A PREMATURE AND DANGEROUS PEACE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10104, 23 March 1909, Page 1

A PREMATURE AND DANGEROUS PEACE.

Such are the terms in which General Kuropatkin, writing in M'Clures lor January, characterises the treaty concluded at Portsmouth. Peace was neither desired nor needed by the Russian army. Never in her whole military history had Russia sent into the field forces of such strength as in September, 1905. A million men, "well organised, seasoned by fightiiiT. and supplied with officers upon whom thorough reliance could be placed, were preparing to continue the bloody conflict with the Japanese," when they "unexpectedly received the fatal news that an agreement . . . had been reaclieu at Portsmouth." The real causes for the conclusion of "this unfortunate peace were," the General maintains, "painful internal disorders, and a hostile, or at best an indifferent, sentiment among the Russian public toward the war." The actual condition of the army in .Manchuria is thus described: . "We had, at that time, rid ourselves largely of the older reserves by sending them 'to the rear guard, and had obtained in exchange several hundred thousand vorar' men—new recruits, enlisted as regulars, a great proportion of whom had. volunteered to join the army. For tho first time since the beginning of tne war the army was filled up to its full complement.' It had received machine guns and batteries of howitzers; field railways insured the transportation of supplies to the army; telegraphs and telephones were at lost-'on hand; the wireless telegraph had arrived; the transportation department- had been enlarged.; and the sanitary condition of the army was excellent. Ry the friendly co-operation of the commanding officers' General Kuropatkin had convinced the troops that without a- victory it would be a- disgrace for any one to show himself in Russia, and so thoroughly had this feeling become rooted that even the reserves were heard to remark :,"The women will make fun of us n we do not return home as conquerors.'' —Japan's Resources Exhausted.— According to information in the hands of" the Russian general staff. Japan, atthe time of the conclusion of peace, had "be"uu to weaken both morally and materially." Her entire available peace force t .,.. 1= w.\.d of 105.C00 men, and her reserves 0f"315 000, uiakins a total of 418,000 men. -■U drriiu' the war more than 1,000,000 men were'callcd to arms, the drain on the noinilation was enormous. Not only was it for raw recruits to be sent into the field but men who hao alreaoy -•erved out their time in the reserve had to be drafted into the regular army. Ammi"- the Japanese who were made prisoners bv the" Russians were -some who wee almost bovs, and side by side wuh them others who were almost aged men. Oneernni" the Japanese losses in killed -nd wounded. General Kuropatkin writes: "In the cemetery of honor at Tolao alone 00.000 were buried who had been -hiu in battle, and to these must be added 50.000 who died of their wounds. Thus the Japanese suffered battle losses of IiO.UUO men— that is to say. a numuer almost equal to the entire army on a peace fooling. Our-losses, compared with i.i- arm- of 1.000.000. were several times smaller than those of tin- Japanese. Durintr the war 554.000 men were treated in the J.-.panes,. hospitals, 220,000 of them l,.>in~ wounded. Counting in with the killed and wounded those who died from di"W=c. the Japanese lost 105,000 men. "The Japanese suffered pnrticularly l.«avy losses'among their officers, but their '"neial In'** were tremendous. Owing To tiie dozedness with which they fought, i whole regiments and brigades of Japanese were almost completely annihilated by us. I This was the case in the battle at Putilov J c'ater on October 2. 1904, and again durine the battles of February, 1905. In the bait!" of hian-Yang and Mukden the maicritv of the Japanese troops attacking our position from the front- suffered heavy losses, and were unsuccessful." Japanese Weaken on Field of Battle. — After paying a generous tribute to the valor of the Japanese and to "the doggeduess with which they fought/' the Russian .amoral goes on to say: "The constantly increasing siubbornness of our own. troops in battle could not do otherwise than affect the frame of mind of the Japanese army. Toward tho end of the war . . . the raw recruits, hurriedly drilled, could not develop the same powe"r of resistance and the same enthusiastic dash forward that the Japanese possessed during the first campaign. . . We no longer noticed the enterprise, dash., and vigilance that they had previously i displayed Weariness of the war I was plainly expressed. . . . Opposite I the position of the First Siberian Corps, cue dav, a- Japanese company in full strength" surrendered as prisoners—something that had never occurred before. . = . . . The English writer, Norregaard. who was with the Japanese army during the siege of Port- Arthur, bears testimony to the breakdown of the patriotic feeling with which the Japanese had been carrying on the war. One of the reserves told him that one of the regiments had even refused to march to an attack." —European Financial Support Withdrawn From Japan— At this time also Japan "could not 'ail to be worried by the coolness toward her successes that- began to be shown by the Powers of Europe and America." Money was harder to get; and, "to all appearances, the Japanese were troubled" even as to how they could supply their artillery sufficient ammunition at the proper time." With, this change m public opinion toward Japan, and the increasing precariousness of her financial condition, General Kuropatkin _ considers that "Only one big success on the part of the Russian troops was required to bring about a- strong reaction in Japan and among the Japanese troops. With the exhaustion of her financial resources, by stubbornly continuing the war, we might speedily havo brought Japan to seek a peace that would have been both honor- i able and advantageous to us." —Preparation for the Next War. — In closing his interesting series of memoirs, General Kuropatkin"leaves no doubt': in the minds of his readers that Russia will fight to recover her lost prestige. After emphasising the necessity of purify- ; ing and regenerating the army, and . ex- ! nressing his belief that his country, "summoned by her monarch to a new life, .will speedily" recover from her ;temporary Miock," he lays down the following lines "for success In the future war probable in tho Far East" : . ; "First, to have ; free for use all. our armed forces; second, to.have at our disposal a strong railway connection between far eastern Siberia: and European Russia; third, to prepare the waterways of Siberia for tho movement-of heavy, freight .from west to east; fourth, to remove the' base of the army as far as possible from European Russia into Siberia; and; fifth, chief of all, to prepare to carry on a new work not with the army alone, but with a -united, patriotic, and enthusiastic Russian nation." - -