Japan's Fight for Freedom, Vol. 1: The Story of the War Between Russia and Japan (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Herbert Wrigley Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1330441893 ISBN 13: 9781330441893

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2020

Synopsis

Excerpt from Japan's Fight for Freedom, Vol. 1: The Story of the War Between Russia and Japan

To us, British onlookers, it appears that Japan must win, and deserves to win. She is fighting for a righteous cause, for her national independence. If defeated, she must cease to exist, and accept the miserable fate of a I'inland or Poland: She is fighting in the cause of civilisation; for whatever nonsense is written about the Yellow Peril, it cannot be denied by thinking men that she, rather than Russia, represents civilised ideas, the freedom of human thought, democratic institutions, education and enlightenment - in a word, all that we understand by progress. It is Russia who stands for barbarism and reaction; and while the great mass of the Russian army must be acquitted of any tendency to inhumanity, it has yet to be admitted that the Cossacks and certain of the Asiatic auxiliaries employed by the Russians in the field have shown at times grave disregard for the laws of war, and that outrages on their part have been far from uncommon. On the Japanese side, the war has been carried on with exemplary kindness and humanity to the Russians.

The faith and devotion Of the Japanese people in this their hour of trial may well read Englishmen a lesson. An island state, Japan has made immense sacrifices to provide herself with a strong army. Her citizens have not shrunk from the burden Of compulsory service when they felt it to be necessary for the safety of their fatherland. Taught from their earliest youth that their country has the first claim upon their lives, and that to her they owe a great duty, they have displayed a valour and devotion in the field which are not to be matched in the annals of any past war. It is perfectly correct and no mere figure of speech to say of a Japanese army that it enters the combat prepared to conquer or die. Of Japanese surrenders there have been none, even when the odds have been hopeless.

A people with this spirit of duty and devotion will go far; and whatever the present, the future is to Japan. The same intense earnestness which has given her victory in war will bring her success in the competition of peace. In commerce, as in battle, she will win, because she deserves to win, and because her citizens are not intent on bodily enjoyment or pleasure, but are swayed by a spiritual force such as moved the West and England in England's greatest days.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1330441893
• ISBN 13: 9781330441893
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 450