CHAPTER XVII.

The Greatest Battle of History—Rout and Disaster for Russia—The Ancient City of Mukden—The Tombs of the Manchus—A Flourishing Mart—Betwixt Winter and Spring—The Line of Battle—Lone Tree Hill—The Russian Position—The Japanese Task—Mukden the Real Battleground—Russian Flanks Strongly Protected—Well Protected on the East—Battled for Mountain Passes—Russians Had Advantage of Position—The Outlook for Oyama—Busy Preparations During Winter—Oyama's Plan of Battle—Nogi to Strike Culminating Blow—"Out of the Way for Us"—Master Stroke of the Battle.

Not only the climax of the Japan-Russian War, but a climax to all wars was reached in the Battle of Mukden, fought February 19-March 13, 1905. This memorable struggle, resulting in a sweeping victory for Japan, was practically a campaign in itself. The results, a cataclasm which overwhelmed the Russian army, were not merely what had been expected for this one battle, but comprehended all that the Japanese had hoped for a year's campaign. It was more than rout. It remains a grisly monument to the potentiality of war to write horror on the pages of world history. It was more than defeat, retreat, disaster, it was practical annihilation for Russia's power of resistance in the Far East. Her vaunted military power was trailed in the dust, was obliterated. When the smoke of the contest had rolled away Oyama stood master of Manchuria with only a demoralized horde of the enemy "without form and void" fleeing in panic with no thought but to shake off a foe to whom no resistance could be offered.

The Greatest Battle of History

No nation in the world's history has faced a greater blow to its military prestige, and from the standpoint of the Japanese—no military force has achieved for its nation a more sweeping or more complete victory. The Battle of Mukden is destined to occupy a unique place in the story of the nations for these and other reasons. In point of the territory involved; in point of the number of men engaged; in point of the duration of the struggle; in point of the lessons, the authentic history of the world has no peer for its record.

General Kuropatkin, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, had at the beginning of the struggle an army of 300,000 infantry; 26,700 cavalry, and 1,368 guns. This is the estimate of the Japanese intelligence bureau. On the other hand the German Military Review credited Kuropatkin with a total of 370,790 men of whom 36,790 were cavalry. The Germans estimate that the Russians had a total of 1,598 field guns, and 72 heavy guns. Somewhere between these two estimates the actual figures, carefully concealed by the Russians, may be taken to lie. Marshal Oyama had 500,000 men of all arms and artillery equal to that of the Russians with a preponderating number of big guns, a great many having been moved from Port Arthur to the northern battleground. In the two armies therefore, there were in round numbers a total of about 800,000 men.

MAP OF THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN.

Rout and Disaster for Russia

The battle developed into a struggle for possession of Mukden, the ancient Manchu capital, near which lie the Imperial Tombs of the founders of the Manchu dynasty, a spot sacred throughout the length and breadth of China. The battle lines around this city stretched for one hundred miles. The fighting began on February 19. On March 7th the Russians already seeing disaster in the advance made by the Japanese under General Nogi, toward cutting off the line of retreat north of Mukden, fell back from the centre along the Sha-ho River and on March 10 evacuated Mukden, beginning a retreat that was turned into a disastrous rout by the desperate flank attacks of the Japanese from both sides.

The Russian losses to March 13, when the Battle of Mukden actually came to a close, were 175,000 men, killed, wounded and prisoners; 60 guns; 25,000 rounds of small arm ammunition and immense quantities of stores. The Japanese casualties to March 12 were 41,222 killed, wounded and missing and several hundred of the missing were recovered in the capture of Mukden. The Japanese sent 43,000 prisoners to Japan as one of the results of the victory.

The Ancient City of Mukden

Mukden, round which the greatest battle in history raged, is, without exception, the most interesting place in the whole of Northern China. In the eyes of all Manchurians it is the one holy city in the world, for it is here that the tombs of the founders of the Manchu dynasty are situated. For this reason the Chinese Government demanded that the sacred precincts of the Imperial Tombs must not be violated by foul warfare, and both sides engaged in the horrible work of killing, entered into solemn undertakings to respect the sanctity of the famous burial grounds.

