4

SHAHO

The battle of Liaoyang had ended in a Japanese victory. However costly a victory it may have been, the fact that the adversary retreated (having suffered minimal damage) put the battle undeniably in Japan’s win column.

General Kuropatkin insisted on calling the pullout a “tactical withdrawal,” but since the bed he left behind when he fled Liaoyang became Ōyama Iwao’s favorite place to take a nap, the only logical conclusion was that Russia had indeed suffered a defeat. The world saw it that way too. The Russian court was beside itself, dubbing Kuropatkin “General Retreat.”

“What does a young punk like Kuropatkin know anyway?” growled the old general Linevich, stationed in Manchuria under a separate command. Because Linevich had taken a personal hand in the Russian Army’s looting of the Beijing palace during the Boxer Rebellion, Witte saw him as lacking in common sense, someone who ought not to be entrusted with any position above regimental commander. Others murmured that Linevich spoke ill of Kuropatkin to the tsar just because he wanted his job. Kuropatkin’s retreat was no libel, though, but incontrovertible fact.

Witte, having opposed the war from the first, had been shoved aside and forced into semiretirement. He was an enlightened patriot who, on receiving news of Russia’s defeat at Liaoyang, said, “Russia’s in for it now.”

Witte’s Western education colored his view of the Russian Empire. “What makes the world fear Russia?” he asked rhetorically. “Is it Russian culture? Russian wealth? Unfortunately, no. At first Russia was just a small semi-Asiatic kingdom. One thing alone made our country the greatest power in Europe—military might. Russian power comes from its soldiers and bayonets, and that’s what other nations fear. But now,” he maintained, “the weakness of the Russian military has been exposed for all the world to see. The world knows now that the Russian Empire is a sand castle. The overestimation of our strength by other nations will make them even more inclined to look down on us now.”

Russia would indeed be taken more lightly from this point on. Witte predicted that “Russia’s enemies within and without” would lower their opinion of Russian strength. By “enemies within,” he meant the dissidents seeking to foment revolution. “This succession of defeats,” he wrote, “has dealt an unprecedented blow to every level of Russian society, a blow that has expressed itself in a certain uniform reaction. By that, I mean dissatisfaction with the political status quo.” He referred, of course, to the tsarist regime.

Russia was well and truly “in for it.” Outside the country, the Russian military threat had been exposed as a sand castle, and, at home, dissatisfaction and animosity were eating away at the empire’s foundations.

“Tactical withdrawal” is how Kuropatkin characterized the pullout, but, generally speaking, troop morale and order are maintained by attack and undermined by retreat. Two Russian brigade commanders, both major generals, came to blows near the station at Mukden over the question of where to assign blame for the retreat. Such incidents were typical. And, no matter how Kuropatkin defended the move, its political ramifications for him personally were severe. Along with Russia’s international reputation, the general’s own status at court went into precipitous decline. Some thought he should be relieved of command, but the court as a whole understood the folly of firing the top general in the middle of a war. Most saw the problem as structural.

The Russian Army was modeled differently from the Japanese Army. The Japanese Manchurian Army was divided into the four lesser armies. Each army was commanded by a general who presided over several divisions, each one headed by a lieutenant general, with Ōyama Iwao the commander in chief. But Russia’s massive Manchurian Army was in Kuropatkin’s sole control. Leaders below him in rank were delegated only as much power as Japanese division commanders, not generals. In overseeing an army of such size, Kuropatkin had to display enormous versatility.

The burden was too great for one man’s shoulders, Tsar Nicholas II decided, and so he split the army in two, creating the First and Second Manchurian armies. Kuropatkin was given command of the First Army, but since he had been supreme commander until then, this was effectively a demotion. Command of the Second Army (the Sixth and Eighth Siberian Army corps and a cavalry division) went to General Oskar Grippenberg, who was dispatched to Manchuria for that purpose.

When news of the change reached Kuropatkin, he was beside himself with rage and frustration. He resolved that the outcome of the war must be shaped while he was still in charge. His original plan was bold: he would withdraw as far as Harbin and then, after amassing a million troops, go on the attack. Had he been allowed to carry out that plan, the Japanese Army would have stood not one chance in a hundred of winning the war. Pursuing the Russians as far as Harbin would have overextended the Japanese supply line. As it was, ammunition was perennially scarce, and with transportation bottlenecks the situation would have been dire. Not only that, the Japanese field army numbered at most around two hundred thousand men. Against a Russian army of a million, they stood no chance of winning, however brilliant a strategy they might employ.

But Kuropatkin had to abandon his plan, for reasons that were not military but political in nature. Any further retreat would have caused his standing at court to drop still further. Besides that, his superior Viceroy Alexeyev (whose raison d’être was unclear to Kuropatkin) was convinced of the need to hold the line at Mukden, and this was an opinion he could not ignore.

Kuropatkin’s army emerged from the battle of Liaoyang virtually intact. From among his two hundred twenty-five thousand troops, casualties numbered a mere twenty thousand. While the general’s original plan was to retreat all the way to Harbin, instead he stopped and held the line at Mukden. Having done so, he was surprised at the failure of the Japanese Army to give chase. What could it mean? Genuinely puzzled, he sent an intelligence officer to find out what was going on. The report came back that the Japanese were suffering from a shortage of ammunition. Still, Kuropatkin went on overestimating his adversary.

The term “shortage of ammunition” no longer sufficed to describe the Japanese Army’s plight, which was so severe that joining in a large-scale engagement would be impossible for months to come. Giving chase to a retreating army was out of the question. Though the Japanese Army had suffered approximately the same number of casualties as the “defeated” Russian Army, its situation was vastly different. Where the Russian Army was being steadily beefed up with fresh troops from the homeland, reinforcing the beleaguered Japanese Army was proving extremely difficult.

Despite Kuropatkin’s tendency to inflate the size of his adversary, his estimations grew more accurate after repeated clashes with the Japanese Army. When he left Liaoyang, he estimated the army’s size as “around two hundred seventy thousand.” Even this number was inflated, but at last the brilliant Russian general realized that he held the advantage.

The Russian Army had great prospects. Amassing a million men on the plains of northern Manchuria was the brainchild of Transport Minister Mikhail Khilkov, who managed the Trans-Siberian Railway and oversaw troop transport and replenishment. A man of outstanding ability, he came up with a variety of ways to increase the transport capacity of the one-track Siberian railway, including adding on passing tracks and building a subsidiary line to Lake Baikal. The Times expressed admiration for his abilities, allowing that “A more fearful general to the Japanese than Kuropatkin is the civil servant Prince Khilkov.” His strenuous efforts created an odd phenomenon: despite the Russians’ defeat at Liaoyang, their numbers increased until they were at full strength.

“The enemy gets stronger with every battle,” commented Kuroki Tamemoto, commander of the First Army. The reverse was equally true: short on supplies, the Japanese Army grew progressively weaker. The moment of gravest crisis for the Japanese nation came with the “victory” over Russia at Liaoyang that coincided with the ongoing battle of attrition at Port Arthur.

The Japanese victory at Liaoyang could be described as “merely territorial” in nature. “What our army has so far purchased with much bloodshed is only land,” wrote Iguchi Shōgo, staff officer of the Manchuria Army, in an opinion paper at the time. “Far too great a price has been paid for the capture of enemy positions.” The enemy had been let off relatively lightly, simply vacating one area and moving to another. “This sort of thing can’t go on,” declared Iguchi. “The main purpose of a battle must be to destroy the enemy’s main force and overwhelm the enemy so that it is incapable of rising again.” He was only stating the obvious.

But, compared to the defensive Russian Army, the attacking Japanese Army was always slightly inferior in manpower and firepower. Having paid dearly in blood just to break up the Russian encampment, now for the army to enlarge on its success by going after the Russians and wiping them out was impossible. To succeed, Iguchi’s plan would have required twice the men and ammunition of the defending Russians.

When Kodama Gentarō read Iguchi’s opinion paper, his only comment was “Quite true.” If Japan did not end the war quickly, it was in danger of exhausting its resources. Already, at Liaoyang the army was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Unless the enemy’s main force was roundly defeated and peace restored quickly, the country was doomed.

“Wartime finance will be the end of Japan”—this was the consensus among nations and the fear that gnawed at Japan’s leaders. Kodama Gentarō was not only a brilliant strategist but also a savvy politician. His mindset was not that of an ordinary military man, but represented the state itself. He knew exactly what the country’s financial resources were and how much artillery its arsenal could afford to manufacture, figures that he kept constantly in mind as he planned and implemented strategy. Kodama’s illness and death shortly after the war’s end speaks volumes about the toll the war took on him.

Once Liaoyang was captured, Ōyama and Kodama were ready to collapse with exhaustion and halted the army. The main reason was the need to stockpile ammunition. There was nothing to do but steadily pile up supplies as they came trickling in from the mainland—rather like trying to fill a barrel with water dribbling from a broken tap. Having to focus patiently on the task despite mounting anxiety and frustration was an ordeal.

Prince Khilkov’s success in using the Trans-Siberian Railway to supply the Russian Army was a laudable achievement on a grand scale befitting a country of Russia’s enormous size, an achievement without precedent in the annals of war. The extraordinary patience exhibited by Ōyama and Kodama as they slowly built up enough ammunition to go on shows all too clearly the wretched plight of a tiny nation. That display of patience, itself an arduous feat for military men of action, also deserves high marks.

