t by tearing up the railway. Accordingly,
on January 8th, General Mishchenko's division of Cossacks,
Caucasians, and Dragoons, mustering six thousand sabres, with six
batteries of light artillery, crossed the Hun River and marched south
on a five-mile front. Throughout the war the Cossacks, of whom a very
large force was with the Russian army, had hitherto failed to
demonstrate their usefulness, and this raid in force was regarded
with much curiosity. It accomplished very little. Its leading
squadrons penetrated as far south as Old Niuchwang, and five hundred
metres of the railway north of Haicheng were destroyed, a bridge also
being blown up. But this damage was speedily restored, and as for the
reconnoitring results of the raid, they seem to have been very
trifling.

THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN

After the battle of Heikautai, which cost the Russians twenty
thousand casualties and exposed the troops to terrible hardships,
Kuropatkin's army did not number more than 260,000 effectives. On the
other hand, he could rely upon a constant stream of re-enforcements
from Europe, as the efficiency of the railway service had been
enormously increased by the genius and energy of Prince Khilkoff,
Russian minister of Ways and Communications. In fact, when all the
forces under orders for Manchuria had reached their destination,
Kuropatkin would have under his command twelve army corps, six
rifle-brigades, and nine divisions of mounted troops, a total of
something like half a million men. Evidently the Japanese would not
have acted wisely in patiently awaiting the coming of these troops.
Moreover, since the break-up of winter would soon render temporarily
impossible all operations in the field, to have deferred any forward
movement beyond the month of March would have merely facilitated the
massing of Russian re-enforcements in the lines on the Shaho, where
the enemy had taken up his position after his defeat at Heikautai.
These considerations induced Marshal Oyama to deliver an attack with
his whole force during the second half of February, and there
resulted a conflict which, under the name of the "battle of Mukden,"
will go down in the pages of history as the greatest fight on record.

It has been claimed by the Russians that Kuropatkin was thinking of
assuming the offensive when the Japanese forced his hand; but however
that may be, the fact is that he fought on the defensive as he had
done throughout the whole war with two exception