Show 1111 11 11 AFTER newspaper correspondent with the rus sian army tells how well laid J plans were brought to nought jl at the ose of a bustling london bank holiday you may some imes see the collapsed h ap of a man on the pavement outside a house on the doorstep of which stands lent in rolled up sleeves the barman who just ejected him he half scrambles Is half assisted to his un steady feet rubs his eyes and looks incredulously at the unaccustomed col or which bis hands have carried away from his nose what was ita he asks in a dazed sort of way ahat was it I 1 tumbled overa come ome bill sais prudence his friend i diplomatically come just a little way up the street you caught 5 our foot in you dont v ant no disturbance here not tonight and bill with a little natural deluc tince allows himself to be persuaded at the corner of the street when the barman has gone ins de bill facing round shakes his fist in the direction of the closed door and says all right you you wait a bit I 1 know where to put my and on you when I 1 want ou you and half a dozen like you brinnin grinnin bloomin monkey then he recalls with the sympathetic of his friends the seeable circumstances that extenuate the fact the only way well there is Lia oyang away down the street with the japanese in session and here are we the russian army back in mukden trying to under stand how it all happened frankly we do not understand it at all our recollection of details is a good deal blurred but as far as we are able to remember when it came to straight fighting man ao man we were as good as he was and gave at least as good as we got he won t see too well with that right eye of his in a hurry and you could see for yourself by the way he waa nursing it that the knuckles of his left hand were badly abraded but as bill s extenuating sympathizers explained it you see your back was too close up against the partition an d he came over the counter sudden in stead of through the saloon as you expected so it be helped vou had to go ith us it was the flank that did it the position the japanese had held from the beginning of the war in the hills on our east flank we did well eno agh in the fighting division against min against man but when it come to moving to the dialing of fresh dispositions geography was against us we were too close up against the partition we could not dislodge them poor brave harassed keller had worn himself out and final ly hid lost his life in successive dash ing hopeless endeavors and when it came to the moving of army corps there was only one way to move out to advance southward even ing that it had been possible to drive the japanese back in that direction was only to run again into danger to advance eastward against the bill po irions had been demonstrated to be s i cide to move westward except to counter was starvation and destruct tion it was only by a movement northward that the troops could be employed with any hope of utility against the japanese and to move northward was another word or retreat ng for a great blow on the and of aug there had been three days of mur serous fighting that do not count each day saw much fighting of which no one now seems to know anything its importance and its fury almost the memory of it were blotted out by the overwhelming experiences that fol lowed it was merely the fighting incident al to the final disposition tor the great struggle the japanese were closing up their front within striking distance and driving outposts back upon the man hussian positions until the two armies were ranged in two concentric semi circles of which Lia oyang was the center the russians to meet the coming attack had withdrawn for the advantage of concentration as far as concentration could be carried with out degeneration into overcrowding with the inside track and the shorter re ot the inner circle gen couro could bring as many of his troops as he desired to bear in which ever direction the turn of events might make desirable and if necessary the whole power and weight of the army could be launched in one terrific blow against kuroki alone on the top ot the eastern plain the japanese so much wider spread were incapable of any such quick concentration they were three distinct armies which could act in but not in unity but suppose the japanese did not make a perilous frontal attacks sup poe instead that curol t moved northward across the Tait and left that terrible mountain position from which it had been impossible to d him imperfectly guarded dislodged himself in fact with the i ie v of cutting the railway line and completing the investment of the tiong that was almost too good to come true for given a swift move mont of the concentrated forces and tor once there would be a battle with the russians in vastly superior force kuroki ild be detached and over whelmed and the terrible bogy of the eastern hills would paralyze the rus movement no more it would be an easy matter after that to deal with the others but well it all happened just as it might have happened only somehow or other it all seems to have happened differ antly oku and 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 arving to the russian mind the imbres slon of a losing fight and kuroki left his impregnable mountains and moved northward across the Talt and immediately came the swift movement of concentrated forces and three army corps had him at their mercy it had all come true and victory the ineal 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 bit us what it was we tumbled over some say it was the orloff regiments of the fifth siberian corps who fired on one another in the kaoliang instead of on s advancing legions and hav ing signally defeated one another mis took their direction others say it was the fault of the kaoliang growing afif teen feet high and othera blame one of the army corps to which they them selves do not belong I 1 have a hazy sort of notion which is worth nothing that it was geog rapha that did it geography in corn with the as yet half realized new conditions which modern long range arms have created those far eastern mountains were in the wrong place slot according to program perhaps the critical moment in the battle of Lla oyang was when the japa nese took the pass but as far as I 1 can make out from a 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 cental himself for separation and demolition by the concentrated force of three army corps either however he failed to be de moll shed or the three army corps somehow were unable to get at him effectively he was defeated hand bomely 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 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 w tn such 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 well as on both flanks there was the disquieting discovery also that kuroki was not exactly where he was supposed to be that in he had edged northward in a most unpleasant way and that the army was about to be surrounded not in well furnished fortified Lla oyang but out in the kaoliang plain about cental where there were no positions no perforations no stores no and no earthly chance rifle bullets were already falling from kuroki s rifles on the east when from the west was heard the boom of 3 pursuing artillery there was no time to be lost and nothing tor it but hateful word but we made no bones about it retreat charles E hands in london mall |