centre to reinforce his right, and as Nodzu took advantage to advance in the centre Kuropatkin ordered a retreat of his whole army to the next line of hills. This practically broke the line between his left and centre. The retirement of the main forces was begun on the 13th. The retreat was cleverly executed by the troops opposed to Kuroki, who allowed himself to pause in front of a mere cavalry screen of Mistchenko's cavalry. Fighting did not cease till the 18th. The losses were enormous on both sides, that of the Russians being placed at 60,000, or 25 per cent. of the their forces engaged. General Kuropatkin proceeded to carry out a reorganization of his troops which were divided into three armies of 4 corps each under the command of Generals Linievitch (q.v.) Kaulbars (q.v.), and Grippenberg, with a total estimated strength of 250,000 men. Early in January, 1905, General Mistchenko's cavalry executed a daring raid around the Japanese left as far as Niu-chwang. But of greater import was an attempt made by General Grippenberg in the later part of the month. With a force of some 85,000 men and 350 guns he crossed the Hun River on the 25th and carried the village of Hei-ku-tai on the extreme left of the Japanese line. At the same time the village of San-de-pu to the westward was assailed, and had it been carried a division of Oku's army would have been completely envolved. But Sande-pu was strongly fortified and held out until reinforcements arrived on the 27th. On the 29th the Russians were driven back across the Hun River with a loss of 10,000 men. The Japanese loss was 7000. General Grippenberg ascribing his defeat to the failure of General Kuropatkin to co-operate by a general attack, laid down his command on February 3, and was succeeded by General Bilderling.

THE SIEGE AND FALL OF PORT ARTHUR. While the three Japanese armies were thus pushing the Russian army farther from the seaboard, a fourth army (the Third Army, officially) under General Nogi was engaged in the reduction of Russia's great naval base in the Kwan-tung peninsula. General Nogi had taken up the task where General Oku had left it after the battle of Kin-chow. After that defeat the Russians had retired to an exterior line of defense stretching across the peninsula of Kwan-tung from Sia-ping-tao northward through Kien and Wai-ten hills. On June 26, 1904, General Nogi began an assault on this line and by the first week in July the Russians had been driven to a second line running almost parallel to the first, from the bay of Yin-chen on the north to the western shore of the bay of Lungwang on the south. With July 26 began four days of terrific fighting in which the Japanese displayed a fanatic infatuation for death. On the 26th and the 27th, the assaults of the Japanese were repulsed, Russian and Japanese ships taking part in the fighting as at Kin-chow. On the evening of the 28th, however, General Stoessel withdrew his left and centre to Wolf's Hill. The struggle was renewed on the 30th, when Stoessel retired from Wolf's Hill and within his permanent works. The Japanese had thus penetrated to within 2%-5 miles from the main works. On August 7 naval guns were planted on Wolf's Hill and a bombardment of the Russian ships in the harbor was begun. The Japanese fire was reinforced when on the night of the 8th they assaulted Taku Hill and took it after fifteen hours'

fighting. Siege guns were mounted upon Taku and it was perhaps the increased hail of shot which fell from Taku and Wolf's Hill that drove the Russian fleet to make the attempt of August 10 at breaking through Togo's lines. On the same day the Japanese attacked the Russian infantry positions in front of the works and were repelled with fearful loss. On August 16 Nogi made a formal demand for the surrender of the fortress and Stoessel's refusal was followed by a general onslaught lasting from August 19 to August 24. But in spite of enormous loss during the five days' fighting, estimated at 14,000, the besiegers made little progress.

As a result General Nogi abandoned the method of advance by assault, under which his army was melting away, for the regular siege methods of approach by sap and parallel. No strikingly novel features were developed in the conduct of the siege operations though well established principles were applied by the Japanese engineers with great ingenuity. By the latter part of October the Japanese saps had been carried to within 150 feet of the counter-scarps of the Sung-shu, Er-hlung, and East Kee-kwan forts, which constituted the main position on the northeast and east of the town. There was a tremendous bombardment of these forts from October 25 to October 28, and on the 30th the crests and glacis of the Sung-shu, Er-hlung, and the north fort of Kee-kwan were occupied. November 26 the besiegers began a fierce attack on the great central forts. On the west, 203 Metre Hill was occupied on November 30, but the attack on Er-hlung and Sung-shu failed. The slaughter was so appalling that a six hours' suspension of hostilities was agreed upon on December 2, to permit of the burial of the dead, whose presence was a menace to both armies.

