CHAPTER XVI.

Rigors of Manchurian Winters—In Winter Quarters—Ear Muffs Won by Yankee Thrift—Hot Baths and Hot Meals—Disease Conquered in Camp—Wonderful Sanitary Record—Civil War Comparisons—The Japanese Scientific—No Detail Overlooked—Wounded Rarely Die.

Rigors of Manchurian Winters

After the Battle of the Sha-ho River the two armies went into winter quarters prepared to face a Manchurian season with thermometer readings of 35 degrees below zero not uncommon and with a snowfall of enormous proportions to contend with. The Russians were better prepared to meet the situation than the Japanese since a large proportion of the Russian army hailed from Siberia or the northern provinces of Asiatic and European Russia and hence were inured to rigorous winters. Some thousands of the Japanese had come from the northern provinces of Japan and they, too, were well experienced in cold. But a large majority of the Japanese troops were from the southern islands of Japan, where rigorous winters are unknown. The Japanese army administration was thus confronted by a very serious problem. The story of the manner in which the problem was met and solved is among the most interesting of the chapters of the history of the war.

In Winter Quarters

Ear Muffs Won by Yankee Thrift

When the positions of the various units of the army had been definitely fixed the whole army began, as a preliminary step, to burrow into the earth. Before mid-November the Japanese camp was no longer stretched over the hills south of the Sha-ho but had vanished from view under the hills. Along the whole front that stretched for nearly sixty miles underground galleries were excavated barely high enough even for a Japanese to stand erect. These were open at one end and at the entrance to each a charcoal burning stove was placed. A fire was kept burning continually in each of these thousands of stoves. The stove pipe, instead of jutting a foot or two into the air was extended along the roof of the dug-out to its end, then passed upward through the eight feet of soil that formed the roof. Fronting the open end long trenches, were dug and over them heavy protective bomb proofs of timber and earth were erected as a protection against the shells which with greater or less activity were hurled into the Japanese lines by the Russians throughout the winter. These underground homes solved much of the question of withstanding cold for in them the men were reasonably comfortable. Special clothing, too, was provided, and in connection with fur ear-muffs with which each man was provided an interesting story is told, one typical of the Yankee-like thrift of the Japanese. Five years before, the plague had been introduced into Japan from the Malay Peninsula. A vigorous fight was made and the disease was finally conquered but in the course of the fight the sanitary officials became convinced that the germs of the disease were being spread by rats. A prize was put upon the heads of the dangerous rodents. Millions were killed by the boys of Japan who delivered the rats, collected the bounty and gave no thought to what became of the carcasses. Nor did anyone, but when the army faced a Manchurian winter those millions of rat furs reappeared as warm ear protectors while a smile went around the world. So completely, in a thousand ingenious ways did the army officials conquer the cold and safeguard the army that throughout the winter it was even possible for every man in the army to have two hot baths a week. The bath in Japan is almost a religious rite, but the trooper bade good-bye to it, as he supposed, when he started for the front. Not so. Circular metal tubes were provided. These were sunk in the ground level with the surface. Ten feet away at the bottom of a trench a stove was placed heating a coil of pipes which went inside, around and around the sides of the tube. The tube served as the tub. It was filled with water and in a few minutes the hot bath was ready. In protected spots all along the lines Nippon could be seen hastily stripping beside the steaming hole in the ground. Then he would vanish until only his head was visible. As well as he could he scrubbed himself. Comrades raised him swiftly from the tube and swathed him in heavy blankets, wrapped in which he vanished over the edge of the trench and so into his underground home, clean and happy.

A NIGHT ATTACK ON A RUSSIAN POSITION.

Hot Baths and Hot Meals

Hot meals were cooked at the doors of the dugouts for the fifty occupants on improved portable camp kitchens. Telephones connected every battalion headquarters with its regimental headquarters and so throughout the army, every unit with the next largest and all with the general headquarters at Liao-yang. Great fur overcoats, pure wool underclothing, heavy uniforms well adapted for comfort and warmth; in every detail the Japanese were splendidly equipped for the ordeal of cold. Thousands of slight cases of frost-bite reached the hospitals after occasional sorties demanded by fitful attacks of Russian scouting parties, but there was none of this in the normal life of the vast army of nearly 300,000 men.

