RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 8489, 24 May 1904, Page 1

RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

[By Electbio Telegraph.—Copybight.] (Peb Pbess Association.) Received May 23, at 10.25 p.m. 1 London., May 22. The Russians, after denying, now admit that the Bogatyr was stranded during a fog. ; The Jeszen is striving to. save her. • The battleship Orel is again in trouble. Owing to a bilge pipe being left open she i badly stranded at Kronstadt. i It is stated at Tokio that the Japanese 1 have captured Kaiping, driving the Russians towards Yingkow. 1 The'object of Friday's daring reconnais- ! sance at the entrance of Port Arthur was 1 accomplished, but according to Reuter's 1 Agency a shell struck the destroyer Akatsukaka, killing 25* including an officer. The supposed sorties from Port Arthur was apparently the Russian unofficial version of the fight at Kinchau on the 16th. Admiral Stoessel reports that large bodies of Japanese appeared on the 15th. A detachment was sent to investigate, and discovered, during an encounter on the 16th, that the Japanese consisted of two divisions, with four batteries. The Japanese sustained severe losses, and suspended their advance. Ihe Russian, casualties on the 14th, when ; the Japanese attempted, to land at Kerr Bay and were repulsed, and on the 16th, total one officer killed and ten wounded (in- | eluding General Madine, slightly) and 150 j men killed arid wounded. Received May 23, at 10.44 p.m. 1 London, May 22. General. Kuropatkin reports that two Japanese divisions are at Feng-hoang-cheng and its vicinity, a division is half way between Feng-hoang-cheng and Siuyen. F emg-hoang-cheng has been fortified. The Daily Mail's St. Petersburg corre- 1 spondent reports that it is stated that the Japanese cavalry are provided with excellent Australian full of staying power. Received May 24, at 0.21 a.m. London, May 23. The Times' steamer Fawan reports that General Kuroki has halted to pull 'his force together for the advance over heavy country on, Liao-yang, and to await the landing of tho third army corps. Meanwhile two of General Oko's divisions are in the vicinity of Kinchau. They have been ordered to reduce Port Arthur. The guns from the disabled Russian ships have been added to a succession of shore batteries, covering the north-eastern approaches to Kinchau, and also the approach to Dalny. . _ If the Russians maintain their attitude I their field works indicate that Port Arthur •will not fall without heavy sacrifices. The garrison consists of 10,000 troops and 7000 bluejackets. Junks bring food to Pigeon Bay. The coal supply is short, but the ammunition is sufficient. The Hatsuse was lost whilst holding Miatao Straits against a torpedo attack for the passage of transports carrying a division of the third army corps, which landed, as cabled, at Sinyuencheng. The Russians have destroyed the railway thence to Kaiping. Received May 24, at 0.31 a.m. London, May 23. The defenders of Port Arthur are in a desperate mood. Realising their hopeless position they sent launches and junks to sow floating blockade mines, which are now drifting on the high seas and into Chinese waters. The naval officers of Britain and America severely criticise Russia's tactics in : violating the rights of nations. [ THE -WIJU FIGHT. (Per steamer at Auckland.) ! St. Petersburg, May 5. : General' Kuropatkin has forwarded a despatch to the Emperor as follows : —"Early on the morning of April the 30th the Japanese began to oppress our left front, having on the previous evening occupied the Khasimu heights after on attack. In consequence of this I ordered the 22nd Regiment, which had' occupid Khassan, to retire across the River Aiho to our position at iPotientisky. On the morning of the same day an extraordinarily prolonged bombardment of our whole position at C'hiu-lien-ching was commenced from Wiju. I foresaw that the Japanese, after the bombard-, ment, in which over 2000 projectiles were discharged, would take the offensive. I had received orders from General Sasselitch to accept battle and retain my position at Potientisky. My left flank was defended by two battalions of the 22nd Regiment and the third battery of the 6th Brigade. The Japanese took the offensive at 5 o'clock in the morning, despatching at least one division of infantry, which, advancing in column, sustained enormous losses. But they crossed the ford and attacked our position, which was exposed to the fire of 36 field guns and siege batteries. The Japanese advanced end occupied a position. Towards noon •I ascertained that the Japanese had routed the battalion of the 22nd Regiment posted at Chin-gow and were turning my left flank. At one o'clock in the afternoon my left flank was reinforced by two battalions of the 11th Regiment, and a battery commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Moranksy, sent from the reserve by General Sasselitch, with orders to hold their ground until the departure of the Sth and 10th. Regiments from Sakhodza. I ordered the 11th Regiment to occupy a commanding position in the rear, from which they could fire on the enemy from two sides. I held Lieutenant-Colonel Moravsky's battery ,in reserve and ordered the 12th Regiment, the 3rd Battery, and the quick-firing guns to retire under cover of the 7th Regiment. At one o'clock the Japanese approached so close to the position held by the 7th Regiment that the 3rd Battery could not pass along under a crossfire, and, taking up a position a short distance from the Japanese, remained there until the end of . the fighting, losing its commander (Lieutenant-Colonel Moravsky). A company, with quick-firing guns, was brought up from the rearguard. The officer commanding this force, seeing the difficult situation of Lieutenant-Colonel Moravsky's battery, took up a position on his own initiative. He lost half of his men and all his horses. He attempted to remove his guns by hand to the shelter of the hills under a Japanese crossfire. The quick-firing guns discharged about 35,000 bullets. The 12th Regiment cut its way through, and saved its colors. The 2nd Battery of the 6th Brigade, having attempted to rejoin the reserves by another route, could not ascend the mountain slopes with only half its horses, and, returning to its original position, received the Japanese attack. The llth Regiment, which held its ground for two hours more, with heavy losses, forced a passage at the point of the bayonet and crossed the ravine with the colors. It lost its colonel. We lost 40 officers and' about 2000 non-commis-sioned officers and men. Thei Japanese loss must have been, enormous. The Russians retired in good order oil Feng-hoan-cheng. The men of the 3rd Division maintained their excellent morale. Oy er "00 wounded are proceeding with their regiments to Feng-hoan-cheng.'

