THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1894—95. 550 ancestorsearnedgloryenough for the succeeding generations, and limit themselves to drawing their pay."

conflict, because they were not ready and organised for war,in which latent forces count for nothing. We have seen already in the introductory chapter howill-armed,ill-equipped, and in every way badly provided were even these weak forces that China actually placed in The only exceptions to this state of things were in Manchuria— where a small contingent of the Bannermen had received some military training— and at Pekin,where 20,000 partially trained men served as a palace guard. The Green Standard army was of much the same character as the Banner army. Its members, supposed to number at least half a million, were descendants of that part of the old Chinese army which had not taken the side of the Manchu conquerors. Like the Bannermen, the Green Standard men were chiefly calledout for local police duties. But a certain number of them were included in the fourth or "Drilled Army."

thefield.

The Japanese Imperial Army presented in every way a striking contrast to that of China. Organised on modern European lines, well armed, perfectly equipped, with its ranks filled with well-drilledmenandled by trained officers, it had every advantage on its side Its strength at the end of 1893 (the yearbefore the outbreak of war) was :— Total Peace ist 2nd fighting Footing. Reserve. Reserve. Stiength. Generals andfield officers ... 497... 127... 56... 680 Officers... ... 3,034... 460... 294... 3,788 Non-commissioned Trie Braves, who formed the third class, were men who, without belonging to tlae hereditary military classes, voluntarily enlisted for active service. Those of each province were kept together,but couldbemoved to other districts. The movement had its origin in the formation of Charles Gordon's " Ever Victorious Army." The men were, as might be expected, a very mixedlot. They had a little military training, and there was some good fighting material among them.

officers ... 7,119... 3,870... 1,756... 12,743 Probationers and cadets... ... 2,182... — ... — ... 2,182 Privates 56,467... 87,795... 103,914... 247,176 Totals ... ... 69,299... 92,252... 106,020... 266,571 Thus Japan had an army of nearly 70,000 menon a peacefooting, whichby callingup the reserves could be expanded into a war force of more than a quarter of a million. The figures given in this table do not include the military colony in Yezo, about 4,000 strong, and some 1,500 civilians attached as clerks, messengers, servants, etc., to various corps and departments. The soldiers served for twelve years— three in the active army,four in the ist, and five in the 2ndReserve.

The fourth or"DrilledArmy" was the result of attempts to raise and train a fighting force on modernEuropeanlines, to supersede the motley array of Bannermen,Green Standard men, and Braves. Li Hung Chang had formed a special foroe, composed of Bravesand drilled troops, for the defence of Pe-chi-li and the approaches to Pekin, usingmaterialfrom Gordon'soldarmy as its foundation. It had once been efficient, but with Li's advancing age and waning influence it hadseriously deteriorated. There were a few thousands of the Bannermen and Green Standard who weremoreor less trainedin the fourth class. But,including the drilled troops and the Braves, it is doubtful if China possessed much more than 100,000 fighting men. Even if it had been thoroughly wellequippedand trained, this would have been far too small a force for an empire of such enormous extent and farstretching frontiers, and with such defective means of internal communication.

Thearmyhad been organised and trained in tlae first instance by FrenchandGerman officers, and the uniforms worn and the methods adopted bore traces of this double origin. The basis of the organisation was the German territorial system. The empire was marked off into six districts, each of which put into the field a complete division. Besides these, there was an "Imperial Guards Division," formed of picked men from all parts of the empire.

The headquarters of the divisions were— Imperial Guard and ist Division, Tokio; 2nd Sendai ; 3rd, Nagoya; 4th, Osaka;5th, Hiroshima;6th, Kumamoto. Each division (except the Guard,whichslightly differedinits organisation) wasmadeup of twobrigadesofinfantry,each of six battalions, grouped in regiments of three battalions each. A battalion had 800rifles;so 4,800 rifles made up a Japanese brigade. The divisionalartillery consisted of sour fieldbatteries We shall see in the course of our survey of the war that the Chinese were never able to place any really large force on the battlefield.

The enormous population and resources of the empire were useless to affect the result of the