The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1904-06-03
KoURoPATKlN IN REAL WAR.
Russian General Facing Fcer1en
Worthy Of His Steel.

II ought to be source o. consider
able qualification to Gen. Kouropatkin
TO have the opportunity of encounter
ing g. completely equipped and highly
Intelligent enemy. 4 warrior Of his
Eoracity could hardly have died re-
plete if the scanty fare of his previous
campaigns had not been supplemented
by this brawny piece de resistance.
For thirty-eight years kOuropatkin
fought Bokharians, AlgerianS, Khokan.
dams, Turks, Khivans. Samaritan
dams, Khirgbi2es, Tasbkendians and
variegated mid-Asiatics. His fOemen
were worthy of the arsenal OF stars,
swords and crosses which they won
for him from the cZar. They were
wolves. But that is just what they
were. Even the Turks, because Of the
infirmity Of their government, reSem-
bled a pack Of wise animals rathe:
than the army Of an organized nation,
When Kouropatkin went to st. Peters
burg in 1898 as minister OF war he
must have felt that he had been not
so much a ConquerOr Of men as hun
ter of inferior breeds.
To-day, as he watches Kurok! come
toward him over the ManchUrian hills
with a commissariat department and
chess game plan of campaign, his
heart should bound with the prospect
Of making his first offering II the
Temple of the Real Thing. ..
How many strange scenes drawn
from strange and widely separated
parts eff the habitable world, must
float now through KouropatR;n's
mind!
He must see himself as he was in
1874, young enough to have the wan
dering feeling in the feet" and there.
fore wandering to Algeria in the
French army under L0verdo, How far
away. how unreal those Algerians
must seem with whom he fought on
the desert sands and over whom he
rode into the Legion of Honor!
And then the Turks especially the
dead Turk under whose body he lay.
wounded and unconscious. all one
cold night! They must come back to
nim together with his chief Skohe-
EFF. standing shoulder TO shoulder
with him in hand to hand encounters
with bashi,bazouks and dripping
equally with blood while Archibald
Forbes asked them questions and tel
egraphed to his newspapers his ia
nous description of their gore en-.
DOssed uniforms.
Turks and Algerians, however,
aust be but feeble images to Kouro-
patkin compared with those mild
Asiatic Turcomans-Bokbar KhO-
kandians and the rest-whOm It was
his life mission to subdue. THE Rus
slams will not be able TO conquer the
Turcomans," said LORD Salisbury
The Turcoman barrier will last for
our lifetime at least" 1t was SkObe-
left and then Kouropatkin who rid
died this prophecy. The Turcomans
yielded to marches as magnificent as
that of Lord Roberts on Kandabar
and to massacres as pr0miscuous as
those Of Caesar in Gaul. Does K0uro.
patkin remember Geek Tepe now and
the 10000 men, women and children
delivered to the flesh and blood lust
of the Russian soldiery in one of
those thorough dissuasive lessons
which, in the book of Russian colon
Ial assimilation, precede the insidiOus |
suasion of administrative gentleness?
Certainly there could hardly be |
found for any individual man In any |
previous period Of the worlds history |
4 more varied retrospect than that |
which comes now to the Russian gen.
eral, who, continent away from
home, is taking what is perhaps his
last stand against the enemies Of his |
sovereign and is fighting instead Of |
hunting.