Banzai! Part 20

"It's possible," said Hornberg, "but as all the ships use shaded lights, it's a difficult thing to determine."

"Can we enter the harbor by night?" he asked of the j.a.panese pilot.

"Yes, sir, whenever you like, under our pilotage you can enter the harbor by day or night."

"How's that?"

"You'll see directly."

At this moment the torpedo-boat's siren bellowed sharply three times, and immediately the red lights at the masthead and the side of a steamer about half a mile off became visible, and the bright flash of her searchlight was thrown on the _Port Elizabeth_. The pilot sent a short signal across, which was immediately answered by the j.a.panese guardship.

"Now you'll see the channel," said the pilot to Wilson, "it's really an American invention, but we were the first to put it to practical use. We can't possibly lose our way now."

"Yes, captain, you'll see something wonderful now," said the lieutenant, as he came on the bridge with the captain. "You'll open your eyes when you see us steering through the mines."

Suddenly a bright circle of light appeared on the surface of the water, which was reflected from some source of light about ten yards below the surface. "It's an anch.o.r.ed light-buoy," explained the lieutenant, "which forms the end of the electric light cable, and there to the right is another one. All we have to do now is to keep a straight course between the two rows of lantern-buoys which are connected with the cable, and in that way we'll be able to steer with perfect safety between the mines into the harbor of San Francisco." And indeed, about a hundred yards ahead a second shining circle of light appeared on the water, and further on a whole chain of round disks was seen to make a turn to the left and then disappear in the distance. The same kind of a line appeared on the right. Half an hour later three bright red reflections, looking like transparent floating b.a.l.l.s of light filled with ruby-red, bubbling billows, marked a spot where the helm had to be turned to port in order to bring the ship through a gap in the line of mines. Thus the _Port Elizabeth_ reached San Francisco early in the morning. She did not make fast at the quay, but at the a.r.s.enal on Mare Island, her crew then being given sh.o.r.e leave. When the last man had gone, the _Port Elizabeth_, unloaded her cargo of machinery and rails which, in the hands of the Chinese coolies, was transformed into gun-barrels, ammunition and sh.e.l.ls in the most marvelous manner. "_Le pavilion couvre la marchandise_, especially under the Union Jack," said Hornberg sarcastically, as he watched this metamorphosis, but the captain only looked at him angrily.

That was the second time during the war that Captain Winstanley of the United States Navy, and late commander of the battleship _Georgia_, saw San Francisco, whence he had escaped by night from the naval hospital two months before. The j.a.panese lieutenant was the same who had received the word of honor of the officers on board the hospital ship _Ontario_ on May eighth, and to whom Winstanley had refused to give his. Two months after his voyage as second mate on board the _Port Elizabeth_, which enabled him to gather information concerning the j.a.panese measures for the defense of San Francisco, Winstanley stood on the bridge of the battleship _Delaware_ as commander of the second Atlantic squadron. And four months later the name of the victor in the naval battle off the Galapagos Islands went the rounds of the world!

_Chapter XIII_

THE REVENGE FOR PORTSMOUTH

The more one examined the complicated machinery of the j.a.panese 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-j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan of nearly all the fruits of her victory over China. j.a.pan 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, j.a.pan was compelled to relinquish all her possessions on the mainland and to console herself for her shattered hopes with a few million taels, every j.a.panese 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, j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese people continually centered on one object.

"One country, one people, one G.o.d!" were words once emphatically p.r.o.nounced by Kaiser Wilhelm. But with the j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan leaves his native land, he nevertheless remains a j.a.panese from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, and can no more mix with members of another nation than a drop of oil can mix with water: a drop of oil poured on water will remain on its surface as an alien element, and so does a j.a.panese among another people. While the streams of emigrants pa.s.sing over the boundaries of Europe into other countries soon adapt themselves to new conditions and eventually adopt not only the outward but also the inward symbols of their environment, until finally they think and feel like those round about them, the j.a.panese remains a j.a.p for all time. The former sometimes retain a sentimental memory of their former home, but the Mongolian is never sentimental or romantic. He is sober and sensible, with very little imagination, and his whole energy, all his thoughts and endeavors are directed towards the upholding of the national, intellectual and religious unity of j.a.pan. His country is his conscience, his faith, his deity.

