books is built up obviously from snippings of newspapers and is valueless historically, although their illustrations are often amusing and occasionally of some interest. But for the generating of full and accurate historical records of the gigantic struggle between the Czar's and the Mikado's armies, the five years which have elapsed since the last shot was fired are all too short. Nevertheless, some progress has been made and the work goes forward hopefully. The first and earliest history, which may be studied with advantage, is a useful examination of the diplomatic struggle which led up to the outbreak of hostilities, written by Dr. K. Asakawa and entitled The Russo-Japanese Conflict. The strategy of a campaign is often entirely based on its political causes, and is invariably influenced if not dominated by the political goals towards which the efforts of the respective adversaries are directed. Thus it is essential for the military as well as the general reader to master the national and political aspirations which have led to an appeal to arms before entering on a study of the actual operations of war. Dr. Asakawa's volume, although in part written originally in the form of articles for the Yale Review at the commencement of the war, throws valuable light on these points. He quotes copiously from the more important of the diplomatic despatches and discusses their bearing in an impartial spirit. His book, therefore, forms a fair and intelligent introduction to the campaign and should not be neglected.

Of the campaign proper only two histories have as yet appeared in the English language, that written partly by the General Staff of the British Army and partly by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and that put forth by the Historical Section of the German General Staff and subsequently translated by Lieutenant Karl von Donat.

Both these works still await completion, the battles of Liaoyang and the Sha-ho being the final points as yet reached. The British Official History1o is, excepting reports of minor expeditions, only the

As typical examples may be quoted: (a) The Russo-Japanese War fully illustrated (Tokio, The Kinkodo Publishing Company, 1904-1905); (b) Cassell's History of the Russo-Japanese War (London, Paris, New York, and Melbourne, 1905).

K. Asakawa, The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues, with an introduction by Professor Frederick Wells Williams (Boston and New York, 1904). 19 The Russo-Japanese War, part I., compiled by the General Staff War Office (London, 1906); Official History of the Russo-Japanese War, part II., from the Battle of the Yalu to Liaoyang, prepared by the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence (London, 1908); part III., The Siege of Port Arthur, part IV., Liaoyang, and part V., Sha-Ho, prepared and published as above (1909, 1909, and April, 1911); Official History (Naval and Military) of the Russo-Japanese War, vol. I., to 24th August, 1904, prepared and published as above (1910).

second attempt on the part of the British authorities to promote the study of war by the production of an authorized narrative of a campaign. The preparation of the first-the History of the South African War-was, it will be recollected, entrusted to MajorGeneral Sir Frederick Maurice. At the last reorganization of the War Office the formation of an Historical Section of the General Staff was mooted, and, probably with that idea in view, the General Staff itself took in hand the compilation of the first volume of a provisional military history of the Russo-Japanese War. Subsequently, however, the government decided to assign the duty of compiling official histories for both naval and military services to an Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence.

This section at present consists of an officer of the Royal Marines, two General Staff officers, and a third military officer. Since its organization some three years ago it has not only continued the provisional military history of the Russo-Japanese War by bringing out in succession parts II., III., IV., and V. of that work, but has also put forth the first volume of a combined Naval and Military History. Of these two works the latter, although chronologically as yet the less advanced towards completion, includes and supersedes the former. The provisional military history, written as it was to meet pressing educational requirements, is much to be commended for its clearness of narrative and the excellence of its maps. A preface to one of its volumes tells us that "in accordance with the wishes of the General Staff all comments, except upon a few tactical details, are withheld until the production of the combined history".

Presumably, therefore, (although the actual preface of the first volume of the combined history runs in the name, not of the Historical Section, but of the Committee of Imperial Defence itself), the military criticisms which the volume contains have been penned, or at least approved, by the great General Staff at the War Office; while the naval criticisms, we may conjecture, are not so much the work of Mr. Asquith and his political colleagues on the Defence Committee, as of the Senior Naval Lord, the Naval Intelligence Department, and perhaps the Naval War College Staff. If this be so it is perhaps to be regretted that a positive statement to that effect is not appended to the work.

The Committee of Imperial Defence is an excellent organization for the deliberate personal consultation of the responsible ministers of the Crown with their expert naval and military advisers on questions of naval or military policy; but it is obvious that the opinion of a committee, so composed, on professional questions of

a purely naval or military character, cannot have the same authoritative weight as the direct utterances of the Admiralty and of the General Staff.

Yet this suggestion must not be taken as a criticism of a really admirable work, the excellence of which is a matter for great thankfulness and congratulation in both services. The compilers have, be it noted, enjoyed very unusual advantages. The preface of the combined history tells us that its proofs were " very carefully revised at Tokio both in the Admiralty and War Office", and that “much useful information has been also supplied by the Historical Section of the War Office at St. Petersburg". As a result of this generous assistance the accuracy of the work is above criticism. Moreover, it gives to the world hitherto unpublished documents of great historic value, notably certain correspondence which took place between Kuropatkin and Stoessel at the commencement of the war, and a very important telegram despatched from Tokio, arresting the advance northward of Oyama's armies at the critical period, when a sortie of the Russian fleet from Port Arthur was still possible.

Even therefore in its military narrative the combined history somewhat supplements the provisional military history, while reproducing its maps and retaining the admirable lucidity of its text. The naval narrative, and the naval and military comments, are wholly new matter, and their value can be best assessed by stating that they entirely maintain the high standard of the old.

