THE BATTLE OF SHA-HO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2647, 7 December 1904, Page 29

THE BATTLE OF SHA-HO.

TERRIBLE CARNAGE

TOKIO, October 17. The native correspondents at the front ■were permitted to cable fairly full reports of the fighting at the battle of Sha-ho (says the Daily Express's Tokio correspondent). Their reports of the carnage are indescribably terrible. In many parts of the field there was incessant hand-to-hand fighting, in which hundz'eds of ir.en were literally hacked to death by bayonets and knives. In an attack made by a Japanese column the Russians, after firing volley after volley - into the oncoming Japanese, received them bayonets, and then used their clubbed! rifles with the most terrible effect. Dozeno of Japanese soldiers were found on the field with their skulls crushed in. The surgeons of both sides found it impossible to cope with the never-ceasing stream of wounded. The Japanese Red Cross resources, admirable in every respect, were wholly inadequate for the occasion, so that thousands of wounded men lay on the field: for hours, or crawled about iv the most pitiful agony, without being attended to. In this way it is certain that the death roll lias been increased by hundreds of lives. A great thunderstorm added to the intense agoniea of the suffering wounded, who had lain all day in the. field. The little rivulets that ran down the hills were literally red with the blood of the wounded and dying Russians and Japanese. One of the correspondents, who states that he rode ovel* a part of the field occupied fay General' Oku's forces, telegraphs that the scene waa the most appalling ever witnessed by man. The cries of the wounded soldiers, asking to be taken out o£ the rain, were heard fair, above the din of rifle fire. The stolidity ofthe Japaaaese soldier and the dumb courage of the Russian were not proof against the terrors of the day. In one. place the correspondent came upon a heap of" Russiandead piled six deep at a spot where a Finnish regiment had for hours withstood the attacks of the pick of Oku's army. They had fought to the last man, and their trenches were packed with the dead. The Express's St. Petersburg correspondriii

itates that thousands of> Jewish soldiers who- were sent to the front with th"c European regiments have been killed. It is tignificant that the heaviest losses are found In the regiments composed of Jews, Finns, Mid Poles — Russia's bitterest enemies. # . The Mukden oorrespondeait of the Birzhevya Vyedomosti, in" a telegram on October 17 says: — "There passed through Mukden to-day a general of division, wounded In one foot, whose troops were part of the force told off to attack the ranpre of rocky height on the east front of the battle. He says: 'The attack was of an unheard-of character, and the losses were terrible, the troops having to climb almost vertical slopes in the face of a hail of bullets. Of six comrades I lost five. The 6th Company of the 23rd Siberian Regiment reached the summit, and rushed on the Japanese defences. They were, however, received with fixed bayonets, "the captain being lifted into the air by several Japanese on the points of their weapons. The rest of the company till perished before the companies following ttiem could get up. This is the tenth day Buch butchery has been going on. The Turkish war was a joke compared with ' this war.' " ~ INCIDENTS OF THE BATILE. At one point some Russian Grenadiers -deliberately, ;threyr,. away .their rifles, and with their bayonets in their teeth climbed, gome almost perpendicular rocks held* by a' Japanese company. Both fought savagely hand" to hand to 'the death., - " . /. . : " Lieutenant Crosdeff, the only surviymjL Officer of a Siberian, Regiment, arrived in one* of the' Japanese entrenchments with; a few'~of- s lii§ "men, and the -Japanese, -havingtoo cartridges, attacked them with »tones. fists, and 'bayonets. / The Russian infantry made several magnificent bayonet charges. In one instance Colonel Putiloff, after desperate fighting, named possession of a height dominating the Japanese position. He was immediately decorated with the Cross of St. Vladimir, and the hill re,christened Putiloff Moun- ■ Telegraphing from the headquarters of the' eastern -ftossian army, Reuter s special correspondent says that' during its offensive operations' the -Russian firing lme never eeemed strong enough; the. men were ~ heavily loaded' with kits, -and as the mountain slopes were sUppej-y, progress was slow —The artillery firing ..was intermittent, witn frequent -■lulls.