THE JAPANESE TRAFALGAR.
rrHE Japanese have finished their work at sea. With a patience that is even more amazing than the valour of his sailors, Admiral Togo has waited through six long weary months the slow advance of his enemy from the other side of the world ; has kept his Intelligence Department in the highest efficiency ; has repaired, re- supplied, and improved his fleet ; and at last, when the Russians had arrived at the strait channel through which they must inevitably pass, has delivered a blow as crushing as Nelson delivered at Trafalgar. The details of the fighting are still but partially known, but it seems clear that at midday of Saturday, May 27th, Admiral Togo overwhelmed three of the hostile battle- ships by superiority of fire, and then, as night sank down upon the terrified and confused Russian squadrons, which were already attempting to fly, his far superior fleet of destroyers and torpedo-boats continued the work of destruction, which, indeed, was not completed for two days. We mean no reproach to the Russians, whose character for bravery has long since been established, but it is evident that the crews of their fleet, a large proportion of whom were conscript landsmen, became demoralised by their enemy's continual success, and at last thought only of their own escape from the appalling danger of the torpedoes. The Third Squadron in particular, which Admiral Rozhdestvensky waited for so long on the coast of Indo-China, is said to have surrendered apparently without serious fighting ; and at least two great battleships have passed into Japanese hands scarcely, if at all, injured in the engagement. The Admiral-in-Chief, wounded by a shell, was at first reported to have escaped to Vladivostok in the swift cruiser' Almaz,' but when the flagship sank he was carried on board a destroyer which was captured, and he is a prisoner. Two or three ships are still not accounted for, but all the battleships have been sunk or captured, and the Russian fleet as a fleet in being has ceased to exist. The victory is as complete as Nelson's at Trafalgar, and offers even stronger testimony to the nerve of the great Japanese Admiral, for he staked all on the battle, and had not behind him, as Nelson had, the consciousness of a reserve fleet within home waters. The trifling losses of the Japanese have been far more than compensated by the captures, and with two great battleships added to their fighting line, and three more, it is stated, slowly rising from the harbour of Port Arthur, Admiral Togo may safely bid defiance to any combination of maritime strength in the North Pacific which is not supported by Great Britain. Such a success achieved at sea by an Asiatic Power almost paralyses the imagination, compels Europe to revise all her ideas, not only of Asiatic strength but of Asiatic capacity, and supplies some reasonable ground for the dreamy belief that the future distribution of world-power may be settled on lines which have hitherto never entered into the calculations of states- men. Much nonsense is talked about the "yellow peril," but this much at least is certain, that a new and immense Power has established its claim to a new and heavy vote in the international Council of mankind.
Naturally the world outside Russia and Japan is unanimous in believing that so amazing a defeat, rendered the more conspicuous by the comparative minuteness of Japanese losses, must be followed by negotiations for peace. It ought to be, and we regret, for the sake alike of Russia and humanity, to be unable to endorse the opinion that it will be. We question, however, if Pharaoh has yet discerned that the favour of heaven is with his foe. The Russians are as fully convinced of a tribal God as ever the Jews were ; and the Czar, in particular, still dreams that victory may rebuild the prestige of Russia and of his dynasty, while the reactionaries around him remain convinced that to acknowledge defeat will ruin them more completely than any disasters that may be in store for their general in Manchuria. They know that, for reasons stated below, a disaster at sea, how- ever grievous, makes little impression on the Russian population, and their fears for their own position co- operate with a patriotic pride to induce them to resolve, as their grandfathers resolved a hundred years back, to destroy Russia with their own hands rather than surrender to any foe. They have, too, some evidence in their favour. Napoleon fought for ten years after the " ruin " of Trafalgar, and in international politics railways have to a certain though limited extent taken the place of fleets. Japan has escaped a terrible danger in destroying the Russian fleet; but as Admiral Togo cannot reach the Baltic or the shores of the Black Sea, her gain in the matter of offence is neither so great nor so immediate. It is confined to this, that it is now easier for the Mikado to reinforce his armies than for the Russian Emperor. Still, the latter has half-a- million soldiers in the field, and until they are defeated he may not unreasonably believe that they have a chance of victory, which if realised would give him back Manchuria, and possibly compel the Japanese to accept very moderate terms of peace. He springs from a race whose tenacity has been almost equal to its courage, and he rules a people whose first historic quality has been unending endurance. He may be, probably is, convinced that his first duty is to hand on his responsibility for Russia to his son in undiminished grandeur, and that the only hope for that son's autocracy is to wear out the Japanese attack. There will never, he thinks, be a time when Russia cannot collect more troops, and the fear of bankruptcy, which so appals the journalists of Paris and Berlin, probably does not affect him at all. He is relieved for the present of all naval expenditure ; his financiers have collected, or can collect, enough gold to guarantee the Debt ; and his Treasury has not yet even begun to sell the mighty properties—railways, forests, and gold mines—still at its disposal. He is not nearly reduced to the position in which Frederick the Great found himself when he sent the plate of the Palace to be melted down into debased coin. He can fight on for three years at least, and the balance of evidence as yet visible is that he intends to do so.
There is, of course, one possible obstacle in his path which, if it should become clear, may compel the Czar to retrace his steps. A vague impression has prevailed, not only in the West, but among the " intellectuals " of Russia herself, that if Rozhdestvensky were beaten a general uprising of Russia would cause the revolution to prevail ; but we see little proof that that opinion is well founded.
The Russian autocracy rests upon the Army and the masses, and while the Army will certainly not be daunted by the misfortunes of a Service of which it is jealous, the masses will hardly comprehend a maritime defeat. The peoples which never see the sea find it most difficult to comprehend sea-power; and though the Russian masses dislike the war, and would be glad to put an end to it on almost any terms, they have not wholly lost their reverence for the Czar, and find it nearly impossible over those vast plains to act with anything like coherence. The general dis- gust will waste itself in attacks upon the landlords and not upon the Throne, the villages being practically incapable of resisting even the demand for fresh Reservists. Only Odessa as yet shows any symptom of being passionately moved, and Odessa in Russia has scarcely the weight of Greenock in Great Britain. There is a lack of cohesion in the awful mass of the Russian Empire. Its analogue is not a chain, but rather a bag of beads. The rumours are strong, no doubt, that the Government will now call together the Zemski Sobor ; but even when called, it has no natural hold, except over the "intellectuals," and may be ordered without resistance to deliberate in secret.
Nothing in Russia goes precisely as the West expects, and it is possible, therefore, that an explosion may come of which we have never dreamed. But so far as events have hitherto been any guide, Nicholas II. may be permitted to exhibit what the historian of the future will describe as "magnificent firmness," or blind obstinacy, according to the result. We expect no immediate peace.
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