[31] The recent arrivals are composed chiefly of Japanese, with a few Chinese. Their number is always greater in the warm weather, when they come to Korea on business (fishing, timber-cutting, etc.).
[32] [_Sic._ General Kuropatkin seems to have written this by an oversight.—ED.]
[33] [The Pri-Amur is the Russian Amur Province situated on the north side of the Amur River.—ED.]
The expansion in numbers of our army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the suitability of our peace and war establishments, and the growth of our neighbours’ forces—The growing complication of our defence problems towards the end of the last century.
In the year 1700 our forces numbered 56,000; in 1800, 400,000; while in 1894 our war strength amounted to 2,000,000; but the growth in the nineteenth century was attended by great fluctuations as compared with the gradual increase in the previous 100 years. The universal dissatisfaction with the results of the Crimean War first brought about the awakening of public feeling which ended in the emancipation of the serfs, and the great efforts in the direction of economy made at that time led directly to the reduction of the army. Even while the guns were booming at Königgrätz in 1866, our standing army in Europe was cut down from 600,000 to 372,000 men. It was not long, however, before the Franco-German War opened our eyes to possible dangers from the west. Up to that time we had been living upon tradition, upon experiences of the days when war was waged by standing armies, and did not call for the mobilization of the whole of a nation’s forces; when armies moved by road, and several months elapsed between the declaration of war and the first decisive engagement. By her rapid concentration and by her ability to throw an immense army so quickly across the French frontier in 1870, Germany showed also what she would be capable of doing in our direction. We had for a long time neglected to keep up the fortifications on our western frontier, lest we should give Germany cause to suspect that we distrusted the long-standing traditional good feeling between the reigning Houses. The speed, however, with which she disposed, first of Austria, then of France, her immense increase in power, and her evident ambition not only to protect herself, but to gain the hegemony of Europe, together formed a menace against which we were forced to take strong measures. Accordingly our army was again increased as quickly as possible, and between the years 1869 and 1880 the peace strength of the forces in European Russia rose from 366,000 to 535,000 men, arrangements at the same time being made for the mobilization of a field army of 1,500,000. But during the same period our neighbours were able to perfect their own arrangements still more, both in the number of men mobilized and the speed of their concentration. From a force whose strength was the same in peace and war our war army now became so large that it merited the title of “national.” But even a national army is not enough nowadays. For the successful conduct of a conflict against a powerful opponent, a struggle which calls for the exertion of every effort—moral, mental, and physical—the whole nation itself must take part. In other words, to achieve success with an army mainly composed of men called up for actual operations, the people must be in sympathy with it, must recognize the importance and magnitude of its task, and must back it up unreservedly.