Meanwhile Japanese infantry, cavalry, and artillery were pouring into Seoul, and were being received with acclamation by the Japanese population of the capital, although the Koreans maintained a sullen and ungracious attitude. The city-gates were seized; the Russian Minister and his suite and following were escorted down to Chemulpo; the Korean reactionaries and members of the pro-Russian party discreetly disappeared and were known no more; and in this manner, six days after the seizure of the trading steamer Ekaterinslav in the Tsushima straits, the dreams of Muscovite statesmen about Korea had vanished into thin air. By the 1st March the Japanese landing operations at Chemulpo had ceased, 27,000 men and 8,000 horses having been set on shore, together with vast quantities of stores, from a fleet of seventy-four transports. Mischenko's Cossacks trotting down from the Yalu brushed with Kuroki's advance on the Pingyang road. The war was in reality, however, very young, and nothing ever happened in Korea which is worth more than bare mention. CHAPTER XXVI THE GREAT WAR. (A) TO THE FALL OF PORT ARTHUR Now that blood has flowed in great streams, sickening the quiet world of Europe, and that all past sins have been atoned for by the slaughter of the innocents on the hills and the plains of Manchuria, it is time to examine the course of the war in a calm and critical spirit; to weigh and to value everything as accurately as possible; to set things in their proper place; and, finally, to estimate the future course of the conflict, thus arriving at definite if premature conclusions which may help to dispel delusions fondly cherished by those who do not fully comprehend what the word war means. But it is best to plunge rapidly into the middle of things. A perusal of what has been written about the intolerable position obtaining in Korea immediately before the war; the sublime insolence of the Russian attitude when neither bona fide interests nor the preparations in Manchuria and on the Eastern seas justified in the slightest the pretensions of the Czar's Government; the unblushing bluff maintained in the face of Japan's growing exasperation; these, I say, proved conclusively that the moment for sharp action had arrived, and that the country which struck the first blow would have the first advantage. But there is another point to be noted. Curious as such a statement may seem, there is little doubt that the Russian protestations which were raised before and after the outbreak of war that they did not want to fight, and that it was Japan who forced them to do so, are quite sincere. But to understand how the Russians could make such statements it is necessary to see things as they saw them; in other words, to realise properly the really extraordinary Russian point of view. Even at the risk of digressing and returning to a subject which has been already discussed, the character of this point of view must be clearly established, since it will undoubtedly have an important influence on the duration of the war, and its explanation will further disillusion those who fondly imagine that Russia is only awaiting a favourable opportunity to sheathe her sword and extend the hand of friend ship to Japan. That Russia may collapse is possible, but she will always hate Japan. Although the Russian movement to the Pacific Coasts of Eastern Asia, so successfully developed by Muravief Amurski half a century ago, has been irregular, halting, and frequently marked by inconsistencies, it has been mainly a movement as difficult to arrest as any in the world's history. In the seventeenth century, after a vain struggle with the |