ST. PETERSBURG CALM IN WAR. (New York Sun.). Fronting the lodg; silent- Winter Palace—imperial in its constant display,of the double-1 eagle, scrolled 1 black roil 1 the red stone of the building and gilt-on the fence of iron a-crescent of Government offices, their faces washed in- dull ochre; and-almost as silent as the^yellow palace-itself. - It is from one of these 'offices t&at Russia ia preparing her land sampaigffiir the Far-East/ /•!.. Nobody gOPs" out- of -his way to look at the "door. Generals-in-light gray fur-lined, doaks pass' in and-out- ofithe -headquarters of the General Staff; uniformed 1 -messengers, fetch'and carry ; l Snd > lnireaucrats--'"chenov-. i nik," they'cai'-them,-the enormously' signi- ° "Scant element in* this city—go their ways with precise -steps -and- pursed lips, clad -ra ' black, tight-buttoned "coats and clasped to !■ their sides the inevitable leather- portfolio. 'Biit' the -millicai dr two croliaais- who make their living-Tiere' take no'heedof it all. aV Fifteen degrees below zero is not con- ■ duicive/ it ie true> to the comfort of a-stands ing crowd,' but ilie occupants of the scores of sleighs which skittt across ihe suniitesnow; 1 of Government crescent/ proceed:as;Jf