Ordinary nations require hundreds and even thousands of years to inspire their people with a national consciousness, but this was not necessary in j.a.pan, for there patriotism is inborn in the people, among whom an act of treason against the fatherland would be impossible because it is looked upon as spiritual suicide. The inner solidarity of the national character, the positive a.s.surance of the fulfillment of all national duties, and the absolute silence of the people towards strangers--these are the weapons with which j.a.pan enters the arena, clothed in a rattling ready-made steel armor, the like of which her opponents have yet to manufacture. The discretion shown by the j.a.panese press in all questions relating to foreign policy is regarded as the fulfillment of a patriotic duty just as much as the joyous self-sacrifice of the soldier on the field of battle.

From the moment that Marquis Ito had returned from Portsmouth (in 1905) empty-handed and the j.a.panese had been sorely disappointed in their hopes through President Roosevelt's instrumentality in bringing about peace, every j.a.panese knew whose turn would come next. The j.a.panese people were at first exceedingly angry at the way in which they had been deprived of their expected indemnity, but the government only allowed them to let off steam enough to prevent the boilers from bursting. Here and there, where it could do no harm, they let the excited mob have its way, but very soon both government and press began their new work of turning the people's patriotic pa.s.sions away from the past to prepare for the future control of the Pacific. When in return for the prohibition of Chinese immigration to the United States, China boycotted our goods, and the ensuing panic in Wall Street forced the government in Washington to grant large concessions, j.a.pan did not attempt to make use of this sharp weapon, for one of their most extensive industries, namely the silk industry, depended upon the export to the United States.

j.a.pan continued to place orders in America and treated the American importers with special politeness, even when she saw that the beginning of the boycott gave the gentlemen in Washington a terrible scare, prompting them to collect funds to relieve the famine in China and even renouncing all claim to the war indemnity of 1901 to smooth matters over. But j.a.pan apparently took no notice of all this and continued to be deferential and polite, even when the growing heaps of unsold goods in the warehouses at Shanghai made the Americans ready to sacrifice some of their national pride. Since j.a.pan wished to take the enemy by surprise, she had to be very careful not to arouse suspicions beforehand.

"Never speak of it, but think of it always," was the watchword given out by the little Jewish lawyer in the president's chair of France, when the longing for revenge filled the soul of every Frenchman during the slow retreat of the German army after its victorious campaign; "never speak of it, but think of it always," that was the watchword of the j.a.panese people also, although never expressed in words. It was nine years before the bill of exchange issued at Shimonoseki was presented on that February night in the roads of Port Arthur; for nine years the j.a.panese had kept silence and thought about it, had drilled and armed their soldiers, built ships and instructed their crews. The world had seen all this going on, but had no idea of the real reason for these warlike preparations on a tremendous scale. It was not j.a.pan who had deceived the world, for everything went on quite openly, it being impossible to hide an army of over a million men under a bushel basket; but the world had deceived itself. When ships are built and cannon cast in other parts of the world, everyone knows for whom they are intended, and should anyone be ignorant, he will soon be enlightened by the after-dinner speeches of diplomats or indiscreet newspaper articles. The military and naval plans of the old world are common property, and this political indiscretion is characteristic of America as well as of Europe. In striking contrast thereto are the cool calculation, the silent observation and the perfect harmony of the peoples of Asia and Africa, all of whom, without exception, are inspired by a deep and undying hatred of the white race.

You may live for years among disciples of Mohammed, know all in your environment, penetrate into their thoughts and feelings, and still be utterly incapable of judging when the little spark that occasionally glows in their eyes in moments of great enthusiasm, will suddenly develop into an immense flame, when a force will make its appearance of the existence of which you have never dreamed, and which will, without a sign of warning, devastate and destroy all around it. But when this does happen and the corpses of the slain enc.u.mber the streets, when the quiet, peaceful, apparently indolent Moslem who for years has worked faithfully for you, is transformed in a few hours into a fanatical hero, whom thousands follow like so many sheep, then, at the sight of the burning ruins you will be forced to admit that the white man will forever be excluded from the thoughts and the national sentiment of the followers of Islam.

You walk across a sandy plain in the heat of the midday sun and you return the same way the next morning after a rainy night--what has happened? The ground which yesterday looked so parched and barren is now covered with millions of tiny blades. Where has this sudden life come from? It was there all the time. There is always latent life beneath the surface, but it is invisible. And as soon as a fertilizing rain comes, it springs up, and everyone perceives what has been slumbering beneath the crust.

