sault after assault during five long months. The Russians had their backs to the wall and fought bravely, the Japanese were free simply to invest the town, and yet they achieved the impossible and captured the impregnable fortress. The great honor, the crown of heroic achievement, is theirs beyond dispute. To appreciate this more clearly it is well to gain an idea of the kind of forts they had to assail.

"Fancy to yourself a slant of over 70 degrees riding away into the skies for many hundred metres, surrounded by a deep moat. Imagine, also, bombproof trenches covered with steel plates crowning its crest, surrounding the permanent fort in the centre on the top of the hill, built of stone and cement, on which are mounted heavy guns. Imagine, once again, that the foot of this fort, just above the moat, is mined, is surrounded with wire entanglements, every iron line of which is charged with electric currents strong enough to fell thousands of men at a touch, and fancy that two or three of just such forts are placed every thousand metres of the perimeter of Port Arthur. Behind such fortifications a few determined women, if they only knew how to handle the guns, would be able to entertain an army of 100,000 men of unquestioned courage and thorough training." This word-picture is the work of a Japanese commanding officer who himself had led assaults upon just such forts and with success.

What manner of men are these Japanese soldiers then, that they can overcome such obstacles and maintain their attack for months without despairing, undaunted by losses? Although the shells from the eleven-inch guns of Japan crashed through all the forts' defences and carried destruction to the helpless warships in the harbor, Port Arthur would have remained untaken were it not for the personal factor. The Japanese soldier is responsible for

the fall of Port Arthur, not his weapons of precision. A general order of the Emperor to his army some years ago contained the following paragraph :"Of every one of you the Emperor and your country expects the accomplishment of the impossible." And the Japanese soldiers are men to whom such an order may be addressed, without any fear of failure.

There are two great factors to be considered in observing the achievements of the Japanese troops at Port Arthur, and they are sufficiently important to warrant their being dealt with at some length. The first great factor which makes the Japanese soldiers what they are emanates from the Emperor. Every soldier receives as the foundation of his education and his training the ideas contained in the five articles of a soldier's duty drawn up by the Emperor for the guidance of his army. Just as the Emperor's speech on education forms the foundation of moral training in the schools of his Empire, so these five articles form the basis of the moral training of the soldier. The second factor which led to the taking of Port Arthur is a sentimental one, if we may so describe a feeling which has been part of the national life since 1894. The one factor supplements the other, and the two make a force which no amount of forts could have resisted.

The Emperor's five articles are most interesting and deserve to be quoted in full. The Japanese soldier is at the present moment the envy of all the world's military commanders, and so the world may be glad of an opportunity of seeing a little behind the scenes and passing judgment upon the rules which produce this well-nigh perfect fighting man. The five articles are as follows:

(1) The principal duty of soldiers is loyalty to Sovereign and country. It is not probable that any one born in this

country will be wanting in patriotism; but for soldiers this virtue is so essential that, unless a man be strong in patriotism, he will be unfitted for his service. Disloyal men are like dolls, however expert and skilful they may be in their military art and science, and a troop which is well trained and led, but lacks patriotism, is like a band without a chief. The protection of a country and the maintenance of its prestige must rest upon our military and naval forces: their efficiency or deterioration must affect, for good or for ill, the fate of Our nation; and it is therefore your duty not to entangle yourself with social matters or political questions, but strictly to confine yourself to the observance of your principal duty, which is loyalty, remembering always that duty is heavier than a mountain (and so to be much regarded), while death is lighter than a feather (and therefore to be despised). spoil your good name by a violation of good faith.

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(2) Soldiers must be polite in their behavior and ways. In the Army and Navy there are hierarchical ranks from the Marshal to the private or bluejacket, which bind together the whole for purposes of command, and there are also the gradations of seniority within the same rank. The junior must obey the senior, the inferior must take orders from the superior, who transmits to them Our direct command, and inferior and junior officers and men must pay respect to their superiors and seniors, even though they be not their direct superiors and seniors. Superiors must never be proud or haughty towards those of a lower rank, and severity of discipline must be reserved for exceptional cases. In all other cases superiors must treat those beneath them with kindness and especial clemency, so that all men may unite as one man in the service of the country. If you do not observe courtesy of behavior, if inferiors treat their superiors with disrespect, or superiors their inferiors with harshness, if, in a word, the harmonious relations between superiors and inferiors be lost, you will be not only playing havoc with the

army, but committing serious crimes against the country.

(3) It is incumbent upon soldiers to be brave and courageous. These two virtues have in this country been always held in very high esteem, and are indeed indispensable to Our nation: soldiers whose profession is to fight against the foe, should never for one instant forget that they must be brave. But there is a true bravery and a false one, which is totally different, and the rough behavior of youth cannot be called true bravery. A man of arms must always act with reason and make his plans with sang froid and care. You must never despise even a small body of the enemy; on the other hand, you must never be afraid of large numbers: it is in the accomplishment of duty that true bravery lies. Those who thus appreciate true bravery will always behave moderation towards others and will earn the respect of all men. If you act with violence you are not truly brave, and will be hated by others like a tiger or a wolf.

