THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1904. THE OPPOSING ARMIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12662, 16 September 1904, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1904. THE OPPOSING ARMIES.

The " Inteirnational Parliament" which the Americans have managed to arrange as an interesting sideshow of the great St. Louis Exposition may consider that the_ great Powers ought - to intervene in the Far East and insist upon the submission of the whole question to the Hague Tribunal. The Russians will still continue to fight doggedly for that Manchuria which they burglariously entered and illegally occupied, while the Japanese will as doggedly continue the task of ejecting them. For the moment, however, the opposing armies are exhausted by their stupendous exertions at Liao-yang and Yentai, of which the accumulated horror is only gradually becoming known. It will probably be found that both sides have understated their casualties. They may hardly yet have realised the frightful sacrifice of life and limb which was offered during those long days and nights when victory swayed in the balance and neither Euss not Jap confessed defeat. But the reaction from the delirious excitement of battle is evidently upon them, and, as we stated some days ago, it cannot be immediately overcome, for even the Japanese reinforcements must be affected by the glow of the great fires in which the victors are cremating the dead, joining Russ and Jap in their funeral rites, and the Russian reinforcements must be aware that Harbin has become one vast hospital. Only the opposing generals cannot relax. They must work the harder at the solution of the problems that confront them, Kuropatkin to reorganise his resistance to the Japanese advance, Kurcki and his colleagues to push that advance to the furthest confines of Manchuria. Germany may promise Russia- her good offices when peace is made, but in the meantime the prospect.3 are that there will be little halt in the Russian '"advance northwards"—we have to thank Kuropatkin for the words—when once the Japanese columns are set again in motion until the vicinity of Harbin is reached. For it is now clearei than ever that the Russians anticipated victory at Lioo-yaug. They had so fortified the heights before the town that it wa3 practically impregnable. They had abundant stores. They commanded the railway. They undoubtedly intended to hold the Japanese in check at that point while reinforcements came rolling steadily to them along

the Traits-Siberian "line. •• They pearly succeeded. They failed, after flinging back every desperate r frontal attack that the heroic Japanese made against them, becaitse Kuroki compelled them to withdraiv from their position-to meet his strategic movement on their rear, a movement in which he almost perished, with his whole army, but which would in any case have given to his colleagues the heights of Liao-ynhg. If Sttrcmfttkm had controlled a sufficiently large army to engage Kxiroki without abandoning- Liao-yartg, there is every reason to think that thy Russians would still be successfully holding the south bank of the Taitse River.

Kuropatkin is consequently in serious straits. Not only has his army been greatly shaken, from which it might ; recover, &s the Japanese will certainly recover, but he has lost a position Upon which he had expended months of work, and in which he had gathered stores that cannot quickly be replaced. His first consideration, tbeiefore, is to select another point on the railway sufficiently removed from the Japanese advance guard, to be made dependable before the Japanese can reach it. This point he is reported to have found at Tieling, a place lying between Mukden and Harbin. As we have frequently pointed out, the political importance of Mukden, as the ancient capital of Manchuria, forces the Prussians to exhaust every effort to retain it, so that it is not surprising, even after all the rumours of their intention to abandon it, to hear the report from St. Petersburg that it will be strongly garrisoned and left to defend itself. It appears that it is not easily defendsd against modern artillery, being surrounded by level country, but Russian tacticians have always been noted for their engineering, and will have done their utmost at Mukden. As long as it can be held it will not only occupy the attention of a much superior force of Japanese, thus joining Port Arthur in relieving some ot the pressure from Kuropatkin's army, but it will cut the railway against Japanese use. The smart and adaptable little islanders will, of course, imitate the loop-lining at which the Boers proved themselves adept, but this will take time, and every day gained by Kuropatkin will be expended upon fortifying the Tieling position if he should decide to make a stand there. Nor will Mukden alone impede the Japanese march. If the Russians can be rallied it is not conceivable that such a" notoriously stubborn people, that never fights better than when in retreat, cannot be ralliedKuropatkin. will contest every mile of the *way to Tieling, as he before contested every mile of the way to Liao-yang. When operations are recommenced by the Japanese, which will be as soon as their men are recuperated, their corps reorganised, and their equipments and supplies replaced on an efficient footing, we shall have a more op less monotonous repetition of the tactics that led up to the recent battle, which was undoubtedly the most fiercely contested and the most horrifying known in modern wars.