//Ed. Note: A well-informed Dr. Şerefeddin Mağmumi,
writing in exile in Cairo in 1905, took the opportunity to
lambast the Russians for their disastrous Far East
expansionism and to heap praise on the Japanese.//
Japan's "Asia Alliance" Quest click here for the first
part of a recent 7-part TNT series on this subject.
The sinking of the "Petropavlovsk" in Port Arthur
harbor in April 1904, with Admiral Makarov one of
the victims.
They say
that “a little greed causes great loss”.
But what about big
greed? This is
what has befallen Russia, which like the Italians and
the Germans, is not
content with its own land to feed its populace and
feels the need to extend its
reach outwardly . Yet, Russia has its
own
vast expanse of land available, relative to its population, from the
Arctic
Ocean to the Black Sea and from Poland to Siberia, but this is
not enough to
quench Moscow’s desire to occupy other lands!
So Russia
has marched to the other end of Asia, where its greed again
balooned. In the last war with China the Russians
occupied Port Arthur
in 1897 -with what right and authority remains unknown -
only to lose it
to the Japanese at a great cost of lives. Moscow spent millions to fortify
Port Arthur
and essentially occupied Manchuria, which is bigger than
Italy, on the pretext
of protecting the 1.5-meter guage railway it built
through there, leasing the
province from China for 99 years without
firing a shot.
//Ed. Note: fun fact about Port Arthur:
Surrounded by ocean on three sides, this
strategic seaport was
originally known to the Chinese as
Lüshun. It took its English
name, Port Arthur, from a
British Royal Navy Lieutenant
named William C.Arthur who
surveyed the harbor in the
gunboat HMS Algerine in August 1860, during the
Second
Opium War.//
Well fine,
but one cannot necessarily digest everything one swallows
and, in fact, may
start to regurgitate it. This is the
situation our friend
Moscow finds itself in right now. The Japanese, suddenly awakening
from the
dark horizon of the Far East, have over four centuries become
“Asia’s English”
and have had the boldness and the courage to take on
the insatiable, tireless
“Bear of the North”, beating this
terrible monster
into submission in their first encounter.
and his demise at this first encounter of the Russo-Japanese
War at Port Arthur.
From the start, the order and sobriety in Japan, not seen even in Europe
and America, has prevailed. On the other hand, mayhem is the rule in
Russia, with inauspicious activity occurring all over the country. The
admirals, marshalls and generals are going to St. Petersburg, where
they kiss the Czar’s hand and the priests’ skirts. Then they stop off in
Moscow to visit monasteries and ask for assistance from the various
saints. Until they reach the distant battlefield, they present each other
with bejeweled portriats of “The Trinity”. Yet, despite these pompous
shows of religious fanaticism, it wasn’t these holy zealots who had the
last laugh but, rather, the pagans.
Admiral Makarov went to the front with more than 150 holy pictures
stuffed into crates and set out to face the Japanese fleet at Port Arthur
harbor with 8 armored ships, with disastrous results. On the banks of
the Yalu River a Russian regiment was surrounded by the Japanese and
a Russian priest out front clutching a crucifix took an infidel Japanese
bullet as the battle began. Russian Army Commander Alexei
Kuropatkin declared that he would sign a peace treaty in Tokyo but
instead, he avoided capture and fled first to Mukden and then to Harbin.
So much for being a peacemaker!! And what of the distinguished Czar
and Czarina! They say that “one has to bear the consequences of his
own acts”.
Russian Navy click here for background on Russia's
Second Fleet's laborious voyage to the Far East in a futile
effort to redress the defeat at Port Arthur.
battle of yalu river click here for the details and mention
of Kuropatkin. The Russians' loss at Yalu opened the way
for the Japanese to take Manchuria from them.
An anti-Russian satirical map produced by a Japanese student at
Keio University during the Russo–Japanese War. It follows the
design used for a similar map first published in 1877.
I will never
forget the press congress I participated in recently during
the Paris
exhibition. There were two Japanese
journalists there. Our
French hosts
arranged for visits to places of natural and historical
interest in various
provinces and cities.
During these
excursions a young Japanese journalist who worked as
the American correspondant
for a Tokyo newspaper, the name of which
I cannot remember, enlightened us on
some subjects. We we’re at our
last stop, staying at the Imperial Hotel in the town of Chamonix,
considered the “watchman”
of Mount Blanc. Before parting, this
young Japanese said to
us “even though the Turks have been Europeans
for a few centuries, they are
essentially Asians. Our old neighbor,
our
old friend. We’re almost relatives
and we have the same common enemy
that separates us. You are the moon and we are the sun. We will march
from the east and you from the
west and we will meet and embrace at
the Ural Mountains.”
As we parted, I listened to this as if it
were a pleasant dream. Today,
though, I
see that yesterday’s dream is nearly becoming today’s reality.
Those little giants are expelling the Russians
from Manchuria and
they’re takıng the road toward the Urals. Who knows? Is this the world
now? If one
looks at history one can see many states going to war to
conquer the world,
only to eventually contract and fail.
Only their
names remain. Perhaps
Russia’s end is the same. Perhaps the “Gog
and Magog” revealed in the holy books are these Japanese! They’ve
seized Manchuria and maybe after
civilizing the people of Korea and
Manchuria they’ll take the next step forward
to Lake Baykal.
There is one
more thing to consider: if one day the
Japanese Army
reaches the Ural Mountains, I wonder whether they will find and
embrace the Turks there?
prophesied invader of Israel and the land from which he comes,
evil forces opposed to the people of God. Although biblical
references to Gog and Magog are relatively few, they assumed
Map shows the Ural Mountains, left center, with Turkey,
extreme left, and Japan, extreme right.
