90 RUSSIAN IDEAS ON THINGS JAPANESE
solution is to expatiate on the size of the camel's hump, ignoring the fact that the larger the hump the less the chance for the camel and the greater the strain on the eye of the needle. Accepting General Sakharoff's statement that 400,000 men will be placed in the field, we should be disposed to agree with him on one point— namely, that their concentration will take months.
No one can pretend to make an accurate estimate of the rendement of the Trans-Siberian without having all the data at disposal, together with frequent reports of the condition of the traffic at Lake Baikal, and throughout the line from day to day. But, judging from such information as we possess, it seems doubtful whether 400,000 Russians can be put in the field in East Asia much before the end of the year, and when the navigation closes again on the Amur, at the end of the autumn, it is more than doubtful whether this army can be properly supplied unless the traffic on the railway can be doubled at least. There are plenty of sheep in Mongolia, and there is corn in Manchuria, while the millet-stalks are good enough provender for horses; but an army 400,000 strong, and constantly engaged, requires, as we have lately had good occasion to learn, an immense stock of supplies and stores of all kinds, let alone fuel for the engines, for warming each carriage in the winter, and for keeping the ships in condition to fight.
No one, in Japan certainly, believes that it is materially possible for Russia to keep an army of this strength in Manchuria, the conditions being as they are, and the entire military policy of the last ten years in Japan has aimed at making a certainty of the defeat of Russia, taking into consideration not only what Russian force there was in East Asia, but what reinforcements could be brought up and fed after war was declared. The Japanese calculations may prove to have been right or wrong, but, such as they are, they represent the reasoned opinion of the best men in the country. Japan has had this single national object before her for