FIGHT FOR THE MO-TIEN PASS

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 48, 25 August 1904, Page 5

FIGHT FOR THE MO-TIEN PASS

HAND-TO-HAND STRUGGLE. The brief and disastrous attempt mndo by the Russians to overwhelm the small Japanese force guarding the entrance to the Motion Pass was a bloody affair, says a Router's special correspondent. Tlio Japanese again exhibited great resourcefulness and courage, and the Russians once more wasted many lives. 1 have seen enough to justify the estihiale of the Russian killed and wounded at more than 200. The Japanese losses probably amounted to sixty killed and wounded. The pass opens out upon a funnelshaped slope, rising a quarter of a milo from the valley, and flanked by hills. ThiHy-six Japanese woro quartered in a Chinese house near the bottom of ,a hill, and two companies vor« in a trench 100 yards long on the summit of the hill which commanded tho approach of the pass*. Two other companies slept noar the trench. Between 3 and 4 o'clock, in darkness, with a heavy fog enshrouding the hillS, two battalions of the 10th and 24th East Siberian Regimouts, with 100 cavalry, approached the Japanese position. They mirrouuded the' pickets and tho outposts in tho house, and gained a position favourable for rushing the trench, while several companies attempted to flank both sides of the Japanese position. When the fighting began, tho building where the outposts were quartered becamo a slaughterhouse. The Japanese, aroused from their Bleep, seized thoii swords and bayonets. The Russians and Jupnne«o were soon mixed in such confusion that it was impossible for thorn

to uso their riiles. The first fighting occurred at the trench, aild before long it was a hand-to-hand struggle. T\*t Japanese, half naked, ran to man the trenchen. Tho first onslaught watt repelled, but (•lie Russians charged twice again within half an hour. The romaindei ot th« regi« ment to which the outpobt company belonged reinforced them, and began to drive the Russians back, as soon as it was sufficiently light to distinguish them. Two hours after tho beginning of the attack tho Russians wore forced a mile down tho valley. Tho trench and hillside approaches to it were thickly covered with dead and wounded, and tho blood-spattered stones and grafts everywhere testified to tho hotness of the fighting. The Chinese stretcher-bearers, impossivo under the dropping bullets, wore collecting the wounded and carrying them to the hobpiial in a roadside, temple, whore they were laid in rows under the huge painted plaster gods. Japanese details, using their trenching spndes, buried the dead where they fell, and impuitially brought water and gave cigarettes to thoir own and the Russian wounded.