The San Francisco call., 1904-09-02
Continued From Page i, Column 4,

etesC ~SANA.--hA -
, der to withdraw was probably due TO
their anxiety to keep the Russians
south of Liaoyang until General 2Ku-
roki should be able to strike from the
northeast General 'Kuropatkin, how
ever, saw the trap and cleverly avoided
it.
Up TO the hour of filing this dispatch
the War Office has not given the de-
tails of the fighting of September l, but
Fit is believed that this fighting exceed
ed in fierceness that of any previous
day.
The absence of press kilograms from
Liaoyang on September l aroused sus-
picions that changes of Importance
were proceeding. which the military
censors did not wish to be made
known.
A telegram from a correspondent at
Mukden, filed ata9:27 o'clock on the
evening of September /, stated that the
train service between Mukden and
Liaoyang had been interrupted, but the
dispatch did not mention whether the
telegraphic communications were open.
The action of the Japanese COM
mander in throwing a force across
the Taitse in the face of a strong
enemy is considered to be extremely
rash, and the position of this force,
isolated from the main Japanese army
by a deep river, may easily become
desperate.
A correspondent at Vladivostok
telegraphs that the Japanese are re-
lying on the aid of the gunboat flo
tilla for future operations against
Liaoyang and Mukden. The gunboats,
the correspondent says, have not yet
materialized,' but in any case they
would be in no position to render aid
to force on the right bank in time of
need, because they would be unable
to run the gauntlet. of the forts at
L4iaoyang. The strongest forts are
situated on the right bank. where the
Russian army is now concentrated.
The fighting at Liaoyang has beaten
all records for the desperate valor of
the assailants and the invincible stub
b6rnness of the defenders. The whole
history of warfare tells of no such
bombardments, no such carnage and
no such persistency. Day after day
the fight has been resumed at day.
break and kept UP with hardly a
moments intermission until after
nightfall.
War SCARED veterans scarce believe
the stories which come from the seat
of war and declare that it is beyond
human endurance for an army to fight
without respite for a week, each day
of which has exceeded it's predecessor
I'm intensity of struggle and carnival
of slaughter. Day after day the thou
sands of dead bestrewing the battle
fields have to be removed. The Jap
anese have invented new methods to
incinerate the heaps of dead COM
rades, removing the ashes for the
honors of burial in Japan. The
wounded present a most serious prob
lem, as they tax the transportation
capacities on both sides to the utmost.
The most difficult problem which
has occurred is the bringing up of
food supplies and ammunition to
every point of the fighting line, which
extends from ten to twenty miles.
S Never has such bombardment been
known. An eyewitness of the battle
of Vafangow said that many officers
suffered nervous prostration following
the terrible roar of the artillery and
one military attache had to be in
valided home for the same reason.
Yet the artillery fire at Vafangow
was far inferior in intensity to that at
Iiaoyang