The Japanese medical department during the winter made a wonderful fight against disease, that bane of armies, and continued under these unrecord of the actual campaign.

Wonderful Sanitary Record

Until now disease has always been much more destructive than shot and shell. During the brief conflict with Spain 268 Americans died of bullets and wounds, while mortality from disease reached the appalling number of 3,862, or about fourteen to one. In the Boer War 7,792 English were killed in action or died of wounds, while 13,250 fell victims to disease. Of the Turkish army operating in Thessaly seven years ago, 1,000 men were lost in battle, while 19,000 died at the front of disease. Twenty-two thousand others were invalided home, and of these 8,000 subsequently died. This was a ratio of twenty-seven men killed by disease to one by bullets. Even more frightful was the experience of the French expedition to Madagascar in 1894. Only 29 were killed in action, while over 7,000 perished from disease. Compare these frightful experiences with the record of the Japanese. During the last nine months of 1904, throughout a difficult campaign, in a country noted for lack of sanitation, only forty deaths from disease occurred in the immense army in Manchuria commanded by General Oku. It is a wonderful lesson in sanitation Japan has taught to the world.

While disease scored but forty victims in nine months among the soldiers of General Oku, no fewer than 5,127 officers and men were killed and 21,080 wounded. This shows that the period was one of great activity, of hard campaigning and severe fighting—which makes the low disease death rate all the more astonishing. Soldiers in the field cannot be looked after as carefully as those in camp; hygiene and sanitary surroundings are only temporary, and, therefore, more crude; dietetic regulations are more difficult to enforce. Of course, there were many cases of disease in Oku's army—24,642 in all—but the majority were of bronchial troubles, resulting from climatic conditions. Of beri beri, a malady peculiarly Oriental, 5,070 cases were reported. But the progressive Japanese seem to have gotten the mastery even of this, once notable, because of its mortality. It is, however, in battling with those most dreaded scourges of an army—typhoid fever and dysentery—that the Japanese have scored their greatest triumphs. Of typhoid fever they have had only 193 cases, and of dysentery only 342 cases.

Civil War Comparisons

During the first year of the American Civil War typhoid fever attacked 8 per cent. of the Federal troops, killing 35 per cent. of the white and 55 per cent. of the negro soldiers who contracted it. But here is an army in the wilds of Manchuria larger than that of McClellan before Richmond, which had only forty deaths in nine months. The great American conflict was one of the bloodiest in history. In the Federal ranks, 110,070 men were killed in battle or died of wounds, while 249,458 were sent to their graves of disease. Why is it the little brown islanders of the East were so successful in fighting the unseen foe?

"Every death from preventable disease is an insult to the intelligence of the age," says Major Louis L. Seaman, late surgeon in the United States Volunteers, who returned from Japan during the war.

"When it occurs in an army, where the units are compelled to submit to discipline, it becomes a governmental crime."

"Disease bacteria," asserts another writer, in discussing the medical aspects of the Boer War, "are even more dangerous than Mauser bullets shot off with smokeless powder. Both hit without giving a sign to the eye whence they come, and of the two, the Mausers hit less often and hit less hard." It was through prompt recognition of these propositions that the Japanese held down their death rate from disease. Major Seaman relates that, in conversation with a Japanese officer early in the conflict, the subject of Russia's overwhelming numbers was mentioned.

"Yes," admittted the officer, "we are prepared for that. Russia may be able to place 2,000,000 men in the field. We can furnish 500,000. You know that in war four men die of disease for every one who falls from bullets. We propose to eliminate disease as a factor. Every man who dies in our army must fall on the field of battle. In this way we shall neutralize the superiority of Russian numbers and stand on a comparatively equal footing."

