On the 14th of April the Guard and the Fourth Division passed through the Straits of Shimonoseki in fifty transports on their way to Talienwan to unite with the troops under Marshal Oyama. Prince Komatsu accompanied them as Commander-in-chief of the Land and Sea Forces, intending to set up his headquarters in Port Arthur. The entire Japanese forces now included seven divisions, and the Chinese had massed practically an equal number between Shanhaikwan and Peking, in addition to the army they still had in Manchuria. But on the 17th of April the treaty of peace was signed, and an armistice established until the 8th of May, when ratifications were exchanged at Chifu and the war of 1894-5 was at an end. In the course of the war the total losses on the Japanese side were:— Killed 739 Died of wounds 230 ” cholera 1602 ” other diseases 1546 ---- Total deaths 4117 Wounded 3009 Cholera patients 2689 Invalids from other causes 51,164 ------ 56,862 ------ Total loss, 60,979 In the settlement with China it had been agreed that she should cede the peninsula of Liao-tung to Japan. But Russia, France, and Germany stepped in to deprive her of these legitimate spoils of war, in order that Russia, and at no distant date, might seek to permanently occupy the territory herself. The wrong done was never forgiven nor forgotten in Japan, and when Marshal Oyama took up his position as Chief of the General Staff in Tokio, shortly after the conclusion of peace, both he and Marshal Yamagata set about the task of making Japan’s military power sufficient to secure her against the peril which they foresaw would continue to menace their land while the advance of Russia southward might remain unchecked. Marshal Oyama held the post indicated, at the General Staff, during the intervening years down to 1904, and it was a period of steady and eager preparation for the inevitable, by reorganisation of every branch of the military system, and by paying very particular attention to the education and training of the Japanese military officer. What that training is may be ascertained from the Kinkodo Company’s excellent history of the late war.