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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN.]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN RETREAT IN MANCHURIA.]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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."
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN SUFFERING AT THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN.]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: "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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Illustration: ON BOARD A JAPANESE BATTLESHIP DURING THE BATTLE OF THE
JAPAN SEA.]