The dominant note of the comments, both naval and military, is the inculcation of that offensive spirit which, traditional for two centuries in the navy, has of late years been unreservedly accepted by the authorities of the British army. To discuss these comments in detail here is not possible. It must suffice to say that if the two subsequent volumes equal the first in merit, this work will be of very great permanent value, and will fill worthily its honorable position of the first combined history of a great modern campaign in which the land and sea services were mutually and vitally dependent on each other.

The German official history deals in the main only with the military aspects of the war, and thus lacks the completeness which characterizes the English. National preparation in peace for war,

"The Russo-Japanese War: the Yalu (London, 1908); id., Wa-Fau-Yen, and Actions preliminary to Liaoyang, with four appendices and eleven maps (1909); id., The Battle of Liaoyang, with ten appendices and ten maps (1909); prepared in the Historical Section of the German General Staff; authorized translation by Karl von Donat, late Lieutenant 33rd (East Prussian) Fusilier Regiment, German Army.

and both in peace and war a whole-hearted cultivation of the spirit of offence, have long formed the basis of the German naval and military systems. The German General Staff's masterly comments are written throughout with this in mind. They make it clear that the initial weakness of Russia was due to lack of adequate preparation, and they emphasize, moreover, a point which is not fully realized in the United States or Great Britain, that national armies are seriously handicapped in morale, when committed to a war which is unpopular with the nation.

Yet these were not the sole causes of Russia's misfortunes. The German critics are right in holding that on the Yalu "the attack of the Russians suffered from a certain want of decision ", and that "during the whole war the Russians' conduct of operations was doomed never to find a right way out of the partially self-imposed defensive attitude". These criticisms are applied in a particularly striking manner to Stackelberg's attempt to relieve Port Arthur. The majority of military writers have branded that enterprise as doomed from the outset to failure, and as an illustration of the fatal influence of the St. Petersburg arm-chair strategists over the operations of the Russian armies in the field. Not so the German Staff; they hold that

if the Russian troops had been more thoroughly trained, and if Stackelberg had been reinforced by another division, which was certainly possible, it was not at all unlikely that the enterprise would prove successful. Though it would have been only a local success as regards the general situation, yet even such a success would have been of inestimable moral value after all the reverses the Russian armies had sustained. . . . The pernicious half-hearted decision of the Commanderin-chief impressed its stamp upon Stackelberg and upon his subordinate leaders.

Liaoyang is regarded as the true decisive battle of the war. For the German General Staff point out that

66

the knowledge that Kuropatkin, in spite of the numerical superiority of his troops, failed to turn the fortune of battle in his favour on a field he himself had selected . . . deprived from the outset the great offensive" afterwards of all its vigour, and during the last phase of the campaign. . . gave rise to no other thought than mere defensive. It was not at Mukden and Tsushima that the Russians lost the campaign-they lost it already at Liaoyang.

The narrative portion of these three volumes is in no way inferior to the comments, and the admirable maps are worthy of the text. But the English reader has just grounds for complaint on one point. In order to avoid redrawing the maps, foreign spelling of the names of places is adhered to throughout in both maps and text. Chinese names are difficult to remember and grapple with

under the most favorable conditions, but when reproduced in a form of spelling entirely different to that with which one has become familiar after brain-racking labor, their effect is, to put matters mildly, peculiarly disheartening.

Pending the completion of these two General Staff histories, the English translation of the narratives of the battles of the Sha-ho and of Mukden published in the Militär Wochenblatt will be found helpful, especially as the value of these two narratives is greatly enhanced by the addition to them of clear comments by LieutenantGeneral von Caemmerer.12 The most striking of that well-known military writer's observations is a criticism of the Japanese Great General Staff's plans at Mukden as lacking in boldness. It was not enough in the eyes of General von Caemmerer that Marshal Oyama, with only equal numbers and greatly inferior artillery, committed his armies to a double enveloping attack on an enemy holding a position more strongly entrenched than Wellington's lines at Torres Vedras. It was not enough that he launched his whole force into that attack, save only one and a half divisions kept at the outset under his own hand, as a little rallying point in the case of misfortune. In von Caemmerer's judgment nothing, not one man, should have been withheld from the great stake. He would have assigned the General Reserve, diminutive though it was, at once "to the army, where the decision was sought for "; so, "victory would have been Oyama's a whole week sooner and with more decisive results".

The criticism is a true breath of the spirit of modern war. To the strategist and tactician the great lesson of the Manchurian Campaign is the overwhelming value of the whole army, from general to private, being permeated with offensive purpose, with the fixed determination to win by attacking. A policy of masterly retreat spells masterly failure. Victory alone can justify and compensate for the immense sacrifices of men and money which a nation makes when it commits its cause to the bloody arbitrament of war. Yet victory ever shuns the embraces of troops taught to look back over their shoulders.

But for the two great Anglo-Saxon communities, east and west of the Atlantic, so proud and confident in their population, in their wealth, and in their mighty possessions, the Manchurian Campaign sounds also another and even graver note of warning, the warning that the richest and seemingly the most powerful states

12 The Battle of the Scha Ho, with nine maps and three appendices; authorized translation by Karl von Donat, late Lieutenant 33rd (East Prussian) Fusilier Regiment, German Army (London, 1906); The Battle of Mukden, with eight maps and two appendices; authorized translation by Karl von Donat (London, 1906).