Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/94

 shocked into hysterical horror. Now, if the Japanese had killed all the wounded Chinese, given no quarter under any circumstances, and sought to exterminate their enemies instead of subduing them, they would only have followed the usages of war, as it was known to them by tradition. But, on the contrary, they treated the wounded with the utmost kindness, refrained studiously from all acts of rapine, and with the one exception of Port Arthur were nowhere guilty of sacrificing life needlessly. Remembering, then, how short a time had elapsed since the sacking of cities was deemed a legitimate perquisite of European armies, and how only fourteen years separated Port Arthur from Geok Tepe, the Japanese, though they made no complaint, were probably a little bewildered by this experience. At all events, they concluded that under no provocation would Western soldiers be betrayed into retaliating on a merciless enemy. But one of the earliest incidents of the Chinese complication in 1900 was a shocking massacre at Blagovestchensk by the Russians, an act of savagery which threw Port Arthur totally into the shade; and in Chili the Japanese themselves saw not only the Cossacks, but also the Germans, follow the principle of "no quarter" with terrible fidelity. The world, however, said very little. It had been thrown into a tumult of palpitating horror when Japanese soldiers, remembering their tortured and mutilated comrades, forgot for a