the great affairs preparing so near them ■were somebody else's business. So it is at the central telegraph office. Last nighty when the allotted tabloid of official information was served out to a hungering, world, there was apparently no appetite. Ihe typewritten telegram was pinned in its glass case without any surging crowd to devour its contents. Messengers from the local newspapers copied, it and the foreign correspondents got their translator to interpret its weird Slavonic characters. It is not that Russian people are indifferent to what is going on, but rather that immemorial experience has taught them that official information is something prepared for their, consumption, and they have grown cynical. . When the great fighting is on they may jtrike each other awake and become vigilant to know what is going on. To-day they are jogging along the accustomed track the writer who says otherwise is one with ihe scores of correspondents who have come to this country determined to make their readers' flesh creep when they get their books published, and who have deliberately set out to produce the effects they know would tell, even though they failed to find any material to justify them. In the street life of St. Petersburg the dominant note is still the patriarchal. Sleigh driver and Grand Duke, they are all a family. Two officers go for a spin, in a drosky down the Nevski JProspekt. They laugh and joke together; the driver sees an opening and joins in the talk, and all 1 three j set to laughing. He will do the same if he is driving great ladies of the ruling houses, and nobody dreams of resenting it. Feudalism, with its inexpressible freemasonry, is behind it all. The owner of great estates would as soon think of "cutting" the greetings of a humble moujik, as centuries ago a feudal Baron would reject the conversation of a retainer. Rather the other way; for the patrician element here counts it good form to show a genial fellowship with its coachman. There is a rather terrible, side to this sort of tiling. Three able-bodied men will turn up at any moment to do some trifling service to a. man at a hotel or in a restaurant where one or more would suffice in another country. They all expect tips, and from their countrymen they get them. It really seems the old idea of scattering largess among the populac© at large as a tribute to one's own lordliness. The more a mani of the nobleman cast looks as if he could not afford it, the more he insists on handing out tips to show his station,- even if he have to go hungry at home. By this process about 20,000 highly skilled loafers are doing very well in St. Petersburg to-day. There is one who keeps an eye on, coats and hats at a hotel near here who owns streets of real estate ini the suburbs and takes his wife and family every summer to Trouville for the season. In most directions the proletarian Russian who lives in this capital displays a genuine aversion to systematic work of the artisan kind. The little sons of poor parents nurse the ambition to be some day droschke drivers. As there axe over 18,000 of these worthies licensed in St. Petersburg, it is a considerable calling. If his governmental system makes him the most absolute head cl a State in Christendom, the Czar is personally tilie least assuming monarch imaginable. His children drive in a pair-horse open carriage down the Nevski with their governess about 3 o'clock every afternoon. Oo&chman: and footman wear no livery, merely the black hat and long drab coat usual in a. private citizen's equipage. The Czar's mother with her lady in waiting were driving yesterday in a pair-horse sleigh not distinguishable from any other good turn-out but for the great bearded Cossack standing guard behind them. And the Dowager Czaiina, by the habit of the country and the code of the Greek Orthodox Church, comes before the Czarina in every form* of influence and precedence. The Gzarewitch constantly uses his private droschke unattended on busy streets, and looks a much robuster man physically and mentaily than, his imperial brother. This unescorted passing about among the people of members of the Czar 1 s family is not what common report would lead the foreigner to expect here. On, the footwalk there are, of course,- secret service mem every few yards and all day. They, alone, are about to counter the movement of which some may think that nobody speaks and in plain truth the Czar's ally, the French President,. moves among the public with more display of his high office than the Czar does hero. So it is through the governing houses. Kouropatkin took morning walking exercise with one aide-de-camp ©m the Nevski, and nobody turns to look twice. When, another General on the imperial staff yesterday afternoon came out of the headquarters bureau, wrapped in a thousand rouble fur cloak, he found himself up against two plain, clothes pollers, each clasping the handle of a big basketful of books and old papers, passing from one door to the other. They jostled on unmindful of him., and he had to step off the footwalk into the deeper snow. In Washington or London, they would surely have got out of the way as a matter of course. ' In Berlin they would as surely have gone to prison for a month if they did not move. Here the General stepped aside merely because they were carrying a basket load and he was not. With all the alternations of indifference and unbelief and speculation in abstract ideas —which is the hobby of the poor student class—no resident from the outer world could call "Holy Russia" a misnomer. At Wirballen, the passport collecting and customs examination depot a hundred yards inside Russia from the German, frontier, the first feature of the baggage inspection hall is a great ikon with candles burning before it, set on the wall with its back to the western world and its face to Holy Russia. Another surmounts the lamppost in the middle of the station. So it is here. Tile site of the Kazan Cathedral in the Nevski Prospect about corresponds to Grace Church in, Broadwayit faces on the main street at a thromged shopping quarter. Droschke drivers crawl to and fro past, it for a fare, and each one as he passes doffs his fur cap and crosses himself energetically from his brow to his waist. He may pass a score of times a day, but he salutes the cathedral every time. The driver who has a fare considers presumably ♦hat works are as good as faith, for 'he often omits the observance that he would keep if he were not earning money. Foot passengers do the same, and the most devout are the big,, simple, bearded men that you would call "hayseeds."' . . This display of religious feeling is the real thing; it is no mere ceremonial attached to an ethical code of conduct; it is blind, unshakable faith—you may call it idolatry or any ofher word for the worship c* graven images—but it has hold of humbler Russia, and M. Pobedonostzeff, procurator of the H<jly Synod, is its director here. This hater of modernity has the right sort of material for his incessant round of ritual to: the exclusion of anything approaching science in the manumitted serf of character, and it permeates 90 per cent, of the population.

The forefathers of Russia's millions wandered westward from the banks of the Hindoo Koosh a few centuries later than the peoples who are mow-mostly ranged on the side of their present foe. critics might do w<fll to think themselves,back over these few centuries, if they are to_ understand many of the id&as that obtainj in Russia to-day.

DEFENCES OF PORT ARTHUR. According to the latest; investigations, gaya' the Tokyo Asahi, the batteries at Port Arthur are asiollow^;. . Man-ti-shan- —8' 6ii>- Canet .Ki-kwati-shsuk—S 6in.. Canet Xiaoti-shian — , „ ... No. 1 from north, 9 21m. Canet No. 2 from nortb, 4 6in. Canet No. 3 from north 8 6in. Canet No. 4 froni north,-5 6in. Canet Golden H3l Central—B llin. Canefc - Golden HiD East, - unknoinr, . 6in. .Canet Poh-ti-shan— No. 1 from, east, 5 6m. Canet ' No. 2 from east, 5 6in. Canet No. 3 from east, 8 6in, .Canet Disappearing guns exist m the. batteries on Liao-ti-shan, Poh-ti-shan, Kink'ishan, liiao-hn-wi, etc. 'Besides the above, there are batteries on 'Eh-chting-shan, etc.

WAR ITEMS. During the campaign, in the Far East •General Kuropatkiu will ride a sis-year-old brown thoroughbred named Marechal, well known in Russia as a, successflil steplechaser, and the winner of many first prizes at horse shows. A report has gained widespread credence among Russian peasants that the ghost of Napoleon is waiting on. the banks of the river Amur to lead Russian, troops on to victory. Two merchants, Messrs Libby and Hopf, who were expelled from Vladivostock by the Russians, stated on their arrival at Victoria (British Columbia) that it was practically impossible for anyone to do much damage to the fortress from the sea. The entrance to the harbor is very tortuous and literally sown with mines, while it is commanded by the batteries, which have been mounted recently with powerful ordnance. The garrison contained a large number of raw recruits, who were being drilled for hours daily, the instructions of the officers being ensticks. forced by liberal applications of thick