Rigors of Manchurian Winters--In Winter Quarters--Ear Muffs Won
by Yankee Thrift--Hot Baths and Hot Meals--Disease Conquered in
Camp--Wonderful Sanitary Record--Civil War Comparisons--The
Japanese Scientific--No Detail Overlooked--Wounded Rarely Die.
[Sidenote: Rigors of Manchurian Winters]
After the Battle of the Sha-ho River the two armies went into winter
quarters prepared to face a Manchurian season with thermometer readings
of 35 degrees below zero not uncommon and with a snowfall of enormous
proportions to contend with. The Russians were better prepared to meet
the situation than the Japanese since a large proportion of the Russian
army hailed from Siberia or the northern provinces of Asiatic and
European Russia and hence were inured to rigorous winters. Some
thousands of the Japanese had come from the northern provinces of Japan
and they, too, were well experienced in cold. But a large majority of
the Japanese troops were from the southern islands of Japan, where
rigorous winters are unknown. The Japanese army administration was thus
confronted by a very serious problem. The story of the manner in which
the problem was met and solved is among the most interesting of the
chapters of the history of the war.
[Sidenote: In Winter Quarters]
[Sidenote: Ear Muffs Won by Yankee Thrift]
When the positions of the various units of the army had been definitely
fixed the whole army began, as a preliminary step, to burrow into the
earth. Before mid-November the Japanese camp was no longer stretched
over the hills south of the Sha-ho but had vanished from view under the
hills. Along the whole front that stretched for nearly sixty miles
underground galleries were excavated barely high enough even for a
Japanese to stand erect. These were open at one end and at the entrance
to each a charcoal burning stove was placed. A fire was kept burning
continually in each of these thousands of stoves. The stove pipe,
instead of jutting a foot or two into the air was extended along the
roof of the dug-out to its end, then passed upward through the eight
feet of soil that formed the roof. Fronting the open end long trenches,
were dug and over them heavy protective bomb proofs of timber and earth
were erected as a protection against the shells which with greater or
less activity were hurled into the Japanese lines by the Russians
throughout the winter. These underground homes solved much of the
question of withstanding cold for in them the men were reasonably
comfortable. Special clothing, too, was provided, and in connection
with fur ear-muffs with which each man was provided an interesting
story is told, one typical of the Yankee-like thrift of the Japanese.
Five years before, the plague had been introduced into Japan from the
Malay Peninsula. A vigorous fight was made and the disease was finally
conquered but in the course of the fight the sanitary officials became
convinced that the germs of the disease were being spread by rats. A
prize was put upon the heads of the dangerous rodents. Millions were
killed by the boys of Japan who delivered the rats, collected the
bounty and gave no thought to what became of the carcasses. Nor did
anyone, but when the army faced a Manchurian winter those millions of
rat furs reappeared as warm ear protectors while a smile went around
the world. So completely, in a thousand ingenious ways did the army
officials conquer the cold and safeguard the army that throughout the
winter it was even possible for every man in the army to have two hot
baths a week. The bath in Japan is almost a religious rite, but the
trooper bade good-bye to it, as he supposed, when he started for the
front. Not so. Circular metal tubes were provided. These were sunk in
the ground level with the surface. Ten feet away at the bottom of a
trench a stove was placed heating a coil of pipes which went inside,
around and around the sides of the tube. The tube served as the tub. It
was filled with water and in a few minutes the hot bath was ready. In
protected spots all along the lines Nippon could be seen hastily
stripping beside the steaming hole in the ground. Then he would vanish
until only his head was visible. As well as he could he scrubbed
himself. Comrades raised him swiftly from the tube and swathed him in
heavy blankets, wrapped in which he vanished over the edge of the
trench and so into his underground home, clean and happy.
[Illustration: A NIGHT ATTACK ON A RUSSIAN POSITION.]
[Sidenote: Hot Baths and Hot Meals]
Hot meals were cooked at the doors of the dugouts for the fifty
occupants on improved portable camp kitchens. Telephones connected
every battalion headquarters with its regimental headquarters and so
throughout the army, every unit with the next largest and all with the
general headquarters at Liao-yang. Great fur overcoats, pure wool
underclothing, heavy uniforms well adapted for comfort and warmth; in
every detail the Japanese were splendidly equipped for the ordeal of
cold. Thousands of slight cases of frost-bite reached the hospitals
after occasional sorties demanded by fitful attacks of Russian scouting
parties, but there was none of this in the normal life of the vast army
of nearly 300,000 men.
