Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/42

 for Liaotung, to-day that an equal force had landed in Shantung, but if these troops had sprung, fully equipped, from the sea at the place of their exit or destination, the country could not have known less of their comings and goings. There were no accidents, no miscarriages, no apparent errors of calculation or failures of foresight. One may urge, indeed, that neither was there any originality, since European modes were followed. But it is certain that before the war no foreign critic would have credited the Japanese with capacity to conduct such operations. He would have denied their power of organisation, and he is therefore constrained to attach as much value to the positive evidence of success as he would have inferred from the negative testimony of failure.

In truth this favourite theory about a want of organising faculty among the Japanese, like that other theory about their want of originality, rests on pure hypothesis aided by ignorance of history. To ascribe lack of originality to a nation which has given the world a new grammar of decorative art is as consistent with facts as to allege absence of organising ability among a people who have produced a Yoritomo, a Hideyoshi, and an Ieyasu. The two criticisms may be definitely dismissed.

And the officers that commanded in the field showed themselves as able as those that planned in the Cabinet. They shared every hardship that their men endured, ate the same food, were content with the same shelter, and took the larger