The Savannah morning news., 1904-04-10
BY WILLIAM THORP.

! history. Every one OF those engineers
! and surveyors proved worthy of mis-
] trust. Surrounded by thousands of
! fanatics eager for their blood, faced
! with the prospect of a death by hor-
rible torture, none of them became
| panic-stricken. They did not flee to
safety alone, In every case they took
! with them the subordinate Workmen,
the sick, and even the Chinese con-
verts. Nobody was left behind to the
fury of the Boxers, and the men in
charge were always the last to leave.
The Russians were quick to accept
| the challenge Of the Chinese. Almost
before the fanatical Boxers had finish
ed rejoicing over the flight of the
foreign devils" and the stoppage of
the railway work, five divisions of
Russians troops entered Manchuria
almost simultaneously from different
points and began the military conquest
of the country.
So rapid and well concerted were
these movements that the troops might
have been waiting on the border in
anticipation of just what happened.
Everything moved like clockwork.
Each Of the five divisions was victo-
rious from start to finish, and in a lit
tie over a month the whole country
was in the hands of the Russians.
Compared with BOer War.
This short and brilliant campaign Is
in remarkable contrast to the Boer
war. The territory conquered and
annexed was more than three times
as large as the Transvaal, and the
population was vastly greater For
practical purposes, the theater of war
vas farther removed from the Rus
sian capital than South Africa is from
London. On the other hand, the Beers
were far more formidable foes than
the Chinese troops, and were better
equipped.
The chief command of the military
operations was given to Gen. erode
koff, the military chief at that time Of
all the Russian forces east of Lake
Baikal; and Admiral AJexieff and Gen.
LinieVitch co-operated with him from
Port Arthur Russian fortress and
military depot of great strength even
then.
BY order of the Car, the troops in
Siberia and Eastern Turkestan were
placed on a war footing on July 81,
1900. Within less than a weekly
July 2S-Gen. Grodekoff, with his own
division. had cleared all the Chinese
from the banks of the Amur, and
driven away the besiegers who were
bombarding Blagovestchensk from the
Chinese town on the Manchurian side
OF the river.
Gradekoff's Blow.
Grodekoff struck promptly and
struck hard. He was trained under
Skobeleff in Central Asia, and, likeall
Skobeleffs officers he believes that
"Slay and spare mott" is the best
maxim when warning With Asiatics.
The Amur was checked with corpses.
On the red day of Blagovestchensk,"
before Grodekoff relieved that city,
five HUNDRED Cossacks drove 5000 or
1000 peaceful Chinese residents into
the stream to perish by drowning. Not
a single Chinese was left alive in
Blagovestchensk. Women and child
rem were massacred as freely as men,
neither age, sex, nor condition being
spared.
This terrible massacre might be
palliated on the ground of the terror
of the people at the prospect of a
Chinese rising in the very heart OF
their town. The Boxers were bonn
harding them from the other side of
the river, and almost every hour they
heard fresh stories of horrible bar
barities which had been practiced on
some unfortunate Russian captured by