Perang Dunia Timur. Jepang, Tiongkok, dan Korea/Bab 19

THE CAPTURE OF PORT ARTHUR AND THE MASSACRE.

Description of the Great Chinese Naval Station—Strength of its position—The Defenses—Arrangement of Japanese Troops, and Plan of Attack—The First Assault—Attack and Counter-Attack—Fall of the Chinese Forts—Action of the Fleet—The Japanese in the Streets of Port Arthur—Massacre of Fugitives—Japanese Red Cross Society and Its Previous Good Work—Shocking Details of the Atrocities Committed After the Taking of the Town—Four Days of Violence and Cruelty—Stories of Eyewitnesses—Japanese Explanations and Excuses—Effects of the Capture of Port Arthur on the War.

Port Arthur, or to give it its native name, Lu-shun-kou, was the largest naval station possessed by the Chinese. Situated at the extreme southern end of the Liao-Tung peninsula, Port Arthur in its earlier days afforded convenient shelter for winter-bound junks employed in carrying timber from the Yalu River to the ports westward. At that period it was merely a small village consisting of less than one hundred mud houses, an occasional shop, and three or four inns. The prosperity of the town began with the determination of the authorities in 1881 to establish a naval dockyard at the port. At first the work was entrusted to native contractors, who however proved to be quite incapable of carrying out so extended an undertaking, and in 1887 a French company took up the contract, completing the work in three years. The port then boasted of a large basin with a depth of twenty-five feet at low water. Spacious wharves and quays bordered this basin, and were connected with the workshops by a railroad. Two dry-docks were built ready for repairing ships of all sizes, from iron clads to torpedo vessels. Foundries and workshops were constructed on the most improved models, and containing the best modern machinery. The fact that the harbor was always free from ice, even in the coldest of winter, added to its value. By the time of the beginning of the war, the number of houses had multiplied until they were able to contain a population of about six thousand, exclusive of the garrison. There were also two large temples, two theatres, and several banks, besides the necessary stores and warehouses.

584Such land defenses as this important dockyard possessed when the war broke out, were limited to nine small redoubts, connected by mud walls in some cases, on the north and northeast, and three redoubts on the southwest. On the north side a range of hills from three hundred and fifty to six hundred and fifty feet high, running from the sea to a shallow inlet of the harbor, enclosed the position. The tops of these hills were not more than two thousand five hundred yards from the dockyard and town. The original line of defenses was still closer to the town, and on the northern side was only about one thousand yards in advance of the vital point. The strongest part of the position was a group of three coast batteries surrounded by a continuous mud wall, and crowning a hill on the right of the entrance to the harbor. The works all appeared to be designed for the protection of the narrow harbor mouth, which at the entrance was only a few hundred yards wide.

Upon the outbreak of the war, much additional fortification was carried out. The normal garrison of four thousand was greatly increased, and the troops who were drilled on the European model garrisoned the fortifications, and were to be further assisted in the defense of the port by submarine mines and a fleet of torpedo boats. The forts were armed with heavy Krupp guns, and the artillery men were especially trained by a German officer. Within the defenses there were all of the most recent scientific appliances, electric search lights, torpedo factories, etc., and the forts were connected by telephone.

The Japanese army broke camp at Dojoshu village before Port Arthur at 1:00 A.M. on November 21, and marching by circuitous and very difficult routes over the outlying hills, sometimes quite close to the sea at Pigeon Bay, got into line of battle before daylight. The moon was in the last quarter, and gave very little light; the sky was quite clear, and the weather dry and cool. The positions were as heretofore described.

