5
102
Six field and three mountain batteries. One battalion engineers.
""
**
transport.
Some 10,000 combatants.
21st Mixed Brigade-
Six battalions infantry.
One squadron cavalry.
Three batteries mountain artillery.
One company engineers.
35
3
transport.
About 4,000 combatants.
There has recently been serious rioting at Hankow, to cope with which these regulars have been employed, and in view of the large unruly element in the "Three Cities" (Hankow, Hanyang, Wuchang), it is impossible that all these troops could be sent away. The 8th Division, however, in an extremity, might be sent, and would constitute a formidable addition to the troops of Yünuan. Its field artillery would have to be left behind, as it could not be used in Yünnan; but the three mountain batteries of the 21st Mixed Brigade might go instead. Their route would be via the Yang-tsze to Sui-fu (some fifty days) and thence by road, some twenty-four stages, to Yunnan-fu.
The province of Kuangtung has, at Carton, only a newly-organised mixed brigade of regulars (six battalions infantry, nine batteries mountain artillery, one battalion engineers, one battalion transport; total about 6,400), quite recently raised to replace those lost through the mutiny of 1910, and, as yet, insufficiently trained or disciplined to take the field against a foreign foe. Moreover, situated at such a distance, they could hardly arrive in time to be of use. Their route would be up the West River and via Posé to Yunnan-fu. The province has an unusually large proportion of provincial troops (some 22,000), for the particular reason that they are needed for policing the country and the waterways, brigandage and river piracy being rife. They need not, therefore, be considered so far as operations on the Yunnan frontier are concerned.
Beyond all these there are the various forces along the Middle and Lower Yang-tsze and in North China, which, by reason of the existing railway and steamer communication with Hankow, have now to be reckoned as only a few days more distant from Yunnan or any other point in the west than the troops at Hankow itself. On the other hand, should China actually become involved in war with Great Britain (or any other Power) she has to consider her defences at all strategic points, and not merely at some particular spot on her land frontiers which may have constituted the casus belli; and it can hardly be supposed that she would throw away such advantages as she possesses in her interior communicatious for transferring troops between Central and North China, or vice versa, for the sake of reinforcing some remote portion of her land frontier. It is much more likely that she would be inclined to strengthen such strategic points as the Lower Yang-tsze and the neighbourhood of the capital and the approaches thereto from the seaboard. Her naval inferiority debars her from using the sea for the movement of troops, a fact that makes her internal communications of especial importance.
I think it is reasonable to suppose that the Chinese Government, however much they may dislike the prospect of losing a portion of what they consider their own territory, must be conscious of the obvious fact that they have much to lose and little to gain by entering into an armed conflict with Great Britain over an insignificant case involving a few square miles of sparsely populated jungle country. The impossibility of confining the conflict to the two countries, should open war ensue, must be apparent to them. The peculiar situation of China vis-à-vis foreign countries in respect of the existence of extra-territoriality, and of" treaty ports" parcelled out into the concessions of a number of foreign Powers, and still more the amalgamated foreign settlement of Shanghai, makes it almost impossible for China to assail any one particular Power without affecting the rest; and the dominating factor in this particular case is the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Japan would doubtless welcome the chance of joining in the fray, and deriving substantial advantage therefrom, in Manchuria; and, judging by past experience, other Powers would probably not be slow to seize the opportunity of furthering their own particular interests.
To revert to the narrower question immediately under consideration, namely, the situation at Pien-ma, regular troops of both countries (in small force on either side)
appear to be within the disputed territory and only a few miles apart. A comparison of the force behind either side, however, should a rupture occur, presents a striking contrast. On the Chinese side the troops of Yunnan are, as above shown, in a singularly isolated position, and could not be reinforced from the neighbouring provinces under a period of several weeks; whereas, on the British side, the great military resources of India are available in close support, and in a few days a force could be mobilised equal to the task of disposing of any resistance that Chinese troops on the spot could offer.
M. E. WILLOUGHBY, Lieutenant-Colonel,
Military Attaché, Peking.
May
3