Japan was at an impasse. If the Japanese Army had only had sufficient field ammunition at this stage, the war would have soon been over. When the troops first burst into Liaoyang, morale soared.

“Troop morale is high,” Kodama wired Yamagata Aritomo at Imperial Headquarters. “If we could deliver a blow to the enemy now, there is no telling how great our advantage would be, but for lack of shells we cannot. It is truly a shame.” He was merely letting off steam. He knew perfectly well how difficult it was for Japan to get hold of the needed shells.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan’s army and navy had foreseen the likelihood of imminent war with Russia, and each had made preparations. For the army, the equivalent of a navy battleship is a division, the largest unit of a standing army. A division commander holds the rank of lieutenant general. The size of a division isn’t fixed, but averages around ten thousand men, closer to twenty thousand in time of war. Below a division comes a brigade, then a regiment, then a battalion. Maintaining a division is an extremely expensive undertaking.

Japan began the war with thirteen active divisions (plus seven in reserve), numbering over two hundred thousand men. Since the structure of the Russian Army differed, comparison is difficult, but overall the Russian side had two million soldiers and a budget ample enough to maintain so vast an army, including all the ammunition that might be needed. Maintaining divisions involved stockpiling ammunition for them in time of peace, just as for every battleship it was necessary to lay in a supply of shells ready to be used when the time came. Japan pushed its luck by doubling the number of army divisions in eight short years before the Russo-Japanese War. Even then, there were a mere thirteen. Still, maintaining so many divisions stretched the country’s resources so thin that there was not enough money to cover the cost of ammunition.

Russia, however, was finding the Trans-Siberian Railway a highly satisfactory way of transporting supplies and troops. By the end of 1904, the equivalent of thirty-five Japanese divisions was expected to be in place on the Manchurian plains. United States president Theodore Roosevelt privately expressed the opinion that a long war would mean defeat for Japan—no doubt because he was privy to data on the situation regarding Japanese supplies.

Japan’s Manchurian Army was on edge. But there was nothing to do but wait for the mainland to increase production so they could acquire a decent supply of artillery. Until that happened, they were in no shape to fight a large-scale engagement.

At the same time, the siege of Port Arthur continually siphoned ammunition. The trouble was that Japan’s main fighting force in Liaoyang was painfully short of ammunition just as that unprecedented war of attrition was going on in Port Arthur. Ijichi wired Kodama desperately, “Send more shells.” He seemed to be howling in rage. “How do you expect us to win the battle like this!” He was absolutely right.

“Just tell me what we’re supposed to do?” Ijichi wired Kodama on October 16. “All we have is 101 rounds per field gun and 103 per mountain gun. Mounting an attack under these conditions is preposterous.” He concluded by requesting “at least three hundred rounds per weapon.”

But, at that point, Kodama himself, facing a decisive battle in the field, had fewer than a hundred rounds per field gun. General Headquarters was irritated that Nogi’s staff thought only of itself. Kodama wired back, “I am well aware that you lack sufficient shells. But the deficiency and the urgency of the need here is far greater. It is accordingly impossible to resupply only your army with field ammunition.”

Kodama advised the Third Army to make full use of 28-centimeter howitzers from Imperial Headquarters instead of field guns and mountain guns. Ijichi, however, had never studied their proper use. Used like ordinary siege guns, they were of little practical value, apart from the psychological effect of intimidation. Instead of using them to attack Russian warships in the harbor as he should have done, Ijichi turned them on the Port Arthur fortress. Gigantic though they were, all they did was raise enormous clouds of earth and sand in the sky over the unharmed fortress.

When the once-feisty Japanese Army fell silent after the battle of Liaoyang, Kuropatkin finally took its true measure. The severity of the enemy’s struggle to replenish its troops and ammunition became clear.

This was the moment for Kuropatkin to go on the offensive. From the first, the Japanese Army had seized the initiative, pushing him into a passive role. Here he could regain the initiative, attack the Japanese and overwhelm them, driving them straight into the Yellow Sea. He had plenty of troop strength. His troops having suffered little damage at Liaoyang, they far outnumbered the other side. Moreover, nine trains carrying reinforcements arrived daily. By throwing all this manpower at the enemy, he was poised to deliver the anemic Japanese Army a crushing blow.

Rapidly falling out of favor, Kuropatkin was about to be demoted from commander in chief to army commander, and General Grippenberg was shortly to be dispatched to Manchuria as his counterpart. But, for the time being, the entire Manchurian Army was at his command. Now was his chance to restore his honor; the impulse to do so set his pulse racing.

As Kuropatkin prepared to launch a major offensive, he delivered a moving proclamation to the Russian forces on October 2. According to him, despite the various minor setbacks they had suffered, morale was higher than ever. “The troops of the Manchurian Army,” he said defensively, “have not been numerically strong enough to defeat the Japanese.”

This was not the case. At all times, in every battle, the Russian Army had consistently held the advantage in manpower and firepower alike. But what Kuropatkin sought was not just a numerical edge. He wanted triple the strength of the Japanese Army. The war strategy of a great power is always based on size—even Napoleon always worked from the assumption of an overwhelming advantage in men and arms. Kuropatkin’s demand was by no means excessive. He was merely following conventional wisdom.

“You retired to new positions at Mukden as planned,” he told his forces. “You carried out the retreat while set upon by General Kuroki’s army, under the most difficult conditions imaginable. Our successful retreat to Mukden, overcoming various obstacles, is worthy of admiration. But now,” he assured them, “the tsar has assigned for the conflict with Japan forces sufficient to secure Russia the victory.” He announced that the time had come to go on the offensive and, with words of praise for the bravery of the Russian forces valiantly defending Port Arthur, urged the army to rouse itself for a great push forward.

“God is with us,” he concluded. “Victory is assured.”

In contrast to Kuropatkin’s army, the Japanese Army was in a deplorable state. On the mainland, there were only two active divisions (the Seventh and Eighth), and all that could be deployed were standby reservists hastily called up. The soldiers were older veterans, and the officers and noncommissioned officers had declined in quality. There was no hope of mustering an army equal in strength to the Japanese Army that had fought at Liaoyang.

There weren’t even any rifles for the reinforcements. For lack of an alternative, they were given Murata rifles used during the First Sino-Japanese War and confiscated Russian rifles, but Japanese rifle shells didn’t fit the confiscated arms. The Japanese Army’s fighting power was spent. Everyone, down to the last private, felt this in his bones.

Prime Minister Katsura feared that the nation’s poverty was affecting morale on the front lines. On hearing reports that a rich vein of sixty percent gold-bearing ore had been discovered in Kesennuma, a town north of Sendai, he ordered that General Headquarters in Manchuria be so informed—even though he must have known the story was bogus. He sought to raise morale by assuring troops at the front that the empire’s military expenses were covered. Only a truly poverty-stricken nation would resort to such a ruse. The imaginary mine was supposed to have yielded four billion yen’s worth of gold—more than enough, if it were true, to pay all the expenses of the Russo-Japanese War. Heartened by this glad news, the troops could fight with spirit and die without misgivings.

When the news was conveyed to General Headquarters near the station at Liaoyang, the rejoicing was general. Kodama lost no time in informing Ōyama, who chuckled with amusement. “Sounds like something Katsura dreamed up.” He dismissed the report with an indulgent smile. “Even if they did find a gold mine, digging up all that gold would cost billions of yen. Do you really think the nation could afford to spend money that way in the middle of a war?” He laughed. “Just take it as a comic story Katsura spun for our enjoyment, and let it go.”

Kodama laughed too. At the same time, he was filled with admiration at the commander in chief’s acumen.

What made the army’s state even more pitiable was an outbreak of what was then Japan’s national disease, beriberi. It began spreading through the ranks. Certain divisions had a thousand sufferers already, and severely stricken soldiers were incapacitated, unable to pick up a rifle and fight. This was on top of the extreme shortage of ammunition.

At that point, on October 4, a Chinese spy that Kuroki had dispatched to Mukden returned with a dire warning: “The Russian Army that had stopped at Mukden is now on the move, heading south.” Fujii Shigeta hastily relayed the news to General Headquarters.

On learning that the Russian Army was southbound, the Japanese command hesitated over how to react. The word “react” is not usually found in the lexicon of warfare, but it aptly conveys the level of consternation—which is not too strong a word—among army leaders at this juncture.

Frankly, given the Russian Army’s conduct of the war thus far, no one had expected any action so bold. Certainly, the Japanese Army leaders had prayed that nothing like this would happen. Now that it had, what were they going to do about it? They dithered.

The strategic approach of the Japanese Army until this point had been to get the jump on the enemy and launch a preemptive strike. Superiority over the enemy had been maintained by consistently getting in the lead punch, one that packed a wallop. But at this point they lacked the necessary troop strength and ammunition. Should they go on the defensive? That was the question.

Already, at Liaoyang, they had taken a defensive stance. Each division had dug trenches and surrounded them with wire entanglements. This was the first time the Japanese Army had taken up a defensive position.

Earlier, Colonel Fujimoto Tarō of the Thirty-third Infantry Regiment (Nagoya) had presented himself at General Headquarters and met with Matsukawa Toshitane. “I wish to respectfully offer my opinion,” he had said, and proceeded to do so, standing at attention.

