Part 21 (1/2)
”It is nonsense to talk of any great war in which this country will ever be engaged,” said a wise and experienced public man to me one day, in discussing our future. ”There is no place in the world for distinguished service by an American soldier. He can wear his uniform; he can study his tactics; he can be a warrior of the ball-room; but, after all, he is only a kind of policeman.”
This conversation occurred some years ago. The fallacy of this conservative (shall we not say short-sighted, for sometimes they are mistaken for one another) man's conclusion has been revealed by recent events. And these events are only an index of similar possibilities.
Not that we want war; not that it is desirable; not that it should not be avoided, if possible; but that the movement of the p.a.w.ns by Events on the great chess-board of the world and history may force us to war, no matter how unwillingly.
It may be that in the ultimate outcome, to use a double superlative, ”a parliament of man and federation of the world” will be established which shall divide and distribute commerce as railroads are now said to agree on division of business and equality of rates.
But before such a n.o.ble condition arises there will surely be vast and destructive conflicts, unless the temper, nature, and att.i.tude of men and nations change; and, if they do occur, no one but a fanatic of reaction imagines for one instant that we shall be able to keep out of them.
So that not all the battles have been fought, not all the strategy thought out. And if you are a soldier and mean business, you need not despair of the possibility of winning one of the highest of honors given man to win--the honor of fighting for your country and of dying for your flag.
The Russo-j.a.panese War has demonstrated that military science is as much more complex and difficult to-day than during our Civil War, as it was then more complicated than in the time of battle-ax and lance.
The recent conflict in Asia shows that it is as important to get wounded men cured and back on the firing line as it is to punish the other side. A nation that would now enter into armed conflict without a general staff or some similar body of men would be hurling its soldiers, however brave, to certain death.
And yet Von Moltke, Germany's greatest captain, originated the modern general staff; and the United States, with all of our American progressiveness, had no general staff at all until Secretary Root prevailed upon Congress to provide one. These general staffs plan, during the long years of peace, every possible conflict. They map out with absolute accuracy every imaginable field of operations in the country of every possible enemy; they equip the general in the field with information on all subjects, perfect to the smallest detail.
j.a.pan's general staff has been preparing day and night for the present war for every month of every year of an entire decade. Oyama's victories were ripening in the brain of this modern Attila for ten long years. Von Moltke had thought out the conquest of France years before fate blew the trumpet that set the tremendous enginery of his plans in motion. Yes, but these men kept thinking, thinking.
n.o.body heard _them_ saying that all great wars had been fought.
Perhaps they did not know whether all wars had been fought or not; but they knew this: That if any future wars were to be fought, those wars would be bigger than any conflict that had gone before, and that their armies would have to be handled with greater precision, and their tactics would have to be more daring than even those of Napoleon, or Hannibal, or Caesar.
Very well, the Franco-Prussian War did come. The Russo-j.a.panese War did come. And when the time for these dread duels between peoples arrived, those men were in the saddle. Battles whose red desperation have made the world's historic combats look small, have within a year taught all men that the art of war requires as much original thinking as it did when the Corsican overwhelmed the muddled military minds of Europe, weakened and palsied by the belief that nothing more was to be learned in warfare.
Manchuria's awful lesson teaches you, young man, that the profession of arms, dreadful as it is honorable, holds out to you all the possibilities by which every great captain of history made his name immortal.
”I think the statesmans.h.i.+p of Joseph Chamberlain is the most comprehensive and instructive since that of Bismarck,” said a pa.s.senger on an ocean steamer to an Englishman of considerable distinction in the world of letters.
”I fail to see the statesmans.h.i.+p,” said the latter; ”will you kindly point it out?”
”Why,” said the admirer of Chamberlain, ”the British Empire needed unifying; it needed to be bound together by ties of sentiment, by all those means which consolidate a nation. Its connections were too loose. Chamberlain has, by the Boer War, begun its unification.
Canadians have fallen on the same field with England's soldiers.
”Australians have poured out their blood as a common sacrifice for England's flag. The empire has been knit together by a common heroism, a common sacrifice, a common glory, and a common cause. It should not be hard to induce all portions of the empire to unite on a great scheme of parliamentary representation. I call that great statesmans.h.i.+p.”
”Yes, indeed it is,” said the English litterateur, ”but Joseph Chamberlain never had such a thought.”
The point of the conversation is that, whether Mr. Chamberlain had this thought or not, the _materials for the thought existed_. The conditions for this really constructive statesmans.h.i.+p were there. They awaited the hand of the master. Conditions of equal magnitude exist in half-a-dozen places in the world. Russian development of Siberia and seizure of Manchuria are one.
It had for several years appeared to me that Manchuria was the point about which the international politics of the world would swirl for the next quarter of a century. So certain did this seem, that I hastened to this great future battle-field in the year 1901; and while the diplomats of all the nations, including our own, scoffed at the possibilities of war between Russia and j.a.pan, the certainty of that mighty contest could be read in the very stars that shone above Manchuria, in the very j.a.panese barracks, on every j.a.panese drill-ground.
Settlement of this tremendous dispute will call for larger statesmans.h.i.+p than the world has seen for half a century. The movements of all the powers at the present crisis, and, indeed, their entire Oriental policy, are of the most solemn concern to the Republic not only for the immediate moment, but even more for the future.
This is especially true of j.a.pan; for, with cheap labor, rare apt.i.tude for manufacture, and propinquity of position, the Island Empire now becomes the most formidable compet.i.tor for the trade of China.
And China is the only--or at least the richest--unexploited market where American factories and farms can, in the future, dispose of their acc.u.mulating surplus. England almost monopolized China's coast markets until, recently, Germany began rapidly to overhaul her. But j.a.pan will, in the near future, distance both. American interests in the Far East are vital even now; and they are only in their beginning.
We cannot longer be indifferent to any statesmans.h.i.+p that involves the commercial development of Asia. Solution of the great problems which the Russo-j.a.panese war has stated, and the resultant steps thereafter taken, are of keenest interest, and may be of most serious import, to the American people.
It is very possible, as I pointed out in ”The Russian Advance,” that j.a.pan will attempt the reorganization of China. Indeed, that development is quite probable. That is certainly j.a.pan's plan and ideal. Any one of a half dozen courses may be adopted. And, I repeat it, any one of them may present the gravest of situations to American statesmans.h.i.+p. As I write it is quite sure that Russia is beaten on the field. Think now, young man, of the immensity of the statesmans.h.i.+p required right now, _which five years ago everybody would have declared impossible and absurd_.
Especially will j.a.panese dominance of the Orient, military and commercial, upon which j.a.pan is determined, bring us Americans face to face with a new set of conditions, requiring the highest order of careful thought, the clearest, firmest announcement of national policy. Do not fear, young man, lest all of this be over before the time has come for you to play your part on the stage of human affairs.