WAR-ITS SEAMY SIDE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 126, 1 June 1904, Page 2

WAR-ITS SEAMY SIDE.

"If to all the world at, once coukl be brought home the full conception of all that war means, there would be moro difficulty and deliberation in tho making of it." This is the dictum of tho famous war correspondent, Mr Donald Macdonald, who wrote such thrilling accounts of many of the fights betwixt Boer and Britain during the South African campaign. When we raid the cabled reports of the brilliant victory of the •Japanese in their successful' storming of the Russian position at NanShan—a fine strategic position, high above the ground occupied by the attacking force, protected naturally by the steep nature of the country, strongly walled, and bristling with guns, defended by llussian soldiers whose perception of bravery and glory is to die fighting for the Czar —v.G exclaim on tlie suptM'ioritv of tho Japanese or their faithful' attention to detail in planning the attack, and dismiss the subject. But at what a price was this victory won ? The night, was stormy and intensely dark as the Japanese commenced their march on the Russian fortress. What that delay meant, from midnight until daybreak, only the soldiers standing by iheir arms in readiness for the atlray run tell. Such suspense cannot be* imagined, cannot )» compared to aught else.: it must be experienced before one can speak of it f and even then it can be but feebly, explained. This ia the first phase of tho battle—that of investigation on the part of the attackers'i scouts, the lying in wait of the main' body of combatants, Nerves strung'

to,the highest tension in tlvo cafe of those to whom this experience is yet new ; the calm, stolid determination of the old soldier, or the experienced lender, to whom the daybreak brings but a repetition of the days in which he has seen stirring scenes at the cannon's mouthy In the grey of the morning th© fusilade commenced. Soon the shelter-trenches of the Russians resembled a shambles, the huge guns that had been vomiting forth flames and destruction against the approaching foe were silenced, and the marvellous practice of the nttackers compelled the retirement of the quick-firing guns. But still the defenders fought as brave men against the brown soldiers, who kept advancing in the teeth of « veritable hail of lend from the trenches, constructed tier upon tier along the heights. An awful scene of carnuge marked tho check of the advance at the extensive wire entanglements. Within easy range of the Russian riflemen in the pits, the Japanese infantrymen fell like grass before the scythe, and as the cable puts it, "tile chief losses occurred here." On and on they came, daring to do or die for love of the Emperor and country, until, at, last their fearless bravery and well-judged artillery (ire had the desired effect. A breach was formed, and the stormers rushed tho batteries. No mercy, no quarter here. Maddened by the loss of so many hundreds of gallant comrades, the Japanese rushed on. Stubbornly contesting overy inch of ground, the Russians decimated the ranks of their assailants ; a. hand to hand encounter ensued, anil the fierceness of the struggle broke through the fine veneer that distinguished the Cossack and Jap in peace from the savage races they were but a few decades ago. A fight to the death is this, and in its lury can be s'een samples, of that rugged savagery that, we fondly thought the centuries of time would have eliminated. Then the victory, the retreat, tho after-scenes of battle. Who can picture the horrors of the battle-field ? None but those who saw the awful ravages of modern artillery amongst the men who fell in recent wars can even attempt to describe it. For miles the landscape, stern and forbidding at any time, is strewn with wounded dying, and dead. Hero is the lost and most impressive phase of the battle, excepting, of course, its effect on the result of the campaign. As an Australian writer has said : " The last phase of war and the most impressive is not so much with the dead. Tho careless way in which death seizes the soldier in battle, and throws him a crumpled heap aiuongst tho grass and rocks, has nothing of the dignified pose, the peaceful look of a peaceful end. Nor is it the \\;ounded, who are suffering, yet may recover. To realist; thd full meaning of war and 'become bitterly resentlul of the conditions that make it possible, one must have sat. out in the -darkness after the light, when the tension of it, has drawn much of his vitality away ; sat with somo poor fellow who will never see thedaybreak come, and triod in a pitifully weak way to help him a little bit on that hardest road tho soldier has to march, the road through the valley of tho shadow. He must have seen tho hope of life change with such dramatic suddenness to the quick apprehension of death. And having seen the stricken man of the world realise that tho world was slipping away from him, be has seen the phase of battle which, if he live to be a centurion, he will never lorget. The mere statement that the assaulting column charged bravely, and drove the enemy out at the point of tho bayonet, gives just as much idea of war as the intimation that Martinique was destroyed by a volcanic eruption does of the almost supernatural horrors which all in a moment I'ell upon that peaceful island. ' But still the conflict goes on apace. Leaving behind hundreds of brave men sleeping beneath the sod, the victorious army pushes on, and in a lew days this fearful carnage will probably be repeated. Such is the result of the greed of the Russian and tho determination of the Japanese, and meanwhile the world looks on. Not only on land are the horrors of war. Day l,y day news reaches us of tho wrecking of large ships, carrying their hundreds of souls. \\ hi Ist the fighting piocceds ashore the deadly submarine mine floats uncontrolled in the deep, until, without a moment's warning, a ship's crew is hurled from life to eternity as a result of tho vessel's contact with this death-dealing ma'chine, and ior the huge fabric of man's creation we "ask of the winds that far, around with fragments strew the sea." This is a slight pen picture of the effect of war at the front. No one can tell, who can give the slightest idea, or- measure tho depth of grief and wailing in hundreds of homes, whence fathers, brothers and sons have inarched to do battle for the glory of their country ? Widows and orphans, brothers , and sisters, bereft, know as none [ others know, the cruel and heartless side of the "glorious victories," accounts of which are perused as records of deeds of valour worthy of but a passing thought, or at most, exclamations of admiration.