e more one examined the complicated machinery of the Japanese plan of
attack, the more one was forced to admire the cleverness and the energy
of the Mongolians in preparing for the war, and the more distinctly
these were recognized, the clearer became the wide gulf between the
Mongolian's and the white man's point of view concerning all these
matters.

We might have learned a lesson in 1904, if we had not so carelessly and
thoughtlessly looked upon the Russo-Japanese war as a mere episode,
instead of regarding it as a war whose roots were firmly embedded in the
inner life of a nation that had suddenly come to the surface of a rapid
political development. The interference of the European powers in the
Peace of Shimonoseki in 1895 robbed Japan of nearly all the fruits of
her victory over China. Japan had been forced to vacate the conquered
province of Liaotung on the mainland because she was unable to prevail
against three European powers, who were for once agreed in maintaining
that all Chinese booty belonged to Europe, for they regarded China as a
bankrupt estate to be divided among her creditors. When, therefore,
after the second Peace of Shimonoseki, Japan was compelled to relinquish
all her possessions on the mainland and to console herself for her
shattered hopes with a few million taels, every Japanese knew that the
lost booty would at some time or other be demanded from Russia at the
point of the sword. With the millions paid by China as war indemnity,
Japan procured a new military armament, built an armored fleet and
slowly but surely taught the nation to prepare for the hour of revenge.
Remember Shimonoseki! That was the secret shibboleth, the free-mason's
sign, which for nine long years kept the thoughts of the Japanese people
continually centered on one object.

"One country, one people, one God!" were words once emphatically
pronounced by Kaiser Wilhelm. But with the Japanese such high-sounding
words as these are quite unnecessary. In the heart of all, from the
Tenno to the lowest rickshaw coolie, there exists a jealous national
consciousness, as natural as the beating of the heart itself, which
unites the forces of religion, of the political idea and of intellectual
culture into one indivisible element, differing in the individual only
in intensity and in form of expression. When a citizen of Japan leaves
his native land, he nevertheless remains a Japanese from the crown of
his head to the soles of his feet