street decorated with bloody Japanese heads. A great slaughter followed. The infuriated soldiers killed every one they saw. I can say as an eyewitness that the wretched people of Port Arthur made no attempt to resist the invaders. Just below me was a hospital flying the Red Cross flag, but the Japanese fired upon the unarmed men who came out of the doorway. A merchant in fur cap knelt down and raised his hands in entreaty. As the soldiers shot him he put his hands over his face. I saw his corpse the next day, slashed beyond recognition. Women and children were hunted and shot at as they fled to the hills with their protectors. All along the streets I could see the bleeding store keepers shot and sabered. A junk was discovered in the harbor crowded with fugitives. A platoon was stretched across the end of a wharf, and fired into the boat until every man, woman and child was killed. The torpedo boats outside had already sunk ten junks filled with terror stricken people.

“The Japanese had tasted blood, and the work went on the second day. I saw four men walking peaceably along the edge of the town, one man in the street carried a naked infant in his arms. As he ran he dropped the baby. I found it an hour later, dead. The third, the father of the baby tripped and fell. In an instant a soldier had pounced upon his back with a naked bayonet in his hand. I ran forward and made the sign of the Red Cross on the white non-combatant’s bandage around my arm, but the appeal was useless. The bayonet was plunged three or four times into the neck of the prostrate man, and then he was left to gasp his life out on the ground. I hurried back to my quarters and awakened Frederick Villiers, who went with me to the spot where I left the dying man. He was dead, but his wounds were still smoking.

“While we were bending over the corpse we heard shooting a few yards around a road, and went forward to see what it was. We saw an old man standing with his hands tied behind his back. On the ground beside him were the writhing bodies of three other pinioned men who had just been shot. As we advanced a soldier shot the old man down. This was the third day after the battle. Next day I went in company with Mr. Villiers to see a courtyard filled with mutilated corpses. As we entered we surprised two soldiers bending over one of the bodies. They had ripped open the corpse. When they saw us they cowered and tried to hide their faces.”

It is but fair to the Japanese to relate what they had to offer in contravention of these shocking reports so well substantiated. The Japanese minister to Great Britain, Mr. Takaki Kato, while passing through New York some weeks after the taking of Port Arthur, offered these explanations.

“Port Arthur, while vastly important as a strategic point, was scarcely more than a village as far as the number of its inhabitants was concerned. These, which at the outside could not have numbered more than two or three thousand, consisted of a few petty merchants, laborers, and workmen in the docks, their families, and the wives and children of some of the soldiers. This was all that Port Arthur consisted of, as far as population was concerned in times of peace, except the military forces that manned the forts. Second, it had long been known that the Japanese forces were advancing on the fort. All the non-combatants, women and children, were removed to places of safety long before the battle began; indeed the exodus was begun fully a month beforehand. Third, in the face of these reports of wholesale slaughter, how do you account for the fact that between three and four hundred Chinese soldiers were taken prisoners in and about the town of Port Arthur immediately after its occupation?

“The victorious army was compelled before entering the town to pass through a narrow defile which was strewn with the mutilated bodies of their advance troops. There lay their comrades in arms, not only dead, but with every evidence that they had been tortured to death by the most revolting and brutal methods. Picture such a scene of horror, and you will have a faint conception of the sight that greeted our victorious soldiers as they marched through that narrow pass. These were their comrades, their companions, that lay before them as ghastly evidences of inhuman brutality. Can you appreciate the low murmur of horror that passed along the line? Can you understand how each man then and there in his heart determined to avenge such fiendishness, and then can you blame our men for killing every Chinese soldier found hidden in the town when they first entered? Yes, there were excesses, regrettable but surely exhonorable excesses, after the battle of Port Arthur. But these wild tales of the wholesale slaughter of innocent women are fiction pure and simple. A few women may have been killed in the general melee that followed the first entrance into the town, but that was accident, not intention, if it occurred at all. With a very few exceptions all the men killed proved to be Chinese soldiers who had discarded their arms and uniforms.

“What our troops saw of Chinese barbarity did not begin with Port Arthur nor did it end there. The most atrocious cruelties were the rule at Ping-Yang, Kinchow, and indeed every engagement. Before accepting this reported wantonness of our troops at Port Arthur we must take into consideration what the Japanese troops did before and what they have done since. Nowhere has there been butchery or cruelty, but kindness, moderation and nobility. This in spite of all that our soldiers saw of the fate of their unhappy companions; this in the face of new barbarities that were revealed almost daily. Is this not a credit to our soldiers worthy of national pride and international appreciations?”

