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Show THE FIGHT ON THE YALU The fight on the banks' of the Yalu river in ..Hr5'- .(?5i.dWag'd' Was one of .the most desperate in' history. 'The guns of : the Russians on the. opposite side; of the stream were ptit out of actiop before the Japs attempted the passage. Reaching thoRussin force (which St. Petersburg dispatches placet hot more than S.OOO men), bc-tweeu.?0,000:and bc-tweeu.?0,000:and 40,000 of tho brown men gave battle to the czars soldiers raw 'regiments from; S.iber ja so it is said. General . Sasauli tch was' in command, and the 'story, goes that he was instructed instruct-ed by General Kuropatkin not to make any vigorous vigor-ous defense : of -the Russian position; but fall back and allow the enemy to occupy it until later on. . In the face of Overwhelming out m this . country ; wc; wouR" call sueV .' instructions good ; "horse sense;'!. ;But it whs disregarded. Somebody blundered, as Tcjinyeon puts it in" his poem bf the ba.ttlc..,Q.f. Biilaklaya,. Either that, or the sluggish Siberian blood-took-on - a red heat ; -perhaps this is more likely. . At any rate, both armies fought at short range, sometimes in hand to hand encounter, encoun-ter, like the Confedcrafes and Federals f ought at Franklin, Teiui., and at Gettysburg. - The incident of the priest, with uplifted cross, advancing at the head of the Eleventh Siberian regiment, 'is told elsewhere oa'this page. It must have been a thrilling thrill-ing sight. When it was over, 1,200 Russians lay dead on the field. Twice that number of the mikado's mika-do's soldiers were slain. At the place where the Eleventh made the desperate charge, headed by the priest, a thousand Japanese corpses attest the ferocity of the Russian charge. The Russians fell back to Kulicn Cheng. ' Falling Fall-ing back in the presence of a foe is generally called defeat., But if it was victory for the Japs, it was a dearly bought .victory; even though it gives them the esluarv of the Yalu. Tonight's (Thursday) dispatches report a second sec-ond fight, but details are lacking and confirmation has not been received. The rumor cornea from St. Petersburg and was sent to London. If true, it is to the'effet. that the Japs did not wait for the snow to melt or the grass grow under their feet, hut followed the ertemy to Kulien Cheng and gave them battle. The brown men, so it is said, were driven back in disorder, losing l0,00 men. Two or three days must elapse before wc can place IZl 1.. .1- MwH iu me rumor, The one thing which grieves the humanitarian. , perhaps even more than the loss oj life in battle, is the..feroeioas ardor each side, displays in san-Sujoary san-Sujoary encounter. Now mrp.than ever does the. passion for fight develop; and this in the enlightened enlight-ened twentieth Century. Yet if men are obliged ' to fight, it is best that they tight strong and brave-" bv So much the sooner the fight may be over. But why. should they fight at all when all that, is sought might be accomplished through peace? |