The gist of Fujimoto’s remarks was this. The nation’s military strength had lasted only as far as Liaoyang. If the army spurred itself to fight at Mukden, the resulting attrition was bound to be still greater, the army’s ability to recover from its wounds seriously impaired. The best course was to set up a strong defensive position at Liaoyang from which to engage the enemy when it attacked. This plan was backed by strategic theory. The Russo-Japanese War had been undertaken in the first place in order to repulse the Russian threat on the Korean Peninsula. Send four divisions there for protection, Fujimoto advised, and leave the rest to diplomatic peace negotiations.

“I know for certain that you have a lot on your mind.” Matsukawa Toshitane, Kodama’s most trusted staff officer, was sardonic. “You are a regimental commander. All you need to do is obey orders and fight hard, pressing forward. Never mind debate.”

Fujimoto responded that he had no intention of neglecting his duty as a regimental commander. Whenever orders came, he was prepared to lead his men through fire or water. He had come only to offer his private opinion. With that, he turned and walked away.

A cool appraisal of the realities of Japan and its armed forces would indicate that Fujimoto was correct. But there was no need to focus solely on Japan’s reality. The enemy, too, was enmeshed in its own complicated reality. The Russian Army and the Japanese Army were intertwined in the abnormal circumstance of war. If Japan veered away from its reality and took matters into its own hands, there was no telling how the situation might change. Matsukawa Toshitane, for one, favored action.

What was most inconvenient at this critical time was the absence from Liaoyang of Kodama Gentarō. Having decided that one reason why the siege of Port Arthur was dragging on so long was a dearth of strategic ability on Nogi’s staff, he vacated his post for twenty days beginning in mid-September to go to Port Arthur. In this way, he considerably shortened the time it took for the fortress to fall, but only at the cost of neglecting the army’s main battlefield.

While Kodama was away, the alarming warning that the Russian Army was marching south sent a chill through Ōyama’s headquarters. Without Kodama there to take charge, opinion split down the middle, and confusion reigned. Matsukawa declared that the only viable alternative was to take the initiative and strike. Even if signs pointed to an imminent move south by the Russian Army, intelligence reports indicated that preparations were still underway. The best thing to do was attack swiftly before the enemy was ready.

But Major General Iguchi Shōgo thought otherwise. “Too risky,” he insisted. His plan was rather for the army to maintain its stronghold, draw the enemy there, and launch an attack only after bombarding them first.

Deep down, Ōyama was troubled. When he left for the front, he had announced his intention to leave day-to-day matters in Kodama’s capable hands and take charge only if Japan began losing badly. Until now, he had stuck to that policy, but with Kodama gone he had no choice but to step in and decide this crucial issue himself. Although inclined to agree with Matsukawa, he wanted to check whether the colonel had a firm enough basis for his opinion and so summoned him to his quarters for questioning. At the same time, he ordered Kodama back immediately.

Kodama returned to headquarters in Liaoyang at six o’clock in the morning on October 6. He quickly absorbed the full complexity of the situation, but his twenty days’ absence had broken the rhythm of his thought processes. For once, his famously clearheaded thought processes were nowhere in evidence.

The next day, October 7, marked the fourth day since the warning that the Russian Army was on the move. A general staff meeting was held with Kodama presiding. Iguchi and Matsukawa clashed, and, with neither man willing to give an inch, the meeting went on interminably. For the famously brisk Japanese leadership to allow a war council to drag on so inconclusively was unprecedented.

Back in the sixteenth century, leaders of a clan centered in Odawara met to discuss what to do about warrior Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was headed their way with his troops. The debate dragged on for weeks, until finally Hideyoshi besieged the castle and the hapless leaders were forced to surrender. The phrase “Odawara council” thus came to refer to any long and empty negotiation. As history shows, such futile debates have no place in war. All the same, Kodama could not make up his mind.

Perhaps Kodama should never have gone to Port Arthur to check on Nogi’s army in the first place. With a decisive battle in the offing, he should have stayed on the job to lead Japan’s main force. “Kodama lost his edge at Port Arthur,” his aides murmured. Though normally this man of quick insight could make snap decisions about what needed to be done, with the enemy heading south from Mukden he was distracted.

Whether brooding over war strategies or carrying out simple daily tasks, people follow a certain rhythm. The workings of the mind fall into that rhythm which, if neglected for days on end, cannot be picked up again right away but need time to recalibrate. That is the position in which Kodama found himself. At this critical juncture and for the first time since the war began, his brain was foggy. That was all there was to it, really.

But if anything else did hold his powers of thought captive, it was the fact that the siege at Port Arthur was unfolding in a far more tragic way than he had ever imagined possible.

In hindsight, it has to be said that the organization of the Japanese Army was flawed. Nogi’s army, which was responsible for attacking Port Arthur, should have been under the direct command of Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo, not in the Ōyama–Kodama line of command. Ōyama and Kodama had their hands full commanding the main force of the Manchurian Army in a showdown with Kuropatkin. Port Arthur was a completely different situation. Only supermen could have managed them both at the same time.

That’s how Port Arthur ended up being left entirely to Nogi’s discretion. Other staff officers of the Japanese Manchurian Army made backbiting remarks: “What in God’s name is Nogi up to?” “Ijichi’s a damned fool and no mistake.” But their concern went no farther than sarcasm. No one had the time or energy to come to Nogi’s aid. The Manchurian Army was mired in its own problems, without the men or the ammunition to do what needed to be done.

“If only Nogi would hurry and take Port Arthur so he could come to our aid!” This unspoken wish was so intense they could have screamed it. To have a military force so large bogged down in Port Arthur, just when Japan was suffering from a severe shortage of manpower, was no way to win a war.

On May 2, Tsar Nicholas II had decided on the commander of the large fleet he intended to send to the Far East. He had appointed a man he trusted absolutely, his aide-de-camp Rozhestvensky, a rear admiral. As soon as his appointment was official, Rozhestvensky set about preparing for the expedition of the century.

The Japanese Navy panicked. A series of urgent messages were fired off, urging the army to capture Port Arthur and be done with it. Enough was enough. That is why Kodama had traveled to Port Arthur in person, meeting with Nogi and his staff and touring the battle site. His visit coincided with the second all-out assault, which succeeded only in wasting precious blood and iron without hurting the enemy significantly. The assault was a total failure.

On the train back to Liaoyang, Kodama had not been able to shake the horrors and failure of the Port Arthur attack from his mind. Nor was that the only ongoing crisis. The fortunes of the Japanese Manchurian Army seemed to change hourly.

On September 26, the Trans-Siberian Railway opened a subsidiary line that detoured to Lake Baikal, greatly increasing the ability of the Russian Army to resupply itself. The Russians were strong adherents of the European idea that supply lines were of paramount importance in warfare. Kuropatkin, greatly heartened by the swelling ranks in Manchuria, announced in his October 2 proclamation that there were now sufficient forces to move forward.

At this point, we would like to insert a slight digression.

The Russian Army had a tradition of not assuming the offensive unless it had two or two and a half times the men and arms of the enemy. The reason was not cowardice. In all times and ages, victorious generals are those who make a point of assembling greater armies than the enemy so they can overwhelm and destroy their foe. Oda Nobunaga’s youthful victory in the surprise attack at Okehazama was an exception; after that, he always followed the above policy. Therein lay his greatness. Even though he began his career with a surprise attack against a vastly superior fighting force, he never attempted to imitate that early success. Nobunaga knew better than anyone that his chances of success at Okehazama had been one in a hundred—that’s what made him a great warlord.

At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese military was fighting desperately with its back to the wall, rising up against a superior opponent in circumstances similar to those at Okehazama. Hence, Kodama’s pain and effort. Greatly outnumbered, he was constantly racking his brains for a way to rout his superior foe.

Japan’s subsequent military leaders were incompetent precisely because they took as precedent the victory in the Russo-Japanese War, a victory won in the unlikely style of Nobunaga’s Okehazama. The Japanese military establishment clung to that method of attack all the way to the demise of their army in 1945.

What’s surprising about the Russo-Japanese War, to pursue this line of thought a little more, is that Okehazama-style fighting should have been so successful. It is also surprising that the sweetness of that success determined the course of the Japanese military thereafter—a ridiculous state of affairs that cries out for explanation.

Though plagued with shortages, including a chronic scarcity of ammunition and of the new weapons known as “machine guns,” the Japanese Army was otherwise one of the best-equipped armies in the world. But, following the Russo-Japanese War, its equipment would remain second rate all the way until 1945. “Look how we won the war with Russia.” That thought occupied the minds of elite military leaders, who ought to have known better. Of course, Oda Nobunaga never tried to repeat the success of his raid at Okehazama but was careful to surround himself ever after with troops double the size of the enemy’s, troops that he kept well supplied. The difference is so stark that one has to wonder if Japan’s subsequent military leaders deserve to be called professionals.

The bungling of Japan’s military leaders is demonstrated in the limited war fought between the Japanese and Russian armies in 1939. Although Japan’s Kwantung Army staff officers had greater military knowledge than those who served during the Russo-Japanese War, their operational planning abilities were far inferior. That’s because the military organization was rigidly bureaucratic and behind the times.

