Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-09-23
LESSONS In FIGHTING.
Read The Story Of The Battle OF
LiaOyans And Ask How II
All Will End.

The student of races of men will
find scme intensely interesting in
formation from careful study of
the fighting at Llaoyang.
The cables lift the veil that has
covered the mystery of the futility
of the Russian campaign during the
Spring and Summer, and show that
the Slav and Cossack aud Calmuk
common soldiers utLiaoyang have still
the qualities that marked them when
Suwarrow was the premier fighting
man of Europe. The Russian is not
yet member of a dying race. Sue
cess has never caused HIM to lose his
head, and failure brings no despair.
At Liaoyang he stood and fought,
hoping for nothing, fearing nothing,
intent only on killing as many of the
adversary as was in his power. He
shot the assaulting con of Nippon
just as the slaughter house butcher,
who has grown gray in the trade,
knocks the oncoming OK on the head
and then reaches for its heart with a
cleaning knife. The common SOL
dier of Russia has no ideals. He
stands fast, not because it is loss of
honor to run away, but because some
one above has given him an order.
For defensive fighting there is
probably no better raw material than
those who serve under Kuropatkin.
The japanese throws his life away
with indifference. In this combat
you had the Russian, the embodiment
of dogged resistance, against the
japanese, the best living type of
reckless persistence.
Oku three times moved his forces
against what the civilized military
expert would denounce as certain de-
struction. In the open he attacked
fortified, entrenched and masked
position. His attack failed, but Oku
would have ordered it again but for
the backward move made by the
Russians to balk the flank attack of
Karoki.
In this war the tactics of the Jap
anese are out of line with all the ira
ditions of fighting. They have
throughout done the unexpected.
The rules of war that are in the
books are not for them.
The Japanese soldier enlists for
two purposes only-to fight and to
die fighting. Death to him is an in
cident. 1t is not the supreme thing
in life. The chief aim of the Japa-
nese is to destroy the enemy. If he
must throw his life away no bugle
blast nor cheer of the living nerves
him to the onset. The game of war
for the little yellow man is as cold
as problem in geometry.
What other European soldiers
could have stood against the shower
of death with that absolute indiffer-
ence that marked Kuropatkin's men
when the beaten Japanese adyersa-
ries would not accept defeat, but un-
der no other inspiring order than a
telephone message, rushed again
over twice-travelled road, where at
every football death claimed a VIC
tim?
There was no pomp and circum-
stance of glorious war at Liaoyang-
no bands, few flags, no long lines of
moving men. One side charged
without firing a gun, in the open,
and out Of the earth beyond came
the missiles of death.
1t is but scant justice to say that
the Russian rank and file bore them
selves in the bloody fight with that
same indifference that for thousand
years has been the distinction of the
Slav.
In all their fighting, from the days
of the Golden Horde down through
the centuries with Hun and Frank
and Swede, the Muscovite met no
soldier so lavishly Indifferent to los
ing his own blood as those who struck
him in obedience to Oku's orders.
No European foot soldier can bet
ter light the Japanese than the Rus
sian, and no Asiatic has shown the
the strength against the white man
that the Jap has shown.
None can deliver an attack better
than the Jap-none can receive it
with calmer indifference than the
Russian did at Liaoyang.
This is the lesson of the fighting
at Liaoyang.
The Mikado was wise when he
cautioned his soldiers to be patient.
''for the end is far Off"
When or what the end of this war
will be no man can predict, for the
Japanese in his staying power is the
new unknown quantity of this CEN
.ury, of which Christendom has not |