The key of the position was the northwest triple fort on Table Mountain, and there the whole weight of the opening attack was concentrated. The field marshal and his staff were mostly near the center of the line, and the heavy siege artillery was planted on the best position available near the center, and north to northeast 585of Port Arthur, five or six miles away, with Suishiyeh and the forts right opposite and well in range. The first division under General Yamaji occupied the right wing, and had the roughest and most broken country to traverse. Nine batteries of field and mountain guns were got into fine positions, on lofty ridges, nearly on the same level and almost within rifle shot of the forts; while behind the artillery lay large bodies of infantry ready for a rush. Brigadier-General Nishi had charge of the extreme right, and Brigadier-General Nogi the right center, near the field marshal. On the left, Brigadier-General Hasegawa had his mixed brigade rather wider apart, as the hills were not near enough to aid greatly in an assault on the forts; nor were the hills very good as artillery positions. Hasegawa had only two batteries, but the flying column under Lieutenant-Colonel Masamitsu, that had moved from San-ju-li Ho on the south shore road was with him, and had a mountain battery beside two battalions of infantry and a thousand cavalry.

The first shot was fired within two or three minutes of seven o’clock, from a battery of thirty guns, just as the day was becoming light enough for gun practice. Then for an hour the Japanese guns blazed into the Table-Top forts, which with their guns of all sizes kept up a spirited reply. In the forts, and in the rifle pits on the hillside under the walls, were about one thousand infantry; near the Japanese batteries trenches had been dug in the stony ground during the night, and sheltered ravines had been carefully selected, where practically the whole of the first division, at least ten thousand men, lay in wait. The Chinese shells came close by their ears in dozens, bursting or burying themselves on the other side of the little ravine behind. Many of the boulders about were struck, but strange to say not a man was killed. In the first half hour there must have been three hundred shells over an area of as many yards, but the average elevation was slightly too high, and no damage was done.

Meantime the Japanese were getting to work all along the line. Each battery had a telescope fixed to bear on the desired target, though the dense morning mist and the thick clouds of smoke frequently made it quite impossible to see for a time. It was easy enough to tell that the Japanese had got the reins from the very 586first. The opening shot of the day, which all watched with intense interest, had struck within five yards short of a Krupp gun in the nearest of the three forts. The closeness of this shot, in semi-darkness, at an unknown range estimated to be one thousand yards, was a fair indication of what followed. One by one the Chinese guns ceased fire towards eight o’clock, and suddenly a great shouting came across the valley from the fort. The Japanese infantry were singing a march song as they charged the forts, and in a few minutes a huge cheer ran all along the line over the hilltops and In the valleys where the rest of the Japanese were, and great cries of “Kot-ta—Victory!” The Chinese emptied their guns and small arms as the Japanese swarmed up on three sides, firing every few yards and then rushing forward. The enemy, not numerous enough for hand-to-hand combat, waited no longer but fled over the edge of the hill, down to the fortified camps before the town, and the Table Mountain forts displayed the flag of the Rising Sun.

After this first success, the rest of the battle was practically little more than a question of time, although there was still a great deal of hard fighting to follow. Neither side had yet lost more than fifty or sixty in killed and wounded, and there were still many thousand Chinese soldiers to be considered. Had the forts been fully manned with plenty of picked marksmen, they should have cost the invaders several hundreds if not thousands and should have held out longer. And if the Chinese artillery had been as accurate and steady as the Japanese, the vast difference in position and shelter should have more than compensated for the disparity in numbers. Careful planning, rapidity of attack, and individual bravery were all on the Japanese side. The Chinese did not, indeed, run at the sound of shooting, as has been said. They stood their ground manfully and tried their best to shoot straight up to the last minute; but they never attempted to face the foe hand to hand to “Die in the last ditch.”

Only one definite counter-attack was made; a large force, probably near two thousand of Chinese infantry with a few cavalry, marched out around the hills westward, north of the Port Arthur lagoon, to turn the Japanese right flank. General Yamaji, who never showed fatigue all day but kept near the front calmly 587and resolutely at every move, detected the attempt at once, and dispatched Brigadier-General Nishi with the third regiment and the mountain battery to meet it. The extremely rough, broken country rendered movement slow, and this part of the battle dragged on until the afternoon.

