distance to march, Kuroki the smallest. The latter therefore had to stand fast in the face of the Russian Eastern Detachment, which was three days' march at most from Feng-hwang-cheng and could be supported in three more days by Kuropatkin's main body, whereas the pressure of Oku's advance would not begin to be felt by the Russian Southern Detachment until the twelfth day at earliest. It was necessary therefore for the first objective to make a slight concession to the second. Oku had to start at the earliest possible moment, even though operations against Port Arthur were thereby delayed for a week or two. In fact, Oku's march began on June 13th, Kuroki's on June 24th; the moves of the intermediate forces at various dates within this time.
Meanwhile Kuropatkin, assembling the main army week by week, was in difficult position. His policy of gaining time had received a severe blow in the failure of his executive officer to realize it, and that officer, though his unpursued troops quickly regained their moral, had himself completely lost confidence. On the news of the battle (coupled with that of a fresh army appearing on the Korean coast),[1] Kuropatkin instantly sent off part of his embryo central mass to bar the mountain passes of Fenshuiling and Motienling against the imagined relentless pursuit of the victors, and prepared to shift his centre of concentration back to Mukden. The subsidiary protective forces on either flank of Zasulich had promptly abandoned their look-out positions and fallen back to join him. But the commander-in-chief, soon realizing that the Japanese were not pursuing, reasserted himself, sent the protective troops back to their posts, and cancelled all orders for the evacuation of Liao-Yang. From this time forward, Kuropatkin allowed his subordinates little or no initiative. A few days later, Zasulich's persistent requests to be allowed to retreat and the still uncertain movements of the 2nd Army induced him once more to prepare a concentration on Mukden. But on the 6th of May he learned that the Japanese 1st Army had again halted at Feng-hwang-cheng and that the 2nd Army was disembarking at Pitszewo, and he resumed (though less confidently) his original idea. The Eastern protective detachment, now strengthened and placed under the orders of Count Keller, was disposed with a view to countering any advance on Liao-Yang from the east by a combination of manœuvre and fighting.[2] It was at this moment of doubt that Alexeiev, leaving Port Arthur just in time and profoundly impressed with the precarious state of affairs in the fleet and the fortress, gave the order, as commander-in-chief Alexeiev and Kuropatkin. by land and sea, for an “active” policy (19th May). Kuropatkin, thus required to abandon his own plan, had only to choose between attacking the 1st Army and turning upon Oku. He did not yield at once; a second letter from the viceroy, the news of Nanshan, and above all a signed order from the tsar himself, “Inform General Kuropatkin that I impose upon him all the responsibility for the fate of Port Arthur,” were needed to bring him definitely to execute a scheme which in his heart he knew to be perilous. The path of duty for a general saddled with a plan which he disapproves is not easily discoverable. Napoleon in like case refused, at the risk of enforced resignation, but so did Moreau; the generality of lesser men have obeyed, but so did Suvárov.
Stakelberg's I. Siberian Corps was therefore reinforced towards the end of May up to a strength of above 35,000. But it remained a detachment only. The Liao-Yang central mass was still held in hand, for the landing of the 4th Army—really only a division at present—at Takushan and the wrong placing of another Japanese division supposed to be with Kuroki (really intended for Nogi) had aroused Kuropatkin's fears for the holding capacity of Keller's detachment. Moreover, disliking the whole enterprise, he was most unwilling to use up his army in it. The Russians, then, at the beginning of June, were divided into three groups, the Southern, or offensive group (35,000), in the triangle Neuchwang-Haicheng-Kaiping; the Eastern or defensive group (30,000), the main body of it guarding the passes right and left of the Wiju-Liao-Yang road, the left (Cossacks) in the roadless hills of the upper Aiho and Yalu valleys, the right (Mishchenko's Cossacks and infantry supports) guarding Fenshuiling pass and the road from Takushan; the reserve (42,000) with Kuropatkin at Liao-Yang; the “Ussuri Army” about Vladivostok; and Stessel's two divisions in the Kwantung peninsula.
On the other side the 1st Army was at Feng-hwang-Cheng with one brigade detached on the roads on either hand, the left being therefore in front of the Takushan division and facing the Fenshuiling. Oku's 2nd Army (4 divisions or 60,000 combatants) was about Port Adams. This last was the objective Stakelberg's expedition. of the attack of Stakelberg's 35,000. Kuropatkin's orders to his subordinate were a compromise between his own plan and Alexeiev's. Stakelberg was to crush a rapid and energetic advance the covering forces of the enemy met with, and his object was “the capture of the Nanshan position and thereafter an advance on Port Arthur.” Yet another object was given him, to “relieve the pressure on Port Arthur by drawing upon himself the bulk of the enemy's forces,” and he was not to allow himself to be drawn into a decisive action against superior numbers. Lastly, on June 7th, while Stakelberg was proceeding southward on his ill-defined errand, Kuropatkin, imposed upon by the advance of the Takushan column to Siu-yen, forbade him to concentrate to the front, only removing the veto when he learned that the 4th Army had halted and entrenched at Siu-yen.
On the 14th, all his arrangements for supply and transport being at last complete, Oku moved north. Although he was still short of part of the 6th division, he was in superior force. He had, moreover, the perfectly definite purpose of fighting his way north, and at Telissu or Wafangkou on the 14th of June, Telissu. as he expected, he came upon Stakelberg's detachment in an entrenched position. On the 14th and 15th, attacking sharply on the Russian front and lapping round both its flanks, Oku won an important and handsome victory, at a cost of 1200 men out of 35,000 engaged, while the Russians, with a loss of at least 3600 out of about 25,000 engaged, retired in disorder. Thus swiftly and disastrously ended the southern expedition.
Meantime, except for the movement on Siu-yen already mentioned,[3] and various reconnaissances in force by Keller's main body and by Rennenkampf's Cossacks farther inland, all was quiet along the Motienling front. Kuroki entrenched himself carefully about Feng-hwang-cheng, intending, if attacked by the Russian main army, to defend to the last extremity the ground and the prestige gained on the 1st of May.
From this point to the culmination of the advance at Liao-Yang, the situation of the Japanese closely resembles that of the Prussians in 1866. Haicheng represents Münchengrätz, Liao-Yang Gitschin, and the passes east of Liao-Yang Nachod and Trautenau. The concentration of the various Japanese armies on one battlefield was to be made, not along the circumference of the long arc they occupied, but towards the centre. Similarly, Kuropatkin was in the position of Benedek. He possessed the interior lines and the central reserve which enables interior lines to be utilized, and a stroke of good fortune prolonged the period in which he could command the situation, for
- ↑ This was the 2nd Army, waiting in the port of Chinampo for the moment to sail for Pitszewo.
- ↑ One isolated incident which deserves mention took place at this time, the bold raid of Colonel Madritov and 500 Cossacks against the communications of the 1st Army. The raid (involving a ride of 240 m. forward and back) was carried out in entire ignorance of the battle of the Yalu, and on arriving at Anju Madritov found nothing to attack, the 1st Army having after its victory adopted a short line of communication from a sea base near the Yalu mouth. This incident suggests two reflections—first that raids or attacks in rear of the “centre of operations” are valueless, however daring, and second that had Zasulich, in his determination to be worthy of his knighthood, concentrated for battle, the presence of the Madritov detachment on the field would have prevented the lamentable and costly misunderstandings of the retreat on Hamatan.
- ↑ The occupation of Siu-yen was chiefly the work of the brigade pushed out to his left by Kuroki. Only a portion of the 10th division from Takushan helped to drive away Mishchenko's Cossacks.
