Five heavy engagements, beginning with Fenshuiling on
the 26th of June and ending with Yangtzuling on July 31st, were
fought in these circumstances, and in every instance the Japanese
emerged victorious. From the commencement of the land campaign until
the end of July the invading army's casualties were 12,000, while the
Russian losses, exclusive of those at Port Arthur, aggregated 28,000
killed and wounded, and 113 light siege-and field-guns, together with
eighteen machine-guns, captured.

THE BATTLE OF LIAOYANG

The first great phase of the field-operations may be said to have
terminated with the battle of Liaoyang, which commenced on August
25th and continued almost without interruption for nine days,
terminating on the 3rd of September. In this historic contest the
Russians had 220,000 men engaged. They were deployed over a front of
about forty miles, every part of which had been entrenched and
fortified with the utmost care and ingenuity. In fact, the position
seemed impregnable, and as the Japanese could muster only some
200,000 men for the attack, their chances of success appeared very
small. Desperate fighting ensued, but no sensible impression could be
made on the Russian lines, and finally, as a last resource, a strong
force of Kuroki's army was sent across the Taitsz River to turn the
enemy's left flank. The Russian general, Kuropatkin, rightly
estimated that the troops detached by General Kuroki for this purpose
were not commensurate with the task assigned to them, whereas the
Russians could meet this flanking movement with overwhelming
strength. Therefore, Kuropatkin sent three army corps across the
river, and by September 1st, the Japanese flanking forces were
confronted by a powerful body.

Strategists are agreed that, had Kuropatkin's plans found competent
agents to execute them, the Japanese advance would have been at least
checked at Liaoyang. In fact, the Japanese, in drafting their
original programme, had always expected that Nogi's army would be in
a position on the left flank in the field long before there was any
question of fighting at Liaoyang. It was thus due to the splendid
defence made by the garrison of the great fortress that Kuropatkin
found himself in such a favourable position at the end of August. But
unfortunately for the Russians, one of their generals, Orloff, who
had thirteen battalions under his command, showed incompetence, and
falling into an ambuscade in the course of the c