_Extraordinary Popularity of the War in Japan_
Among the sources of moral strength that failed to attract our
attention in Japan were the following: The training of her citizens had
long been patriotic and warlike in tendency; her educational system had
inculcated an ardent love of country; and even in her primary schools
children were prepared, from their earliest years, to be soldiers. The
people regarded the army with profound respect and trust, and young
men served in it with pride. All these things we failed to see, and we
overlooked also the iron discipline enforced in the army and the rôle
played in it by the samurai officers. We wholly failed to appreciate,
moreover, the vital importance of the Korean question to Japan, and the
strength of the hostile feeling that was raised against us when the
Japanese were deprived of the fruits of their victory after their war
with China. The party of Young Japan had long insisted upon war with
Russia and had been restrained only by a prudent Government.
When the war began, we recovered our powers of perception, but it was
then too late. And at that time, when the war was not only unpopular
in Russia but incomprehensible to the Russian people, the Japanese,
with a great outburst of enthusiastic patriotism, were responding,
like a single man, to the call to arms. In some cases Japanese mothers
even killed themselves, when their sons, on account of weakness or ill
health, were denied admission to the army. Hundreds of men volunteered
to undertake the most desperate enterprises, in the face of certain
death; and many officers and soldiers, before going to the front, had
funeral ceremonies performed over their bodies, in order to show that
they intended to die for their native land. The youth of the Empire
crowded into the army, and the heads of the most distinguished families
sought to serve their country by enlisting themselves, by sending
their sons to the front, or by helping to pay the expenses of the war.
Some Japanese regiments, in attacking our positions, threw themselves
with the cry of "Banzai!" upon our obstructions, struggled over or
through them, filled our ditches with the bodies of their dead, and
then, rushing across upon the corpses of their comrades, forced their
way into our entrenchments. The army and the whole people appreciated
the importance of the war, understood the significance of the events
that were taking place, and were ready to make sacrifices in order to
achieve success.
[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood_