Arizona republican., 1904-07-14
The Port Arthur Horror.


 If the Russian news from Port Ar thur is true. the disaster suffered by the Japanese land forces on Sunday night was so appalling as to be almost beyond comprehension. All the history of ancient and modern warfare fur nishes no parallel to the instantaneous killing or wounding of 3O.OOO men. In few battles indeed, in modern times have the losses on a single side been so vast, even when the struggle lasted for days.
 The battle of Borodino, the bloodiest combat of the nineteenth century, and Grants battles in the Wilderness alone surpass the Port Arthur catastrophe in casualties, and Waterloo barely equals it Gettysburg does not approach it. Neither does Gravelotte or Sedan. And all of these battles lasted from hours to days.
 At Borodino. which began the serious fighting of Napoleon's disastrous cam paign against Russia, the French losses were 10000, and the Russian losses were quite as much. Borodino's great total of SO,OOO men killed, wounded or missing, will probably stand for all time as the most terrible in mortality that history can afford since the intro duction of gunpowder. Grant s losses in the Wilderness during two weeks of fighting aggregated 9,774 men
 
 ing, or a total of 54,9S4, but these losses were sustained in series of separate battles comprising the Battle of the Wilderness" from May to May ', 1864. and the battles of Spottsylvania Court House, Fredericksburg road, Laurel Hill, Nye River, and several smaller engagements, lasting from May to May IS. During the same period the Confederate losses were 21,O0O, bringing the total of killed, wounded and missing in the two weeks to some thing over 75,OOO men on both sides.
 Gettysburg ranks as the bloodiest single battle of our civil war, and Americans generally regard it as the most sanguinary battle of modern times, but it was surpassed by both Borodino and Waterloo. At Gettys- burg the Union side lost 2,S94 men kill cd. 13.7O9 wounded. and 6,643 missing a total loss of 23,1S6. The Confcderates lost 2592 killed, 12,7O9 wounded, and 1i2O1 captured or missing aggre- gate loss of 31, ,765 men.
 At Waterloo Napoleon lost 51 1C9o men. killed, wounded and missing against 2242s lost by Wellington and Butcher.
 At GTavelOtte, the deadliest battle of the Franco -Prussian war, the Ger mans. with an army of 2O5, 900 lost 20,- O0O men, as against the French loss of 1S,OOO out of an army of 1sO,OOO. At Sc dan. which sealed the fate of the Third Napoleon and his empire, the French loss was 17.O0O; the German, S,97O.
 Other great battles than Gettysburg of our civil war, such as Bull Run, Shiloh, Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, An tetam, Corinth, Atlanta, TreI tricks tlrg. Stones river, Chickamauga and Chancellorsville, which served to make the war of the rebellion the most stu pendous struggle known to civilization. all fell short of the single catastrophe at Port Arthur in casualties.
 According to the Russian reports, the % coo Japanese were killed by mine. It has been generally known that the Russians had mined all the approaches to Port Arthur, on the land as well as the sea, and it has been expected that the Japanese would suffer serious losses if they attempted to charge across the loaded" ground. But it was expected, also, that they would be as expert as they were at Nanshan hill in discovering and sever ing the wires 10 the underground mag azines. It is yet inconceivable how as many as 3OOOO men could be disabled by a single explosion, however, unless