Here is how a Belgian bourgeois newspaper (L'Indépendance belge, 4 I 04) comments on the fall of Port Arthur:

"Port Arthur has surrendered (capitulated).

"This event is one of the greatest events of modern history. These three words, transmitted yesterday by telegraph to all corners of the civilized world, produce a heavy, overwhelming impression of a vast and terrible catastrophe, a misfortune <collapse*>, which is difficult to convey in words. The moral strength of a mighty empire is shattered, the prestige of a young race, which has not yet had time to unfold, is dimmed. An event has occurred which condemns <is a verdict on> an entire political system, which puts an end to a whole series of ambitions, which breaks mighty efforts. Without doubt, the fall of Port Arthur has long been foreseen, long ago they fobbed it off with words, consoled themselves with ready-made phrases. The crude fact shatters all well-intentioned lies. The significance of the collapse that has occurred cannot be diminished. For the first time, the old world is humiliated by an irreparable defeat inflicted upon it by a new world, so mysterious and seemingly youthfully young, only yesterday summoned to civilization."

..."True, one might suppose that Russia will want to reconquer Port Arthur. But who would dare to assert that such a turn is still possible? Admiral Rozhestvensky's squadron will never come to the waters of the Far East, and if it does, it will be to certain destruction, for it does not even have a base for operations. There remains Kuropatkin with his terrible armies. At present, Marshal Oyama holds against him on the Sha-ho an army equal in strength, if not stronger. The end of the siege of Port Arthur will allow the entire army of Nogi, i.e., 80,000 men, to be moved to the battle front. Oyama, possessing numerical superiority, can go over to the attack and crush Kuropatkin, who will then be thrown back to Mukden and then to Harbin. Russia will continue the war, they say in St. Petersburg. Let us assume so. They will have to wait months and months, make good all losses, organize a second and third Manchurian army. The Russian sources of strength will be exhausted, while the Japanese will live in the conquered country. In European Russia, new hordes of reservists will have to be called to war. This will cause the most dangerous excitement in the localities affected by mobilization. All those calamities from which the Tsar's empire already suffers so terribly will become frightfully acute. The restrained, muffled anger and irritation of the people will break out. The explosion from below will be all the more threatening, the more stubborn the resistance from above. War in Asia, revolution in Europe — that will be a complete collapse (la pleine tourmente), chaos, the ruin of an entire regime, the end of a great empire... Let us even assume that Russia succeeds in overcoming all these difficulties, let us assume that by the end of summer Kuropatkin will have 800,000, 1,000,000 troops. Will this significantly change the state of affairs? He will throw Oyama back, he will besiege the Japanese in Yingkou, in Port Arthur, he will throw them back to the shores of Korea. But he will never take either Yingkou, or Port Arthur, or the Korean shores, for the Japanese will remain masters of the sea. They will always be able to disappear and reappear wherever they see fit. They will put troops on ships in one place and land them in another, to harass the flanks of the Russian army, to force this army to carry out marches and counter-marches, which will gradually exhaust the Tsar's countless legions.

"There is no hope whatsoever for victory in the Far East, for the possibility of playing any role there without mastery of the sea. And no efforts, however colossal, will restore Russia's naval power. Her last hope fell when the last ship was sunk in the waters of Port Arthur. And the most imperative (impérieuse) wisdom commands that nothing be neglected that could lead to the restoration of peace, for a useless war is worthy only of barbarous peoples"...

Russia's friends in Europe (and she has des amitiés précieuses) [should] concern themselves with bringing St. Petersburg and Tokyo closer together. The Tsar's misfortune is his "reactionary entourage." "For rulers (aux abois) in a desperate position, struggling aux prises with serious internal difficulties, war is too often a useful diversion," but, they say, will Nicholas II, the Tsar of peace, really decide à encourir toute la colère de ses peuples plutôt que de faire le geste qui abaisse les glaives quand l'honneur est sauf.*

* — will Nicholas II, the Tsar of peace, really decide to incur the wrath of his peoples rather than make the gesture that lowers the swords when honor is safe. Ed.