[Pg 16] “This certainly looks like war,” he reasoned, as he watched the soldiers leave the train and march off to a temporary barracks. “And those chaps look as if they meant business, too,” he continued, noticing how well the body was drilled. “I declare, it arouses my old fighting blood just to look at them!” And he drew himself up as of old, when he was a lieutenant under Old Glory. War talk was everywhere, and Russians and foreigners of all sorts filled the streets and discussed the situation in subdued tones. The Japanese said but little, and the Russians gave them the blackest of looks as they passed by. The strained situation between Japan and Russia was of long standing. In a work of this kind it is not necessary to go into all the details which led to the great war which was so close at hand. Sufficient be it to say that Japan objected strongly to having any part of China or Korea held by Russia, and viewed with alarm the strong fortifications of Port Arthur, the building of the great Trans-Siberian railroad from the frontier to the port itself,[Pg 17] and the occupation of other Chinese towns by the Russians. [Pg 17] “In but a few years more Russia will claim both Manchuria and Korea,” said the Japanese, “and then our own safety will be menaced.” Which was certainly true, for the islands that make up the kingdom of Japan lie directly to the southeast of the territory named, with nothing but the Sea of Japan between. More than this, the occupation of Manchuria and Korea by the Russians would interfere seriously with Japanese trade—a commerce that amounted to many millions of dollars annually. This was the Japanese side of the story. On the Russian side, that country claimed it was not occupying anything for which it had not paid, and it was merely establishing itself in Manchuria to preserve peace and order. “If we leave the Chinese to themselves in Manchuria no foreigners doing business there will be safe,” said the Russians. “The railroad is bound to come sooner or later, and we may as well build and own it as to leave the work to somebody else.” This was fair talk, yet the world at large felt that the whole scheme was one meant to enlarge Russian territory and power, and do it largely at ultimate expense to Japan. Port Arthur is a commercial city of considerable[Pg 18] size, located at the base of a series of hills overlooking the sea beyond. The entrance to
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