BOOKS.

THE PRICE OF BLOOD.*

CAPTAIN SEHRNOIT'S former books are familiar to English readers. Both The Battle of Tsushima and Basplata ("The Reckoning ") were expanded forms of the diary kept by him during the war between Russia and Japan. The Price of Blood contains the concluding part of that diary,—the sequel to the battle of Tsushima, the captivity of the author, and the return to Russia after the Treaty of Portsmouth. We had little but praise to bestow upon the first two instalments of the diary. The Battle of Tsushima gave us a memorable account of a great naval battle under modern conditions; it was full of such vivid touches and unexpected but credible details as reminded the reader at every turn that he had before him the words of an eyewitness. It was made more valuable by a preface by Sir George Clarke, who enforced the lesson of the battle : that the moral advantage was from the beginning on the side of the Japanese, because they desired simply and solely to search out and destroy their enemy, whereas the Russians contented themselves with the tuainspiring object of passing through the Japanese line to the shelter of Vladi- vostok. Basplata, which has been translated, we believe, into nearly all European languages, drew an astonishing picture of the paralysis of authority at Port Arthur at the beginning of the war ; of Admiral Alexeieff wielding his terrible green pencil which sacrificed others, and temporarily saved his own reputation at St. Petersburg; and of the sortie from Port Arthur on August 10th, 1904, when the Russian fleet was scattered, and any possibility of effective naval action by Russia was deferred till the arrival of the second fleet under Rojestvensky. Captain Semenoff's ship the Diana' was chased into Saigon, a neutral port, where the officers and crew were released on parole. Captain Semenoff either was indifferent to the sanctity of his word when given to an enemy, or honestly held that his word, for some reason not made clear to the reader, was not truly pledged. Whatever the reason, he proceeded on his return to Russia to take service under Admiral Rojestvensky, and thus it was that he was in the Russian flagship at the battle of Tsushima. -

The Price of Blood begins at the point where Captain Semenoff, seriously wounded, found himself on board the Buoyni' after leaving the flagship. Thence he was trans- ferred to the destroyer Bedovy,' and he was in her when she was surrendered to the Japanese without any reasonable attempt having been made to get up steam in all the boilers

• The Price Blood : the Sequel to " Barplata " and "The Battle of Tsushima." By Captain Vladimir Semenoff, I.R.N. Translated by Leonard Lewery and

Major F. R. Godfrey, London: John Murray. [be.]

to escape. The covers were also still on the gnus. Captain Semenoff writes with bitterness of "the crime of the com- mander of the Bedovy,' " whose vessel had not even been scratched in the battle of Tsushima, and informs us that at the time, owing to weakness caused by his wounds, be himself was in a state of partial delirium, and scarcely knew what was happen- ing. On recognising what had happened, he concluded that for him the game was up, as he must expect to be executed by the Japanese for having broken his parole. He tried to kill himself, but twice his revolver missed fire. Thereupon he decided that what was to be must be, and he concerned himself with ways and means of inducing the Japanese, when his hour should come, to shoot him instead of hanging him. We may look a little ahead here and say that, owing to a fortunate clerical error in the lists, the Japanese never knew that Captain Semenoff had been in the Diana.' All his suspense was unnecessary, therefore, when he supposed that he was being treated in hospital merely in order to make him well enough to be executed !

Captain Semenoff tells us that for a long time he hesitated to publish this third and final instalment of his diary, and we think his hesitation was well founded. The diary of a wounded man after an unparalleled battle has a poignancy of its own, but on the whole the book cannot compare in interest with the two earlier ones, and it contains much that only qualities of exceptional power or importance could excuse. We said in reviewing .Rasplata that Captain Semenoff's strictures—or rather his way of conveying his strictures—seemed to have provoked resentment among his countrymen. We dare say the strictures were deserved; but this book develops quite a new line of denunciation. It is a considered attack upon the Japanese, upon their treatment of their prisoners, and upon their professed and famous " chivalry." Russian officers who are attacked, whether justly or not, can retort, whether justly or not, that for all his diary, Captain Semenoff was brought to trial as being concerned in the surrender of the Bedovy,' and was held culpable. But the Japanese retort must depend for its effect upon the sympathy which they can rely upon from other nations. For ourselves, we have no predisposition to sym- pathise more with one side than the other ; if the Japanese are our allies, the Russians are our very good friends, and we trust that they, will long remain so. We judge the worth of Captain Semenoff's comments only from his tone, and from his general appearance of credibility. We must confess that we are not prepossessed. Of the treatment of the Japanese prisoners at Sassebo after Tsushima Captain Semenoff writes:—

"The authorities of the hospital would not furnish us with screens even; although everybody knows that such things are common enough in Japan, even in the poorest households. . . . `But why did not you complain ?' . you may ask me. Why, simply because refusal would be certain : and what is more, there would be malicious relish in this refusal, a triumphing over helpless men who had the cheek to complain and ask favours.' In the Middle Ages, when knighthood flourished at its height, every violence inflicted on a prisoner, captured in a fair fight, was considered to be a disgrace. The term itself, 'a fair fight,' signified an encounter of two belligerents who believed in the honour of war, who were ready to fight to the very last, but who also esteemed each other as equals. In Japan this rule was utterly unknown. In Japan, the business of a spy, which the most impoverished tenth-rate lance-knight would shrink from in utter disgust, was, from time immemorial, considered highly valorous. The object of war was not only victory and conquest, but revenge and enslavement."

It is of course odiously unfair to quote past history against a people whose rapid and recent rise to civilisation is their peculiar achievement ; nor does it lie in the month of one who broke his parole to condemn an army which reserves peculiar praise for him who follows the highly perilous profession of a military spy. All armies employ spies. An Intelligence Department is a department of spies. The Chinese and Japanese, with a native inclination to mystery and secrecy, only exceed Western nations in the honour they pay to legitimate espionage. Why should Captain Semenoff confuse spying on an enemy with the moral obliquity of such domestic spying as is known as de'lation in France ?

Later we come upon this :-

" When the Colonel and the interpreter came to pay their respects to the Admiral and to ask if he was satisfied, Rojestvensky told them quite plainly, that in Russia pigs were better treated than we had been in Japan. The Colonel, in much confusion, blundering out excuses, abruptly departed, and we did not see him again till we were on the point of leaving. The interpreter did his utmost to explain to us that the poor man, who was a thorough Japanese, had endeavoured to treat us in a European manner, but that ignorance of our enstoms had frustrated his efforts."

We cannot help preferring the interpreter's judgment to

Captain Semenoff's.

Captain Semenoff considers it an outrage that the prisoners should have been asked to sign a paper giving their word to be of good behaviour, yet he admits that drunkenness and quarrelling among them were frequent. We cannot multiply instances. The reader will find many in the book, and we shall be surprised if he does not agree with us in thinking that the author displays much perversity and a want of candour. Perversity may have been very natural in a sick man suffering from dangerous and painful wounds, but it is unpleasant to find it repeated after due reflection.

We notice a few misprints On p. vi. "August 10, 1907," should read " August 10, 1904." On p. 31 the date "May 22" seems to be irreconcilable with the date May 27 " given immediately above. On p. 37 and elsewhere " Sheffers " is

wrong. Scheepers was the name of the Cape Dutchman executed by the British. On p. 71 "piles " should surely be " tiles."