On

The end of Port Arthur came rapidly. Directed by observations from 203 Metre Hill the Japanese, on December 3, resumed the bombardment of the harbor, heavily damaging the Russian fleet. On December 18 the north fort of East Keekwan was taken and on December 22 Pigeon Bay Promontory was occupied, completing the loss of the Russian advanced defenses on the west. Er-hlung was mined, breached with dynamite, and carried by assault on December 28; and Sung-shu was taken on the last day of the year. On New Year's day, 1905, H fort, Pan-lung Hill, and the Wan-tai forts were taken, thus giving the Japanese possession of all the east ridge fortifications. On the following day the Russians blew up East Kee-kwan and Q forts and destroyed the shipping in the harbor. On December 31 General Stoessel had written to General Nogi opening negotiations for surrender. The Japanese commander replied on January 1, and the terms of capitulation were settled and signed on the afternoon of the following day. Between January 3 and January 7 the evacuation of Port Arthur by the Russians was accomplished. The fortress surrendered with all its property and defenders, the parole being extended to all officers who wished to make use of it. The Japanese reported the surrender of 17 admirals and general officers, 1439 officers, and 40,185 non-commissioned officers and men. Of these 15,307 were sick and wounded. There were also taken 528 guns with 206,000 rounds of ammunition.

THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN. The fall of the great fortress relieved Nogi's army for service in the north, and by February 20 the veterans of Port

Arthur had taken their place on the front at the extreme west of the Japanese line and somewhat south of the position held by the other armies. A fifth army composed of reservists under the command of General Kawamura had been placed in the field on the right of Kuroki, the armies in the Japanese battle line, counting from east to west, being Kawamura, Kuroki, Nodzu, Oku, and Nogi. Ever since the battle of the Sha River the hostile armies had confronted each other over lines which gradually increased in length to about 60 miles with their centres along the Sha river about 20 miles south of Mukden. In places the lines were not twenty yards apart. It was the Japanese purpose to execute a vast flanking movement around the Russian right with Nogi as the instrument, and it was General Kuropatkin's fatal error that in anticipation of a turning movement on his left he weakened his line on the other flank, and sent a large force from his reserves to Ma-chun-tun and Ti-ta. The preliminary fighting was begun on February 19 by Kawamura, who crossed the frozen Taitsz River, and after prolonged assaults carried the Ching-ho-cheng defile on the 24th. On the 28th he was in front of the strongly fortified Russian positions at Ma-chun-tun and Ti-ta, southeast of Fu-shun. Further to the west Kuroki advanced from the Pen-hsi-hu district upon Kao-tu-ling. Nodzu also made a slight advance. Oku and Nogi as yet did not enter the conflict, though the latter had begun his march to the north on Febuary 26.

On February 28 began the real battle of Mukden, which was not to end till 12 days later, as the most tremendous struggle between two armies in history. On that day Oku began his advance northward between the Sha and the Hun rivers, while to the west, between the Hun River and the Liao, Nogi's columns hurried in the same direction. On March 1 the head of Nogi's army had reached Hsin-min-tun, about 33 miles directly west of Mukden, and he began to veer his line towards Mukden, with an eastern front extending over 15 miles. Only then did Kuropatkin become aware of the danger which threatened the line of his retreat to the north, and he attempted to drive back Nogi and Oku, to the south and east of Nogi, by sending two divisions of his reserve to reinforce the right. But to prevent his giving sufficient attention to the need of the Russian right wing, Nodzu and Kuroki, on the south front, delivered furious attacks against the Russian centre which were repulsed with loss. By March 5 Kaulbars, in command of the Russian right, had been compelled to face about westward on a line running from Ma-chio-pu north-northeast. The Russian line that day was in form a crescent with its horns twisted north, on the west by Nogi, and on the east to a less degree by Kuroki and Kawamura, and it was the intention of the Japanese to continue pressing back the horns of the crescent until they should meet and form a circle with Mukden and the Russian army in the middle. On the 5th Kuropatkin began to draw in another division from the east but when these, with the former reserves, failed to make any impression on the two western Japanese armies, he determined on the 8th to withdraw his entire left and centre across the Hun River and to throw his main strength against Oku and Nogi. The Russian left under Linievitch during the 8th and 9th effected its withdrawal across the river without

serious harm and prepared to make a stand. But at Mukden the situation was a hopeless one. The forces of Kaulbars were exhausted, the reserves were used up, Mukden was congested with troops arriving from the centre, and exposed to a destructive cross fire, while Nogi was fast closing up the line of retreat to the north.

