Owning allegiance originally to the great Choshiu party, Yamagata Aritomo was from the outset of his career distinguished by his strenuous advocacy of the principle of army reform which even at that early period of the history of modern Japan had come to be recognised by her most ardent patriots as a sheer necessity. The idea of establishing the paramount influence of his native country in the affairs of the Far East by endowing it with a numerous and powerful army seems to have taken possession of his active mind from an early age, and he strove unceasingly to spread the desire of attaining martial supremacy for the clan among his fellow-samurai, who were in the habit, like himself, of devoting much of their leisure to the study of translations of military works from the Dutch. In Yamagata’s young days practically the only accessible writings on fortification and the art of war were in this form, but they were devoured by the Choshiu cadets, who speedily turned to account the knowledge they thereby acquired. The military forces of the Daimio of Choshiu were drilled more or less on the Occidental system after the year 1864, and as a result, on the outbreak of hostilities between the followers of the Shogun and the great southern clans towards the close of the Emperor Komei’s reign the northern men found themselves confronted by troops which had a semblance of skill with the bayonet, and could shoot with some approach to accuracy. The rifles with which the men were armed were of a pattern obsolete in Europe, it is true, but they made the best use they could of these weapons, and the effect on the Aidzu men and other adherents of the Shogun, whose training with modern arms had been of shorter duration and less thorough, was from the first unmistakable. The superiority of Western drill and implements of warfare having been demonstrated in actual combat on the battlefield, it became the Choshiu leader’s ambition to establish a national army, fit to defend the Imperial possessions and to enable Japan some day to take her fitting place among the great powers of the world. To Yamagata, in the opinion of his countrymen, more than to any other person, belongs the credit of having established his country’s military effectiveness and laid the foundations of her martial success in later years. [Illustration: MARQUIS YAMAGATA]