The variety of explanations offered to excuse the atrocities was considerable. It was reported from Port Arthur a few days after the charges had been made, that the capture of the place was indeed marked by regrettable excesses, but the offenders were not regular soldiers. It was said that the night after the capture of the stronghold, a number of coolies attached to the army as laborers came into the town from the camps. These men carried swords, in order to obviate the necessity of always having regular troops told off for their protection. Unfortunately they obtained access to some Chinese stores of liquor, and became intoxicated. While in this condition they were reminded of the atrocious cruelties committed by the Chinese upon defenseless Japanese prisoners, and became frenzied. All the coolies practically ran amock, and no Chinamen whom they met was spared. It was declared that some of the coolies were at once arrested, and that Marshal Oyama was already investigating the affair, when he received instructions from imperial headquarters at Hiroshima to institute a rigorous inquiry.

The barbarities practised by the Chinese against the Japanese, which resulted in the atrocious retaliation, were fully corroborated from many sources. A correspondent of the American Bible Society wrote thus from Shanghai:

“The reported inhuman atrocities of the Chinese are fully confirmed. They were guilty of barbarities too revolting to mention. A scouting party of Japanese, including an interpreter, were captured by the Chinese near Port Arthur just before the attack on the fortress. They were fastened to stakes by nails through their shoulders, burned alive, and then quartered and their ghastly remains stuck up on poles by the roadside. Some Japanese members of the Red Cross society were captured by the Chinese soldiers and flayed alive. During the attack on Port Arthur the defenders used explosive bullets. Is it any wonder that the Japanese generals issued the order that no quarter should be shown? The track of the retreating army has been marked by pillage, rapine, wanton destruction and outrage, so that the people welcome the Japanese.”

Japanese diplomats in Washington did not take kindly to the civilized censure of Japanese atrocities. They had read up on Andersonville, Libby Prison, Fort Pillow, Wounded Knee, the British cruelties in India and Africa, the Russian record, and they were ready to compare notes with civilized armies on the subject of cruelty in war. They also brought forward native Japanese papers which described the taking of Port Arthur, and declared that those who were killed after the assault suffered only because of the frenzy of a few Japanese, shocked by what they had seen of the cruelties to their own comrades. It was declared that the Japanese officers and the body of the troops did all in their power to stop the bloodshed. Furthermore, the Japanese government asked for a suspension of judgment until the merits of the case could be investigated.

The savage massacres which marked the capture of Port Arthur were not the first, nor will they be the last which will disgrace the conduct of troops calling themselves civilized. English troops were guilty of similar massacre in the Peninsular campaign, at least one time in the Crimea, and repeatedly in suppressing rebellion in India. Our own troops in the west have been stung to ruthless massacre by the discovery of their tortured dead in Indian villages. Fort Pillow gave ghastly proof of the readiness to butcher in our war. French troops in Algeria, New Zealand colonists in suppressing a Maori rising, and Boers in South Africa have slaughtered without mercy. These occasions neither palliate nor excuse barbarity. It is wrong in all races, and in all races from time to time it will come to the surface. The amazing fact about Japan is that it is the first Asiatic nation in all history which has fought any battles and conducted any military operations without massacre. The slaughter or slavery of surrendered troops has been the unbroken rule of Asiatic warfare for centuries. Japan has actually been able to reverse the practice and habit of generations, to school its soldiers to mercy, and even in the present instance it has been followed, as Wellington’s massacres in the Peninsula never were, by investigation and an attempt at repressing like disorder in the future.

As an indication of the trend of thought of Chinese newspapers, and of ignorance of the Chinese people concerning the truth of the war, it is amusing to note the report of one of the vernacular papers on the fall of Port Arthur. This paper editorially says:—“In allowing the Japanese to take Port Arthur, General Tso was actuated by motives of the deepest strategy, and the able manner in which he attained his end, without allowing his opponents to penetrate his designs, stamps him as one of the greatest military commanders China has ever seen. Knowing Peking to be the ultimate goal of the Japanese, General Tso was satisfied that should a too obstinate resistance be offered at any point, the Japanese would leave the Chinese unconquered in his rear, and would push on to the capital; whereas, if an important place like Port Arthur should fall into their hands, the little men would enjoy the sensation as they would a new toy, and it would delay them in their march while the road to Peking was rendered impregnable. General Tso, therefore, inflicted all the loss possible upon the Japanese, without allowing them to be absolutely discouraged, and then when defeat was staring his opponents in the face, gave the signal to his troops to retreat, which they did in good order. So great was the loss of the Japanese, that it was not until some hours after the last Chinese soldier had departed, that they ventured to enter the forts.