The great city stands in the middle of a vast alluvial plain, surrounded by rich and highly cultivated land. The population of Mukden is over a quarter of a million, and the city is modelled on a similar plan to that of Peking, presenting an imposing appearance, in spite of the decay into which many of the ancient buildings have been allowed to fall.

The railway, which runs north to Harbin, does not pass within a mile of the city, the Chinese having refused to allow the neighborhood of the sacred tombs to be desecrated by the construction of an iron road in the immediate vicinity. The station is consequently about a mile away from the city, but on alighting from the train, one is immediately struck by the sight of the tremendous brick walls, 60 feet high, which surround the inner town. This is built in the form of a square a mile wide, and entrance is gained through eight enormous brick gates, surrounded by watch-towers and batteries. Outside this, suburbs extend for about a mile in every direction, and the whole is surrounded by a mud rampart from ten to twenty feet in height.

A little to the north of the city is the sacred shrine of Na Ta, and a mile to the east of this is the Temple of Heaven, where sacrifices of black cattle and white sheep are offered up in the Emperor's name. To the east of this pagoda, buried in the midst of a grove of fir trees, is the famous tomb of the great Chinese conqueror, Tai Tsung. Access to the tomb is gained through a great gateway, roofed with red and yellow tiles, down a long avenue flanked by colossal stone figures of animals, great marble columns, and stretches of high wall.

The Tombs of the Manchus

The other great tomb lies due east of the city, in the heart of a great forest. Here, amid similar walls, figures of animals, and decayed marble columns, lie the remains of Nao Chu, the father of Tai Tsung. The fact that both these sacred relics were surrounded by acres of forest made it likely that no violation, either by Russians or Japanese, would take place, though the possible misdirection of a shell from one of their heavy guns might very easily have ruined either of them. Such an accident would very probably have stirred the somnolent Chinese to their very depths.

For an Eastern city Mukden is extremely clean and well kept. The Manchus are well known for their cleanly habits, which are often in striking contrast with those of the southern Chinese. The streets are well scavengered, and there are many most imposing, if not beautiful, private mansions belonging to wealthy mandarins. There are also a great number of handsome shops, and the centre of the city is always busy with the incessant movement and bustle which are only to be found in prosperous trading centres.

A Flourishing Mart

For Mukden is the centre of an enormous trade between the north and the south of China. From the north come enormous quantities of fur, and from the south millions of bushels of all sorts of grain, while in the immediate vicinity wheat, barley, tobacco, melons, and cucumbers are grown in the fertile plain which stretches away on all sides. The silkworm, too, is cultivated all round Mukden, so that there is never any lack of trade from one source or another, whatever the season. Mukden, in the Manchu language means "flourishing," and for centuries the city has lived up to its name.

Two miles to the south of the city is a wide, sandy stretch of ground, twenty miles long, through which runs the Hun River, which can be forded almost anywhere. This approach to Mukden, forming the Russian center, was strongly held with sand-bag batteries. On the west of the town the very high railway embankment, running north and south of the river for many miles, was used to protect Mukden against attack from the west. The most vulnerable point in this line was the bridge over the Hun River, against which the Japanese delivered incessant attack. Mukden was strongly fortified by General Kuropatkin. The fortifications extended for nine miles, with forts and redoubts at intervals of a mile. The redoubts were all cleverly masked, and the line of fortification was protected by deep ditches and pits, all with stakes at the bottom, by wire entanglements, land mines, and a line of felled trees.