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(4) Soldiers are required to be faithful and righteous. Faithfulness and righteousness are among the ordinary duties of man: the man of arms can scarcely exist without them. By the former is meant the keeping of one's word, by the latter, the accomplishment of duty. Hence, if you wish to be faithful and righteous, you must first consider whether a thing may be done or not. If you promise to do something, the nature of which is uncertain, and so entangle yourself with others, you will be in an embarrassing situation, which may drive you to become unfaithful or unrighteous; and in such a case you will have no remedy, but only vain regrets. Before embarking on any action, you must first consider whether it is right or wrong to do such a thing, and then take a firm stand upon reason. If you have reason to think that you cannot keep your word, or that the duty is too heavy, it will be wise if you refrain from action. The history of all ages gives us examples of the truth of this: many great men and heroes have perished or dishonored themselves by trying to be faithful and righteous in small things, and mistaking fundamental reason, or by observing individual faithfulness at the

expense of justice. You must take heed not to fall in this way.

(5) It is incumbent upon soldiers to be simple and frugal. If you do not observe simplicity and frugality, you will become weak and falsehearted, and accustom yourself to luxurious habits which lead to cupidity. In that case your mind will become ignoble, and neither your loyalty nor your bravery will avail to save you from the contempt and hatred of your fellow men. This is one of the greatest sources of human misery, and if this evil be once allowed to seize hold of the Army and Navy, it will promptly spread like an epidemic, and all esprit de corps and discipline will be broken through. We have been very much concerned about this, and have issued disciplinary regulations designed for the prevention of luxury; and now Our constant concern leads Us to tender you this advice, which we desire you to keep in mind.

"The above Five Articles must never for a moment be neglected by you, and you will require a true heart to put them into practice. The Five Articles are the spirit of the man of arms and the true heart is the spirit of the Five Articles. If the heart be not true, good words and good conduct are nothing but useless external ornaments. If the heart be true you can accomplish anything."

Instructed along these lines since 1882, the Japanese soldier has developed into what he is to-day, and it would be hard to deny that his development has a firm and solid foundation. These soldiers, true of heart, found the stimulus necessary to achieve the impossible at Port Arthur from a source which throws a very interesting and valuable light upon the inmost beliefs of the Japanese people. The Japanese soldiers under General Nogi were fighting to give rest to the spirits of those who fell before and after the capture of the fortress ten years ago. A Japanese professor, writing before the fall in 1905, thus expressed the sentiment which sent men again and again up

bloodstained slopes, through wire entanglements, and over precipices to victory.

After the retrocession more than one hundred soldiers who had fought in Manchuria took it as the blackest stain on our national honor, as an unparalleled humiliation of a nation, which had never before been humiliated by a foreign Power. They wished to put this on record, and so they wrote their protest with their own blood by committing hara-kiri, by that ancient right of the Samurai, which says to the world that they would rather die than see dishonor. In their dreams, in the eyes of their imagination, the fighting men of Japan to-day see the ghosts of these men wandering over Port Arthur in company with those of many hundreds of other men who had fallen before Port Arthur in storming it and taking it from the Chinese. These spirits of the dead, in the existence of which we of the Far East believe quite as much as the Christians of the West believe in the immortality of the soul, cannot find rest and peace as long as that stronghold is in possession of a Power which humiliated us some ten years ago, in the days of national exhaustion, at the end of the ChinoJapanese War.

It was to these spirits of the dead primarily that Admiral Togo solemnly offered the news of the destruction of the Russian fleet during his visit to Tokyo. He said on this occasion, "Standing before your spirits I can hardly express my feelings. Your passing from the world has been in the gallant discharge of your duty. Our combined fleet retains the undisputed control of the seas. I trust that this will bring peace and rest to your spirits. I have been called by the Emperor to report our successes to the spirits of those who sacrificed their earthly existence for the attainment of so great a result." This formal order of the day to the army of the dead is one of the most illuminating glimpses

which the outside world has been afforded of Japanese character. Who now can say that the Japanese are materialists in belief with such a striking example to contradict them? General Nogi, at the memorial service for the dead before Port Arthur, desired "to share the honor of victory with the spirits of those who died in order to achieve success." With the incentive of these restless, unpropitiated spirits around them, the Japanese troops were invincible, and conquered where any other troops would have failed.