At the time, the Soviet Union wanted to stir up conflict along the Manchuria–Mongolia border and so provoked the skirmish intentionally. The Kwantung Army got wind of what was happening, but continued to underrate Soviet strength and supply capacity even after trouble broke out. The battlefield was over 200 kilometers away from the railway, which led the Kwantung Army to believe that the Soviet Army would assemble only a small force. Unbelievably, army leaders were so dense that it never occurred to them that the Soviets might use trucks to transport soldiers and goods. Back then, the Japanese military relied on horses and men for non-rail transport. Military use of motor vehicles was not yet widespread, and Japanese leaders extrapolated from their own experience to predict Soviet logistics and troop strength. But the Soviets made liberal use of motor vehicles for troop transport and supply.

The Kwantung Army flung twice as many troops as the enemy into the war. But where Japanese infantry equipment had improved but little since the days of the Russo-Japanese War, the Soviet military had undergone a radical revision. At a time when the infantry was still widely considered the mainstay of the military, the Soviets had built a military force centered around tanks, with the infantry merely offering support. Their artillery strength too was vastly improved, and they had switched to a style of fighting that relied on massive firepower. Japan’s best military leaders, in contrast, were interested in politics and believed that armies were formed by praising men’s spiritual strength. Thus, the Japanese military was merely an extension of its previous self during the Russo-Japanese War, and the results showed this clearly. The Japanese withdrew after suffering a catastrophic defeat with a casualty rate of seventy-three percent.

The digression has gone on too long. We must turn our sights back on Kodama Gentarō after his return to Liaoyang from Port Arthur.

Though there was regional factionalism in military circles at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, there was as yet no sense of bureaucratic order in the decision-making process. Kodama was able to carry out his own ideas on his own authority. The nation’s future rested squarely on his shoulders in a real, not a rhetorical, sense. That made him so far removed from the military leaders of the subsequent Shōwa period that he might have been from a different country and race of men. The crushing responsibility was sometimes too much for the nerves of that diminutive, 5-foot-tall man to endure. He was able to bear up under the daily pressure not only because of his natural cheerfulness, but also because his partner Ōyama Iwao continually supported him and soothed his nerves.

For some time after his return, Kodama was at a complete loss. Though the Russian Army had strengthened considerably, the Japanese Army had declined in the quantity and quality of its troops and ammunition supply. On the vast Manchurian plains, there was no way to rely on natural defense. No general in history would have known what to do under the circumstances.

The opinions of Kodama’s staff split down the middle. Kodama would have to choose between Major General Iguchi’s plan urging defense and Colonel Matsukawa’s plan urging a counteroffensive. He and Ōyama both inclined toward the latter. Given their few troops and paltry supply of ammunition, a counteroffensive seemed like the right idea. It had always worked before.

Unable to make up his mind, Kodama did the equivalent of drawing lots. He wanted to hear from someone besides his own staff, and so decided to send for Major General Fujii Shigeta, chief of staff of Kuroki’s army, and Major General Uehara Yūsaku, chief of staff of Nozu’s army.

Fujii Shigeta could always provide a clear-cut answer to any question. “Liaoyang,” he pointed out, “is extremely difficult to defend against an enemy coming from the north. The only way out is to go after the enemy yourself.”

Uehara lacked Fujii’s acuity, but he came to the same conclusion for this reason: “The soldiers’ morale is extremely high.”

After listening to the opinions of these two men, Kodama made his judgment.

It wasn’t until one o’clock in the afternoon on October 7 that an order went out from Ōyama and Kodama’s headquarters in connection with the enemy’s changed situation. The order can be summed up very simply: “The army will assume standby positions.” The funny thing about that order was that it failed to make clear whether the army was supposed to attack or defend. “Man your positions” was all it said. Kodama’s vacillation was plain to see. He had resolved to go on the offensive but, as this command shows, he was also giving himself leeway. Needless to say, unclear orders are taboo in military leadership—as Kodama well knew.

Kodama was famous for his nimble decision-making. But a person doesn’t always act according to a single set of traits. At this point, Kodama gave the impression of being not a brilliant strategist but an ordinary, worn-out old man. The loss of his customary perspicuity was owing not just to the lingering effects of his time in Port Arthur but also in large part to the extreme shortage of ammunition. Kodama’s psychological state at this point is a textbook example of how the fatal flaw of a shortage in supplies can dull a person’s mental agility.

Back on the mainland, Japan’s arsenals were unable to produce even half the amount of ammunition needed. With the Port Arthur siege eating up ammunition at a rate far beyond anything the army leaders had imagined, the need was only going to become more acute. Shells for heavy guns were needed above all. Imperial Headquarters took the drastic step of ordering a temporary halt to the manufacture of shells for field guns and mountain guns. Given the arsenals’ meager output capacity, desperate measures were called for. “As a result,” Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo wired Manchuria General Headquarters, “no field ammunition can be manufactured until October 15.” After the battle of Liaoyang, fighting in Manchuria would become even more difficult.

“It’s true what they say—poverty dulls the wit.” Chagrined at his own slow-wittedness, Kodama murmured this privately to Matsukawa Toshitane.

The ambiguous “standby” order was issued on October 7. But, to everyone’s surprise, by the following day, the enemy had still barely made contact with the Japanese front-line troops and was acting generally sluggish. Kodama began to wonder if the news of Russia’s move southward had been a lie after all.

Word that the Russian Army had halted also came from the head of Akiyama’s brigade, which remained on the left flank of Oku’s army, providing protection and carrying out reconnaissance activities. General Headquarters picked up the following intelligence: the enemy’s first line had advanced as far as Kangdaren Hill, Mangjiagu, and Banqiao Fort, and then stopped. Now they were entrenching.

“What’s going on?” Kodama was stumped. If the enemy troops had kept on coming like a tsunami, they might well have broken through the Japanese line of defense, since the Japanese Army was wavering between defense and attack. In any case, the battle was shaping up to be a devastating loss for the Japanese. Now might well be the time for Ōyama to make good on his famous pledge to “leave everything to Kodama and take charge only when Japan is fighting a losing battle.”

Letting Kodama fight all the winning battles shows Ōyama’s greatness as a general. When fighting turns brutal and lines collapse in defeat, it’s axiomatic that only the top leadership can stave off disaster. The one who saves the day has to be a war hero the whole army looks up to and trusts, someone as immovable as a mountain. He must fill officers and men with hope as he spurs them on, demonstrating leadership with calm boldness. Ōyama knew he was better suited to this role than Kodama. That is the sort of partnership he and Kodama had. Ōyama was fully persuaded that as long as the army was winning, he wasn’t needed.

Ōyama took as his model his cousin Saigō Takamori, that leader in the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate, who was later forced out of semiretirement to become the reluctant leader of a ragtag rebel army. Ōyama grew up near the great man in Satsuma and was greatly influenced by him. At the end of the Tokugawa period, he stayed by Saigō’s side and served him devotedly. For him, Saigō was the supreme model of a leader.

But what to make of the enemy’s movements?

“They’re entrenching?” For Kodama, the news brought surprise and joy. The Russian Army would not be coming their way any time soon.

“Why didn’t they keep going south?” wondered Eberhard von Tettau, a German observer embedded with the Russian Army, in later writings about this strange development. “I had no idea what was going through Kuropatkin’s mind.” And yet Kuropatkin had his reasons.

Kuropatkin’s army had two flanks, one on the east and one on the west. The eastern corps was to make a detour in order to surround the Japanese Army, and so its arrival at the appointed battle site was delayed. The western corps advanced alone. Kuropatkin ordered the western corps to entrench and await further orders in order to keep the two corps in synch. He was a perfectionist. The proper thing for him to do would have been to make the western corps attack the Japanese Army and breach its defenses, then to bring the eastern corps into play from behind in a pincer operation. But, to someone like Kuropatkin, that strategy would have seemed like reckless adventuring.

Kodama’s vacillation and indecisiveness were more than his aides could bear. This was not the Kodama they knew. He seemed like another man, they said later.

Kodama gathered all the staff officers of the various armies at Kuroki’s headquarters in Luodatai. Fukuda Masatarō, Kuroki’s staff officer, agreed with the plan to launch an offensive strike and approached Kodama, who was still unable to make up his mind.

“Sir, what is there to think about? If you decide to adopt the plan to draw the enemy to our camp”—Iguchi’s defensive plan—“the First Army will have no choice but to abandon our position on Lake Benxi.”

This was because the positions occupied by Kuroki’s army formed a zigzag pattern, not a straight line. Drawing the army into formation would necessitate handing over to the enemy the protruding part, the Lake Benxi camp, and pulling back from there. As a member of Kuroki’s staff, Fukuda cared less about the situation of the Manchurian Army as a whole than about Kuroki’s army. He didn’t want to give up the stronghold they had established, not only for strategic reasons but also for the negative effect that doing so would have on morale.

With a venomous look, he lashed out at Kodama. “Sir, the situation is what it is. If we are to go on the offensive, we should do so now. If you are still torn between the two proposals at this point, how can you go on as chief of staff of the Manchurian Army, with the nation’s fate resting on your shoulders?”

Always hot under the collar, Kodama saw red. “Damn you, are you looking for a fight?” Though his opponent was a mere lieutenant colonel, the general lost his temper and his dignity, jumping to his feet and overturning his chair. If only he had had enough manpower and shells for an attack, Kodama would not have agonized so much.

At that point, he finally made his decision. “Starting tomorrow, the army goes on the offensive,” he announced. “I will present the plan to Commander in Chief Ōyama straight away.”

