Fred T. Jane

“ Your Excellency must know what a hard experience the Japanese empire had thirty years ago, and how narrowly she escaped the awful calamity which threatened. To throw away the old principle and to adopt the new, as the sole condition of preserving the integrity of your empire, is as necessary with your government now as it was with ours. The necessity must be attended to, or fall is inevitable sooner or later. ”

“ Disputes with foreigners called him on to it; Japan awoke determined to be again a nation. “Let us have intercourse with foreigners, learn their drill and tactics, and ... we shall be able to go abroad and give lands in foreign countries to those who have distinguished themselves in battle,”—this sentiment every Japanese officer has imbibed with his mother’s milk. The introduction of Western social institutions, such as newspapers, railways, telegraphs, the new criminal code, the abolition of torture as a punishment, all these things are side issues. ”

“ All are singularly beautiful and realistic reproductions—very different things to the ordinary artificial flower of commerce. With these flowers the greater part of the ship is profusely decorated, numbers of lanterns are hung about, and here and there a “Welcome” is stuck up. In addition, each ship hits on some device of its own; thus the Kasagi went in for a host of Japanese and British naval ensigns, while the Shikishima turned diving-dresses into decorative uses. ”

“ On the other hand, a Japanese naval officer never underrates his own abilities. Every junior officer feels in his inmost soul that he is fully as capable and as fully able to do anything as his senior. ”

“ Every Japanese gives time to thinking of the future, and were any lieutenant suddenly made into an admiral, I fancy that he would acquit himself quite as well as if he had reached his rank by orthodox gradations. He is apt to fail now and again at his present task from this trait, which is in many ways his chief defect, and one that may lead to trouble in war. It is sometimes dangerous to reason before proceeding to obey. A Japanese tends to do this. It is details that they think about. For instance, I once got a Japanese officer to give me his views on the conduct of a naval war. ”

“ European uniform has not abated one jot of that dignity which we have all read about as having been beneath the Kimino. Mostly, though not invariably, they are the descendants of the old fighting men, the Samaurai. [35] In the midst of the new order all the best of the old traditions live, just as, in a few cases in our new social order, pauper members of old families scorn the wealthy mushroom aristocracy around them. Whatever he may do, in whatever position he may be placed, the Japanese officer never forgets his dignity, and, further, is always a gentleman. ”

“ Whether the Western brain can ever get to truly comprehend the Oriental is a favourite question, usually answered in the negative. But, true as the negative may be in a general way, it is only true to that extent. Sea service marks all its votaries as a class apart; and additionally apart as the Japanese may be by race, they are not more so than Russians or Frenchmen. It is just as easy or just as impossible to “bottom” a Japanese as a Russian. ”

“ Death is an incident, nothing more. “If people do not like being killed, why do they fight?” is the beginning and end of their ideas on the subject.
In every navy there are men who work at their profession and men who do not. The Japanese Navy is no exception to the rule, but the proportion of those who are casual is very small.
“Working at their profession” has, however, a very liberal meaning in the Japanese Navy. It means the absolute ignoring of everything else. I once inquired of a Japanese naval officer over here what the Japanese military attaché was called. ”

“ The torpedo-gunner who, after his frozen-in torpedo failed to leave the tube at Wei-hai-wei, committed hari-kari, slit his stomach across with a knife, and then fired a pistol at his throat—according to the captain of his boat, who told me about it. This was not quite after the orthodox manner, but it was a singular painful means of death for a man to choose of his own accord. The ancestors of Japanese officers, near and remote, lived for centuries under the hari-kari régime. In other ways human life was cheap, and torture was common. ”

“ Yet, when he put into Portsmouth Harbour to coal, I found him sitting in the wardroom, expatiating to his officers on his good luck in having thus early been favoured with some bad weather experience.
“Duty,” in the sense in which one finds it in the British or Russian navies, is not much of a motive-power to Japanese officers. The religion of war, the interest of their profession, the longing to put theories to a fuller practical test—here lie the springs of their motive-power. To quote one of them, they “like being killed.” I believe they do. ”

“ Although the upper works may be knocked about and splintered, and so on, it does not seem much good splintering the upper works and making a mess of the ship unless there is a gun near it, and somebody to be disabled. Now, this conclusion is dead against the “moral effect” theory. It is almost a gospel that if the upper works are shelled enough the crew somewhere else will get demoralised. I do not believe it; they will not in a modern war be aware of it. I think this point should be laid to heart and thought over by those who have 6-in. guns to attack ships with. ”