The situation on the 9th would be represented by picturing Mukden as deep within a bottleshaped curve whose sides were constituted by the two western Russian armies, with a narrow opening only to the northeast, where Linievitch was keeping back the Japanese right. The sides of the bottle were being contracted by Nogi from the northwest and by Oku and Nodzu from the southwest and the south. Desperate though conditions were, Kuropatkin, by equally desperate attacks, had succeeded finally in checking Nogi and Oku for a time, when news reached the commander-in-chief that the centre had been pierced between Linievitch and Bilderling, and though only a few Japanese troops had in reality penetrated the line, Kuropatkin feared the complete envelopment of his two western armies, and on the evening of the 9th gave the order for retreat. Mukden was occupied by the Japanese on the following morning, though parties of Russians continued to maintain themselves in the surrounding villages till the next day. On the 10th Nogi was square across the line of retreat. Mukden had thus been enveloped, but not with the inclusion of the entire Russian army, since the Japanese line had been drawn not around the Russian left wing but through a gap in the Russian centre. The eastern Russian army under Linievitch made good its retreat to the north; part of Bilderling's army escaped in disorder. But the bulk of Kaulbars's army was caught within the Japanese cordon around Mukden. The Russians made good their retreat through Tie pass. The Russians lost over 40,000 prisoners and left 26,500 dead on the field. The Japanese losses were given at 882 officers and 41,212 men. There was no further serious fighting in Manchuria till the end of the war.

OCCUPATION OF SAGHALIEN. On July 7 an army under General Haraguchi landed in southern Saghalien and on the following day occupied Korsakov, which was abandoned by its garrison. A few days later the Russians were defeated at Daline. Alexandrovsk, the capital of the island, was occupied on the 24th, and Rykoff, in the interior, was taken three days later. On the 31st the Russian military governor surrendered and the conquest of the island was complete. A Japanese landing on the Siberian coast at Castries Bay was made on July 24.

THE PEACE OF PORTSMOUTH.

On

On June 8, 1905, President Roosevelt addressed to the governments of Russia and Japan a note, in which he proffered his services towards the re-establishment of peace in the Far East. June 10, the Japanese government declared itself prepared to proceed with the nomination of peace plenipotentiaries, and Russia took similar action two days later. Washington was fixed upon as the meeting-place for the peace conference; actually, however, it assembled at Portsmouth Navy Yard, which was chosen probably with a view to promoting the comfort of the negotiators during the heat of summer. The representatives of

Japan, Baron Jutaro Komura (q.v.), Japanese minister of foreign affairs, and Kogoro Tokahira (q.v.), Japanese ambassador at Washington, arrived in New York on July 25, and on the 27th they were received by President Roosevelt at Oyster Bay. The Russian delegation, headed by Sergius Witte (q.v.), whose colleague was Baron Rosen, the Russian ambassador at Washington, arrived in New York on August 2. On August 5 the peace delegates of the two nations were formally received and introduced to each other by President Roosevelt, on board the Mayflower, in Oyster Bay.

The Conference met at Portsmouth Navy Yard on August 9, for the purpose of deciding on matters of procedure and detail. In the session of August 10, Baron Komura submitted the Japanese terms of peace in writing. On the 12th the Russian reply was presented. It accepted some of the Japanese proposals and rejected others. It was then agreed to take up the discussion of the Japanese terms by clauses, leaving the contentious articles to the end. It became known that of the round dozen of demands presented by the Japanese the Russian plenipotentiaries stood ready to accept all but four. These were, the payment of an indemnity by Russia; the cession to Japan of the Island of Saghalien; the surrender of such Russian war vessels as had escaped from the scene of hostilities and found refuge in foreign harbors; and the limitation for the future of Russia's strength in the Far East.