“General Tso displayed marked military skill in his defensive tactics, and by ordering half-charges of powder to be used in the big guns, and filling the shell and torpedoes with sand, deluded the innocent commander of the Japanese fleet into the belief that the defenses and sea forts of Port Arthur were innocuous. As a result the Japanese fleet boldly ventured close to the forts and within the line of the torpedo defenses, and before they discovered their mistake three men-of-war, seven transports, and twenty-one torpedo boats were sunk by the Chinese fire and submarine mines. The result of General Tso’s actions prove, as we have always maintained, that it is inadvisable for China to employ other than native commanders in the present war. In hand-to-hand combats the savage and flesh-eating Fanquoi is physically superior to our men, but no man other than one conversant with the military wisdom of our enlightened race could have planned and brought to a successful conclusion the train of events which ended in the offering of Port Arthur as a bait to our diminutive opponents.”

From a military point of view, the capture of Port Arthur by the Japanese was an event of the first importance, while its moral effect and its consequent influence upon the diplomatic situation was very great. It transferred from one side to the other all the advantages of a fully equipped arsenal and dockyard, occupying a commanding strategical position, and therefore modified all the conditions, naval as well as military, of the campaign. It made the defense more hopeless than ever, and extended the chain of Chinese disaster.

CHANG YEN HOON.
Envoy sent by China to Japan to negotiate terms of peace before the
despatch of
Li Hung Chang.—See pages 623 and 655.
]

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FROM PORT ARTHUR TO WEI-HAI-WEI.

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China Makes Another Attempt towards Peace—The Envoy Rejected Because of lack of Credentials and Rank—President Cleveland Offers to Help Create Peace—Chinese and Manchoos at War—Japanese Victories Immediately after the Taking of Port Arthur—More Corean Politics—The Third Japanese Army—Preparing for a Descent on the Chinese Mainland—Wei-hai-wei and Its Capture.

Even before Port Arthur had fallen, China was making another attempt to secure peace through the intervention of foreign nations. As this seemed slow in coming, however, it was decided that an informal effort to stop hostilities would be made, one indeed of such a sort that it might be disavowed if criticism seemed to demand. Consequently, Mr. Gustav Detring, the Chinese Commissioner of Customs under Sir Robert Hart, was sent to Japan to feel the way in preliminary negotiations. In its perplexity and distress, the Chinese government took the step which only extremity could have driven it to take. It swallowed the pill which was of all things most bitter. The emperor, on the advice of his council and at the instigation of Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang, appointed a foreigner as envoy to Japan. The office was not one which timid Chinamen would envy, because none of them were ambitious to hand down their names to posterity in connection with the humiliation of their country. The wisest man in office was Prince Kung, but he was not the dictator which he was supposed to be. He was thwarted by other influences, among them the Grand Council, of which he was not but ought to have been a member.

In this confusion, the grand imperial effort towards centralization of authority had partially at least failed, and the failure had the effect of rehabilitating for the moment the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, who once more stood out as the only possible practical man. This aged statesman had many faults, which those who were nearest to him saw most clearly, but if we compare even his faults with the wisdom of his compeers, he was still the one-eyed man among the blind, the only man at the time in the empire who was capable of anything, and whose removal from the scene would have been regarded with grave apprehension by all who were interested in the maintenance of order against chaos.

Mr. Detring, with his suite, left Tien-tsin November 22 by rail to Tung-ku, embarked there on a steamer, under the German flag, called the Li-yu, and steamed down the Gulf of Pechili past Chefoo and Wei-hai-wei. Not until the vessel reached Japan did they know of the fall of Port Arthur. The vessel proceeded to Kobe, where no one was permitted to land at first. The envoy at once sought communication with Count Ito, and applied to the local authorities to inform His Excellency thereof. The result was not an invitation to Mr. Detring to visit Hiroshima, but the dispatch of the Secretary-General of the cabinet, Mr. Ito Moiji, to confer with him at Kobe. From this point there is a difference of statement as to what occurred. The Chinese declare that before the arrival of the secretary, Mr. Detring had been recalled by his government, and having taken leave of the governor he left at daylight on the 29th without waiting to see Mr. Ito, who had arrived the previous night. The Japanese, on the contrary, assert that they refused to entertain any proposals from Mr. Detring, as he was not properly accredited and had no authority whatever to make peace negotiations. However that may be, it is certain that he returned to China without having an audience with any Japanese officials, and that the peace negotiations were never even begun.

