Southern Newspaper Takes Issue With an English Naval Critic Who Avers
That It Does.
E. T. Jane, the English naval critic, says the reason the Japanese
defeated the Russians was that the Japanese hated the Russians and
longed to kill them, whereas the Russian soldiers felt no consuming
hatred against their ant-like enemies. The Columbia (South Carolina)
_State_ takes issue with the theory, as follows:
Mr. Jane is wrong, both as to his facts and as to his theory. First as
to his facts:
The Japanese did not hate the Russians. They fought with tremendous
fury at times, but it was a calculated fury, never a whirlwind of
blind passion. Never for a single moment in the long struggle did they
show such fury as to lose sight of the essential principle of modern
warfare, complete self-protection. Nor did they show any passion on
the field of battle, such as slaughtering wounded men, or mutilating
the dead; yet the Russians were guilty of both atrocities.
When Russian prisoners were taken to Japan they were treated with so
much consideration and kindness that they were happier than they had
been within their own lines in Manchuria. Witness, again, the
magnanimous and truly magnificent treatment accorded Stoessel and his
garrison and Rojestvensky and his captured officers and men.
The Bravest Are the Tenderest.
Not from the beginning to the close of the war did the Japanese
exhibit any hatred of the Russians. They fought like knights, like
bushi—
The knightliest of the knightly race,
That since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry
Alight in hearts of gold.
And considering Mr. Jane’s theory, that hate makes a good fighter, it
is as false to-day as it was in the heyday of chivalry. The poet is
right in his view that “the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are
the daring.”
The old British idea, inherited from the teachings of Nelson and his
half-corsair predecessors, that an Englishman “should hate a Frenchman
like the devil,” is a sentiment that could well have had its origin in
the place to which Nelson went for his sprightly imagery.
The best fighters of the world to-day are the men who can remain cool,
unperturbed, unblinded by passion in the midst of battle. This is
necessary in order that they may see straight and shoot straight; it
is necessary in order that they may be able to protect themselves from
the shot and shell of the enemy.
Contrary to the Scientific Theory.
It is conceivable that a warrior of the olden time might have been a
bit more effective when rushing furious with hate into the ranks of
his foe and laying about him with short-sword, or falchion, or
claymore; although even in such case the cool-headed warrior was
generally able to meet and overcome the raging brute. To maintain that
hate makes a good soldier is to challenge the scientific theory of
warfare.
Hate has never made a man more efficient in any good cause, and in
very few bad ones. Browning says of Dante that he “loved well because
he hated,” but Dante “hated wickedness that hinders loving.” No mere
hate adds anything to a man’s efficiency. It saps his real strength by
misdirecting it and spending it on the air in blind fury; it poisons
and corrodes the heart and mind.
Chaucer says that “hate is old wrath”; it is, therefore, a
demoralizing and debasing passion, weakening alike to body and the
mind. The recklessness it inspires on the battle-field or in the daily
struggles of life is ineffective against the coolness, deliberateness,
and resourcefulness of the passionless fighter.