AN AWFUL RECORD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8096, 27 September 1904, Page 3

AN AWFUL RECORD.

AUCKLAND, September 26. St. Petersburg, September 4. — The battle of Liaoyang, which began with the Japanese advance on August 24, the day of the christening of the Czarowitu, and concluded on Saturday, September 3, with the retreat of General » Kuropatkin, is belioved to have been the longest and the bloodiest of history. Numerous incidents in the fighting upset the theory evolved by experiences in the Boer war, that a modern battle must necessarily be fought at long range. Both sides repeatedly came to hand-to-hand encounters in bayonet charges, and the men of both sides were often so near each other that they could distinguish features and hear the wor.dg of command. In one instance they were separated only by the width of the railway line, and actually threw stones at each other. The mad heroism of tho Japanese and the stubborn tenacity of the Russians have not been paralleled anywhere save in some desperate, encounters of the American Civil War. "Correspondents state that several ol the bayonet attacks made by the Japanese throughout the battle have been forced by tho depletion of ammunition, of which modern guns entail such an extravagant expenditure. Tho Japanese came on with empty guns, and with hopes of finishing the attack with cold steel; but it was proved at their own cost that such an attack could not bo driven homo in the face of the fire of breechloading guns. The Russian artillerymen suffered terribly in the prolonged fighting south of the Taitse river. One battery lost forty man killed and the remainder of it were wounded, and when a fresh battery was brought up into position the survivors protested with tears at being removed, begging to be allowed to die beside their own guns. The work of the Red Cross, which through the war has been devoted on both sides, proved almost as dangerous to nurses and doctors as was the work of the combatants. Many bearers and their assistants have been killed or wounded in attending to the injured under fire. A sister of Mercy was killed and a surgeon wounded in the final assault on Liaoyang. During the ten days they were engaged the condition of the soldiers of both armies has been pitiable. Many of the Japs' prisoners were starving and almost naked when captured, which speaks volumes for the Japs' endurance. It is wonderful that commissary arrangements made it possible to continue to supply the men during such a continuous battle. The Russians were better fed, being nearer their own base, but the terrible strain of the continuous fighting caused some of tbera to fall aajeep in the midat of a cannonade.