Betwixt Winter and Spring

Winter still howls over Manchuria when February is drawing to a close, but the early days of March, just as through the central United States, bring the first flush of spring. The ground remains locked in the grip of a frost that turns earth to steel to a depth of seven feet. The rivers are still securely ice-bound, but overhead the sun begins a mastery over the overpowering cold. If the nights remain bitterly cold, the days are increasingly warm and throughout the daylight hours conditions are ideal for the work of the soldier. The weather, therefore, fairly trumpeted a call to arms to the two vast armies that confronted each other south of the Sha-ho River. The earliest moves were made over whitened plains with snow storms still driving over hills and plain out of the bleak north. Marshal Oyama, the Japanese commander, evidently realized that the struggle would be long and, indeed, before its end winter had, in fact, given place to the opening days of spring. The advantages were many. The movement of artillery was facilitated by the hard surface of frozen ground and the ease with which ice-covered streams and rivers could be crossed. Lack of foliage deprived the army of the protection that so greatly aided the advance on Liao-yang, and so effectively shielded the artillery in that struggle. The broken nature of the country, the heavy calibre guns, firing from one to five miles with accuracy, minimized the disadvantage of fighting over a bare land and if lack of protection of foliage and growing crops added to the Japanese losses it failed to check the vigor or relentlessness of the advance once it had begun.

The Line of Battle

The lines of the two armies on the eve of the great battle, stretched from the Hun River, on the west, in a southeasterly direction south of the Sha-ho River, along that stream, then bending more southward, across the Taitse River, near Bensihu, at a point thirty-five miles east of Yentai Station, on the Harbin—Port Arthur Railroad. These lines had been determined by the battle of the Sha-ho River, October 6-13, the end of the campaign of 1904. Strategically the advantage lay with the Russians. Though defeated in the memorable battle along the Sha-ho, General Kuropatkin had secured a position south of Mukden far superior to any below Tie Pass, the gateway to the great plains around Harbin, always regarded as the ultimate decisive battleground of Manchuria.

RUSSIAN RETREAT IN MANCHURIA.

Lone Tree Hill

The whole lay of the land was adapted to defensive fighting. Along most of the front lay the Sha-ho River, broad enough and deep enough to demand bridging except when frozen over. The culminating event of the battle of the Sha-ho had been the recapture by the Russians of Lone Tree Hill, a mile east of the railroad, just south of the Sha-ho, at the very centre of the battlefield. From this point the Russians commanded a territory five miles in radius. The hill, naturally adapted for defense, was strongly fortified to a point nearer impregnability even, than achieved by any of the boasted fortifications of the mountains around Port Arthur. Thousands of Japanese were ultimately to immolate themselves on the slopes of Lone Tree Hill in vain efforts at its capture. It still stood invincible when events elsewhere demanded retreat and its abandonment. Westward the Russian line spread across a rolling country dotted with Chinese villages. The low, stoned walled cottages of these clusters of hamlets formed the basis for defenses which were well calculated to offer enormous resistance to troops advancing across the wide-stretching flats along the Sha-ho, and the east bank of the Hun, the only approach for the Japanese.

The Russian Position

Eastward from the Sha-ho the defense line followed the foot hills that become mountains thirty miles east of the Sha-ho. In front flowed a river for twenty miles of the distance, and a vast level plain approached the river from the south, over which the Japanese right flank must make its advance. The Russian position was enclosed in a vast triangle with the upper angle between Mukden and Fushan, northward, its base the eighty-mile line from Madyanapu, on the Hun River, to Tsenketchen, thirty-five miles east of Yentai. Mountains protected the left flank; the Hun River protected the right flank, while Lone Tree Hill, and the Sha-ho River were chief elements in the strength of the centre. All the genius of the Russian commanders was exerted to find the weak spots in this long line. Artillery of the heaviest types, ranging through all the grades of siege and field guns, and the more mobile and most deadly machine guns were scattered with prodigality across the whole vast front then in receding lines to the apex of the triangle, where were arranged the defenses of Mukden and Fushan. To facilitate communications over the battlefield, two hundred miles of light railroad track was laid, and thousands of light cars for horse or man propulsion were in constant use carrying munitions, provisions, guns or whatever was needed, to depots from which every part of the battlefield was readily accessible. Telephone and telegraph wires connected the headquarters, just north of the Sha-ho River, with every command along the entire line. Crowning all, an army of 350,000 men rested on its arms, elbow to elbow, along the front, as bulwarks to the flanks, and northward, thronging Mukden and Fushan, the reserves. This was the immediate situation on the Russian side that confronted Marshal Oyama.