The next surprise was that whereas the United States had declined to entertain England’s proposal for a coalition of powers to restore peace to the orient, President Cleveland subsequently tendered to Japan his good offices as mediator. He hoped that by his aid peace might be restored, and restored in such a manner as to secure to Japan the just fruits of her victories. A reply declining his proposal, couched in duly grateful terms, was conveyed to the president by Japan, and he having learned in the interval that the European powers would not agree to intervene conjointly, ceased his own activity. It was still hoped however that Minister Denby at Peking and Minister Dun at Tokio would be able to use their good offices in advancing peace. Japan was holding out the insistence that China must speak for herself if she wanted peace. Japan however did go so far as to say that if China had any propositions of peace to make, they might be transmitted in the beginning through the United States ministers in Japan and China. It was still evident however, that China would hold off as long as possible, in the hope that something would turn up to relieve her of the necessity of suing for peace.

The Manchoo princes feared and mistrusted the Chinese, who seemed to be indifferent to the issue of the war, and intent only on obtaining individual advantage. It was reiterated again and again, that the Chinese secret societies desired Japanese success in order that the Manchoo dynasty be overthrown and the Chinese restored to power. Captain Von Hannecken, at the request of the Tsung-li Yamen, submitted a comprehensive scheme of military reorganization. This was approved by the emperor and the Manchoo statesmen, but was frustrated by the strategem of certain wealthy taotais, on the alleged ground of economy. The question was then referred from Peking to Tien-tsin. Thus the central and provincial governments reduced each other to impotence. Genuine reform in China appeared to be hopeless, owing to the invincible ignorance of the rulers. There was much popular discontent at the imbecility of the government.

Let us now return to the other forces of Chinese and Japanese, whose movements, comparatively unimportant, have been neglected for the advance on Port Arthur. A considerable portion of the Chinese fleet was still in the harbor at Wei-hai-wei, sometimes cruising out for a little while, but usually safe at anchor. Several of the Chinese vessels had slipped out of Port Arthur harbor when Japanese backs were turned, and steamed across to supposed safety at Wei-hai-wei. On November 22 the Chen-Yuen, the largest and most formidable battle ship remaining to the Chinese, ran ashore while entering Wei-hai-wei harbor, and trying to avoid the torpedoes placed in the channel. She was somewhat damaged by a torpedo, and was finally beached and rendered useless for the time. Commodore Liu Taitsan, who was in command of the vessel, anticipated official condemnation by committing suicide.

The fall of Port Arthur was followed immediately by a succession of victories for the Japanese arms in Manchooria, the first Japanese army continuing its success. The advance of this army towards Mukden terrorized the people of Manchooria, and the abandonment of the sacred city by its inhabitants began. The country around was in a state of desolation. The wounded mostly remained in villages between Niuchwang and Mukden, the state of the country preventing the Chinese medical staff and foreign volunteers from proceeding thither. Mukden was evacuated in the beginning of November by the foreign residents, who remained at Niuchwang. The Roman Catholic fathers remained at their station in Manchooria, but the Protestant missionaries returned to safer regions.

At Jeh-ho the Mongols rose in rebellion, in revenge for the assassination of six Mongolian princes. Troops had to be called to put down the insurrection, as had so often occurred before during the war.

On the day of the taking of Port Arthur, a large body of Chinese troops under General Sung attacked Talien-wan and Kinchow, where Japanese had been left to guard baggage trains and provisions. The conflicts were sharp, and a number was killed on both sides, but the Chinese were finally forced to retire. The day after Port Arthur’s fall, the greater portion of Count Oyama’s army turned and marched northward through the Laio-Tung promontory, in the direction of Niuchwang. Ten thousand troops were left behind to guard Japanese interests at Port Arthur.

