The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-05
TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CAPTURE OF.
 2O3-METRE HILL

In war, as in everything else, men learn by experience and obseryat1on' and in the present conflict in Europe the military leaders are putting into practice many of the lessons learned in past wars, but especially that be- tween Japan and Russia in 1904 ana 1905. The siege Of Port Arthur made necessary a revision of the theories entertained by strategists and experts as to the methods of modern warfare.
 One of the most desperate of the conflicts of that struggle for the mas ,tery in Asia was the siege of 203- Metre Hill. which ended just ten years ago to-day, December 5, l9O4' when the Japanese by final terrible onslaught captured that Russian stronghold. The victory of the little brown men of Nippon, won at a ter rible cost, was the beginning of the end, for it led inevitably to the later surrender of the town on January r. 1905, after a siege which had lasted 2S2 days.
 In defending 2o3-Metre Hill the Russian loss in killed and wounded was about 5000, but the Japanese casualties were five times as many, or about 15,000. When the Rising Sun flag was hoisted over the hill on that fifth of December, 9. decade ago, the whole theory of modern warfare had been upset The great lesson was that only the biggest guns can batter down modern Qualifications. Throughout August and September the Japanese had tried again and again to scale the heights, but the rnerciless fire from the forts and trenches moved them down, and the barbed wire entang1ements and oth- CT obstacles impeded their progress At last the lesson was impressed upon the Japanese, and in October they brought up a number of eIeven-inch naval guns and mounted them on a. nearby hill. Day and night they bombarded 203-Metre Hill, and grad ualIy reduced the defenses to piles of ruins Stf1I the Russians held on ganeIy, and it was not till the latter part of November that the Japanese began another general assault.
 Tn that desperate attack another lesson was impressed upon the mill tary world. It had been almost un1- versalIy declared that the bayonet was Japanese were almost alone in cling ing to a belief in the efficacy of that V eapon. Before the big artillery was brought up, the Japanese had made g bayonet charge up the hill, and had gained nearly two-thirds of the way before they were finally. stopped. In the final charge they used the bayo- net Swith deadly effectiveness.
 By the fourth of December the little brown men were near the last line of Russian defenses. They fought wrote a Russian newspaper corres- pondent who witnessed the grim struggle, like dends-fought till ex- hausted, till they lost consciousness. They dug through the night--ins many cases dug their own graves. At dawn the hill became agein smoking era ter=the focus of concentrated fire from many guns. Then the assault began and continued all day. 1t was a struggle of human flesh against iron and steel, against blazing petro- Ieam, lyddite, pyroxyline and nelin- ite and the stench of routing corpses-'
 At sunrise on the fRteful fifth of De- cember the Japanese began a last wild assault, and carried all before them. The bombardment by artillery ceased, and a fierce bayonet charge ended the conflict. With souts of tsBanzai" the brown men screamed up to the sum init of the hill, and the Russians fled. The most modern of artillery and the bayonet, an adaptation of the most ancient of weapons combined to bring about the victory,