The Japanese Task

The Japanese task, however, was more than to defeat the Russian army. Criticism had followed the victory of Liao-yang because, despite the awful defeat administered, the battle had been indecisive. The Russian general had been able to extricate his army and by a masterful retreat, to realign his forces in a new position with no alternative but to follow and prepare to renew the struggle left to the Japanese commanders. The Battle of Mukden must be estimated in the light of an effort to prevent a recurrence of this feat by the Russians. The chief world interest centers about the strategy of Marshal Oyama to encircle his foe, to cut off his retreat completely and to force the alternative of annihilation or surrender. The geography of the country, its strategical features far afield from the actual Russian positions, therefore, become matters of moment which must be understood to permit a comprehensive understanding of the battle and its results.

Mukden the Real Battleground

Marshal Oyama's problem, as has been said, was to envelope the Russian armies. It was as though the Russian triangle were a bottle into which a cork must be driven. On the neck of the bottle, ten miles apart, are Mukden, on the West, and Fushan, on the east. Between these points the Russians would be compelled to disgorge in a retreat northward should the center be broken and a retreat became necessary. Here, then, was the Japanese objective. To take Mukden and Fushan, to drive the forces there southward toward the Sha-ho, and to place a force northward to be the cork in the bottle, driving back the retreat on the advance of the center, right and left armies, thus surrounding the Russians with a hoop of men and guns that would make escape or victory impossible. Thus it is that a battle that centered twenty-five miles southward on the Sha-ho River becomes officially known as the battle of Mukden, for here centered the really vital struggle of the whole memorable engagement. The Russian line of communication centers at Harbin, where the railroad which pierces Manchuria and the Liao-tung Peninsula to Port Arthur, branches southward from the Siberian railroad, the artery through which flows life from St. Petersburg and European Russia to the Far Eastern armies. The whole Manchurian campaign has moved northward along this railroad, the salvation of the Russian army always depending on its ability to keep open at its rear this means of sustenance, of ammunition supply, of reinforcement supply, of transport of every kind, whether advancing or retreating. The railroad reached the actual Russian lines just west of Mukden and then continued southward to the Sha-ho, branching here and there to various field depots convenient to the various army units. Marshal Oyama's plan of battle comprehended, as its greatest achievement, the cutting of this railroad north of Mukden before a retreat could be made. This was the first and most vital contribution if the ultimate plan to envelop the Russians was to succeed. This plan failed and hence the prize of decisive, final victory slipped from the grasp of the Japanese commander, however great the blow he dealt to the Russian army.

Russian Flanks Strongly Protected

General Kuropatkin was fully alive to the dangers on his flanks as well as at the front. His right flank rested on Mukden, but the actual lines to which were given the task of preventing the turning of the right flank were far afield from the actual city. To the southwest they extended to the Hun River, thirty-five miles away, while the far outpost was within touch of Sinmintin, a Chinese city, thirty-five miles westward of Mukden on the banks of the Liao River. Sinmintin is actually in the territory which was excluded from the theatre of war by the famous agreement proposed to the European Powers by John Hay, the American Secretary of State, by which the neutrality of Chinese territory was assured. Nevertheless, while not actually occupied by the Russians, Sinmintin was to all intents and purposes within their lines and was continually used as a receiving point for supplies bought or commanded in the Mongolian provinces. Cossacks in large force remained in close touch with the city while the road leading from Sinmintin to Mukden, a famous caravan route, was occupied by large forces of Russians and was regarded as an effective bulwark for the Russian right flank.