Fukuda let out a howl of protest. As long as they were going on the offensive, why do so “starting tomorrow”? Shouldn’t the order to attack go out right away?

“Give the order now!” Fukuda’s expression was so fierce as he hounded the general that Kodama’s aide Fukushima Ansei, an intelligence officer known for his daring, reached out impulsively, caught his sleeve, and pulled him back.

“He looked so bloodthirsty I was afraid he was on the point of drawing his sword,” Fukushima later commented.

Fukuda’s fierceness had helped Kodama come to a decision, but the order had yet to go out.

Kodama made his final decision after returning to headquarters, but deep down he continued to harbor doubts. The proof is that he didn’t go directly to Ōyama’s room. Usually, he would head straight there and briskly propose a strategy. Kodama respected Ōyama, and he knew better than anyone what it meant to be commander in chief. He didn’t want Ōyama to detect his wavering. As top commander, Ōyama needed to issue the order with a mind as unclouded as a mirror.

Whatever hesitation Kodama might feel, he had no desire to implant any similar hesitation in Ōyama’s mind. He stayed away from Ōyama’s quarters because he feared that Ōyama would read his mind and be influenced accordingly. Even under ordinary conditions, it frequently happens that an aide’s state of mind affects that of his commanding officer—but this was no ordinary time. The fate of the nation hung on the order that was about to go out in Ōyama’s name. If he issued the command resolutely, without the least sign of wavering, then, by the peculiar psychology of the battlefield, morale would lift, as surely as electricity travels through air.

That was why Kodama didn’t go in person but instead summoned Colonel Matsukawa, author of the counteroffensive plan, and had him go in his place. He chose Matsukawa rather than his superior, Iguchi, in hopes that the man’s enthusiasm would prove infectious.

When Matsukawa appeared, Kodama was sitting at his desk. He laid down a piece of paper and said, “I am going to read out a draft of an order. I need you to write it up properly and take it to the commander in chief so that he can decide if he agrees.” He proceeded to dictate, first touching on the enemy’s movements and then outlining the commander in chief’s decision. “The enemy is now amassing forces on the left bank of the Hun River. I want it attacked before it finishes doing so.” That was the nub of the matter. Kodama told Matsukawa to add an estimate of the situation and other details, and submit the document to Ōyama for his approval.

Matsukawa went straight back to his room, where he spent the next hour and a half drafting the order. He took the finished document to Ōyama’s room and knocked on his door. From inside came a leisurely response. Matsukawa entered, went up to Ōyama’s desk, and handed him the draft.

Ōyama read it through once, then read it a second time before looking up. “Does Kodama know about this?” When Matsukawa said yes, Ōyama nodded. “All right, let’s do it.” He handed the paper back to Matsukawa. The order was in effect.

With the issuing of this order, the Japanese Army swung into action. The front line was over 70 kilometers long. The army was to go on the offensive, but it was outnumbered, and so the line could not be ragged. The slightest irregularity anywhere would render the whole line vulnerable. The enemy could seize upon any protrusion, surround it, cut it off, and destroy it. The enemy’s major force could then push through the resulting breach and divide the Japanese Army in two, encircling each half and wiping both out.

“Press forward in a smooth line abreast.” This was the Matsukawa plan that Kodama had approved. But the battlefield was hilly, the terrain unusually difficult for Manchuria. Keeping a large army together and advancing in step was well-nigh impossible—yet, if they did not, the operation would fail.

This concern was what had prompted Iguchi to advocate the defensive plan. “How the hell can the army pull off a stunt like that?” he had shouted at Matsukawa at one point.

Kodama too was worried. At dawn, he turned toward the east as the sun was coming over the horizon, his palms together in an attitude of prayer. Though not a man of faith by any means, he was convinced that at this point there was no alternative but to seek divine aid.

But Matsukawa was unfazed. “This is why we’ve trained the army so well and hard ever since the Restoration—just so it can pull off this stunt!” Expert opinion concurred that the Japanese Army of this era was indeed the world’s best-trained military force, top to bottom. The ability of high-ranking officers alone could not account for such distinction. The level of ability of combat leaders and noncommissioned officers had to be extremely high.

The upshot was that the advance of the great, 70-kilometer-long Japanese line went off without a hitch. Dressing the line was fiendishly difficult under the circumstances. The operation took place at night. Portions of the line jutting forward had to fall back, and those lagging behind had to catch up.

One section in particular was a source of great concern—a spur which, if attacked, was likely to cause the whole army pain. This was the brigade of Major General Umezawa Michiharu (from Miyagi Prefecture), a particularly isolated section of Kuroki’s army, which of the three was closest to the enemy camp. Umezawa led a mixed standby reserve brigade with a large percentage of older draftees bearing obsolete weapons. They had taken up their position only recently and had not yet built any fortifications. This brigade had to be pulled back—but if the Russian Army caught on to its retreat and came in pursuit, the fighting was bound to be grisly.

The Umezawa brigade, which was to receive the brunt of the Russian Army’s immense thrust, was held in mild contempt by the supreme command and friendly troops as “standby reservists.” Umezawa himself was already an old man. On top of all this, it was an Imperial Guard brigade—at the time, the Imperial Guard were commonly believed to be weak fighters.

Though the Russians were continually sending up fresh soldiers on active duty from home, Japanese soldiers went on getting older and older—a source of worry to Manchurian Army headquarters. The Umezawa brigade was a prime example of the graying of the Japanese Army. Umezawa was not a graduate of the Army Academy but a samurai from Sendai who had participated in the Boshin War. In rebellion against imperial forces, he had entered the fortress Goryōkaku in Hakodate, fighting under naval commander Enomoto Takeaki in his final show of resistance to the new government. He prided himself on being a veteran of that war. Had he been from Satsuma or Chōshū, he would certainly have risen above major general to rub shoulders with Kuroki and Nogi in the high command.

Other veterans of the Boshin War who fought in the Russo-Japanese War include Ōyama Iwao, Kodama Gentarō, Kuroki Tamemoto, and Nozu Michitsura, all of whom had fought in the imperial force, as well as Oku Yasukata and Tatsumi Naobumi, who had fought in the pro-Tokugawa force. All of them had gone on to become generals. Umezawa, a major general, was the only other veteran of that war involved in the current campaign.

Of Umezawa, it was said, “He knows the scent of battle.” As someone who had learned the art of war in actual battle, not in the classroom, he had developed instincts that made him keenly sensitive to the constantly shifting enemy situation and psychology. He also had something of a genius for command. He did all he could to instill confidence and pride in the men in his brigade, which the other units derided. He even composed a sanosabushi, a popular type of ballad ending with the refrain sanosa that his men liked to sing.

Did you see them?
The glorious Umezawa brigade
Taking Jilin and Harbin easily
on empty stomachs sanosa.

Indeed, the members of the Umezawa brigade were formidable fighters, not a whit inferior to the active forces.

To backtrack, on September 17, Umezawa went out to the front to do his own inspection. A master of warfare, he didn’t bother taking along an aide or a mounted orderly but went out blithely by himself. He stood at the sentry line on the right flank, looked out at the enemy through his binoculars, and saw what appeared to be movement. They were on the march, heading straight toward him. The mounted corps were deployed in front, with the infantry corps following behind.

Umezawa immediately instructed a nearby sentry to go tell the news to the troops behind. But the sentry, thoroughly imbued with a sense of duty, refused to leave his post. This answer delighted Umezawa, who took over the post while the sentry dashed back. Thanks to Umezawa’s swift action, the brigade was able to get a jump on the enemy.

Kuropatkin had already focused on the Umezawa brigade as the Japanese Army’s weakest link. He had decided his first step would be to cut off the rear communication line between Pingtaizi, where the brigade was positioned, and Lake Benxi, encircle it, and so wipe out the enemy’s extreme right flank.

Kodama and the other strategists had seen this coming and ordered Umezawa to retreat—all well and good, except that withdrawing in the face of the enemy was a fiendishly difficult stunt to pull off. Stakelberg’s great army was right in front of them.

Umezawa’s pet phrase came into play at this time: “There is a scent to war.”

When Kuroki’s chief of staff approached Umezawa to discuss the timing of his retreat, his answer was prompt: “Let’s withdraw immediately.”

The young officer demurred; surely it would be more prudent to observe the enemy a day or so before deciding on a method of retreat.

“But there is a scent to war,” insisted Umezawa. “No matter how we try to hide our plans, the enemy will find them out. The wind carries the news. If we wait a day and give the enemy a chance to sniff us out, they’ll gladly come after us. That’s the last thing we want to have happen.”

It is practically a physical law of war that being overtaken by the enemy while retreating leads to a rout. Umezawa’s point was that, since the enemy was bound to ferret out their movements anyway, once the order to retreat had been given, the best thing to do was slip away immediately, giving the enemy less time to react and so keeping damage to a minimum. This was the wisdom of a hard-bitten veteran of many a campaign.

On October 7, Umezawa waited for night to fall and then began his retreat. His brigade left and moved to its new camp on Lake Benxi as noiselessly as the wind. To be precise, Lake Benxi was on the right flank, and from there the new camp extended through the hills south of Mt. Zhaoxian.

The Russian Army found out afterward that Umezawa had disappeared, but they weren’t disappointed. Because Umezawa’s camp on Lake Benxi had incomplete fortifications and was thinly manned, that, Kuropatkin decided, was the place to commit a large force and break through.

