THE FALL OF PORT ARTHUR.
MHE Japanese have finally succeeded in the first, and perhaps greatest, of the many feats of arms in which they must succeed before they can completely triumph over their mighty enemy. Aided by the formation of the ground, and by the genius of an engineer who has in some mysterious way missed his due meed of fame, the Russians bad constructed at the eastern tip of the Liao-tung Penin- sula a fortress which they intended to be their base for great conquests in the Northern Pacific, which they believed to be impregnable, and which great experts declare would have been impregnable to any besiegers but the Japanese. It was a system of forts, three lines of them, rather than a fortress, which had to be taken. No other generals, even if commanding German or French or British troops, would have ventured to expend so many trained men on such an effort, or would have been so uninfluenced by the fear that the hideous slaughter which marked every repulse and every partial victory might demoralise their soldiery, or so appal their people at home that a continuance of the policy of attack would become impossible. The place, remember, was not defended by Chinese or by natives of India, but by Russians, who behind fortifications arc among the best troops in the world, who were provided with artillery at least as good and as plentiful as that of their assailants, who had a hero to command them, who had risen to the temper in which death seems a mere occurrence in life, and who believed almost to the last that relief either by land or sea was certain to arrive. The Power which could carry across sea an army capable of such an achievement, of such a siege of eight months, of making a series of storming assaults, few of which completely succeeded, without discouragement, and of carrying it all through to a triumphant conclusion, as a mere incident in a greater campaign, has proved herself, whatever her future history, to be one of the Great Powers. 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, like the storm of Naushan or of 203-Metre Hill, which have compelled experienced soldiers to doubt whether the Japanese are not the finest fighters in the world, and whether Kuropatkin is not right in demanding a grand superiority in numbers as the first, indeed the essential, condition for any victory by the troops under his command. It will be a more necessary condition than ever now, for the news cannot be long con- cealed from the troops on the Sha-ho ; and little as the Russian soldier is demoralised by suffering, it is incon- ceivable that the spirits of the men, and especially of the officers, should not be depressed by a defeat which they have been taught to consider impossible, at least while the hero of Russian imaginations remained to conduct the defence.
This, the rise of Japan into the position of a successful fighting Power, as strong in all the elements of strength as any Power in the world, is, we conceive, the first and greatest result of the surrender of Port Arthur. It will make the Island Empire the object of universal inter- national attention, of a hundred hopes and fears, which will develop into elaborate combinations and intrigues, and will for the moment directly, perhaps painfully, affect the relations of the European Powers to each other. The owners of the Philippines, of Indo-China, of Kiao-chow, of Java, perhaps even the owners of India and Australia, will recognise with a more perfect certainty that a new and most powerful State has been born into the world. They knew that before, it will be said, and it is true ; but the knowledge was impaired in completeness by an element of uncertainty, by a doubt whether the great fortress might not after all be relieved by Admiral Rozhdestvensky, or delivered by a victorious march of General Kuropatkin. We have noticed the doubt even in England ; and on the Continent, where the belief in the invincibility of Russia is stronger than in this country, it has affected every expression of opinion. The difference between the fact, and the fear or hope of the fact, is often very wide, and it will, we think, prove to be so in this case. The world discounts most things, but it cannot discount a thunderbolt or an earthquake, or even an assassination. Mankind in general will first shudder, as at some event of the greatest moment which the majority had never foreseen, and then begin discussing its immediate consequences. Will there be peace, it will be asked, and what will be the effect upon the prospects of revolution in Russia?
It is impossible to answer either question with complete confidence, because the replies depend upon two unknown quantities,—the inner character of the Russian Czar, and the silent opinion of the huge mass of the Russian peasantry. We should say ourselves that it was next to impossible for a Government like the Russian, which rests for internal affairs firstly upon the Army, and secondly upon the prestige of the Czar among his own people, to make peace until General Kuropatkin has made his grand effort, and either been defeated, or, what is quite as possible, has been so weakened by a series of sanguinary battles that his army had ceased to be a factor in the problem. The rulers of Russia have been aware for some time that Port Arthur must fall, and regard its surrender as part of the defeat of a Navy which they have not been accustomed to consider a prime element in their own greatness. They will think it safer to risk an army, which they can replace. than to admit that this army cannot defeat an Asiatic people, and that they themselves do not know how to organise victory by land. Their repute with the Army would be gone, as much gone as the repute of an officer who declined a challenge ; and without repute with the Army they would never be safe against insurrection, or those Palace revolts which at one time so frequently marked the history of Russia. It is perfectly true that the war is most unpopular even with sections of the Army, and that peace would be an immense. relief to most important classes ; but to welcome peace or to crave for peace, and to rejoice in it after a great defeat, are two widely different things. A keen wound to national pride is rarely forgiven by any race, and among the great races of the world the Slav is certainly not the most devoid of sensitive national pride. He has trusted always in his Czar in confidence of victory, and after his greatest defeat the Czar of the moment passed away and his whole social system was reorganised. The chances of peace, too, depend upon the terms of peace, and the terms of peace as yet adumbrated by the representatives of Japan are not favourable to speedy pacification. Russia may recede from Manchuria, as she has repeatedly receded from Constanti- nople, and will hardly feel the cession of Saghalien ; but the Japanese insist on an indemnity, and an indemnity, besides irriting Imperial pride, will rouse in the governing group the feeling that it will be cheaper to fight on. What are the lives of fnaujiks to a great Russian compared with a humiliation? '
The second question, the effect of the surrender upon revolution in Russia, is more perplexing still. Western Europe, misled in part by its own experience, is attaching great importance to a Constitutional movement which it sees is in progress in Russia. All the educated, it says, desire the introduction of a representative system. That is in the main true, and if Russia were as Great Britain, France, or even Germany, there could be little doubt of the result. But there is no proof that in Russia the educated lead the people, and it is quite certain that by themselves—that is, without support either from the soldiers or the peasants—the educated are powerless against the bureaucracy, which dreads a Constitution. It is quite true that the peasantry are just now distressed by economic causes, harassed by taxation, and, more or less indignant at the demand on the Reservists ; but for all that the West knows they may be .looking for redress to that very autocratic power which the educated are so anxious to suppress. A jacquerie is at least as probable in Russia as a revolution. That great changes will follow a great defeat in the Far East is, we think, certain ; but to calculate the direction of those changes, we must wait till we know whether General Kuropatkin is, as a result of sanguinary battles, to march into Korea or retreat on Kharbin.
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