The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1904-02-26
The JAPANESE Army.

Japan sustains two armies and n
militia; the permanent or regular army
with its reserves, the territorial army
the national militia and the militia Of
the islands of Hokkando. Tsushlma,
! Goto etc The first army is kept ready
! for foreign service and numbers over
100000 onicerscand men. i9S guns and
$1,000 horses; the second, or territorial
army numbers about l22,O0O officers
and men, 3l2 guns and II $50 horses.
Taking all arms together capable of
foreign and home defence and there are,
exclusive of the Formoaa garrison:
Officers, H. S5; men, $4,000; guns, lll6;
horses, &c. AGO. The total arms-bearing
population, one in five, is 100000 of
patriotic, .self-sacriiicing, and cour-
ageous race.
Service is obligatory in the case of
every able-bodied male, without abso-
| lutely dependent relatives, from the
age of seventeen to forty years, but
on educational grounds many young
men have their service modified. They
become volunteers, which entails only
one years service with the colors Uhree
months of which is in barracks like ain
ordinary ConscripD, and then, after
eleven and "A quarter years in the
reserves, they pass into the territorial
army
This is the system which applies
practically to al the better classes, and
graduates of normal schools and teach
ers receive even more consideration,
doing only six weeks with the Colors
and then at once passing into the ter
ritorial army Everything possible is
done to make the minimum of military
service convenient to the secondary
scholar, the graduate and the teacher,
but no one who is physically fit can en-
tirely escape, and If he tries to do so he
is placed, as punishment, on the same
level as the conscript.
The mass of the army is composed
of men drawn by lot at the rate of
10000 a year, and $4,000 others are
drafted into the two bodies of super
numeraries, the first entailing seven
and one-third years service, and the
second only fifteen months, after which
the men in both sections join the great
territorial army.
Every year over 100000 youths quail
fy by age for regular military service,
and nearly 100000 begin to serve either
with the colors o" as SupernumarieS.
The ordinary conscript who has to go
with the colors, passes three years in
the permanent, or regular army, four
years and four months in the first reg
ular reserves, five years in the second
reserves, or landwehr, and then enters
the depot service for Z 1-3, or 1 1-3
years, according to circumstances, even
tually passing into the territorial ar
my, for the remaining years up to the
age of forty.
The Japanese have demonstrated the
possession of all the qualities which
go to make good soldiers except one
and this one they have had no oppor-
tunity to show. They are fanatically
patriotic; they have no sensation of
fear in battle, seeming neither to dread
death nor to value life; they are al
ways aggressive and fertile in expe-
dent. Rcrn a feudal race, among
whom obedience of servant to lord was
ingrained, they submit willingly to dis
cipl!ne, obeying the orders of their
officers and asking no questions; race
of pedestrians, they march further and
faster in a given time than the troops
of any other nation and being of sim
pie wants, they are not encountered in
campaigns with baggage and provis-
ion trains. The one open question
about them is whether they would
stand a long series of reverses, hang
ing on with bulldog tenacity when
everything seemed to be going wrong.
They have never been put to that test
yet and it remains to be undergone.