The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-12
TIE PASS RELrNaUIsHED.
KurOpatkin Does Not Stop at Second
 Defensive Point.

Defensive Point.
 Tie Pass, March 11.--(1:5S p. m.)- At o'clock Friday morning a great explosion blew up the Hun River bridge and an immense cloud of smoke from tho burning settlement gave in- disputable testimony of General Kuro- patkin's decision to rerlnauish also the second of his great positions. which was known on ThursdEy.
 The army was withdrawing all the latter half of the night while the houses of the settlement had been va- cated earlier and their lights burning. Morning showed through the great smoke clouds low-iytng for miles about the settlement, armies three and four files deep in all the main roads moving north along the east side of the railway.
 The battle still eentered north of the Imperial Tombs with occasional shots along the river. where later an open ing permitted the Japanese to make a quick advance and dash toward their concentrating and cutting on the Rus- sians.
 At 11:30 o'clock the Japanese had partly succeeded for at Tawan with shrapnel they shelled three sides of a rectangle where the army was moving with great exertion over inadequate though dry roads. and furrowed fields but In perfect order.
 The Japanese. however, accomplished at this place nothing more than mo- mentary stampede and though a sol- dier, crazed by bis efforts, threatened to shoot a correspondent in order to take his baggage cart for himself, the corrcsr ondent observed everywhere the coolness which has distinguished the Russian army throughout its try. ing retreats of the past year
 This retreat must be reckoned as a wonderful spectacle. For miles infan- trymen and baggage wagons today strewed the lines of march. For ra- pidity, the Japanese movement for tho first time were outstripped by the Rus sians in withdrawing. The Russian army perhaps had been staked more on the combined of it's commanders and risked more than fn any previous bat tie with the Japanese nc crucial point or the retreat oc1A Eea at dusk 'sxshnn tha. reap guard etro0MAss and the transport reached santaitze, ten miles north of Mukden, suddenly received a rife and grenade assault from Japan ese cavalry which produced a stam- pede. The success of the Japanese in closing against the armies that were trying to get away from the extended Hun River bridge position was evil dent.
 In ordering a retreat, General Kuro- patkin is said to have declared 1t was done in order to satisfy protesting opinion and that whatever the blame he would take it, which, in the light of events, seems to show that he best kne wthe capacity of the soldiers.
 The battle on the west flank and around Mukden appears to have been the greatest of the war, except at Port Arthur. During the terrible dust storm of Thursday, the Japanese. with ma chine guns, occupied several empty houses in a village held by the Rus. sians, and otherwise bettered their po- sition west of the railroad, so that when the retreat came with Japanese shells on all sides it suggested another Cronje incident For ten hours not q man or horse rested, while the wound ed gathered up on the two sides in the rear and often in the centre and every energy was bent toward getting out of the trap. the jaws of which was almost on the Russians.
 At Santaitze the Associated Press correspondent. with others, lost all baggage in the retreat Many bodies of troops were encountered, some of them in advance and some in the rear and they were constantly mistaken for the Japanese. Forty miles of retreat was accomplished fin seventeen hours through plowed fields, with enormous dust clouds, which made 1t impossible to see any distance A great amount of the equippage, ammunition, guns and stores of the Russians were lost.
 The losses of men on both sides are reckoned at 10000 for the entire fight.