s when they are outnumbered, or when under the strain of a
losing fight. From a sporting standpoint, I'll be inclined to lay six
to four on a Japanese against a Russian regiment. I met some people on
the way to Pekin who regarded the Russians as the best war soldiers of
the lot. The Russians were intensely like the preconceived idea one is
inclined to form of Russians. Solid, deep-chested, heavy and hardy,
they gave one the idea of big, heavy farm labourers with a rifle
instead of a spade upon their shoulders. They never moved with
anything like the quickness which characterised the Japanese, yet they
plodded on with a dour stubbornness which gave the impression that if
their movements were not quick, they represented a weighty momentum
difficult to arrest. Although uncouth, and frequently savage in their
behaviour, they yielded a child-like, or almost slavish, obedience to
their officers, and on these officers should lie the blame of the
innumerable outrages committed by them, from which they might have
been restrained if kept properly under control.

Of the many tips which one force got from another, the Russians had an
admirable system of carrying with them on the march a sort of
locomotive kitchen, which consisted of a huge cauldron underneath
which was a coal fire. The contents of the cauldron, which appeared to
be the Russian equivalent for Irish stew, were hot and ready for the
men at any halt in the march. How delightful such an institution
would have been to Tommy in the miserably cold hours between two and
four o'clock on the veldt of a South African morning!

As regards the French force on the expedition to Pekin, in discipline
and in equipment and the conduct of the men composing it, it was
absolutely beneath contempt. Unless the art of foraging and looting
can be considered soldier-like qualities, they appeared to me to lack
every one.

I looked forward to seeing great things from the Germans. But I must
say that I was immensely disappointed. As far as parade-ground drill
was concerned they were admirable; as the mechanical and automatic
resultants of the efforts of the drill-sergeant they were possibly
unequalled. But they appeared to be heavy and slow in their movements.
On one little expedition outside Pekin for the purpose of surrounding
a body of Boxers, which was undertaken by a combined force of British,
Americans, Japanese, and Germans, the encircling movement proved a
failure owing to the German