Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1904 — PROGRESS OF THE WAR [ARTICLE]

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The past week has been one of activity in the Far East and severe battles have been fought both on land and sea. The Japanese around Port Arthur renewed their assault on the outlying defenses of the town. With Takushan, elevation 845 feet, on the northeast as a vantage ground, they kept up a constant hammering on all the eastern lines of the enemy. At the same time, on the opposite flank of the besieged, a heavy attack was developed against the forts-on Liauti "Mountain. -Liautishan is 1.512 feet high, being by several hundred feet the greatest elevation in that part of the peninsula. A battery maintained on top of the hill could direct a plunging fire upon all fortifications within range. It is uncertain whether the Japanese have managed to take the hill. The Chinese reports are contradictory. There have been many and circumstantial reports as to the use of land mines by the Russian defenders. The stories of the casualties caused by them must, however, have been enormously exaggerated. It would require the mining of acres of ground to destroy any large quantity of troops In open order. Rifle fire is less dramatic than land mines—and more effective. Early in the week the Japanese gained nearly every position outside the main chain of forts, but at the cost of many lives. « The Chinese report that the Japs took Fort Palicbwang, near the rail-, road, but the subsequent ’evening a sortie drove them out of it again. They retreated to Suciszeying. Tuesday morning the Japanese sent an officer under a white flag to demand the surrender of Port Arhtur. The rather fanciful terms announced by the Chinese refugees, that the fleet should be turned over intact, that the 20,000 defenders might march out with their arms and join Kouropatkin’s

army in Manchuria are not confirmed in the official account received from Tokio. An answer was demanded within twenty-four hours. Whatever the terms, they were rejected by General Stoessel, who broke through his habitual taciturnity into profanity as he considered the Japanese proposition. Perhaps in the future, when war has become more of a science and less of an art, if it can be mathematically demonstrated to a commander that he is hopelessly surrounded and outnumbered, that his resistance will merely prolong the suffering of his men, and that it will accomplish no good to his country, perhaps when that time has come the average ctizen will throw up his hands in horror at the general who refuses to be governed by the logic of the situation and who prefers to fight a hojieless battle rather than to surrender. Such a general will then be called a bloodthirsty butcher, a barbarian, a species of avatlsm. But that time has not come yet. > The battle In the straits of Korea, where Vice Admiral Kamimura, with four armored cruisers, met the three armored cruisers of the Vladivostok squadron, resulted in the sinking of one, the Rurlk. The Rqssla and Gromoboi returned to Vladivostok under their own engines. If Kamimura had fought but a little harder, a little longer, and a little closer, the Rossla and Gromoboi would never have got back to port. They were in a fearfully battered condition. Why be quit fighting when the Muscovites, according to their own "reports, were all but sinking, remains a mystery. He did not have Togo's excuse that he must preserve bls ships against the possible advent of the Baltic squadron. Togo bad already won bls fight and the Japanese command of the sea was