The Japanese medical department during the winter made a wonderful
fight against disease, that bane of armies, and continued under these
unrecord of the actual campaign.
[Sidenote: Wonderful Sanitary Record]
Until now disease has always been much more destructive than shot and
shell. During the brief conflict with Spain 268 Americans died of
bullets and wounds, while mortality from disease reached the appalling
number of 3,862, or about fourteen to one. In the Boer War 7,792
English were killed in action or died of wounds, while 13,250 fell
victims to disease. Of the Turkish army operating in Thessaly seven
years ago, 1,000 men were lost in battle, while 19,000 died at the
front of disease. Twenty-two thousand others were invalided home, and
of these 8,000 subsequently died. This was a ratio of twenty-seven men
killed by disease to one by bullets. Even more frightful was the
experience of the French expedition to Madagascar in 1894. Only 29 were
killed in action, while over 7,000 perished from disease. Compare these
frightful experiences with the record of the Japanese. During the last
nine months of 1904, throughout a difficult campaign, in a country
noted for lack of sanitation, only forty deaths from disease occurred
in the immense army in Manchuria commanded by General Oku. It is a
wonderful lesson in sanitation Japan has taught to the world.
While disease scored but forty victims in nine months among the
soldiers of General Oku, no fewer than 5,127 officers and men were
killed and 21,080 wounded. This shows that the period was one of great
activity, of hard campaigning and severe fighting--which makes the low
disease death rate all the more astonishing. Soldiers in the field
cannot be looked after as carefully as those in camp; hygiene and
sanitary surroundings are only temporary, and, therefore, more crude;
dietetic regulations are more difficult to enforce. Of course, there
were many cases of disease in Oku's army--24,642 in all--but the
majority were of bronchial troubles, resulting from climatic
conditions. Of beri beri, a malady peculiarly Oriental, 5,070 cases
were reported. But the progressive Japanese seem to have gotten the
mastery even of this, once notable, because of its mortality. It is,
however, in battling with those most dreaded scourges of an
army--typhoid fever and dysentery--that the Japanese have scored their
greatest triumphs. Of typhoid fever they have had only 193 cases, and
of dysentery only 342 cases.
[Sidenote: Civil War Comparisons]
During the first year of the American Civil War typhoid fever attacked
8 per cent. of the Federal troops, killing 35 per cent. of the white
and 55 per cent. of the negro soldiers who contracted it. But here is
an army in the wilds of Manchuria larger than that of McClellan before
Richmond, which had only forty deaths in nine months. The great
American conflict was one of the bloodiest in history. In the Federal
ranks, 110,070 men were killed in battle or died of wounds, while
249,458 were sent to their graves of disease. Why is it the little
brown islanders of the East were so successful in fighting the unseen
foe?
"Every death from preventable disease is an insult to the intelligence
of the age," says Major Louis L. Seaman, late surgeon in the United
States Volunteers, who returned from Japan during the war.
"When it occurs in an army, where the units are compelled to submit to
discipline, it becomes a governmental crime."
"Disease bacteria," asserts another writer, in discussing the medical
aspects of the Boer War, "are even more dangerous than Mauser bullets
shot off with smokeless powder. Both hit without giving a sign to the
eye whence they come, and of the two, the Mausers hit less often and
hit less hard." It was through prompt recognition of these propositions
that the Japanese held down their death rate from disease. Major Seaman
relates that, in conversation with a Japanese officer early in the
conflict, the subject of Russia's overwhelming numbers was mentioned.
"Yes," admittted the officer, "we are prepared for that. Russia may be
able to place 2,000,000 men in the field. We can furnish 500,000. You
know that in war four men die of disease for every one who falls from
bullets. We propose to eliminate disease as a factor. Every man who
dies in our army must fall on the field of battle. In this way we shall
neutralize the superiority of Russian numbers and stand on a
comparatively equal footing."
[Sidenote: The Japanese Scientific]
When Japan started out to make war she did so upon a scientific basis.