Twenty days earlier, in order to check up on the state of Umezawa’s detachment at Pingtaizi on the Japanese Army’s right flank, Kuropatkin had ordered two generals—Pavel Rennenkampf and Aleksandr Samsonov—to organize a large unit to conduct reconnaissance in force and then attack. The purpose of the exercise was to test the waters.

This was what Umezawa had seen on September 17 when he had gone out alone to the sentry line at the front to reconnoiter enemy movements. He was there from dawn until after eleven in the morning. At eleven-thirty, he had spotted the advance unit of the reconnaissance in force through his binoculars. There were some two battalions of infantry and several companies of cavalry. The troops behind them, according to his report, stretched “on and on, seemingly without end.” He had taken prompt steps to deal with this change in situation.

The grizzled veteran Umezawa felt less alarm on discovering the presence of the enemy than he would if a stray dog had wandered into his front yard. He adopted the tactic of having his troops lie low and wait for the enemy to approach. The brigade was in a hilly area where it was easy to conceal themselves. He deployed the old soldiers under his command stealthily and shrewdly. The Fourth Standby Reserve Infantry Regiment was on the right and the first battalion of the Second Imperial Guard Standby Reserve Infantry Regiment on the left, like two spread-out wings, while in the center he placed the First Imperial Guard Standby Reserve Infantry Regiment. His brigade also had an artillery company attached. This Umezawa divided into three, assigning one platoon (with two guns) to each flank and the center.

The Russians were unaware that the enemy had discovered their forward movement. They probably figured that, as is bound to happen in war, a scout might have observed them. They certainly did not count on the brigade commander doing his own scouting and assigning troops to their battle stations on the spot.

“Don’t fire until the enemy is well within range,” Umezawa ordered. His men obeyed.

It was around noon when the Russian Army came within range of the Japanese artillery. The gunners waited till the last possible moment and then, under Umezawa’s capable direction, all three branches opened fire simultaneously.

The infantry saw with their own eyes how astonished the Russians were—and then they carried out their own sudden strike. Fighting lasted for more than three hours. Finally, at a quarter to four in the afternoon, the Russians took flight, having sustained enormous damage. Umezawa ordered his men to give chase, and the fighting went on until sundown, when they returned to their base. Umezawa had suffered the loss of a single noncommissioned officer, but Russian casualties were heavy.

Still, the defeat didn’t affect the Russians’ overall strategy. The original purpose of the sortie had been a reconnaissance in force. Despite having lost this small, localized battle, the Russians had successfully ascertained that Umezawa’s position was “thinly manned with scarcely any fortifications,” a harvest of intelligence that amply rewarded their efforts. Twenty days later, Umezawa’s advance posts came under heavy attack from Russian forces.

When day dawned on October 8, soldiers in the garrison at Lake Benxi on the extreme right of Umezawa’s camp discovered that the hills ahead of them were black with a swarm of enemy troops—the left column of Stakelberg’s corps and Rennenkampf’s division. Enemy units had assembled in front of Lake Benxi shortly after noon, opposite a single Japanese battalion. Faced with a task as hopeless as trying to hold back a raging flood with a wooden board, the Japanese soldiers began to retreat. Umezawa, who was behind them, did not leave the men unaided but hastily sent in reinforcements. Heavy fighting ensued, but Umezawa’s men were isolated and outnumbered, and their outlook appeared bleak in the extreme.

On learning that the Umezawa brigade was on the verge of annihilation, Kuroki took bold steps to rescue it. He was well aware that its loss would put the entire army at risk. If the Japanese Army’s defense line could be likened to a long dike, the Umezawa brigade marked its weakest point. Once that point gave way, the Russian Army could flood through the resulting hole in the dike and sweep away the rest of the Japanese Army.

Kuroki ordered the Twelfth Division (Kokura Division), led by Lieutenant General Inoue Hikaru of Yamaguchi Prefecture, to use every means at its disposal to rescue Umezawa. The Twelfth Division sprang into action, but the Russians had blockaded the roads and clearing them took time. By the time they reached Umezawa’s position, it was half past eight at night.

Kuroki further ordered his Second Cavalry Brigade to the rescue. However, that cavalry brigade was surrounded by an enormous force at Gujiazi, engaged in a desperate struggle and pinned down, unable to move.

Kuroki went still further, ordering the line of communication garrison to Lake Benxi—an order that broke the bounds of military common sense. Deprived of its garrison, the line of communication consisted of noncombatants only. Men who normally never laid a hand on weapons were forced to take up rifles and stand guard.

In any case, by October 9, Kuroki’s army, the right flank of the Japanese Army, was in grave danger, especially Umezawa’s brigade. At headquarters, Kodama decided that Kuroki’s army would have to pay a sacrifice. He had come up with a grand strategy. With the enemy’s main force bearing down hard against Kuroki’s army on the right, now was his chance to have Nozu’s army in the center and Oku’s army on the left wheel around the major Russian assault forces and encircle them. This was an operation beyond Kuropatkin’s imagining. Indeed, it was a strategy like few others in history. Japanese troops were far outnumbered. The idea of a smaller force surrounding a much larger one was, tactically speaking, preposterous.

The embattled First Army under Kuroki would function as a pivot around which the other armies could wheel to the right, driving the enemy forces into the hills where the Japanese forces, in their element, could wipe them out.

Nozu and Oku’s armies were to take the initiative in this offensive, but they too were embroiled in fighting. Unless they cleared away the enemy troops before them, they couldn’t begin the wheeling action. General Nozu, having consented to the plan, sought the permission of Ōyama and Kodama to attack the enemy at night on Sankuaishi Hill. There was no precedent in history for a night raid by an army consisting of several divisions. Ōyama and Kodama gave permission. On the night of October 12, Nozu’s army carried out this daring nocturnal assault, putting the enemy on Sankuaishi Hill to flight. That same day, Oku’s army routed the enemy forces at Qianlangzijie and thereafter saw light action.

Akiyama Yoshifuru and his cavalry brigade were positioned on the left flank of the Japanese Army, carrying on their campaign. Back when Yoshifuru was garrison commander in China, he had won the trust of the powerful Qing leader Yuan Shikai, who now sent him a gift of alcoholic beverages as a gesture of friendship. There were as many as four dozen bottles, a mixture of wine, champagne, whiskey, and brandy. For Yoshifuru, who had had nothing but cheap Chinese wine to drink, this was an especially welcome gift—but, at the time, no leader on the battlefield could be so heartless as to monopolize such a gift and not share it with his men. He took only a tiny amount for himself and gave away the rest to the men in his command.

The main force of Yoshifuru’s detachment advanced to Heigoutai, keeping a search party constantly to the north. From around October 11, the fighting was fierce. The detachment was continually pressed by a superior foe, and from time to time the enemy cavalry would descend like a storm and attempt to destroy them. Yoshifuru’s survival tactic was to have his forces bear up under this storm as best they could and, when it had finally swept on, crawl like inchworms to establish the next position.

To endure the storm, he had to make his cavalry cease being cavalry. They moved the horses to the rear, established a position, and opened fire. The attached infantry, artillery, and engineer units came to their aid, helping to press forward steadily.

“If it weren’t for them, we could never win out against the enemy’s superior cavalry.” This was what Yoshifuru thought. Cossack men and horses were so large in size that, in a one-on-one battle, the Japanese cavalry would have stood no chance. The fighting tactic that Yoshifuru adopted was similar to the one used by Oda Nobunaga in 1575 against Takeda Katsuyori’s cavalry in the battle of Nagashino, where Oda’s innovative use of wooden stockades and rotating volleys of fire led to a decisive victory. Even if it was born of necessity, the technique of pushing forward as they established positions followed European precedents.

In general, the Japanese style of fighting in the Russo-Japanese War can be likened to that of the powerful medieval warrior whose name has come up several times—Uesugi Kenshin, who was revered as the “god of war” by his followers. The Russians, having never before experienced such intense forward charges, were astonished, and repeatedly ceded ground. Yoshifuru’s detachment alone was different. The Russian Cossack cavalry was extremely aggressive, as cavalry always should be, and Yoshifuru resisted their whirlwind attacks by tenaciously hanging on to his positions.

“Of all the officers at every level, none had as hard a time as Akiyama.” This was the oft-repeated assessment of Lieutenant Colonel Naganuma Hidefumi, leader of the famous Naganuma cavalry raiders, who would later ride out long distances and wreak havoc behind Russian lines. Yoshifuru, at the head of Japan’s inferior cavalry, endured a harrowing ordeal.

“If attacked, endure.” This policy of Yoshifuru’s was also evident in his personal conduct on the battlefield. He had learned in Europe that the brigade commander himself flourishes his saber, leading charges and overtaking the enemy with his mobility, and then tramples the enemy underfoot. But because Japanese cavalrymen and horses were so inferior to their Cossack counterparts, any such attempt to take the foe by storm would have spelled their doom.

Although they were cavalrymen, the Japanese cavalry was constantly digging holes in the ground and shooting at enemy horses. They were not supposed to be farmers but hunters, and yet like farmers they were always digging in the ground.

“This is the only way.” Yoshifuru spent all his time studying maps in brigade headquarters and planning his next move. Whenever there was an enemy raid, he would take out his pistol and lay it on the table. He kept the weapon fastened to a cord around his neck. Since his fighting strategy was to endure the enemy’s intermittent whirlwind attacks and then creep forward when they were over, he was never able to step away from his post even for a moment. The pistol was to be used for suicide should the enemy cavalry come storming into his headquarters.