In the dense jungles from which the sacred Nile receives its waters, there stands a tent and before it a saddled horse. From the tent steps forth a man with large glowing eyes, dressed all in white, who is greeted by his followers with fanatical cries of Allah, Allah! He mounts his steed, the camels rise, and the long caravan swings slowly out of sight and disappears in the bush. Once more dead silence reigns in the African jungle. Whither are they going? You don't know; you see only a rider dressed in a white burnoose, only a few dozen men hailing a prophet, but in the very same moment in which you see only a sheik riding off, millions know that the Caliph, the Blessed of Allah, has started on his journey through the lands whose inhabitants he intends to lead either to victory or to destruction. In the same moment millions of hearts from Mogador to Cape Guardafui, from Tripoli to the burning salt deserts of Kalahari, rejoice in the thought that the hour of deliverance has come for the peoples of Islam. A victorious feeling of buoyant hope arises in the hearts of the Faithful simply because a plain Arabian sheik has started on the road pointed out by Allah. How they happen to know it and all at the same time, will forever remain a mystery to the white man, as much of a mystery as the secret inner life of the yellow races of Asia.

"Never speak of it, but think of it always," had been the watchword, and everything that had transpired, even the apparently inconsistent and senseless things, had been ruled by it. The world could not be deceived about the things that were plainly visible; all the j.a.panese had to do was to make sure that the world would deceive itself as it had done during the preparations for Port Arthur. A perfectly equipped army could be seen by all on the fields of Nippon, Hokkaido and Kiushiu, and the fleet was surely not hidden from view. It was the world's own fault that it could not interpret what it saw, that it imagined the little yellow monkey would never dare attack the clumsy polar-bear. Because the diplomatic quill-drivers would only see what fitted into their schemes, because they were capable only of moving in a circle about their own ideas, they could not understand the thoughts of others, and the few warning voices died away unheeded. It was not j.a.pan's fault that the roads at Port Arthur roused the world out of its slumber. What business had the world to be asleep?

"Never speak of it, but think of it always"--the adversary must be put to sleep again, he must be lulled into security and his thoughts directed towards the points where there was nothing to be seen, where no preparations were in progress. He must be kept in the dark about the true nature of the preparations, and on the other hand put on as many false scents as possible, so that he might not get the faintest idea of the real plan.

This is the reason why all those things were done, why the quarrel over the admission of j.a.panese children to the public schools of San Francisco was cooked up, why so much national anger was exhibited, why the j.a.panese press took up the quarrel like a hungry dog pouncing upon a bone, why so much noise was made about it at public meetings that one would have thought the fate of j.a.pan hung on the result. And then, as soon as Washington began to back down, the dogs were whipped back to their kennels and the "national anger" died out as soon as j.a.pan had "saved her face." The Americans were allowed to doze off again, fully persuaded that the school question was settled once and for all and that there was nothing further to fear in that direction. Then, too, j.a.pan apparently yielded in the vexed question of j.a.panese immigration to the United States, but instead of sending the immigrants to San Francisco and Seattle, as she had done hitherto, they were simply dispatched across the Mexican frontier, where it was impossible to exercise control over such things, for no one could be expected to patrol the sandy deserts of Arizona and New Mexico merely to watch whether a few j.a.ps slipped across the border now and then. It was therefore impossible to keep track of the number of j.a.panese who entered the country in this way, more especially as the official emigration figures issued at Tokio were purposely inaccurate, so as to confuse the statistics still more.

"Never speak of it, but think of it always!" That is why a j.a.panese photographer was sent to San Diego to photograph the walls of Fort Rosecrans. He was to get himself arrested. But of course we had to let the fellow go when he proved that better and more accurate photos than he had taken could be purchased in almost any store in San Diego. The object of this game was the same as that practiced in Manila, where we were induced to arrest a spy who was ostentatiously taking photographs.

Both of these little maneuvers were intended to persuade us that j.a.pan was densely ignorant with regard to these forts which as a matter of fact would play no role at all in her plan of attack; America was to be led to believe that j.a.pan's system of espionage was in its infancy, while in reality the government at Tokio was in possession of the exact diagram of every fort, was thoroughly familiar with every beam of our warships--thanks to the j.a.panese stewards who had been employed by the Navy Department up to a few years ago--knew the peculiarities of every one of our commanders and their hobbies in maneuvers, and finally was informed down to the smallest detail of our plans of mobilization, and of the location of our war headquarters and of our armories and ammunition depots.

For the same reason the j.a.panese press, and the English press in Eastern Asia which was inspired by j.a.pan, continually drew attention to the Philippines, as though that archipelago were to be the first point of attack. For this reason, too, the English-Chinese press published at the beginning of the year the well-known plans for j.a.pan's offensive naval attack and the transport of two of her army corps to the Philippines.