The Japanese Scientific

When Japan started out to make war she did so upon a scientific basis. For many months in advance the store rooms of Tokio were crowded with surgical materials, cots, tents, bedding, ambulances and all kinds of hospital supplies, ready for any emergency, and under the personal example of the Empress the women of the land made bandages for those who might be wounded. Japan realized also that the keystone to the health of the army lay in the character of the ration provided for the individual soldier. So she set about to master that problem. First of all, the ration evolved was suited to the climatic conditions of the campaign. It consisted largely of rice, compressed fish, soy, army biscuits, a few salted plums, tea—all of which necessitate the drinking of large quantities of boiled water—a few ounces of meat and some juicy, succulent pickles.

No more thorough or efficient medical preparation could be imagined that Japan made for her great conflict. Not only was the ablest of medical counsel obtained, but the members of that staff of the army were given rank and full authority to enforce their decrees. The Japanese had a medical director who ranked as a lieutenant-general. Six medical officers ranked as major-general. With every 20,000 men in line a surgeon ranking as brigadier-general, and all have power to enforce their orders. Every body of moving soldiers, however small, was accompanied by one or more medical officers, who were almost omnipresent, and were always watchful. Field and line officers and men were obliged to obey them without question. The solution of the greater problem engaged the attention of the medical corps. This was in preserving the health and fighting value of the army. Nothing seemed too small to escape the vigilance of the medical officers, or too tedious to weary his patience. He was with the first line of scouts, with his microscope and chemicals, testing and labelling wells so that the army to follow should not drink water that was contaminated. When the scouts reached a town, he immediately instituted a thorough examination of its sanitary condition. If contagious or infectious disease was found, he quarantined and placed a guard around the dangerous district. Notices were posted, so that the approaching column was warned and no soldiers were located where danger existed. Violations of such a notice was as great an offense as disobedience to a line officer on a battlefield. An officer with only the rank of a lieutenant might post the notice, and yet General Oku himself dared not disregard it. No foraging party ever set out to gather supplies unless accompanied by a medical officer.

No Detail Overlooked

He sampled the various kinds of food, fruit and vegetables sold by the natives along the line of march long before the arrival of the army. If the food was tainted, or the fruit over ripe, or the water ought to be boiled, notice was posted to that effect. In camp, too, the medical officer was always busy, lecturing the men on sanitation and the hundred and one details of personal hygiene—how to cook, to eat, and when not to drink; to bathe, and even to directions as to paring and cleansing the finger nails to prevent danger from bacteria. More than any other preventive, the boiling of all drinking water was insisted upon. Every Japanese soldier carried a small copper camp kettle with a double bottom. By the use of it he was enabled to boil water even in a gale. Charcoal was burned on the inside, the water being heated between two layers of copper. Great kettles for similar use in camps were also provided.

Large bathing basins, or kettles, formed an important part of the equipment of each company. They were placed upon the ground and are ready for use in a few minutes after camp was made. In this way personal cleanliness was maintained. A troop might encamp beside a small stream, the water of which was needed for several different purposes. It was not scooped up indiscriminately, but the flow was divided into separate channels—one for drinking or cooking, another for bathing, a third for laundry service, and so on.

Wounded Rarely Died

Up to July 1, 1106 wounded were taken to Tokio, and of that number not a single man died. These men were shot in almost every possible way; six had bullets through the brain, nine had bullets through their chests, and six had bullets through the abdomen—and yet all got well. The medical service of the United States in its war with Spain was not any more discreditable when compared with that of Japan than the medical service of the English Army during its war with the Boers. The report of the English Hospital Commission, which inquired into the medical end of that conflict, shows that there was "an immense amount of needless suffering and misery." There is no attempt "to hide incompetency and unpreparedness under the platitude that 'was is war.'" Just as in the Spanish-American War, a large number of civil surgeons were employed for army work in South Africa. They had no knowledge of military duties nor of military methods and discipline. Consequently, they were ineffective, except when accompanied and, to some extent, controlled by officers of the service. They were absolutely without authority. Perhaps all these lessons were observed and absorbed by the keen-eyed Japanese. In any event, they have given the world the most pronounced examples of scientific warfare that the hoary old globe has ever seen.

JAPANESE TROOPS CAUGHT IN BARBED WIRE ENTANGLEMENT.

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