The Russian defences on the right, or west wing of their army began just west of the Sha-ho River, extended thence westward for thirty-five miles to the Hun and then bent due northward across the left side of the Liao River Valley to a point a few miles east of Sinmintin; thence along the Sinmintin-Mukden road to Tatchekiao, five miles northward of Mukden; thence due westward until the line intercepted the railroad, a few miles north of Mukden. Lieutenant General Baron Kaulbars was commander of the army of nearly 100,000 men which made up this wing of General Kuropatkin's forces. The left wing's divisional commander was General Linevitch, who, with General Rennenkampf, stands among the greatest of the Russian commanders. Occupying a position to the Russian left flank exactly similar to that of Mukden on the right, is Fushan, ten miles east of Mukden. With this position firmly held at center and on its flanks it would be impossible for the Japanese to drive in their cork in the neck of the bottle between Fushan and Mukden. To the average strategist, indeed, universally among strategists, the view would prevail after a glance of the battlefield as it lay at the opening of the struggle that there was the real vital point to the attack as well as to the defense. In the opening days of the battle events all shaped themselves to bear out this view. General Kuropatkin manifestly thought so. Here he threw the weight of vast numbers of troops and thought victory near when the Japanese attack from this quarter had been fought to a standstill. Logically, Fushan was the chief danger point, and the fact that Marshal Oyama, the Japanese commander, chose another strategical solution for the problem is among his achievements that have resulted in the appellation of "The Napoleon of the Orient."

Well Protected on the East

Just as on the west, the Russian lines were far afield from the actual key position at Mukden, so on their left, or eastern positions their lines formed a far-reaching protective barrier, 20 miles away. As has been said, the main front on the east stretched away from the Sha-ho, thirty-five miles eastward to the Taitse River, which winds in a general northeasterly direction from Liao-yang. The defensive position of importance was at Tsinketchen, in the foothills of the Sierras, which run across Manchuria, and finally reach the east coast of Korea.

The only practicable path northward for the Japanese army was to skirt these foothills to the passes, northeast from Tsinketchen and Bentsiaputze and then debouch into the valley of the Hun River and fight their way northward to Fushan, the rugged nature of the country eastward from that place practically preventing any opportunity for play of strategy in a turning movement to strike northeast of the city. One of the wonders of the war and one of the most amazing of the feats constantly accomplished by the Japanese has been the skill and success with which they have attacked and captured mountain positions. General Kuroki in the campaign which, after a few months followed the victory of the Yalu, repeatedly drove the Russians from veritable Thermopylæs and in the fighting on every front which preceded the surrounding of the Russian army at Liao-yang the Japanese were constantly confronted with the necessity of making frontal attacks on mountain defiles which seemed to offer impregnable shelter to the defenders.

Battled for Mountain Passes

So also in the campaign on the east in the battle of Mukden. General Kuropatkin chose his defensive positions with skill. No pains were spared in fortifying the gaps in the mountain ridges through which the Japanese must pass. The principal routes open were through Da Pass and Gauto Pass. While these were the main defensive positions the Russians pushed fifteen miles further southward toward the enemy, and the earlier reverses at Tsinketchen were only fairly unimportant preludes to the battling at these mountain passes. The Russian line on the east had less geometrical regularity than the line of the west owing to the nature of the topography. The lines from the front extended to the foothills, as has been pointed out, and then were concentrated at the passes, the danger points, offering only a limited battle line until the fighting had swept over the mountains into the Valley of the Hun. What with artillery of a thousand guns and an army of 75,000 men only called upon to defend positions of vast natural strength, there was little wonder then when the open guns of the battle rolled over the plains in the west, General Kuropatkin concentrated his attention to the centre and gave little thought to events on his left. As it turned out the General's confidence was well founded. In all the war no braver or more stubborn or more successful fight has been waged by any Russian force than was waged by the army under Lieutenant-General Linevitch and General Rennenkampff on this flank. It has been said that the Japanese were fought to a standstill. That statement is literally true, and only the beginning of the Russian retreat made it possible for General Kuroki, the Japanese Commander here, to play any conspicuous part in the total disaster which befell the Russian Army.