The second regiment had occupied the Isusen forts shortly after eight o’clock, and the artillery was then ordered forward. The guns had come on late from Talien-wan, by forced marches night and day, over a very difficult route, and only arrived at Dojoshu on the night of the 20th, after the enemy’s attempt to dislodge the field and mountain guns. The same night twenty of these large guns had been taken into position for the fight north and west of Suishiyeh, and from one to three kilometers from the nearest forts. They were supported by the whole of the first division, fifteen thousand men less twenty-four hundred men detailed to garrison Kinchow and Talien-wan. Deducting also the regiment of twenty-four hundred sent to head off the flank movement in the west, there were ten thousand left before the Table 588Mountain forts. Not more than a third actually took part in the storming. The rest were waiting ready for use if needed, all along the line from the advance guard under Nishi, near the lagoon, to the center under Nogi, about Peh-ka-shu village, where the skirmish was on the 19th. Here, midway between the camp at Dojoshu and the large village of Suishiyeh, Field Marshal Oyama and his staff remained during the first part of the day, communicating his orders by aides-de-camp, never by flag, or flash signal, or bugle, to Yemaji and Hasegawa on the left.

Peh-ka-shu was about a kilometer north of Suishiyeh, and Suishiyeh about five kilometers north of Port Arthur town, and one kilometer from Table Mountain fort on the east, and Pine Tree fort on the west. About half way between Peh-ka-shu and the sea, southeastward, was So-tai-shu where Hasegawa faced the line of eight forts along a wall of five or six kilometers. Of course this brigade did not cover all the country; he had about five thousand men near the center and two thousand near the sea. The five thousand were about equally divided between Shoju and Niryo, each one regiment of two thousand four hundred with artillery. In attacking, two battalions of eight hundred each formed the front, and one was held behind until within range. Then the whole opened out in skirmishing order and charged, and the Chinese exploded several mines, but without effect, as the fuses were not well timed. Some electric mines were also used but wrongly timed.

While Yamaji was attacking the northwest forts, Hasegawa engaged the attention of the northeast forts, in order to prevent them from concentrating fire on the Japanese right. No serious attack was made by the mixed brigade until the first division had made the winning move. Thus the Chinese right wasted their energy on almost bare country, while the weight of the Japanese attack fell on the almost entirely isolated Chinese left. The strategy succeeded completely, for by the time the Chinese discovered their mistake it was too late. The Shoju, or Pine Tree Hill forts opened a heavy fire across Suishiyeh plain, on the hills occupied by the Japanese; but Isu was already finished and the whole weight of Japanese artillery was centered on the largest Shoju fort. Thus the Japanese right wing, which had been briefly 591threatened by the forts on its left and the Chinese column on its right, was never really in any danger, for while the third regiment under Nishi was storming Isu, the second regiment with its back to the third beat off the enemy’s infantry, and the mountain, field, and siege batteries gave Shoju far more than it could face.

It was surprising how the Chinese stood to their guns; they worked like heroes and aimed their guns well. But what could a fort or a half-dozen of forts do, against fifty guns hidden in the mountains, moving to get better positions when possible, and firing systematically and simultaneously at one point.

A furious fusillade was maintained by both sides for nearly two hours; but the Chinese shots got wilder and wilder as the Japanese improved, until finally the Shoju magazine blew up and set fire to the sheds inside of the forts. Then shortly after eleven o’clock, Hasegawa charged all along the line, and took all the eight forts one by one. The big Shoju fort, which had done such determined work was, of course, evacuated as soon as it caught fire, and for two hours afterward the ruined wood-work burned and the piles of ammunition continued to explode. The second largest fort, Liang Leong, or Double Dragon, held out longest. Twice the Japanese advancing along a ravine tried to break cover and rush up the hill, but were met by bombs from the mortars, and had to get back into shelter and try musketry again. Again they came up magnificently at their officers’ call, and scrambled up the mountain side in the teeth of a galling cross fire. At the ramparts, not a Chinaman remained. They fled from fort to fort along the high wall, firing as they went, and making a stand at every point till too close for rifles. All over the hills they were chased and for many miles around hardly a hundred yards could be passed without sight of a Chinese corpse. Those who escaped got down into the town with the main body of the Chinese army.