He was always drinking and thinking. Once, when Naganuma came to report to him after sunset he was surprised to find Yoshifuru’s room at headquarters dark and thought perhaps he wasn’t there. Looking closely, he saw Yoshifuru leaning back in his chair, deep in thought. From time to time, he would pick up a blue and red pencil and make some sort of notation, then cast the pencil aside and be lost in thought again. Naganuma was amazed that Yoshifuru could see the map in front of him in the twilight gloom. It angered him that Yoshifuru’s aide-de-camp, who should have been seeing to his needs, hadn’t bothered to light a lamp for him. He summoned the aide, Nakaya, and admonished him for leaving Yoshifuru to sit in the dark.

Nakaya apologized for his remissness, but people typically found it hard to be of service to Yoshifuru. He kept a canteen filled with liquor at his side and would from time to time pour some into a teacup and sip it. He asked nothing else but a few pickles and a map. That was all he needed. Having graduated from the Army Staff College, he had no need of aides. The Japanese cavalry was his own personal creation so he knew all its characteristics, both strengths and weaknesses, as well as the abilities and temperaments of all the officers and noncommissioned officers in his command. His years in Europe had taught him exactly how fast Western soldiers could ride Western horses. Before the Russo-Japanese War ever began, he had observed Russian military exercises in the Far East and grown acquainted with General Linevich and many other Russian officers and cavalrymen. There was nobody whom he had any particular need to consult about anything. The man’s very self-sufficiency led to his adjutant’s inadvertent neglect.

The battle of Shaho—that is, the battle by the Sha River—was a classic pitched battle.

The Russian Army was driving south. Unprepared to defend itself from the coming onslaught, the Japanese Army instead went on the offensive and began moving its entire line north. Both sides knew the clash was inevitable. When it came, the fierceness beggared description.

In one small bit of good fortune for the Japanese side, this was purely a pitched battle. Until this point, the Japanese had attacked and captured Russian positions without concern for the immense bloodshed involved. Strictly speaking, the battles at Jinzhou, Nanshan, and Liaoyang were not so much field battles as attacks on enemy positions. But now the Russian Army had abandoned its position at Mukden to head south. To be striking an army in motion was a boon for the ammunition-strapped Japanese Army.

But the enemy was too numerous. At every turn, the Japanese Army was in danger of being surrounded. That must not happen—and therein lay the difficulty. If one part of the army were surrounded, the whole army would succumb. To keep from being surrounded, they had to spread out and push forward, and, if the enemy jutted out, the right and left flanks needed to work together to encircle and drive them back.

The Japanese Army tried to seize the advantage by carrying out night assaults, its specialty. The Russian Army was ready for this, however, not only repelling the Japanese but also carrying out night assaults of its own.

The Japanese cavalry had two active brigades. One was Yoshifuru’s brigade, protecting the left flank, and the other was on the right. The cavalry took up these positions on either extremity because the Russians’ vaunted Cossack cavalry was in constant motion, taking constant sideswipes at the outermost flanks.

The brigade on the right was called the “Miyasama brigade,” or “His Highness’s brigade.” It was led by Prince Kan’in Kotohito, a close relative of the imperial family. After graduating from the military preparatory school in 1881, he went to France to study military tactics and receive cavalry training. He graduated from the Military Academy at Saint-Cyr and the Academy of Saumur, then from the Army Staff College in 1894, specializing in cavalry. Later, he became a field marshal. During most of his career, he was merely decorative and showed no particular ability, but at the battle of Shaho he made a major contribution.

The Second Cavalry Brigade that the prince led was mobilized considerably later than Yoshifuru’s First Brigade, not arriving in Manchuria until after the battle of Liaoyang. It was decided that it wouldn’t do to have the prince die in battle, and so he was to be transferred to General Headquarters. But when the orders came through, the battle of Shaho was already underway. Prince Kan’in proceeded to the battlefield with his cavalry.

Tremendous pressure was then being brought to bear against the army by the main force of the Russian Army, especially against Kokura’s Twelfth Division, and most particularly against the Shimamura brigade on a hill east of Lake Benxi. Outnumbered three to one and poorly armed, the Shimamura brigade was in imminent danger of being wiped out.

Fujii Shigeta had often been warned by Yoshifuru that, in the hands of an ordinary tactician, cavalry was no better than so many tin soldiers. Only with a superior tactician at the helm could cavalry carry out a surprise attack that might turn the tide of war. With the prince’s brigade at his disposal, Fujii decided that this was the time to use it in a surprise attack. Unfortunately, the cavalrymen were scattered, carrying out their primary duty of reconnaissance. He tried to assemble them, but, in the meantime, he sent out the Fifteenth Cavalry Regiment and a machine gun unit in advance, with the main force of the brigade to follow.

Along the way, they passed through extremely difficult, mountainous terrain. When they finally reached the southern bank of the Taizi River, there was no sign of the enemy. They proceeded then toward Lake Benxi, but the hills were so forbiddingly steep that they made little progress.

The brigade had been supplied with machine guns only at Yoshifuru’s adamant insistence. This was the new weapon that the Russians at Port Arthur had in huge numbers and that took the lives of so many Japanese soldiers there. In the entire Japanese Army, only the cavalry had machine guns.

Yoshifuru had piled them in horse-drawn wagons, but Prince Kan’in could see that pulling these along the narrow mountain paths was impossible. On the spot, he had them dismantled and altered to be carried on horseback. While he was at it, he fixed them so that they could be planted firmly on the ground with tripods for better firing. This change was to have an enormous impact.

When, after great difficulty, the cavalrymen struggled to the northern base of Mt. Pingding—“Flattop”—on the southern bank of the Taizi, they found Shimamura’s brigade fighting alone on the edge of disaster. They went straight into action, raking the left side of the Russian Army with blistering automatic fire.

The Russians had no machine guns. With incredible ease, the new weapon wreaked havoc. Roughly two battalions of infantry took to their heels first, heading east, followed by seven companies of cavalry and two infantry battalions that had come as far as the south bank of the Taizi. All of this happened in the space of barely an hour’s fighting.

The machine guns of Prince Kan’in’s cavalry were then turned against the Third Eastern Siberian Rifle Corps, fighting east of Lake Benxi, causing panic and retreat. After the war, it was found that the panic of Russian soldiers in the east sector had spread throughout the Russian Army.

By going on the offensive in the battle of Shaho, the Russian Army had gained the upper hand. To keep from being put on the defensive, the Japanese Army had been forced to respond with a counteroffensive—albeit one that lacked a grand purpose such as making the long march to Mukden.

The superior Russian forces were vigorously engaged all around the dispersed Japanese forces. Kuropatkin wanted to breach the Japanese line somewhere, anywhere. Once his men had created a gap, they could pour through it, head straight to Ōyama’s headquarters in the rear, and overturn it. From the beginning, this had been Kuropatkin’s goal. His troops were well supplied with all they needed, including ammunition, which they used lavishly. For every time a Japanese field gun or mountain gun was fired, the Russians returned fire a dozen or more times. Journalists traveling with the Russians reported that the army’s vigor was nothing short of amazing.

After their various engagements with Japan, moreover, the Russians had come to understand Japanese ways of fighting. First and foremost was the Japanese fondness for night attacks. At first, these had caused the Russians to retreat in consternation, but by the time of the battle of Shaho they themselves were carrying out night attacks frequently and continued firing all night to guard against possible attacks by the Japanese.

The Russians were also used by now to Japanese-style hand-to-hand combat. In the beginning, the sight of Japanese troops charging with drawn swords and bayonets had taken them by surprise, but at Shaho they met the onslaught and held their ground, fighting with valor. Sometimes they too charged Japanese positions.

In any case, the Japanese were outnumbered two to one. Fighting was extremely brutal. The Japanese troops fought tooth and nail, barely managing to stave off disaster. “Japanese Army in danger”—that was the story initially sent out by foreign correspondents.

“God is with us. Victory is assured.” The spirit of these words at the end of Kuropatkin’s proclamation to the Russian Army seemed to swell the hearts of every unit, to the last man.

On October 12, there was vicious hand-to-hand combat at the enemy’s main attack point of Daling. Some three regiments of the Russian Army made a bayonet charge. The lone Japanese regiment that met this charge was virtually annihilated, and the hilltop territory it occupied was lost. The Japanese Army then launched its own bayonet attack to recover the lost territory, and finally did so. Among the piles of Russian dead was the body of Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Pekuta of the Eastern Corps, Stakelberg’s aide. Orders were found in his pocket. The orders were from Stakelberg to the three corps under his command, the mixed mounted and infantry brigade, and Rennenkampf’s division. They read, “The army’s left flank is to drive the Japanese Army away from Lake Benxi and attack Field Marshal Ōyama’s main force from northeast of Liaoyang.”

At the battle of Shaho, the Russian Army showed its inherent strength. Russian noncommissioned officers and privates, taken from farming villages, followed orders faithfully and displayed remarkable tenacity in position warfare. But when it came to sentry duty or scouting, their Japanese counterparts were several times superior. The Japanese were far more skilled at alertly detecting changes in the overall situation, checking them out, and evaluating them appropriately. They were also better trained. The fighting skills of Japanese platoons and squads in particular were outstanding.

