Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/97

while both acting in combination might explain the whole. One is that a Chinese army does not include any medical staff or hospital corps. Where a man falls, there he lies, condemned, as he supposes, to die a lingering death of agony, and hopeless of succour unless he can crawl off and find charitable shelter in some remote hamlet. Brave men going into action seldom pause to think how things will fare with them should they fall wounded, but the bravest man can scarcely escape demoralisation when he sees his comrades left to perish like dogs, and when he expects that such must be his own fate unless he escapes unscathed. That he should learn to dread wounds and to shrink from them seems inevitable under such circumstances. The second factor of demoralisation, evidently the more powerful factor of the two, is said to be the want of good officers. It is scarcely too much to affirm that the Chinese army is altogether without officers. A Chinese officer does not lead his men into battle; he follows them; and the example he sets them is, not to face danger, but to fly from it. Therein lies the cardinal difference between China and Japan from a military point of view. The whole heart of the Japanese officer is in his profession. In time of peace he devotes himself with unflagging zeal to the instruction and organisation of his men. He has no purpose in life except to perfect himself in his own duties and to train his men for the efficient discharge of theirs. In war