Meanwhile there had been heavy firing, chiefly infantry, between Suishiyeh, Isu and Port Arthur. There was a flat tract about three miles square, with low ridges of mud and stones across, behind which the Chines riflemen lay. They had tried to make a stand about the walled camps below Isu, but shells and shrapnel soon cleared them out. The Japanese then mustered in the same place about two thousand men from the right 592wing and right center, increasing in number every minute, and ready to force the town itself. Between these camps and the big drill ground at the entrance to Port Arthur were some three thousand Chinese in skirmishing order, making the most of every bit of cover and firing desperately. Behind them the Chinese field guns, some dozen in number, tried to locate the enemy and occasionally succeeded; one shell shattered the corner of the largest camp, where a dense body of Japanese stood behind the wall waiting for orders, and killed several of them. Still farther back, a big hill which threatened the town swarmed with riflemen, who were sheltered by piles of stones and abundantly supplied with ammunition. Last of all the shore forts were firing a little, but could not aid much in the melee.

Steadily the Japanese crept forward from cover to cover, assisted by artillery from Suishiyeh, until the parade ground and the general’s pavilion overlooking it had been mastered and cleared, and nothing remained but the trenches of Boulder hill, or Hakugoku, the town itself, and the shore forts. Along the south of the parade ground ran a broad, shallow stream that came down the Suishiyeh valley, flowing into a creek west of Hakugoku. Three times the Japanese came out from behind the parade ground wall, to cross the bridge, but were driven back by a withering hail of bullets. At last they forced it and rushed across with a cheer, and spread out over the face of the hill pursuing the Chinese up to the town itself. The Second Regiment fired volleys as it advanced to the town. Not a shot was fired in reply. The battle was over as far as Port Arthur was concerned.

The Japanese fleet was not inactive during the assault by the land forces. At 10:30 A.M. the Japanese vessels, comprising the Matsusima, Chiyoda, Itsukusima, Hasidate, Yoshino, Naniwa, Akitsushima, Takachiho, Fuso, Hiyei, and Kongo steamed past Port Arthur, rounding the promontory. The Chiyoda here began to fire shells over the forts at a very long range. A tugboat from Taku was searched by the Japanese, but was allowed to proceed. At 4:00 o’clock the fleet returned, passing Port Arthur again, at a distance of about six miles, and one of the big forts fired at the Chiyoda but failed to hit her. The admiral did not respond to the fire nor alter his course but steamed slowly on. A 593few minutes later, as the Chinese troops were hurrying down to the harbor, ten torpedo boats dashed from the fleet, separating in pairs and firing three-pounder Hotchkiss guns at the exposed soldiers. The fire was briskly responded to by one fort to the left of the harbor, but not a single shot told. A steamer which had towed a junk out of Port Arthur with Taotai Kung in it, making his escape, was cut off on her return and ran ashore, where the crew deserted her and took to the hills.

As the Japanese troops reached the edge of the town, driving the Chinese before them, a halt was called before the army marched in, as the force was not yet assembled in strength. This delay enabled the Chinese to take to boats, and scores of sampans and junks were soon moving off, some over the lagoon to the mountain fastnesses of Lao-tieh-shan promontory in the southwest, and some out to sea, in full view of the Japanese fleet. When the first division was all assembled before the town, with the left wing to the northeast in case the enemy should rally and try to dash out, the order was given to enter the town and storm the 594inner fort, Golden Hill. The Second Regiment led, firing volleys file by file through the streets, past the docks, and the burning army stores, up the hill, and into Ogunsan, which was practically abandoned without an effort at defense.

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 595helping 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.

596In 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 597battle. 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 598of 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 599mutilated, 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 600a 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 601under 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 602troops, 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 603put 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 605the 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 606their 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, 607rapine, 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.

608As 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 609and 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.