And the ruse proved successful. Just as Russia had been taken completely by surprise because she would persist in her theory that j.a.pan would begin by marching upon Manchuria, so now the idea that j.a.pan would first try to capture the Philippines and Hawaii had become an American and an international dogma. The world had allowed itself to be deceived a second time, and, convinced that the first blow would be struck at Manila and Hawaii, they spent their time in figuring out how soon the American fleet would be able to arrive on the scene of action in order to save the situation in the Far East.

"Never speak of it, but think of it always!" While j.a.pan was disseminating these false notions as to the probable course of a war, the actual preparations for it were being conducted in an entirely different place, and the adversary was induced to concentrate his strength at a point where there was no intention of making an attack.

The j.a.panese were overjoyed to observe the strengthening of the Philippine garrison when the insurrection inspired by j.a.panese agents broke out at Mindanao as well as the concentration of the cruiser squadron off that island, for Manila, the naval base, was thus left unprotected. With the same malignant joy they noticed how the United States stationed half of its fleet off the Pacific coast and, relying on her mobile means of defense, provided insufficient garrisons for the coast-defenses, on the supposition that there would be plenty of time to put the garrisons on a war-footing after the outbreak of hostilities.

j.a.pan's next move came in March and April, when she quietly withdrew all the regular troops from the Manchurian garrisons and replaced them with reserve regiments fully able to repulse for a time any attack on the part of Russia. The meaning of this move was not revealed until weeks later, when it became known that the transport ships from Dalny and Gensan, which were supposed to have returned to j.a.pan, were really on their way to San Francisco and Seattle with the second detachment of the invading army.

After the destruction of the Philippine squadron, the j.a.panese reduced their blockade of the Bay of Manila to a few old cruisers and armed merchant-steamers, at the same time isolating the American garrisons in the archipelago, whose fate was soon decided. The blockading ships could not of course venture near the heavy guns of the Corregidor batteries, but that was not their task. They had merely to see that Manila had no intercourse with the outside world, and this they did most efficiently.

The j.a.panese ships had at first feared an attack by the two little submarines _Shark_ and _Porpoise_ stationed at Cavite; they learned from their spies on land, however, that the government shipyards at Cavite had tried in vain to render the little boats seaworthy: they returned from each diving-trial with defective gasoline-engines. And when, weeks later, they at last reached Corregidor, the four j.a.panese submarines quickly put an end to them. The strongly fortified city of Manila had thus become a naval base without a fleet and was accordingly overpowered from the land side.

As the far too weak garrison of scarcely more than ten thousand men was insufficient to defend the extensive line of forts and barricades, the unfinished works at Olongapo on Subig Bay were blown up with dynamite and vacated, then the railways were abandoned, and finally only Manila and Cavite were retained. But the repeated attacks of the natives under the leadership of j.a.panese officers soon depleted the little garrison, which was entirely cut off from outside a.s.sistance and dependent absolutely on the supplies left in Manila itself. The only article of which they had more than enough was coal; but you can't bake bread with coal, and so finally, on August twenty-fourth, Manila capitulated.

Twenty-eight hundred starving soldiers surrendered their arms while the balance lay either in the hospitals or on the field of battle. Thus the Philippines became a j.a.panese possession with the loss of a single man, Lieutenant Shirawa. All the rest had been accomplished by the Filipinos and by the climate that was so conducive to the propagation of mosquitoes and scorpions.

Hawaii's fate had been decided even more quickly than that of the Philippines. The sixty thousand j.a.panese inhabitants of the archipelago were more than enough to put an end to American rule. The half-finished works at Pearl Harbor fell at the first a.s.sault, while the three destroyers and the little gunboat were surprised by the enemy. Guam, and Pago-Pago on Tutuila, were also captured, quite incidentally. About the middle of May, a j.a.panese transport fleet returning from San Francisco appeared at Honolulu and took forty thousand inhabitants to Seattle, where they formed the reserve corps of the Northern j.a.panese Army.

j.a.pan's rising imperialism, the feeling that the sovereignty of the Pacific rightly belonged to the leading power in yellow Asia had, long before the storms of war swept across the plains of Manchuria, come into conflict with the imperialistic policy of the United States, although invisibly at first. Prior to that time the Asiatic races had looked upon the dominion of the white man as a kind of fate, as an irrevocable universal law, but the fall of Port Arthur had shattered this idol once and for all. And after the days of Mukden and Tsushima had destroyed the belief in the invincibility of the European arms, the j.a.panese agents found fertile soil everywhere for their seeds of secret political agitation. In India, in Siam, and in China also, the people began to p.r.i.c.k their ears when it was quite openly declared that after the destruction of the czar's fleet the Pacific and the lands bordering on it could belong only to the Mongolians. The discovery was made that the white man was not invincible. And beside England, only the United States remained to be considered--the United States who were still hard at work on their Philippine inheritance and could not make up their mind to establish their loudly heralded imperialistic policy on a firm footing by providing the necessary armaments.

