With The Cossacks. Being The Story Of An Irishman Who Rode With The Cossacks Throughout The Russo-Japanese War

by Francis McCullagh

The 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War was hardly Russia’s finest military hour, and its humbling at the hands of the rising Japanese set the scene for the 1905 revolution - a rehearsal for 1917. This is the story, as its sub-title indicates, of the war as seen by an outside observer - an Irish correspondent for the ‘New York Herald’ newspaper, - (still in the hands of the legendary James Gordon Bennett - the man who sent Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr Livingstone) - who accompanied the Cossacks, Russia’s fierce horse-soldiers under General Mischenko, throughout the campaign. With more than a hint of ‘Boys Own Paper’ swagger, McCullagh takes his readers through the war’s main battles, from Mukden to the fall of Port Arthur. after which he and his Russian comrades fall into the hands of the victorious Japanese. The book concludes with an eerily accurate prophecy of coming Japanese supremacy in Asia - and also of their decline. ‘Success will bring satiety...time and wealth and factory servitude, the great corroders of all martial virtue, will gradually take the fine edge from off their valour’.

422 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Corto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its annoying anti-Semitism, "With the Cossacks" is one of the finest pieces of war journalism ever written. Though an obscure war today, The Russo-Japanese War was full of ominous meaning and import to Francis McCullagh (a thoroughly Anglified Irishman), who correctly assesses that the conflict marked a turning point in relations and perceptions between East and West. What sets McCullagh apart from the enormous batch of today's war journalists, is that he can really turn a phrase (in the highest tradition of Irish literary stylists) and he has a deep knowledge of history (as well as of the history of the people he's writing about), making illuminating connections with the pithiest comments. He is also somewhat of an ethnographer, with a keen eye for social mores alien to his own. Though the title would lead you to believe he is "with the Cossacks" (with whom he is enamored) from beginning to end, the book is as much about the Japanese as the Russians. He makes prescient observations regarding both of their collective futures, making this a book which provides context for the Russian Civil War, and World War Two (as well perhaps as Russia's enduring troubles in the Caucuses). From Port Arthur (where he had an unwilling ringside seat to Japan's sneak attack on the Russian Fleet) to Cossack cavalry charges along the Yalu to the shores of Japan itself (as a prisoner), McCullagh writes a fascinating book about a war which set the stage for many of the calamities of the 20th Century.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably 4.5 or 5, there were a few points where I felt lost in the chaos of his descriptions and his old time-y use of various colloquial place names and people names doesn't led itself to drifting over to wikipedia to flesh out what he's talking about. Of course, this just adds a bit to the chaos of it all, which is kinda the point I suppose.

I don't think I've ever read anything that felt more like a real-life "All Quiet on the Western Front" as this author being right in the middle of the retreat from Mukden. He was also basically everywhere, sitting on a ship in the harbor at Port Arthur as the Japanese first attack it.

It's a piece of a world that no longer exists, where a foreign corespondent is treated to the fineries of life whether with the side he's embedded with or with the side he's "captured" by. It's an amazing case study in journalism of an era that is just no longer possible.

He's slightly racist by modern standards, but actually far more accepting than you'd expect from a person of his the time, and has some really keen insight into where he perceived the world to be going. I found it quite interesting that he saw the kindness the Japanese bestowed upon their prisoners to be something of a new power feeling out how it all works and in regards to his comments that they would be just as savage as the christian powers in their next war. Quite right indeed.

I think I paid like $1.99 for this. VERY worth it.