November 25, sharp fighting took place near the Mo-thien-ling pass, between a portion of General Sung’s army and the Japanese under Count Yamagata. After the Chinese troops had retired from Chiu-lien, they concentrated north of Mo-thien-ling, and the engagement was an attempt to turn the Japanese right flank at Tsokow. The conflict opened with a sharp fusillade, and the Chinese fought with considerable stubbornness for a time, losing heavily before they finally retired. The attack was the most determined effort that the Chinese had made since Ping-Yang. The alarm which existed among the residents of Manchooria, causing their exodus to Niuchwang, was caused quite as much by Chinese soldiery retreating or disbanded, as by the Japanese army’s advance. Many deserters had joined the bands of robbers and brigands to raid the country in every direction.

The first army, under Field Marshal Yamagata, finding the country in the direction of Mukden wasted and deserted, while guerrilla troops harassed them continually, now abandoned the march to Mukden and joined the second army, which had turned north, near Niuchwang, Field Marshal Oyama had sent his transports and a portion of his fleet around the Liao-Tung peninsula, to move towards Niuchwang, paralled with his army. General Techimi’s division met the enemy December 10, and after a pitched battle defeated them with heavy loss. It being reported that a large force of Chinese under General I was encamped near Kinkua-hu, General Techimi was ordered to advance upon that place. His scouts reported the Chinese to be in considerable force, and to consist of cavalry as well as infantry. General Techimi separated his division into two columns, and delivered a simultaneous attack early in the morning. The Chinese offered a stout resistance, and severe fighting ensued. The superior shooting and discipline of the Japanese soon told. The enemy were gradually driven back, and finally they broke and fled in disorder, the Japanese pursuing them for several miles. The majority of the Chinese escaped in the direction of Tso-hun-kou. The Japanese lost about forty killed and wounded, and their opponents one hundred.

Field Marshal Yamagata, who had been in command of the first army since its organization, at last broke down in health under the strain of his responsibility and labor, and was compelled to return home in the hope of restoring his health. He was succeeded by Lieutenant-General Nodzu, his friend and adviser with the troops. The news of Yamagata’s illness caused much distress in Japan, and he was welcomed with the highest honors, both from the government and the people.

In China the position of the government seemed to be precarious. Dissatisfaction was rife in Peking and Tien-tsin over the conduct of the war, and every one in turn was accused of responsibility in the matter. The Manchoo and Chinese elements were bitterly opposed, and an anti-war which advocated peace at any price was increasing rapidly. The court of inquiry which sat at Peking to inquire into the circumstances connected with the loss of Kinchow and Talien-wan, held that Kinchow was strong and well-garrisoned and ought never to have been surrendered. The commandant was therefore sentenced to degradation from military ranks for allowing the Japanese to take the place. The foreign residents in Peking, Tien-tsin, and Chefoo were by this time getting nervous over their own prospects for safety, owing to the disorder and rioting that prevailed, enhanced by the threatened invasion of the Japanese army. Marines were sent to Peking from the war ships of all western nations in Japanese waters, and attached to the legation for the protection of their countrymen in China. Anti foreign feeling in the capital was on the increase, and the blue jackets were welcomed most heartily when they landed.

Early in December Corea suffered another political crisis, owing to the duplicity of the government. All the Corean ministers professed gratitude to Japan, for giving them the opportunity of undertaking the administrative and social regeneration of their country. They promised Count Inouye, the Japanese resident, faithfully to follow his advice and to carry out with the least possible delay the program of reforms recommended by him. Count Inouye however discovered, that while making these professions, the ministers were plotting to obstruct his policy of reform, and had even gone so far as to send messengers to various parts of the country to incite the people to rise against the Japanese. He therefore informed the Corean government that Japan would give no further assistance to the king in suppressing the Tonghak rebellion. The minister of the interior at once resigned, and the king promised to make inquiry and punish those guilty of treachery. In a private audience, Count Inouye sharply remonstrated with His Majesty, explained that reforms were necessary to save the country from barbarism, complained of the encouragement given to the plotters and repeated his threat to recall the Japanese troops sent out against the Tonghaks. The king promised that matters would be put right. The following day the ministers called in a body upon Count Inouye. They admitted that they had behaved in a deceitful manner, begged that he would pardon their duplicity and assured him that they would in future give faithful consideration to his suggestions and his schemes of internal reform.

