The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-24
BY IVAN VANNEKOFF.
Copyright, 1904, by T. c. Mcclure.

I fugitives, while over six thousand
were massacred in the fortified camn
of Cock Tepe.
The whole country was covered
with corpses,' said Samuel Gouro-
witch, an Armenian Jew who acted as
interpreter in the Russian forces.
The morning after the battle thew
lay in rows like freshly mown hay. as
they had been swept down by the
mitrailleurs and artillery. Hundreds
of women were sabered, and l myself
saw babies bayonetted or slashed to
| pieces. Many women were ravished
before being killed. The troops, mad
| with drink and the lust of fighting.
were allowed to plumber and kill for
three days after the assault"
This is the single great blot on
! Gen. Kouropatkins record. 1t is true
that he was not in supreme command,
| but his Turkestan troops played the
leading part in the slaughter.
He is great leader of men. The
! march of his Turkestan contingent
across the almost unknown deserts of
Central Asia, in order to join Skobe-
left for the siege of Cock Tepe, was
as fine an achievement as Lord Rob
erts' famous march to Candahar.
koff, who met him at the end of the
march, had been for twenty-six days
marching over sandy and waterless
desert yet his force marched in clean
and trim, and as fresh as a daisy"
An English newspaper correspond
ent, who attended the funeral Of
Skobeleff at Spasskoe Selo in 1882, was
there thrown into company with many
of the dead generals favorite officers.
More than once he said, 4 heard
a controversy among them as to
whether Kouropatkin was not almost
as good a leader as their lost general.
Kourapatkin,' said a Turkestan Of
ficer to me- during one of these dis
cussions, possesses all the character
istics of Skobeeff cast in a cooler
mould. They worked admirably to-
gether, Kouropatkin imparting cool
ness and calculation to Skobeeleff, and
Skobeleff fire and enthusiasm to Kour-
opatkin. We are desolate now that
Skobeleff is gone, but it is a consola-
ton that we have still got Kouropat-
kin He is now the Skobeleff of Rus
STA
During the first few days succeed
ing Skobeleff's death a strong and an
CRY feeling prevailed in Russia against
the government. 1t was felt that the
dead hero's merits had never been
properly appreciated by the state, and
l encountered various officers at Mos
COW who were persuaded he had been
poisoned. To appease the army the
Emperor felt that he could not do bet
ter than summon Kouropatkin from
Central Asia and give him a high APP
pointment at home. Since then he has
been treated as a favorite at court, and
If he has secured little notoriety
81. = r.fy, ,yD1xv ha hos I
ways devoted himself to his profession
and left politics alone.
"Skobeleff had in him all the ele-
ments of a great statesman, as we'll as
those of a great general. His political
influence was becoming positively en-
barrassing to the Cars ministers
when he died. Kouropatkin has never
sought to form a party in Russia-he
ia quite content to be a great general,
and nothing more"
This judgment was pronounced away
back in 1885. 1t does not hold good to-
day Gen. Kouropatkin is now the un-
challenged head of the war party in
Russia. He believes in pushing Rus
sian troops to the uttermost ends of
Asia. In the movements toward the
Indian frontiers, which have alarmed
England in recent years; in the alb
sorption of Manchuria, and in the
threatened attack on Corea, his hand
is plainly to be seen by anyone famil-
lar with Russian politics.
Before becoming Minister of War,
Kouropatkin commanded the Russian
army. He would probably command
it again in the field in any campaign
that amounted to national emergen-
cy, for he is unquestionably Russia's
greatest general. He is the idol of the
army, for Skobeleff is a name to con-
jure with in the Russian service, and
he was Skobeleff's right-hand man in
four comprehensive Russo-Turkish
War. the Khivan expedition and the
Khokandese and Merry campaigns.
General AnnenkOff.
One of Kouropatkin's strongest sup
porters to-day is the same Gen. An !
nenloff who admired his march |
through the desert to join SkObeleff be- !
fore Cock Tepe. Gen. Annenkoff made |
a great reputa ton by building strategic |
in Central Asia. and his was
the vast scheme for a Trans-Siberian |
line to the Pacific. He first outlined |
that plan in detail during a visit to
Paris in 1891. Many so-called ''practi- |
cal men" laughed at him then but his |
ideas have since produced the greatest |
in the world. at an admitted |
cost of f55,000,000 and perhaps a great |
deal more.
Annenkoff is one of "Skobeleff's |
men," like Kouropatkin. No general is |