Yet with all their facilities they were not ready to
move on his works until winter imposed a suspension of hostilities.
On October 2 Kuropatkin published a boastful manifesto expressing
confidence in the issue of the coming conflict--trusting no doubt
to the help of the three generals, December, January, and February.
Five months later, on March 8, 1905, he sent two telegrams to the
Czar: the first said "I am surrounded;" the second, a few hours
later, conveyed the comforting intelligence "the army has escaped."
The Japanese, not choosing to encounter the rigours of a Manchurian
winter, waited till the advent of spring. The air was mild and the
streams spanned by bridges of ice. The manoeuvres need not be
described here in detail. After more than ten days of continuous
fighting on a line of battle nearly two hundred miles long, with
scarcely less than a million of men engaged (Japanese in majority
as before), the great Russian strategist broke camp and retired
in good order. His army had escaped, but it had lost in killed
and wounded 150,000. The losses of Japan amounted to 50,000.
[Page 190]
The greatest battle of this latest war, the Battle of Mukden was
in some respects the greatest in modern history. In length of line,
in numbers engaged, and in the resulting casualties its figures
are double those of Waterloo. Once more by masterly strategy a
rout was converted into a retreat; and the Russian army withdrew
to the northwest.
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