There is a little confusion in the names of towns around the Gulf of Liao-Tung, owing to the duplication of names. Kinchow is a village to the north of Talien-wan Bay, and was one of the first points of attack by the Japanese when they landed on the promontory. At the extreme northern point of the gulf is a city of the same name, and several reports that were made as to the capture of Kinchow were discredited because of this confusion. The first Kinchow was indeed occupied by Japanese troops from the time of its capture. The other one, however, was not threatened at all. Unless mention is made here to the contrary, references to troop movements around Kinchow refer to the village at the head of the promontory.

The bulk of the second Japanese army moved to Kinchow, on its way northward after the capture of Port Arthur, and the Chinese force which attacked the Japanese garrison at Kinchow on November 22, fell back to Foochow, a little to the northward of Port Arthur, on the road to Niuchwang. About the 1st of December General Nogi’s brigade left Kinchow, with orders from Marshal Oyama to attack Foochow. The garrison of the city was reported to number five thousand, and the position was favorable for defense. The brigade moved forward very rapidly, as there was no organized opposition to its advance. On the 4th, General Nogi heard that the Chinese were retreating, and on the following day the Japanese entered Foochow without firing a shot. The Chinese had evacuated the city and had retreated northward towards Niuchwang.

The first Japanese army continued clearing the country north of the Yalu. Large bodies of Chinese were in the triangle formed by lines drawn between Chiu-lien, Niuchwang, and Mukden. The mountains around about Feng-hwang, which constituted a strong strategic position, had been in the hands of the Japanese since October, and now General Tatsumi attacked the highest pass, Lien-shan-kuan, from the east. On December 12 a strong Japanese scouting party from Feng-hwang sighted a large force of Chinese advancing from the west. The Japanese, who consisted entirely of cavalry, sent word back to Feng-hwang, and keeping the Chinese in sight fell back upon the main body. The Chinese pushed on as far as Yih-man-shan, where they encamped for the night. The Japanese force set out to attack the Chinese position, and at dawn the next morning the fight began. The Chinese were fully four thousand strong, and while the fight was in progress two more regiments joined them. The Japanese fell back to a stronger position, and adopted defensive tactics. The Chinese forces, emboldened by their temporary success, made repeated efforts to break through the Japanese lines, but each attack was repulsed. Seeing that the Chinese were in such force, General Nodzu ordered one battalion of the fifth division to reinforce the garrison of Feng-hwang. This reinforced garrison then started on Thursday night, December 13, to strengthen the Japanese advance posts at Yih-man-shan. Colonel Tomayasu was in command of the Japanese force, which numbered one thousand four hundred men with six field guns.

At daybreak an attack was made upon the Chinese left flank. The enemy was well posted, and fought better than any troops heretofore encountered by the Japanese in Manchooria. The struggle was a severe one, but the Chinese left wing gave way before the Japanese charge, and threw the center into confusion. A hot and continuous fire prevented the Chinese from recovering their formation, and a second charge drove them into a disorderly retreat. The contents of the camp and thirty prisoners fell into the hands of the Japanese. The Chinese lost some two hundred and fifty killed and wounded and the Japanese about one hundred.

It is difficult to convey a clear idea of the various operations in Manchooria, for no map accessible to general readers is sufficiently accurate to afford trustworthy indications, and the field of fighting extended over a considerable area among places too small in many instances to be recorded on a map. There were in fact, at this time, December, three Japanese and three Chinese armies operating in Manchooria. The Japanese forces consisted of the second army under Oyama, in the Liao-Tung peninsula, and the right and left wings of Yamagata’s force, who had been succeeded by Nodzu. The first army, Yamagata’s, after passing the Yalu and capturing Chiu-lien, separated into two parts, the right wing nominally twelve thousand five hundred strong, moving northward along the Mukden road under the command of Nodzu, and the left wing of equal strength, under the command of Katsura, moving westward down the Yalu, its object being ultimately to establish communication with Oyama’s forces, twenty-two thousand strong, when the capture of Port Arthur should have freed the latter to advance northeastward up the peninsula.

The Chinese armies were also three. One of these armies was massed at the north, defending the approaches to Mukden. It aggregated about twenty-five thousand men so far as could be ascertained, but its fragmentary fashion of fighting rendered a total estimate difficult. The second army was grouped in the southwest, guarding the coast roads to China proper, via Niuchwang. This army, according to the accounts, aggregated about thirty thousand. Its headquarters were at Kai-phing, where a junction would naturally be effected between Oyama’s forces and the left wing of Yamagata’s army. The easiest method of obtaining a clear idea of the situation, is to follow in outline, the operations of the various armies.