Russians Had Advantage of Position

To summarize, the position in which General Kuropatkin found himself at the opening of the battle was an admirable one from every standpoint. His defensive lines fitted in well with the topography of the country. Broad rivers, rugged mountains, apparently impregnable mountain passes, commanding hills on front and flanks promised to aid materially in his defence. His army was nearly of equal strength with that of the enemy, while superior natural positions compensated for the slight deficiency of men. In the long winter months every possible means of communication from one to another of the units of his army had been perfected, while, apparently unassailable, stretched a great railroad behind him offering ready link between the front and the Russian base of supplies for all of Manchuria. His army had been recuperated, was eager to fight, and would be called upon to defend fortified positions, heavily supplied with artillery, a position which, as history plainly proves, brings out the best qualities of the Russian soldier. So far as the centre was concerned he had no fear. Lone Tree Hill, or, as he renamed it for the Russian who led the charge that had recaptured it from the Japanese, had been made as nearly impregnable as men and arms could make a position made by nature for defensive fighting. So westward, so eastward, topography, the condition of his army, the whole aspect of the field, spoke only of a repulse to the Japanese attack. Then would come the offensive against a worn-out army, then the victory for which all Russia was clamoring and upon which depended the future of the Commander-in-Chief himself.

So much for the Russian viewpoint.

RUSSIAN SUFFERING AT THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN.

The Outlook for Oyama

When the smoke of the battle of the Sha-ho cleared away it left the Japanese armies masters of practically the same territory they had occupied at the conclusion of the pursuit of the Russian after the victory at Liao-yang. General Kuroki, commanding the Japanese right army, had fallen back from Bentsiaputze to Bensihu, a distance of twenty miles; but this move had been made to correct the alignment of the army with the centre, at the Sha-ho River as a basis. Certainly, no great effort was made to advance this force after the initial Russian successes on this flank after the battle of the Sha-ho. Some advantages attached to the position finally occupied by General Kuroki, hence the view that he was impelled by strategic reasons when he had failed to advance, rather than by inability to retake the lost positions farther north. At the centre, which followed the south bank of the Sha-ho River, the Russians had succeeded in retaking Lone Tree Hill in the closing hours of the battle, and had a decided advantage. Every possible effort was made to retake the position, but when called upon for this effort the Japanese were exhausted by twelve days of incessant fighting, and they failed. Marshal Oyama, at the centre, therefore, was confronted by a practically impregnable position. Westward, on the left flank of the Japanese Army, the Russians were less aided by natural features of the country than at any other point. Their lines crossed the Sha-ho just west of the railroad and then spread northeastward through a series of villages dotting a comparatively level plain lying between the Sha-ho and the Hun Rivers. Of all the positions on the entire Russian front this seemed to offer the best opportunity for attack, for while an advance would have to be made over an open country, approach to the Russians' positions was facilitated by the innumerable villages in this fertile river plain. On the other hand, the Japanese were open to the same style of advance, and both commanders made unusual preparations to defend this angle of the great battlefield.

The Japanese lines along the front were merely a parallel of the Russian lines which have been described, except that while on the west and on the centre the entrenchments were only a few hundred yards separated, the lines farther east, except for outpost positions, were separated by distances ranging from five to fifteen miles, as developed when the operations of the Battle of Mukden were actually under way.

To the Japanese Commander-in-Chief the general situation could not have been particularly reassuring, except that he could count on the indomitable efforts of an unbeaten and fanatically brave army. So far as the topography was concerned, the enemy had every advantage. In all a very difficult and interesting problem was presented as the Mikado's hosts settled down for their long winter inaction.

