Sept. 14.
THosE foreigners who met him from time to time will learn with regret that Marshal Chang Hsun is no more. This regret is poignant because he was a man whom a foreigner could love notwithstanding all that other foreigners and his own compatriots held against him. There was something to admire about the man.
Public opinion said that he was wrong-headed in what he did at various periods of his career, but at any rate he tried to do something. He had an object and he made no bones about fighting for it, and as such he ought to have commanded respect.
How many others in the country have ever ventured beyond intrigue, and when the refused to trust. their. Personal. first sign of danger came have lieutenants and troops? All too few, we venture to think at this moment, and our readers' will remember that this is a world to-day in which a vast number of men know what real physical conflict is and have their views on those who, having once been in it, have afterwards sought the safety of the council room. The feeling about Chang Hsun_ is that he had the courage of his convictions to the point of engaging in battle for them, and if, as happened, fortune went against him and he had perforce to flee, it: was ever in the. hope that he might again return to the fray when events offered better hope of victory. Defeated he certainly was more than once, but never dismayed.
It is doubtful whether an ordinary measure of credit was given to Chang Hsun for his good qualities during his lifetime, nor is this to be wondered -at. Culture was not within the scope of his attainments or. desires, and general opinion has it that of education he had had so little that he could not write his own name. But he could lead men, and he could be loyal, and these are qualities never to be despised in this imperfect world of ours. The Imperial commander in Nanking in 1911, he fought a good fight until the odds proved too overwhelming, and then, undoubtedly with the idea of fighting another day, he took advantage of an opening offered to him as a result of negotiation, to retire and take up a position on the Tientsin-Pukou Railway. Then in 1918, when events had changed their-complexion, he returned, and the siege of the town was memorable. Chang Hsun's artillery was negligible, if not almost altogether absent, and there were foreign-trained Chin-.ese troops who could have taken the city with half the effort that Chang made from the direction of Purple Mountain and the Taiping Gate, But it was made a point of honour that he should capture it. The first step was to establish a hold on Purple Mountain, then in the hands of the enemy, and it is reported that Chang led the infantry assault in person. It may well be believed, for there was conviction at the back of his mind, and his bravery was notorious. Finally he entered the city through the Taiping Gate, and regained the. laurels lost - two years-" previously.. Much has'. been. written about the.conduct
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.