“Gun shots behind us turned our attention to the north creek leading into the broad lagoon. Here swarms of boats were moving away to the west, loaded to twice their normal limit with panic-stricken fugitives, men, women, and children, who had stayed too late in the beleaguered town. A troop of Japanese cavalry with an officer, was at the head of the creek, firing seaward, slaughtering all within range. An old man and two children of ten and twelve years had started to wade across the creek; a horseman rode into the water and slashed them a dozen times with his sword. The sight was more than mortal man could stand. Another poor wretch rushed out at the back of a house as the invaders entered the front door, firing promiscuously. He got into a back lane, and a moment later found himself cornered between two fires. We could hear his cry for quarter as he bowed his head in the dust three times; the third time he rose no more, but fell on his side, bent double in the posture of petition for the greatly vaunted mercy of the Japanese, who stood ten paces off and exultantly emptied their guns into him.
“More of these piteous deaths we saw, unable to stay the hands of the murderers; more and more, far more than one can relate, until sick and saddened beyond the power of words to tell, we slowly made our way in the gathering gloom down the hill, picking a path through rifle-pits thick with Chinese cartridge cases, and back to headquarters. There at the Chinese general’s pavilion, facing a spacious parade ground, Field Marshal Oyama and all his officers assembled, amid the strains of strange music from the military band, now a weird[weird], characteristic Japanese march, now a lively French waltz, and ending with the impressive national anthem, “Kaminoga,” and a huge roar from twenty thousand throats, “Banzai Nippon!” All were overflowing with enthusiastic patriotism and the delight of a day’s work done, a splendid triumph after a hard fought fight; none of the Japanese dreamed that their guests from the west were filled with horror, indignation, and disgust. It was a relief to get away from that flood of fiendish exultation, to escape from the effusive glee of our former friends, who would overwhelm us with their attention which we loathed like caresses from the ghouls of hell. To have to remain among men who could do what we had seen was little short of torture.
JAPANESE SOLDIERS MUTILATING BODIES.
“Robbed of our sleep on the eve of the battle, and utterly exhausted, we lay long next morning until the sound of shooting roused us. To our surprise and dismay we found that the massacre of Wednesday, which might have been explained though certainly not excused on the ground of excitement in the heat of battle, the flush of victory, and the knowledge of dead comrades mutilated, was being continued in cold blood now. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were spent by the soldiery in murder and pillage from dawn to dark, in mutilation, in every conceivable kind of nameless atrocity, until the town became a ghastly Inferno to be remembered with a fearsome shudder until one’s dying day. I saw corpses of women and children, three or four in the streets, more in the water; I stooped to pick some of them out to make sure that there could be no possibility of mistake. Bodies of men strewed the streets in hundreds, perhaps thousands, for we could not count—some with not a limb unsevered, some with heads hacked, cross-cut, and split lengthwise, some ripped open, not by chance but with careful precision, down and across, disemboweled and dismembered, with occasionally a dagger or bayonet thrust in private parts. I saw groups of prisoners tied together in a bunch with their hands behind their backs, riddled with bullets for five minutes, and then hewn in pieces. I saw a junk stranded on the beach, filled with fugitives of either sex and of all ages, struck by volley after volley until—I can say no more.
“Meanwhile every building in the town was thoroughly ransacked, every door burst open, every box and closet, every nook and cranny looted. What was worth taking was taken, and the rest destroyed or thrown into the gutter. Even Mr. Hart, Reuter’s war correspondent on the Chinese side, whom we found when we entered Port Arthur, was robbed of everything but the clothes he had on, while his cook and two scully boys in the same house were shot at their kitchen stove, while doing nothing but their regular work. Mr. Hart himself had told the Chinese hotel keeper before the battle not to leave the town, because the Japanese would certainly do no harm to citizens or property. So thoroughly had been the discipline maintained, and so perfect the show of civilized methods in warfare, that the present outburst of cold-blooded brutality was the very last thing to have been thought possible.
“The Japanese alleged that the populace of the town had been armed with guns and express ammunition, and that the army when entering the town had been attacked from the houses. I did afterward find cartridges such as these lying about; but I never saw one fired. I never saw any attack from the houses. I saw the Japanese firing before they entered, and as they entered, without intermission.
“The Japanese who had been wounded and killed or captured in several skirmishes before the day of the battle, had been horribly mutilated by the Chinese. We saw several bodies along the line of march, and it is said others were found in the town, with hands and heads cut off, stomachs opened, etc. And some were burnt at Kinchow, and one said to be burnt in Port Arthur. Moreover, placards have been found offering rewards and stating prices, for heads, hands, or prisoners. So the Japanese soldiers swore revenge, and they carried out their vow thoroughly in barbarous eastern style. All that can be said is that the Chinese committed nameless atrocities which the Japanese repaid a hundred fold.
“It is unavoidable that innocent persons must be killed in war. I do not blame the Japanese for that alone; Chinese soldiers dress as peasants and retain their weapons, and attack when they can under cover of disguise. It therefore becomes excusable to some extent to regard all Chinese as enemies, with or without uniform; in that the Japanese are plainly justified. But regarding them as enemies, it is not humanity to kill them; they should be taken alive. I saw hundreds killed after being captured and tied. Perhaps that is not barbarity; at any rate it is the truth. On the day of the battle, soldiers fresh from the excitement of a hard struggle cannot help being somewhat bloodthirsty, perhaps. At any rate their nerves are tense, their blood is up, they are violently excited. Not that it is right to be so, but it is usual. But the battle was on the 21st, and still on the 25th, after four nights’ sleep, the slaughter was continued. Some allowance must be made for the intense indignation of the soldiers whose comrades had been mutilated by the Chinese. Indignation is perfectly justifiable; the Japanese were quite right to feel incensed. But why should they express themselves in the very same barbarous manner? Is it because they are also barbarous at heart like the Chinese? Of course they say ‘No.’ Then they will have to prove it, for the fact remains that a dozen white men saw these Japanese commit these savageries for four clear days after the day of the fight.”
Creelman’s story was as graphic and as shocking in its details, and included many of the same sights which were related by Cowan. He says in part: “The story of the taking of Port Arthur will be one of the blackest pages in history. An easy victory over a Chinese mob, and the possession of one of the most powerful strongholds in the world, was too great a strain upon the Japanese character, which relapsed in a few hours back to the state from which it awakened a generation ago. Almost the entire population found in Port Arthur have been massacred, and the work of butchering unarmed and unresisting inhabitants has continued day after day until the streets are choked with corpses. The march upon helpless Peking or a surrender of China to her foe is a small matter in its vital significance compared with this appalling crime against the nineteenth century, at a moment when Japan asks to be admitted as an equal into the family of civilized nations. The Japanese lost about fifty dead and two hundred and fifty wounded in carrying a fortress that would have cost them ten thousand men had it been occupied by European or American troops, and yet the sense of uncontrolled power which let loose the savagery which had been pent up in the Japanese under the external forms of civilization, has proved the utter incapability of the nation to stand the one sure test. Japan stands disgraced before the world. She has violated the Geneva convention, dishonored and profaned the Red Cross, and banished humanity and mercy from her councils. Victory and a new lust for dominion have set her mad.