Busy Preparations During Winter

Liao-yang was made the Japanese base after the occupation of that city, and the Engineer Corps performed a notable feat in the speedy manner in which the railroad running northward from Port Arthur was made over for the use of Japanese engines and cars. The Russians had a five-foot gauge, while the Japanese rolling stock was built to the standard measurement. This fact made necessary the relaying of the entire line, a task which was promptly completed, thereby affording the inland army base ready communication with the general supply base at Dalny and at Port Arthur after the capture of that port. In addition to this line of communication the Japanese had a line to the Yalu. Stores for the right army were landed at the mouth of the Yalu River, and then were transported overland on a light railroad for which horses were the motive power, to points well in reach of General Kuroki. Both of these lines of communication were vital to an army that had now penetrated two hundred miles inland and were the first consideration when the flanks and protective units were being placed in their winter quarters. The Liao-yang-Yalu line proved to have been safeguarded against danger, but Cossack raiders in January twice encircled the Japanese left army, penetrated to the railroad at Yinkow, and damaged the line. In each case the damage done was quickly repaired. The second raiding party was so nearly cut off and so nearly annihilated in its flight to the Russian lines and activities on a broader scale so soon after were begun, that no further attempts of the kind were attempted. Such trifling inconvenience resulted from these perilous raids that it would seem that the Russians were hardly recompensed for the sacrifice of life. Certainly, the vast bulk of all needed stores and ammunition were already within the Japanese lines before the attempts were made, and Marshal Oyama, in all probability, could have fought the entire battle of Mukden without further need of the railroad, particularly as no Japanese retreat resulted from that struggle. The incidents only bore out the long held reputation of the Cossacks for reckless bravery. Indeed, the Japanese have repeatedly expressed their admiration for the Cossacks as a foe worthy of their steel.

Deciding the Way to Strike

With his front well aligned, and with every possible precaution taken to safeguard his lines of communication, the question then before the Japanese Commander-in-Chief was the strategy to mark a resumption of hostilities. At Liao-yang, despite the sweeping nature of the victory, there can be no doubt that the Japanese were bitterly disappointed when, despite tremendously determined efforts to prevent their escape, practically the whole Russian Army had disentangled itself from a well-set net and had escaped to occupy new positions there to be fought all over again. The first thought in all of the planning of the new campaign that was to succeed the winter of inactivity, was to accomplish the actual envelopment of General Kuropatkin, forcing upon the Russian Commander a surrender as the only alternative to annihilation. The line of action decided upon is fully revealed in the details of the battle to be told later. This program of complete destruction stands out even more plainly than at Liao-yang. It came far nearer realization than in that struggle, and was not concluded with the mere taking of Mukden; but like the tentacles of a great octopus, Marshal Oyama's grim determination for complete annihilation of the foe spread far northward beyond the scene of the initial victory and relentlessly realized in large measure all that he had hoped.

Oyama's Plan of Battle

In brief, the plan was to hold the Russian centre in a combat which, however desperate and bloody, was only a feint. While this struggle went on with apparent success to Russian arms, the right and left flanks as aligned east and west of the Sha-ho were to press home an attack calculated slowly to bend back the Russians toward their line of retreat northward from Mukden.

But the culminating fact in the entire plan was an entirely separate blow at the Russian rear north of Mukden by an army which, while it no doubt figured in the Russian calculations of probabilities, eventually burst into the plain eastward from Sinmintin with a fury of surprise attack which ultimately crumbled the entire scheme of Russian defence.

Nogi to Strike Culminating Blow

That army was made up of the conquerors of Port Arthur. The fall of that fortress released a host of 80,000 seasoned fighters, flushed with a victory that filled the world with awe and admiration. Just so soon as the details of the surrender had been completed this force was under way northward to reinforce Marshal Oyama. At its head was the savagely brave Nogi, who had just won for himself undying place in the history of Japan by successfully reducing the Gibraltar of the Orient. Swift from the scene of one great triumph he was speeding to another. It was in the disposition of this force that all of the genius of Oyama was expended. When he sent Nogi westward in a wide circuit to swing completely around the Russian right army, to plunge northward by forced marches as far as Simintin and then bend eastward to burst upon the Russian rear, sweeping within five miles of their lines before an adequate defence could be provided, he settled the fate of Russia's great army of nearly a half million men. He struck a blow that made an awful rout possible, and the blow that made possible the final disaster, the forced abandonment of Tie Pass, that left the Russian Army a demoralized horde of panicked troops facing northward into the bleak stretches of Northern Manchuria.