Then came the Peace of Portsmouth. Absolutely convinced that his country would have to bear the brunt of the next Asiatic thunder-storm, Theodore Roosevelt gained one of the most momentous victories in the history of the world when he removed the payment of a war indemnity from the conditions of peace. And he did this not because he had any particular love for the Russians, but because he wished to prevent the strengthening of j.a.pan's financial position until after the completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l. America did exactly what Germany, Russia and France had done at the Peace of Shimonoseki, and we had to be prepared for similar results. But how long did it take the American people, who had helped to celebrate the victories of Oyama, Nogi and Togo, to recognize that a day of vengeance for Portsmouth was bound to come. In those days we regarded the Manchurian campaign merely as a spectacle and applauded the victors. We had no idea that it was only the prelude of the great drama of the struggle for the sovereignty of the Pacific. We wanted imperialism, but took no steps to establish it on a firm basis, and it is foolish to dream of imperial dominion when one is afraid to lay the sword in the scales. We might bluff the enemy for the time being by sending our fleet to the Pacific; but we could not keep him deceived long as to the weakness of our equipment on land and at sea, especially on land.

The wholesale immigration of Mongolians to our Pacific States and to the western sh.o.r.es of South America was clearly understood across the sea.

But we looked quietly on while the j.a.panese overran Chili, Peru and Bolivia, all the harbors on the western coast of South America; and while the yellow man penetrated there unhindered and the decisive events of the future were in process of preparation, we continued to look anxiously eastward from the platform of the Monroe Doctrine and to keep a sharp lookout on the modest remnants of the European colonial dominion in the Caribbean Sea, as if danger could threaten us from that corner.

We seemed to think that the Monroe Doctrine had an eastern exposure only, and when we were occasionally reminded that it embraced the entire continent, we allowed our thoughts to be distracted by the London press with its talk of the "German danger" in South America, just as though any European state would think for a moment of seizing three Brazilian provinces overnight, as it were.

We have always tumbled through history as though we were deaf and dumb, regarding those who warned us in time against the j.a.panese danger as backward people whose intellects were too weak to grasp the victorious march of j.a.panese culture. Any one who would not acknowledge the undeniable advance of j.a.pan to be the greatest event of the present generation was stamped by us an enemy of civilization. We recognized only two categories of people--j.a.panophobes and j.a.panophiles. It never entered our heads that we might recognize the weighty significance of j.a.pan's sudden development into a great political power, but at the same time warn our people most urgently against regarding this development merely as a phase of feuilletonistic culture. Right here lies the basis for all our political mistakes of the last few years. The revenge for Portsmouth came as such a terrible surprise, because, misled by common opinion, we believed the enemy to be breaking down under the weight of his armor and therefore incapable of conducting a new war and, in this way undervaluing our adversary, we neglected all necessary preparations.

No diplomatic conflict, not the slightest disturbance of our relations with j.a.pan prepared the way for the great surprise. The world was the richer by one experience--that a war need have no prelude on the diplomatic stage provided enough circ.u.mstances have led up to it.

_Chapter XIV_

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WHIRLPOOL

On the rear deck of a ferry-boat bound for Hoboken on the morning of May 12th stood Randolph Taney, with his hands in his pockets, gazing intently at the foaming waters of the Hudson plowed up by the screw. It was all over: he had speculated in Wall Street, putting his money on Harriman, and had lost every cent he had. What Harriman could safely do with a million, Randolph Taney could not do with a quarter of a million.

That's why he had lost. Fortunately only his own money. The whole bundle of papers wasn't worth any more than the copy of the _Times_ tossed about in the swirling water in the wake of the boat.

Randolph Taney kept on thinking. Just why he was going to Hoboken he really didn't know, but it made little difference what he did.

"Halloo, Taney," called out an acquaintance, "where are you going?"