Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1904-12-17
Observation-Disclosures r~@a~.~eAr--sva-~S
AFTER LIAOYANG FIGHT ;
Newspaper Correspondent with the Rus
sian Army Tells How Well-Laid
Plans Were Brought to No,l<sht.

e.anese1ye0S4
eastern hills would paralyze the Rus
sian movement no more. 1t would be
an easy matter after that to deal with
the others.
Well, it all happened just as it might
have happened, only somehow or other
it all seems to have happened differ
emily. Oku and Nodzu made direct at
tacks across the open, hurled them
selves against the solid wall of rifles,
against positions and trenches, weak
ened themselves by successive attacks
which accomplished little or nothing,
and certainly never succeeded in car
rying to the Russian mind the impress
sion of a losing fight. And Kuroki left
his impregnable mountains and moved
northward across the Taitseho. and
Immediately came the swift movement
of concentrated forces, and three army
corps had him at their mercy. 1t had
all come true, and victory, the inevi-
table victory, was resting with her old
familiar friends, the Russian troops.
But. Well, here we are in Muk-
den trying to make out what hit us,
what it was we tumbled over. Some
say it was the Or1off regiments of the
Fifth Siberian corps who fired on one
another in the kaoliang instead of on
Kuroki's advancing legions, and, hav-
ing signally defeated one another, mis-
took their direction. Others say it was
the fault of the kaoliang growing fif-
teen feet high, and others blame one
of the army corps to which they them
selves do not belong.
I have hay sort of notion, which
is worth nothing, that it was geog-
raphy that did it, geography in COM
bination with the as yet half-reaIized
new conditions which modern long
range arms have created Those Far
Eastern mountains were in the wrong
place
Not According to Program.
Perhaps the critical moment in the
battle of Liaoyang was when the Japa-
nese took the Motienling pass. But
as far as l can make out from batch
of contradictory explanations quite a
lot of things went wrong just at the
critical moment. Not only did the
Japanese coming from the south de-
part in an inconsiderate manner from
the program of What Ought to Have
Been; but Kuroki, on the east, varied
it in at least one important particular.
He duly crossed the river towards the
coal mines east of Yentai, Offering
himself for separation and demolition
by the concentrated force of three
army corps.
Either, however, he failed to be de-
molished, or the three army corps
somehow were unable to get at him
effectively. He was defeated hand
somely enough. There was no doubt
of that-defeated and isolated, for the
hill positions between him and the
south were brilliantly taken.
But just at the moment when he
was surrounded and the rest of the
program was easy came the startling
discovery that Liaoyang could be no
longer held, that the Japanese south
ern armies, instead of remaining at
the standstill to which they had been
beaten, were advancing with such ra-
pidity on the west, as well as on the
east, that the whole Russian force was
in imminent danger of being taken in
the rear, as we'll as on both TANKS.
There was the disquieting discovery,
also. that Kuroki was not exactly
where he was supposed to be-that, in
fact, he had edged northward in a
most unpleasant way, and that the
army was about to be surrounded, not
in wellfurnished, fortified Liaoyang,
but out in the kaoliang plain about
Yentai, where there were no positions,
no perforations, no stores, no fortifi-
cations, and no earthly chance.
Rifle bullets were already falling
from Kuroki's rifies-on the east when
from the west was heard the boom of
Nodzu's pursuing artillery There was
no time to be lost, and nothing for it
but-hateful word, but we made no
bones about Observation-Disclosures E.
Hands in London Mail.
Thnus nds of Glass Ewes