“What our troops saw of Chinese barbarity did not begin with Port Arthur nor did it end there. The most atrocious cruelties were the rule at Ping-Yang, Kinchow, and indeed every engagement. Before accepting this reported wantonness of our troops at Port Arthur we must take into consideration what the Japanese troops did before and what they have done since. Nowhere has there been butchery or cruelty, but kindness, moderation and nobility. This in spite of all that our soldiers saw of the fate of their unhappy companions; this in the face of new barbarities that were revealed almost daily. Is this not a credit to our soldiers worthy of national pride and international appreciations?”
The variety of explanations offered to excuse the atrocities was considerable. It was reported from Port Arthur a few days after the charges had been made, that the capture of the place was indeed marked by regrettable excesses, but the offenders were not regular soldiers. It was said that the night after the capture of the stronghold, a number of coolies attached to the army as laborers came into the town from the camps. These men carried swords, in order to obviate the necessity of always having regular troops told off for their protection. Unfortunately they obtained access to some Chinese stores of liquor, and became intoxicated. While in this condition they were reminded of the atrocious cruelties committed by the Chinese upon defenseless Japanese prisoners, and became frenzied. All the coolies practically ran amock, and no Chinamen whom they met was spared. It was declared that some of the coolies were at once arrested, and that Marshal Oyama was already investigating the affair, when he received instructions from imperial headquarters at Hiroshima to institute a rigorous inquiry.
The barbarities practised by the Chinese against the Japanese, which resulted in the atrocious retaliation, were fully corroborated from many sources. A correspondent of the American Bible Society wrote thus from Shanghai:
“The reported inhuman atrocities of the Chinese are fully confirmed. They were guilty of barbarities too revolting to mention. A scouting party of Japanese, including an interpreter, were captured by the Chinese near Port Arthur just before the attack on the fortress. They were fastened to stakes by nails through their shoulders, burned alive, and then quartered and their ghastly remains stuck up on poles by the roadside. Some Japanese members of the Red Cross society were captured by the Chinese soldiers and flayed alive. During the attack on Port Arthur the defenders used explosive bullets. Is it any wonder that the Japanese generals issued the order that no quarter should be shown? The track of the retreating army has been marked by pillage, rapine, wanton destruction and outrage, so that the people welcome the Japanese.”
Japanese diplomats in Washington did not take kindly to the civilized censure of Japanese atrocities. They had read up on Andersonville, Libby Prison, Fort Pillow, Wounded Knee, the British cruelties in India and Africa, the Russian record, and they were ready to compare notes with civilized armies on the subject of cruelty in war. They also brought forward native Japanese papers which described the taking of Port Arthur, and declared that those who were killed after the assault suffered only because of the frenzy of a few Japanese, shocked by what they had seen of the cruelties to their own comrades. It was declared that the Japanese officers and the body of the troops did all in their power to stop the bloodshed. Furthermore, the Japanese government asked for a suspension of judgment until the merits of the case could be investigated.
The savage massacres which marked the capture of Port Arthur were not the first, nor will they be the last which will disgrace the conduct of troops calling themselves civilized. English troops were guilty of similar massacre in the Peninsular campaign, at least one time in the Crimea, and repeatedly in suppressing rebellion in India. Our own troops in the west have been stung to ruthless massacre by the discovery of their tortured dead in Indian villages. Fort Pillow gave ghastly proof of the readiness to butcher in our war. French troops in Algeria, New Zealand colonists in suppressing a Maori rising, and Boers in South Africa have slaughtered without mercy. These occasions neither palliate nor excuse barbarity. It is wrong in all races, and in all races from time to time it will come to the surface. The amazing fact about Japan is that it is the first Asiatic nation in all history which has fought any battles and conducted any military operations without massacre. The slaughter or slavery of surrendered troops has been the unbroken rule of Asiatic warfare for centuries. Japan has actually been able to reverse the practice and habit of generations, to school its soldiers to mercy, and even in the present instance it has been followed, as Wellington’s massacres in the Peninsula never were, by investigation and an attempt at repressing like disorder in the future.
As an indication of the trend of thought of Chinese newspapers, and of ignorance of the Chinese people concerning the truth of the war, it is amusing to note the report of one of the vernacular papers on the fall of Port Arthur. This paper editorially says:—“In allowing the Japanese to take Port Arthur, General Tso was actuated by motives of the deepest strategy, and the able manner in which he attained his end, without allowing his opponents to penetrate his designs, stamps him as one of the greatest military commanders China has ever seen. Knowing Peking to be the ultimate goal of the Japanese, General Tso was satisfied that should a too obstinate resistance be offered at any point, the Japanese would leave the Chinese unconquered in his rear, and would push on to the capital; whereas, if an important place like Port Arthur should fall into their hands, the little men would enjoy the sensation as they would a new toy, and it would delay them in their march while the road to Peking was rendered impregnable. General Tso, therefore, inflicted all the loss possible upon the Japanese, without allowing them to be absolutely discouraged, and then when defeat was staring his opponents in the face, gave the signal to his troops to retreat, which they did in good order. So great was the loss of the Japanese, that it was not until some hours after the last Chinese soldier had departed, that they ventured to enter the forts.
“General Tso displayed marked military skill in his defensive tactics, and by ordering half-charges of powder to be used in the big guns, and filling the shell and torpedoes with sand, deluded the innocent commander of the Japanese fleet into the belief that the defenses and sea forts of Port Arthur were innocuous. As a result the Japanese fleet boldly ventured close to the forts and within the line of the torpedo defenses, and before they discovered their mistake three men-of-war, seven transports, and twenty-one torpedo boats were sunk by the Chinese fire and submarine mines. The result of General Tso’s actions prove, as we have always maintained, that it is inadvisable for China to employ other than native commanders in the present war. In hand-to-hand combats the savage and flesh-eating Fanquoi is physically superior to our men, but no man other than one conversant with the military wisdom of our enlightened race could have planned and brought to a successful conclusion the train of events which ended in the offering of Port Arthur as a bait to our diminutive opponents.”
From a military point of view, the capture of Port Arthur by the Japanese was an event of the first importance, while its moral effect and its consequent influence upon the diplomatic situation was very great. It transferred from one side to the other all the advantages of a fully equipped arsenal and dockyard, occupying a commanding strategical position, and therefore modified all the conditions, naval as well as military, of the campaign. It made the defense more hopeless than ever, and extended the chain of Chinese disaster.