For many months in advance the store rooms of Tokio were crowded with
surgical materials, cots, tents, bedding, ambulances and all kinds of
hospital supplies, ready for any emergency, and under the personal
example of the Empress the women of the land made bandages for those
who might be wounded. Japan realized also that the keystone to the
health of the army lay in the character of the ration provided for the
individual soldier. So she set about to master that problem. First of
all, the ration evolved was suited to the climatic conditions of the
campaign. It consisted largely of rice, compressed fish, soy, army
biscuits, a few salted plums, tea--all of which necessitate the
drinking of large quantities of boiled water--a few ounces of meat and
some juicy, succulent pickles.
No more thorough or efficient medical preparation could be imagined
that Japan made for her great conflict. Not only was the ablest of
medical counsel obtained, but the members of that staff of the army
were given rank and full authority to enforce their decrees. The
Japanese had a medical director who ranked as a lieutenant-general. Six
medical officers ranked as major-general. With every 20,000 men in line
a surgeon ranking as brigadier-general, and all have power to enforce
their orders. Every body of moving soldiers, however small, was
accompanied by one or more medical officers, who were almost
omnipresent, and were always watchful. Field and line officers and men
were obliged to obey them without question. The solution of the greater
problem engaged the attention of the medical corps. This was in
preserving the health and fighting value of the army. Nothing seemed
too small to escape the vigilance of the medical officers, or too
tedious to weary his patience. He was with the first line of scouts,
with his microscope and chemicals, testing and labelling wells so that
the army to follow should not drink water that was contaminated. When
the scouts reached a town, he immediately instituted a thorough
examination of its sanitary condition. If contagious or infectious
disease was found, he quarantined and placed a guard around the
dangerous district. Notices were posted, so that the approaching column
was warned and no soldiers were located where danger existed.
Violations of such a notice was as great an offense as disobedience to
a line officer on a battlefield. An officer with only the rank of a
lieutenant might post the notice, and yet General Oku himself dared not
disregard it. No foraging party ever set out to gather supplies unless
accompanied by a medical officer.
[Sidenote: No Detail Overlooked]
He sampled the various kinds of food, fruit and vegetables sold by the
natives along the line of march long before the arrival of the army. If
the food was tainted, or the fruit over ripe, or the water ought to be
boiled, notice was posted to that effect. In camp, too, the medical
officer was always busy, lecturing the men on sanitation and the
hundred and one details of personal hygiene--how to cook, to eat, and
when not to drink; to bathe, and even to directions as to paring and
cleansing the finger nails to prevent danger from bacteria. More than
any other preventive, the boiling of all drinking water was insisted
upon. Every Japanese soldier carried a small copper camp kettle with a
double bottom. By the use of it he was enabled to boil water even in a
gale. Charcoal was burned on the inside, the water being heated between
two layers of copper. Great kettles for similar use in camps were also
provided.
Large bathing basins, or kettles, formed an important part of the
equipment of each company. They were placed upon the ground and are
ready for use in a few minutes after camp was made. In this way
personal cleanliness was maintained. A troop might encamp beside a
small stream, the water of which was needed for several different
purposes. It was not scooped up indiscriminately, but the flow was
divided into separate channels--one for drinking or cooking, another
for bathing, a third for laundry service, and so on.
[Sidenote: Wounded Rarely Died]
Up to July 1, 1106 wounded were taken to Tokio, and of that number not
a single man died. These men were shot in almost every possible way;
six had bullets through the brain, nine had bullets through their
chests, and six had bullets through the abdomen--and yet all got well.
The medical service of the United States in its war with Spain was not
any more discreditable when compared with that of Japan than the
medical service of the English Army during its war with the Boers. The
report of the English Hospital Commission, which inquired into the
medical end of that conflict, shows that there was "an immense amount
of needless suffering and misery." There is no attempt "to hide
incompetency and unpreparedness under the platitude that 'was is war.'"
Just as in the Spanish-American War, a large number of civil surgeons
were employed for army work in South Africa. They had no knowledge of
military duties nor of military methods and discipline. Consequently,
they were ineffective, except when accompanied and, to some extent,
controlled by officers of the service. They were absolutely without
authority. Perhaps all these lessons were observed and absorbed by the
keen-eyed Japanese. In any event, they have given the world the most
pronounced examples of scientific warfare that the hoary old globe has
ever seen.
[Illustration: JAPANESE TROOPS CAUGHT IN BARBED WIRE ENTANGLEMENT.]