Sanguinary Battle.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7800, 23 June 1904, Page 3

Sanguinary Battle.

Russians Lose 5000

Terrible Hand to Hand

Conflict

Lokdon, Yesterday. The St. Petersburg Gazette reports a sanguinary battle, near Haicheng, with heavy loescfS.

Another St. Petersburg telegram, reCeived by a French paper, spates the .Russians lost five thousand. '

General Stackelburg, on the 18tb, reported that * three bodies' of Russian ftroops were extending their front between Wafangkau and Tchonjon. After two days' fighting and two days' tiring i "light inarches, by difficult mountainous in,"ad*, th« troops were able to rest.

.\ Russian officer wounded at Wafangkuu .declares that the Japanese artillery fire was .marvellously accurate and

eff clAve.

The Russians fought stubbornly and' desperately, but.were, unable to withstand the enemy's dashing persistency.

Russian correspondents, in describing the eugag ?nitnt south of Wafangkau, state the Uussian left was thrown forward wittr the reserves to clear a bill whore the Japanese were entrenched, with artillery; - •

They were compelled te cross a milo of mostly opeu country under a decimating fire.

Some got to within twenty yards, planting thetnielves under the trenches, the occupants of which were; unable to fire, owing to the convexity' of the hills, "without exposing themselves. The assailants and defenders occasionally fought hand to hand with the buttfl of their rifles and stones. '

Tho majority of the Russians gained ihe shelter of a neighbouring ravine, but shells and shrapnel expelled them.

A retirement took place after the guns were smashed, as cabled. . s