THE WAR.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12728, 11 April 1904, Page 3

THE WAR.

RUSSIA & JAPAN. PORT ARTHUR. (Received April iO, 9.5 a.m.) LONDON, April 9. An official report published at Tokio states that in the various attacks on Tort Arthur, the Japanese lost fourteen killed. Xine died of wounds. Of 91 others wounded, 40 have already recovered. The “Daily Chronicle's” Tokio correspondent reports that a moat has been constructed four miles long, covered and protected with barbed wire, two miles north of Port Arthur. MEDICAL CORPS. (Received April 10, 9.3 a.m.) LOXDOX. April 9. Japan has engaged 200 Canadians to serve with the medical and hearer corps. They served similarly in the South African War. A KINDLY ACT. (Received April 10. 9.3 a.m.) LOXDOX, April 9. The “Standard'’ states that the Empress of Japan has presented the Russians who were wounded in the Chemulpho fight with artificial eyes and limbs. JAPANESE PATRIOTISM.

In bis fascinating volume on Japanese physical training. Mr Irving Hancock gives some striking examples of the coo! courage and absorbing patriotism of the little brown people who are now engaged in a life and death struggle with the mighty Russians. One of them tells of the magnificent sacrifice of a Japanese prince, a daimio, who in the old days found himself sorely oppressed in battle, and with some two thousand of his surviving followers forced back to the edge of a steep cliff. The boulder-strewn gully, to quote Mr Hancock’s own words, lay several hundred feet below. The victorious enemy, expecting certain surrender, sent forward emissaries to arrange for the capitulation. The daimio gave the quiet answer that surrender was out of the question. I\ith his decimated force backed against the edge of the cliff, he waited until he saw the enemy moving forward, with a strength of numbers that he knew could not be resisted, and then he stepped through the ranks, looked down into the gully below, and shouted, “Follow me.” Down along the ranks the order was repeated, and a few moments later the daimio leaped over the cliff. Before his body had struck the rocks below, hundreds of his men were in the air, and within a few seconds the last man of the command was on his way to death. Not one had stopped to question tli'e order; it was a command, and that was all there was to be said. This instant obedience, according to Mr Hancock, sprang from the calmness that was induced by the good nature instilled into the men by their jiu-jitsu instructors. The bravery that is, in most men. inseparable from the conscious possession of strength, aided in the heroic suicide that saved an army from disgrace, but its expression was largely due to the physical training that is the first requirement of every soldier of Japan. The whitening bones of the men who followed their prince to death were allowed to remain undisturbed until they had crumbled and mingled with the earth. It was a gruesome, but a splendid monument to the calm bravery of a race that has made good nature an art to be preserved through all the centuries to the present day. The men who are fighting the Russians now are made of the same stuff, and those people who question their powers of endurance can have read little of the marvellous achievements of their race.The Japanese army is the best trained and the best disciplined force in the whole world, and nothing but the weight of numbers can prevent it rivalling the feats of the nation’s navy.

ANECDOTES OE KUROPATKIN. Mere recapitulation of the services of the Russian military commander affords but a poor estimate of the kind of man General Kuropatkin is. He began life as a sub-lieutenant in that period of war, when Russia was founding her Asiatic Empire. Taslikend fell one morning, and in the evening General Tchnernaietf took tea with the Czar’s new subjects. The Emir of Bokhara, with 40.000 men. surrendered to four thousand Ruslans. Khojent fell at the point of the bayonet after a seven days’ storming, and the young lieutenant passed on to Samarkand, and took part with 8000 of the Czar’s troops in the entry into Tamerlane’s capita). His opportunity came in Western Europe. He had studied in Berlin, and was in Paris when Sedan fell, and Marshal Macmahon invited him to share in the reorganisation of the cavalry of France. His success is summed up in the report of General Gallitfot. when he informed Macmahon that the best results of the reorganisation were due to Kuropatkin. The young officer received the Cross of the Legion of Honour, which he was the first Russian officer to wear. Back again to Central Asia as staff officer to Skobeleff. Kuropatkin was sent off to find Yakub Beg, and to settle a frontier that nobody knew anything about. Although wounded in the arm, he set off on a ride of 2500 miles among the Tartar tribes, and returned in a year with his work well done, to write a booly on Kashgaria, and receive the Geographical Society’s medal - He was again at the right hand of Skobeletf at the storming of Plevna. Three thousand Russians fell in one hour in trying to drive Osman Pasha and his Turks to surrender. Kuropatkin, the only surviving officer on Skobeletf’s staff, was sent with 300 men to meet the Turks in the redoubt. He drove them bark, but returned with a mere handful of his men, and a wound in his head, which kept him in hospital for a month. Skobeleff retreated, leaving 8000 dead behind, and he lost 6000 more during the bilter winter campaign. But eventually 12,000 Turks laid down their arms at Shinovo. In his next campaign Kuropatkin added to his fame by a feat of engineering, which admitted the Russian troops into a fortress, and led to the final overthrow of the Asiatic resisters. Since then Hu? work of Kuropatkin has been in the administrative department. Five years ago lie was warned that the powder magazine at St. Petersburg and that at Toulon were to be blown up within twenty-four hours. He rose from his bed and went to the stores, paraded the officers and men, and declared his satisfaction with the inspection, giving all three days’ leave of absence. As soon as they had left fresh guards and sappers were summoned, and p. rampart was constructed round the magazine, and before night it was certain that all was safe. Nothing happened, but nest morning the magazine at Toulon was blown up.

THE RUSSIAN KITCHENER. Vnder this title the Paris correspondent of the “Daily News” refers to the present commander-in-chief of the Russian army of the East—General Kuropatkin“He was, some years ago. a well-known and popular figure in Paris. I have heard him compared with Lord Kitchener. And for resourcefulness and tremendous energy, as also as regards their rapid advancement in the service, there is between them a great resemblance. Amusing stories are told of Kuropatkin’s adventures in France in 1874. when he went about the country studying the battlefields of the Franco-German war, jotting down notes and taking sketches. The French authorities even helped the young lieutenant, as he then was. But the peasantry were suspicious. The cry of ‘German spy’ was still sounding in their ears. And poor young Kuropatkin was often shadowed, and chased, often refused food and lodgings, and compelled to sleep with the sky for a blanket. It is just twenty years since I first heard of General Kuro- j patkin—captain, as he then was. i think. There was a scare about a | threatened Russian invasion of Turkish ; Armenia. So, two or three weeks later. I was in Kars, and, talking with the Governor-General. General Grossman. who had much to say about the Rnsso-Turkish war. Among The Russian officers whom he named as having distinguished themselves in it was Kuropatkin. Kuropatkin was a great favourite with Skobeleff, who said of him that, if a bullet did not bowl him over, he would go a long way.” All the same, Kuropatkin has not faced a formidable foe since Plevna, and there

have been great changes in lighting ways and arms since then. Some of those who saw the Japs and the Russians outside Pekin thought there were grave errors in formation with both, which if repeated now in action, would mean heavy loss.