As during the fighting, so in concluding the terms of surrender and taking over the fortress, the Japanese have set up new standards of conduct, new rules of international morality for the world. The terms of surrender are just, and the action of the Emperor of Japan with regard to officers is generous, more especially when we consider that at the time the Japanese held at Sasebo several Russian officers, captured on the Nigreta, who had been dishonorable enough to break the parole which they had given in Shanghai. The terms of surrender were drawn up by a distinguished international lawyer, Professor Nagao Ariga, who was specially attached to General Nogi's staff in readiness, which is but another instance of the Japanese completeness of detailed preparation. capitulation of a large garrison of Russians to a Japanese army might well have afforded an occasion for Japanese jubilation, and the spectacle of the surrendered regiments marching out in silence is a great testimony to the generous impulses of the Japanese troops. Think for a moment what that march out meant! For the first time for centuries an army of a European Power had surrendered to an Asiatic force, and one of which the Russians had always spoken slightingly. Did the Japanese seek to avail themselves

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of the opportunity afforded them to get even? No; they looked on in sympathetic silence, and helped the feebler soldiers to carry their equipments. The principle of Japanese military prowess was not marred by any outward rejoicing over the fall of their erstwhile proud foes. The Japanese understand the art of fighting, while fighting is going on, to perfection, but once the battles are over, they are the kindest of the kind, and their consideration to their foes is a sign of their real bravery. It is never the brave man who gloats over a fallen enemy.

Some one asked Admiral Kamimura why he saved the men from the Rurik. He replied:

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Before, and at the time we engaged in battle, we may feel a desire for revenge; but when a vanquished foe is before us, we can but know a sense of pity.. It is also international law to be merciful to a conquered enemy. Moreover, I have never forgotten what I learned from the great Saigo. When the castle of Aidzu fell at the time of the war of the Restoration, Saigo, then in command of the Imperial forces, ordered all the houses of the town to be closed, that none might gaze upon the prisoners as they passed by. Again, at Hakodate, in the same war, he allowed none not immediately concerned in the surrender of the fort to witness the humiliation of its defenders.

The Japanese treatment of the sick and wounded, that damnosa hereditas of a siege, has been beyond criticism. Every care has been lavished upon them, and before the fall, the Japanese medical authorities had prepared stores for 20,000 men. Comparisons are odious, but it is not difficult to contrast the fate of the prisoners of Port Arthur with those of Plevna. In 1877 the surrendered Turks, after their gallant defence, were sent north without any adequate equipment or provision

to die by the thousand along the roads. It resembled rather the manners and customs of the Byzantine Empire, under which a conquered army was once sent homeward through the snow, all blinded, save one man in every hundred, who had left him one eye to enable him to guide his sightless comrades. War is war, and must be waged as such à outrance, but the moment war ceases the Japanese act towards those who have fallen into their hands as victims of such war, as if they were deserving of equal care with the Japanese soldiers who have fallen before the rifles of these very men. This is true humanity and deserving of all praise. It is far above the humanity of those nations which, while crying for the cessation of war, wage war without any of the attempts at alleviating its horrors which should appeal to everybody in the world in this twentieth century. One result of this war will be that the conditions of warfare will be completely changed, and Japan will have taught the world a lesson of humanity that cannot fail to advance the cause of progress enormously.

Port Arthur has fallen, but its fall will have little effect upon the war's continuance. By its capture the Japanese achieve definitely one of the great aims of their campaigns, but the other ends must still be sought by military and naval force. Russia is not yet convinced of the hopelessness of her struggle, and is not yet ready to make a peace that will bear in its terms guarantees of a lasting peace. The indiscretion of Admiral Dubassoff gives some idea of the ignorance of the Russian bureaucratic autocracy as to the real conditions prevailing in the Far East. Coinciding as it does with the refusal of the Tsar to grant liberty to his people, the fall of Port Arthur may have far-reaching effects upon the internal condition of Russia which will

indirectly affect the war. The orthodox church has suffered an enormous loss of prestige, which, taken together with its assumption of a political rôle, spells the end of its absolute domination. M. Pobiednostoff, recognizing this, has thrown himself into the fray and is endeavoring by every means in his power to buttress up the tottering fabric of bureaucracy, which alone will allow the Holy Synod to work its will. The effect upon Russian liberalism of the fall of Port Arthur has been significant, it has supplied the flux necessary to weld all the varying parties of progress together. Liberals, Anarchists, Socialists, all are united in a demand for liberty, and the Tsar is face to face with a situation similar only to that of France before the Revolution. A prominent reformer said recently, "The entire thought of Russia has become Anarchist, it is only a question of time when this mental attitude will transform itself into physical action." The letter of Prince Troubetskoi to the Tsar, and a thousand other signs, indicate clearly enough the state of things in Russia at the present moment. When the reform movement is supported vehemently by men like M. Novikoff, mayor of Baku, who is a son of the well-known Madame Olga Novikoff, it is evident that it is no longer a mere movement of the lower classes but is a national movement. Thus we find in Russia itself the greatest results of the fall of Port Arthur. The announcement of the news in St. Petersburg called forth numerous expressions of the necessity for reform. Notable amongst these was the following: "The national pride of Russia has been stricken to the heart by this terrible fresh trial of pitiless destiny. . . without the co-operation of the people the Government cannot surmount this great national calamity. We were victorious in 1812, and we will be victorious now at any cost, if we are