By The Real Triumph of Japan – The Conquest of the Silent Foe – By Louis Livingston Seaman – Published 1906
This is another book you can read for free – thanks to expired copyright – via Google Books. It is also another book written about the Russo-Japanese War – during the war or not long after it.
That fact alone makes “average” books – not ones that have withstood the test of time and are reprinted or well-known because they have been accepted as definitive of at least some aspect of the period they are covering — worth at least a look: They are time-capsules. I also expect them to be more bias — at least more clear about taking sides — than what you get 50 or 150 years later.
This book – as the title shows – fits my expectation on that last point at least.
But, from page one – it is not what I expected overall:
This makes it seem like it’s going to be a military book.
The Russo-Japanese War is a book I reviewed here at GI Korea’s already. It is written by military men — British observers primarily with the Japanese troops and navy during the war — for military men – the British War Office or whatever it was called then.
I have some interest in books like this, though I’ve never been a military person and wouldn’t fully get the value of what these officers are telling me — but it is a refreshing change from history books that often focus most of their attention on the “big picture” – even when describing individual battles.
I find tidbits fascinating – like on page 2 of this book where it says:
I’m sure military people of today, even perhaps a fair percentage of this blog’s readers, will get more out of those bits than me – by being able to relate them to managing troops for today’s battlefield – antibiotics and anti-nerve agents, as well as adequate crappers…
The book really drives this point home – citing something called “Longmore’s Tables” which were said to be complied from data taken from 200 years of warfare, which state 4 men died of disease for every 1 who died from wounds from the battle field.
I remember that this excellent coffee table and history book on the Hideyoshi Invasions of Korea stated that disease was at lease as big a reason for the Japanese defeat as the naval victories of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin. (The book is Samurai Invasion: Japan’s Korea War 1592-1598 by Stephen Turnbull)
I think this initial section of the book deserves another quote to show how well the author makes this point:
Fascinating.
And before moving on to the rest of the book overall, I want to add this last quote — that well captures the “time capsule” nature of these old books like I mentioned above:
His book is about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 but he’s talking about the American Civil War — which some of his readers could remember having fought……and today it is 2008 – and we have what these guys would have considered science-fiction warfare going on in Iraq War II and the Afghan Conflict….
—
It becomes clear in these first couple of pages – with reference back to the title – that the entire book is going to be about this point: that it is going to examine the Russo-Japanese War – especially Japan’s victory in it — through the lens of how it cut down on preventable illness and disease (and took care of the wounded).
This isn’t the kind of stuff you get in East Asian Studies reading history books written in the 1990s or later…..
You have to go back closer to the actually time period to get someone to clue you in to such things and their importance:
And that is why some author went through the exhausting work of putting together a detailed record of it……so militaries would learn…..
(and thus be more efficient in the actual slaughter…..)
Other Aspects of the Book
The first pages of the book also show the clear pro-Japan bias that was notable in American society concerning the war and events in the Far East:
That’s one way to look at it…
…..and I mean that more than sarcastically: It is a legitimate way to read that history.
Another might be to take the Russian side – though I can’t remember having read a book in English do so….
Another – more common the further the years spread from the actual events – the trend would be to speak strongly against both Russia and Japan and these other powerful nations.
As time passes by, however, academics become more and more distant from the geopolitical mind-sets of the eras —- and eventually it becomes more about “history” than social/geopolitics.
Still — for the average K-blog reader – expats in or familiar with Korea – a book like this gives you a window into — 1. A view of Japan’s interest in Korea you don’t hear much and 2. A view of how America “as a whole” viewed the situation at the time.
There were Americans who disapproved of Japan’s Far Eastern policy – but more were like this author.
The book doesn’t over do the geopolitics, though…
It does gush about Japan in a positive way — but it is praise of how their medical care was so far advanced compared to other nations.
Overall — the book might interest some military people — or medial people.
I quit reading after the 2nd chapter – because I wasn’t particularly interested enough in the topic to continue…….I wanted to move onto another book about the war….
