The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-06-28
JAPANESE MARTIAL TRAINING.

other military countries Is the pur-
chase of arms and ammunition. the
building of ships and the primary in
struction of large bodies of man in
drill and tactics. General plans of
warfare are also drawn up. But after
all is said and done the real prepara-
ton waits for an emergency. In times
of peace the field and commissariat
work is perfunctory. of a kind that
leaves an army when war comes, in
the shape the French were when the
German conflict began, the British
when the Boer trouble broke out and
the Russians when the tide OF naval
battle surged into Port Arthur with
out warning in the night.
japanese methods of preparation are
different in that they are thorough.
Honolulu had a glimpse of them ten
years ago when the cruiser Naniwa
came into port with Togo in command.
No crew was ever so strenuousy drilled
in these waters. Every waking hour
was taken up with some phase of the
ships discipline. No shore liberty was
allowed, even to officers, though one
of the latter was an imperial prince;
and on board, the captain interdicted
oil tubt nf
sociability. officers who wished to read
were referred to the ships professional
library; those who wished a relaxing
game were told to play Kriegspiel, the
German game of tactics. When an off,
Ger sought recreation he was told to
take boats crew beyond the reef
and fire at mark or to get another
man and fence. BY measures like
these, extending to the whole fleet, the
such terrible engine of war that it
has made playthings of the Cars
batteships.
The army has been prepared in the
same way. No one in Japan ever sees
drunken soldiers about the Streets
they are soberly attending to their du-
ties, all the time learning something.
Diversion is not encouraged among Of
ficers, who are looked to to keep them
selves on a war footing. Their study of
professional books is incessant; their
conversation among themselves is not
social but military; year in and year
out they are practicing gunnery, work.
ing out war problems, experimenting
with explosives, making themselves ex-
perts. Back of them is the general |
staff preparing for war in any quarter.
The staff even fills warehouses with |
bundles of faggots to supply fuel for
soldiers in a treeless country; its secret |
service men make maps everywhere |
and take coast photographs as they did |
back in the country far from prying |
eyes, the staff tests new enginery of |
war. In all ranks of the service a |
fanatical patriotism, based on the State |
worship which is taking the place of |
the worship of ancestors is cultivated. |
Contempt for death is taught; and |
when there comes q chance to test a |
regiment in peace, by the gauge of |
peril, that regiment is sent out, as |
one was sent winter before last into |
the blizzard-swept, snow fields of north
ern Japan, where a whole battalion |
persisted of cold.
With the Japanese warrior, his life,
not his spare moments, is given up to
for battle. Most European
officers do not spend more than a third |
of their time with the troops. They |
are to be found on the boulevards, in
clubs, in great functions, or in gam
bling hells. They are the petted dar-
lings of society or the broken adven- !
turers of the racecourse. Drink raw
ages their ranks; sloth usurps their
strength. One cannot conceive Rus
sian army or navy officer at hard |
study. 1t is easier to imagine him at |
hard drinking. The trains that unload |
ed supplies for him at Port Arthur
before the siege began, as a CORES
pendent has told us, piled up more
cases of vodka on the depot platforms
than they did cases of shells.
These are reasons why, when Jap
anese meets Russ, the latter get the
worst of it, The little brown man
knows the whole alphabet OF his bust
ness while the Russian knows only
part of 1t; the japanese keeps himself
in the best OF physical trim hut the
Russian does not hesitate at the gross
est excuses. An officer OF the Mlkado
is always soldier; an officer OF the
Gear is half the time a cluhmun. So
IL WAS with the Nirilr Huns and the