Sm.,—In your article, " The Fall of Port Arthur," in
the Spectator of January 7th, you say : " The place, remember, was not defended by Chinese or by natives of India, but by Russians"; and further down : " There is no State in existence whose soldiers would encounter the victors of Port Arthur in equal numbers with any certainty of victory. Indeed, there have been incidents in the siege which have com- pelled experienced soldiers to doubt whether the Japanese are not the finest fighters in the world." In the first of these assertions the writer of the article seems strangely to under- rate the capacity of our soldiers in India, and this I can affirm with certainty, that no British officer who was in the late Chinese imbroglio would for a moment place the Russian soldier on a par with the Indian troops that were in China at that time. On what grounds can it be asserted that the Pathans, Sikhs, Ghoorkas, and Punjabi Mahommedans are the inferiors in fighting capacity to any soldiers in the world ? These men have over and over again proved their daring courage, and in the desperate conflicts on the Northern Frontier they have had to meet enemies as brave and as eager for contest as those that any race can set forth in battle array. On the other band, a large proportion of the Russian Army is made up of men forced to serve against their will, and despatched thousands of miles from home, which there is very little prospect of their ever seeing again ; and I urge that no such army—whose officers take little interest in their men, who are badly provisioned and miserably ill-clad—can ever claim to be a first-class fighting machine. It has become too general a custom to overpraise those who have last shown supremacy in arms. No army, for instance, after the Franco-German War could equal the splendid heroism of the Germans; after Russia's war with Turkey what troops could fight as did the Russians and the Turks? Even in the last Boer War we have such opinions as that contained in Captain Slocum's Report, quoted in the Standard of June 24th, 1901, which states: "For indomitable courage, un- complaining fortitude, and implicit obedience they " (i.e., the British soldiers) "are beyond criticism." Again, Mr. Julian Ralph, quoted in the St. James's Gazette of May 14th, 1900, referring to British valour, writes thus :—" It is the first of
its kind The Briton is always ready to rush upou death British valour seems a rushing into and a defiance of death. It seeks nothing, avoids nothing, considers nothing." Then quoting what a foreign Military Attaché told him, Mr. Ralph continues :—" For courage, dash, staying power, discipline, and all that makes for success with an army, there is no other like it." The above are only a few of the highly appreciatory utterances regarding .the British soldier. Now, however, according to the writer of your article, the British soldier must take ,a back place, the marvellous storming of Badajoz, and the splendid stand of the English regiments at Waterloo when torn by shot and shell that drew from Napoleon the remark, "How splendidly those English fight !" being matters to be remembered no more. But there are, Sir, these and other passages in our island story which assure to us who know what the British soldier has been, and is, that without vain- gloriously claiming for him to be "the finest soldier in the world," such as the writer of your article appears to deem the Japanese, we still may believe that he will now, as he has ever done, support the honour of his King and country, and hold his own against any troops in the world.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A. F. P. HARCOURT, Colonel.
Junior United Service Club.
[We had no intention to institute comparisons to the dis- paragement of our own troops, and admit that it would have been better to discriminate in referring to the natives of India. But the peculiar qualities of the Japanese, and in particular their "scientific fanaticism," undoubtedly entitle them to be placed in a class, if not above all others, at any rate by them- selves.—ED. Spectator.]
FULHAM ro. ST. JAMES'S SQUARE.
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