ce,
though nine critics out of every ten who had studied the situation
expected them to wait for the Russians to cross the Yalu and make Korea
the great theater of the war. Instead of that they advanced themselves,
beat a small Russian army at the Yalu, and pressed on. They met the
Russians, who were pouring into Manchuria over their great
Trans-Siberian railway, and drove them back, from Liao Yiang to Mukden.
They'd have kept on, too, if they hadn't been stopped by peace."

"Could they have kept on, though? I always had an idea that they needed
the peace even more than the Russians did."

"Well, you may be right. That's something that no one can tell. They had
the confidence of practically unceasing victory from the very beginning
of the war. They were safe from invasion, because their fleet absolutely
controlled the Yellow Sea after the battle of Tsushima, and there
weren't any more Russian battleships to bother them. They had bottled up
the Russian force in Port Arthur, and they were in the position of
having everything to gain and very little to lose. Their line of
communication was perfectly safe."

"They must have weakened themselves greatly, though, in that series of
battles."

"Yes, they did. And, of course, there is the record of Russia to be
considered. Russia has always been beaten at the start of a war. It has
taken months of defeat to stiffen the Russians to a real fight. Napoleon
marched to Moscow fairly easily, though he did have some hard fights,
like the one at Borodino, on the way. But he had a dreadful time getting
back, and that was what destroyed him. After that Leipzic and Waterloo
were inevitable. It was the Russians who really won the fight against
Napoleon, though it remained for Blucher and Wellington to strike the
death blows."

"Well, after all, what might have happened doesn't count for so much.
It's what did really happen that stands in history, and the Japanese
won. It was by their daring in taking the offensive and striking quickly
that they did that, you think?"

"It certainly seems so to me! And look at the Germans in the war with
France. Von Moltke decided that the thing to do was to strike at the
very heart and soul of France--Paris. So he swept on, leaving great,
uncaptured fortresses like Metz and Sedan behind him, which was against
every rule of war as it was understood then. Of course, Metz and Sedan
were both captured, but it was daring strategy on the part of Von
Moltke.