“ Every civilian officer fumes over to himself that he is not an executive; every lieutenant curses the time that must pass before he is a lieutenant-commander, and so on all through. Wherever they are in the professions, they want to be better and higher. ”

“ By the system of selection of captains to be admirals the “duffer officer” has little chance of blocking the way of better men. He, however, as a rule is ready to recognise his own shortcomings, and it is not at all uncommon for such officers to exhibit their patriotism by retiring to make room for those who are likely to do better than they. It is only in the Japanese Navy that this happens: and it is in very marked contrast to certain other navies. ”

“ It is not impossible that their more liberal definition of cowardice would include a man who got unduly excited in action. After Yalu, several men were punished for that.
The general intelligence of Japanese bluejackets is high, they have the national aptitude for “picking things up” with marvellous rapidity—wherein they form a marked contrast to the Russian sailors, who learn very slowly. They—some of them—also forget rapidly; a national defect in Japan.
In many ways they are replicas of their officers. Like their officers, their ideas of dissipation centre round learning something. ”

“ As these Samaurai were the ancestors of modern Japanese naval officers, some account of their methods of training may be worthy of study, for to them it is undoubtedly due that Japan exists as one of the great Powers to-day. Otherwise she would assuredly have sunk to the Chinese level of an ultra-high civilisation in which courage has no place, and in which the military profession is lower than the meanest civil calling. ”

“ Personal glory is, again, discouraged rather than otherwise; a solidarity of glory is rather aimed at. In the torpedo attacks at Wei-hai-wei some boats “got in,” some failed. No Japanese officer who participated will tell you his share. I once asked one of these, whom I met, about the famous action. “Oh yes,” said he, “I was there. It was a very cold night.”
Subsequently I learnt from another officer that this particular one had commanded the boat that sank the Ting Yuen. ”

“ Modern warfare is [Pg 294] becoming more and more a matter of acting on the morale of the personnel; it is on nerves rather than on bodies that shell-fire is intended to have its most powerful effect, and it will take a good deal of it, and a very deadly deal, to affect those who can see the humorous side of what is primarily a very terrible thing. Probably the root of the “war-instinct” lies somewhere hereabouts, and we should think many times ere we endeavour to “humanise” such ideas out of our own Mark Tapleys.
The Japanese also retains his old native dignity ”

“ Japanese officers have, on the whole, a preference for sailors of little education. Their view is that such are less hampered by appreciating danger. Apparently some of the better class sailors—artificers and others drawn from a rather better class socially, acquire with their education an inconvenient ability to realise some of the frightful dangers of modern naval warfare. Either from experience or instinct, these more educated men are not looked on with favour. ”

“ In appearance it is difficult to tell the Asahi from our Canopus class, save for colour. A critical eye could detect the much higher barbettes of the Japanese vessel and their different shape, but that is about all, for the extra casemate would hardly be visible at any appreciable distance. Like the Canopus class, the Asahi has the huge after funnel, and the resemblance is increased by the tautness of her masts. The sign manual of a British man-of-war is the rake forward of the top masts, in the smartest Channel Fleet ships this is most noticeable; but the Asahi also is taut. ”

“ In any case, neither is likely to oust existing types, as most of the valuable points in a boiler are already patented all over the world. The inventors of new types are, therefore, hampered much like inventors of new systems of wireless telegraphy are—some one has been before them. In addition, a water-tube boiler requires some years of practical service before it can be classed as out of the experimental stage. The great advantage possessed by the Belleville, which “in theory” is one of the worst of boilers, lies in the numerous features introduced by years of practical experience. ”

“ Of the civil branches, constructors most often get the military title, and in the dockyards are always addressed by the employés as taï-i, houk-cho, or kan-cho, without the word constructor at all. In the British Navy, of course, constructors are almost as entirely civil a profession as Admiralty clerks, and are absolutely unknown to naval officers afloat; but in the Japanese Navy the tie is closer, and every officer knows them. ”

“ The mechanical arts and the food [31] of the West, not its social institutions, have made the new Japan an empire.
Now, having decided to adopt Western methods, the Japanese sought [Pg 281] Western instructors. The British being the premier navy, they sought naval instruction from us, and were chiefly supplied with officers of what even then was the “old school.” In one of Major Drury’s books of naval stories [32] there is a British admiral who always read his Bible in his shirt-sleeves, because the sight of his uniform made it difficult for him to realise the existence of a Higher Power! ”