By this blow he added the final humiliation to Russia's greatest soldier, Kuropatkin, and lost that erstwhile leader with half of a century of popular adulation behind him, the command of Russia's Armies in Manchuria. He ended every hope of an offensive campaign in Manchuria, achieving at a stroke every result that for which a year's campaign had been allotted.

"Out of the Way for Us"

Nogi's army swept into the ranks of the opposing Russians, shouting, "Out of the way for us; we're from Port Arthur". To them fighting in the open country face to face with the enemy was as child's play compared with the horrors they had faced in scaling the bristling mountainsides north of Port Arthur. There they advanced against hidden terrors that lurked behind dull gray walls of huge forts; they braved the cunningly devised high priests of death that are hidden underground and work havoc and disaster when victory seems within grasp. They had looked death in the face in a hundred hidden forms unflinchingly, had fought and conquered a foe behind vast walls. Here there was only man to man. Shells burst overhead, scattering deadly shrapnel, but what was that to the rain of ponderous steel from siege guns that tore out the face of hillsides and annihilated regiments at a single puff. These were the men who, with a strident battle cry of scorn for the ease of the task, swept through thirty miles in a single day, trampling Russian regiments under foot, storming over fortified towns as though no men or guns were there, right up to the gates of Mukden, right where their guns could search the huddled ranks of Russians, fleeing from the destructible force that was welding a ring around them. Nature finally checked them. Up from the Manchurian plains a mighty wind swept a blinding simoon that halted their irresistible host at the moment when they were driving home the last fatal blow. For a day the whole battlefield was wrapped in a blinding curtain of sweeping sand. When once again Nogi's men could take up the work they had begun the bulk of the Russian force had fled past. Undaunted they swept northward, and four days later, when the beaten and dispersed army was reorganizing its ranks from the chaos of the flight, it was Nogi's men, springing once more out of the west, that set Kuropatkin's whole remnant in flight again, leaving behind them the last fortified position in Southern Manchuria. Oyama planned, but the palm for the victories of Mukden and the further flight from Tie Pass belongs to Nogi and the host that took Port Arthur.

Master Stroke of the Battle

This was indeed the master stroke of the battle, nevertheless a way had to be prepared for it by tremendously desperate work on every quarter of the long battle line. As vigorous as was the assault made on the Russian front, there can be no doubt that this was nothing more than a feint. The readiness with which the Japanese Commander-in-Chief sacrificed thousands of lives in assaults of a secondary nature is one of the significant things of the story of the battle. Such methods are reminiscent of Grant's massed attacks in the closing days of the Civil War, when life was counted as nothing when in the scale beside the value of victory. No pang for the sacrifice reached the heart of Oyama or the Generals under him who were directing the assaults. Victory was the stake, and the soldiers were there to die, if need be. They died by files and ranks and regiments. But victory was won. Over against the total of the blood-letting in their own ranks was the awful slaughter of the enemy, here, as in every battle of the war, far heavier in the Russian totals than with the Japanese. Two generations have come since the famous struggle of Gettysburg, yet statisticians are still struggling to determine the exact number who fought and died there or who remained alive, as victor and vanquished. The actual figures are still only approximately known. Multiply the difficulties of accounting for the less than two hundred thousand who fought at Gettysburg an hundredfold, and something of the difficulty of getting at the actual facts of the battle at Mukden begin to be realized. Ultimately, the Japanese may give the details, but no actual statement of the number of Russians engaged, of the losses in killed, wounded and missing, may be expected. The story forms too tragic a page in the history of the nation ever to be willingly spread broadcast.

ON BOARD A JAPANESE BATTLESHIP DURING THE BATTLE OF THE JAPAN SEA.

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