RETREAT FROM MUKDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12852, 28 April 1905, Page 5

RETREAT FROM MUKDEN.

SOME GRAPHIC DETAILS^ Telegrams to the Russian newspapers show that the horrors of the flight- from Mukden were almost as bad as those ot Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. "It, was a) veritable ' sauve qui pent,'" says a correspondent of the Russkoe Slovo. " Stores were handed out to the soldiers, who, after provisioning themselves, set fire to the rest. Many of them got drunk, others began plundering the city, and utter disorder prevailed. The surgeons abandoned the sick and wounded in tho hospitals to the care of the orderlies. The wounded were left unnoticed and uncared for where they fell, " The doctors and sisters who remained in Mukden were outraged and killed by the lower classes of the Chinese, who took a. terrible revenge on these helpless Russians for months of insults and injustice. Stragglers were seized by the Chinese peasants, and treated with fearful cruelty." Telegraphing from Mukden 011 March 8, Reuter's correspondent said the chaplains were conducting a continuous funeral service in the cemetery. "Everywhere the ashen faces of corpses lying as if asleep in the midst of dead horses and slaughtered animals. c "To describe the retreat is to picture a debris-strewn road aud the marching soldiers, increasing their loads by spearing bread, vegetables, and fruit on their bayonets, while a t the same time discarding their heavy boots, Chinese garments, knapsacks, and blankets. " % At Santaitzu the roads and fields were a solid mass of transport, and the dust was so dense that it was impossible to see 100 yards ahead. Japanese hand-grenades were at first mistaken for shra'puel, and threw the crowded mass of the retreating column into hopeless confusion." "At Harbin" (says a despatch to the Petit Parisien) " there are (March 20) only 60 doctors and surgeons and 140 hospital orderlies to attend to 50,000 wounded and 12,000 sick soldiers. The services of Chinese doctors have been requisitioned. 'J he mortality among the men is frightful, 5000 having died within, eight days. The majority of the trains arriving from the front are crowded with wounded, and they halve to be shunted into sidings without being unloaded. The town exhales a. dreadful charnel-house odour. Two of the doctors have become insane through overwork. It is feared that terrible epidemics will be spread when the warmer weather comes."

Professor Shiga, after a. visit to Port Arthur, in a, most interesting lecture to the First High School at. Tokio, gave the following explanation of General Stoesael « underestimate of_the number of fighting men available at the time of the surrender: — "The Russian officers wore themselves deceived. Their men were malingering in hospital or otherwise evading duty. They had, in fact, lost all heart for the fight, and it was only when the day of battle had passed that they emerged from hiding and took their place among the prisoners who would not liS.ve to do battle again throughout the war. Sneaking of General Stoessel, Professor .Shiga observes that bis character has been, much discussed, but note has not been taken of 0110 suggestive fact, namely, the love children had for liiin. Children and horses are the best judges of human character-. In Htoeasel's household there were six orphans, ranging from 12 to five years of age, and every on® of them regarded Stoessel as a. father and treatod him with the utmost affection and familiarity. Probably the general had a tender spot in his moral equipment, and thus the sufferings of the garrison lie commanded became ultimately unendurable to him."