On August 18 the Conference agreed to the last of the non-contentious points. The four points in dispute were disposed of by recording a definite disagreement, whereupon the negotiators adjourned till August 22. It thus seemed as if the Conference were doomed to failure, and as a matter of fact, as a conference, it failed to bring about peace. In subsequent negotiations the peace plenipotentiaries acted merely as the agents of their governments, by whom the direct conduct of affairs was now assumed. This result was due to the action of President Roosevelt, who late in the night of August 18 summoned Baron Rosen, the junior Russian plenipotentiary, to Oyster Bay. To Baron Rosen, on August 19, the President is said to have expressed his anxious desire that the work of the Conference should not prove fruitless, and to have tendered his good offices for the avoidance of such an outcome. Baron Rosen returned to Portsmouth the same day. From this time the President was in close communication with the governments at St. Petersburg and Tokio; with the former through Mr. Meyer, United States Ambassador at St. Petersburg; with the latter, it was conjectured, largely through the agency of Baron Kentaro Kaneko (q.v.), who was regarded as the personal representative of Marquis Ito in this country, and, consequently, as in favor of a generous policy towards Russia. The peace conference met again on August 22 and August 23. At the later session, or in the course of private communication between the plenipotentaries at about this time, it was understood that the Japanese professed themselves ready to waive the question of an indemnity, of the surrender of the interned ships, and of the limitation of Russia's naval strength in the Pacific, and agreed to give up Saghalien in exchange for a large sum of money, supposed to be about $600,000,000. This pro

posal was rejected by the Russian representatives as amounting in effect to the payment of an indemnity in thinly disguised form.

On August 26 United States Ambassador Meyer informed the President of the utmost concessions to which the Russian government would agree, the surrender of the southern half of Saghalien, together with reimbursement of the outlay incurred by Japan in the entertainment of the large number of Russian prisoners of war. Thereupon, the prime centre of negotiations shifted to Tokio, where the President's influence sought to make itself felt. On August 28 there was a prolonged session at Tokio of the Cabinet and the Elder Statesmen under the presidency of the Emperor, the outcome of which was made apparent on the following day at Portsmouth, when, greatly to the surprise of the Russians, the Japanese plenipotentiaries, waiving their claim for indemnity, agreed to make peace on the basis of the Czar's ultimatum. The treaty was signed at Portsmouth on September 5 and was subscribed by the two emperors in duplicate on October 14.

The terms of the treaty of Portsmouth, which is in fifteen articles with two supplementary paragraphs, are as follows: Russia cedes to Japan that portion of the Island of Saghalien lying south of the fiftieth parallel of latitude, the two powers agreeing not to take any military measures that would impede the free navigation of the Straits of La Pérouse and Tartary (Art. IX). Russia transfers to the government of Japan, with the consent of the Chinese government, the leasehold of Port Arthur, Ta-lien, and adjacent territory in the Liao-tung peninsula (V), as well as the railway from Port Arthur to ChangChun or Kwang-cheng-tse (a town north of the half-way point from Mukden to Harbin), together with all coal mines owned and operated by the railway (VI). Russia recognizes the paramount position of Japan in Korea with the right to take such measures for guidance, protection, or control as may be deemed necessary (II). Japan and Russia engage to evacuate Manchuria completely and simultaneously and to restore it to Chinese administration (III) within a period of eighteen months (Additional Article I), reserving the right to maintain guards for the protec tion of their railway lines, with a maximum of fifteen guards per kilometre; the railways in Manchuria are not to be exploited for strategic purposes (VII). Russia and Japan engage not to interfere with any measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of commerce and industry in Manchuria (IV). Russia grants to Japanese subjects the rights of fishery along the coasts of the Russian possessions in the Japan, Okhotsk, and Bering Seas (XI).

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE WAR. The war in the Far East brought forth nothing distinctly new as regards International Law, but two or three fairly well accepted principles received further interpretation, and this interpretation is unfavorable to belligerents. The principle which has received most extensive modification is that which concedes to belligerent ships the privilege of entering neutral ports for the purpose of temporary asylum, procuring stores, or effecting repairs. Previous to the Russo-Japanese War the limitations of this privilege were ill-defined. The broad rule that neutral ports should not be used as bases for taking on large quantities of coal and other