In terms of the quality of mid- and low-level officers, Japan also had the edge. Its officers were not simply valorous. More of them than the Russian officers fully understood their unit’s strategic importance within the army as a whole, and had the spirit and ability to sacrifice their unit spontaneously for the sake of all when necessary.

In the Second Division (from Sendai) of Kuroki’s army, there was a Major Nihira Senjun. He commanded the First Battalion in the Sixteenth Infantry Regiment (from Shibata). On October 13, Kuroki’s two divisions were stuck on a southern slope in a range of mountains that spread east and west, fighting Russian troops at the summit. The Russians had established defensive positions on every outcrop and from there shot down on Kuroki’s men. Kuroki, having decided that taking any one of those peaks would enable his army to break down the Russian line, ordered his Imperial Guard Division and Second Division to attack early that morning. The attack was a complete failure. Japanese losses only mounted as the day wore on.

Nihira’s battalion had been crouched down since the day before on the south slope of one of the hills in the area, in a fissure that formed a natural trench. They were 1,000 feet above sea level, where the night air was bitterly cold. Conditions were worsened by nighttime rains that turned the bottom of the trench to mud. The battalion spent two days and one night mired in that mud, from the morning of the twelfth until the afternoon of the thirteenth, without fresh ammunition or rations. For two days and one night, they went without sleeping or eating, fighting desperately against the enemy until finally they burst out together and charged up the slope in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Almost everyone from the officers on down were killed or wounded in the charge, but the hundred or so who survived took the summit.

Before this death charge, Nihira addressed his men, who numbered over a thousand. “I have lost many men already,” he told them, “at the battle of Liaoyang and in fighting at Jiulian. The last thing I want to do is to kill any more of you. But, for the army to achieve its strategic aim, this battalion has got to be sacrificed. I intend to die here. You, too, must abandon all thought of going home alive.”

Nihira’s style of leadership, as he prepared to hurl his men into certain death, was to convince them about the strategic significance of their mission. Only then did he ask them to give up their lives. The battalion’s fight to the death was indeed of momentous significance as it set in motion events leading ultimately to the enemy’s retreat.

The battle of Shaho began on October 8, and as of October 13 neither side had gained the advantage. Yoshifuru was still on the army’s left flank, advancing along the eastern bank of the Hun River with his brigade. Just past a village called Toutaizi, however, all of a sudden, he found the way ahead blocked by a huge Cossack cavalry formation—the equivalent of two Japanese brigades, nearly double the size of his outfit.

He was struck with admiration by the Cossacks’ skill at fighting on horseback. Their movements were swift and synchronized. Those in front held carbines. To be effective, mounted shooting requires extensive training, but these men handled their weapons with apparent ease. The front row advanced, shooting as they moved, while the back row drove forward as an assault force, their long spears aloft.

“Now that’s a cavalry!” Yoshifuru murmured to himself, gazing appreciatively. Then he swiftly did what was necessary. He never panicked. He had no need to, for he knew that, even outnumbered, his meticulously crafted cavalry brigade had the formation, equipment, and tactics to stand up to any foe.

Seeing what the Japanese then did, the Cossacks must have thought, “Damn funny way for a cavalry to act!” With a battle about to begin, the Japanese cavalrymen all dismounted, thereby ceasing to be cavalrymen. They fired prone, like infantry.

And, because cavalry was inevitably weak on defense, Yoshifuru always had with him the infantry unit on loan from the army, which he now deployed. But this still wasn’t enough to defeat the Cossacks. He also had his artillery unit, which promptly set to work deploying a battery in the rear. By firing shells to explode over the Cossacks’ heads, they intended to throw them into disarray.

These three different types of soldiers functioned together as smoothly as clockwork in Akiyama Yoshifuru’s detachment. Not even the mighty Cossacks, said to be the world’s strongest cavalry, were a match for them.

Moreover, the enemy knew only one trick: making a mounted dash. Predictably, on this occasion too, the Russians came storming forward in repeated waves without a thought of defending themselves. Each time, Yoshifuru’s defensive firing tactics won the day, until finally the Cossacks withdrew, leaving the ground littered with the corpses of their fallen comrades.

Fighting had begun around ten o’clock in the morning and ended a little past noon. Cossacks were known for not leaving their dead behind. Normally, while fleeing, they would reach down from the saddle to scoop them up, but this time they left behind over fifty bodies as well as a large number of weapons—in all, some five hundred carbines and spears. Yoshifuru’s brigade, meanwhile, got off very lightly, suffering only twenty or so casualties.

There would be no miracles for either side at the battle of Shaho. The fierce terrain ruled out surprise attacks, the ace card of the underdog. Victory in a pitched battle against a foe twice as big, achieved while pushing relentlessly forward, must be counted rare in the annals of war. After a desperate fight, Japan won this victory.

Looking back on this battle that began on October 8, it is clear that the thirteenth marked a turning point. The Japanese Army had no sense of having turned a corner at the time, however, as their exchanges with the Russians that day were extremely fierce. By the sixteenth, with the turning point far behind and the outcome of the battle clear, a salient of the Japanese came under heavy fire and its defenders retreated. This incident went down in Russian history as the “perfect victory at Wanbaoshan.”

The unit that had advanced on Wanbaoshan was a detachment led by Major General Yamada Yasunaga, consisting of two regiments of infantry, two companies of field artillery, and one battalion of mountain artillery. As military units go, it was quite small. This unit carried out the clumsiest retreat of any Japanese force in the entire Russo-Japanese War. Normally, when the artillery flees, care is taken to drag any cannons along, and, if that isn’t possible, then the breech mechanisms are removed and discarded to make the weapons unusable. In this case, however, a dozen or so guns were left behind untouched. That was the one and only time such a thing happened in the war.

The leaders who participated in this battle at Wanbaoshan, including Yamada and his two regiment commanders, were known for their bravery. The two regiments were the Forty-first Infantry Regiment of Hiroshima and the Twentieth Reserve Infantry Regiment of Fukuchiyama. Both of them participated in the frontal assault at Liaoyang and won recognition for their valor. Neither the officers nor the men, in other words, were inferior. Rather, they were victims of bad luck, that perennial battlefield visitor.

On the night of the sixteenth, sensing that his detachment had moved too far forward and was in danger, Yamada had his men begin to pull back. While they were so engaged, a large Russian force came after them, and during the resulting confusion a second Russian force arrived and attacked from the side. Even though the Russians outnumbered their quarry by a factor of three, this must be called a tactically perfect victory for the Russians.

The Japanese force, threatened from the rear while retreating, was in a weak position from the first. The retreat itself was done by the book. First to fall back was the mountain gun corps, followed in turn by the field gun corps, then Lieutenant Colonel Takeshita Heisaku’s Twelfth Reserve Infantry Regiment and, bringing up the rear, Lieutenant Colonel Uzawa Soshi’s Forty-first Infantry Regiment, consisting of regulars. Though the retreat was faultless, the Russians’ pursuit and attack was superb. Four regiments pounded Uzawa first. One went around behind him and cut off the main Yamada detachment, and another attacked the Japanese artillery and transport corps. It was a real drubbing.

The Yamada detachment was decimated in gruesome fighting. The Russian soldiers were pitiless in the extreme, stabbing and clubbing to death all the unarmed transport soldiers as well as the wounded. It could well be called a massacre.

In short, the battle of Shaho was peculiar. It never came to a proper end. But October 13 definitely marked the turning point. That was the fourth day after the Japanese forces began their united advance.

During this time, Kuropatkin’s brain was working overtime. His misfortune was that the wheels in his brain spun so much faster than those of an ordinary person. “Where is the greatest danger now?” he would ask himself, concerned less with where pressure was being brought to bear on the enemy than with the peril facing his own troops. His considerable brainpower was not used much for calm judgments regarding the war situation, but revolved rather around this issue, which caused him much psychological pain. In the end, strategy and command are not clear-cut, but depend on a general’s personality and psychology.

The Russians have generally been held to be a phlegmatic race. They were roundly criticized for this by Europeans and so acquired an inferiority complex. Kuropatkin’s discernment and shrewdness put him in a class by himself. Before the war began, he was famous in court and military circles as a non-Russian Russian. Everyone in Russia believed him to be their finest general. You could say his fame grew directly out of the Russian inferiority complex.

On October 13, he decided to retreat. This was the same man who had declared to his army on the eve of battle, “Victory is assured.” In his proclamation, he had also said, “The forces of the Manchurian Army are strong enough to begin forward movement. Nevertheless, you must remain unceasingly mindful of the victory to be gained over our strong and gallant foe. From the lowest to the highest, the firm determination must prevail to gain victory, whatever the sacrifice.” Ironically, the most extreme reaction to those sacrifices came not from Kuropatkin’s men, high or low, but from the general himself.

Kuropatkin’s decision to retreat was brought about by the actions of Oku’s army on the evening of October 12. Kuropatkin learned that Oku’s army had surrounded the left flank of the western corps. General Bilderling, commander of the western corps, asked General Leonid Sobolev of the Sixth Siberian Army Corps to send reinforcements but was refused, and so he retreated. This opened a big breach between the western and eastern forces into which Kuroki’s army poured with vigor enough to sever the Manchurian Army in two.

“This is a state of emergency!” Kuropatkin yelled, pounding his desk. The actions of Oku and Kuroki’s armies did not come from any planned strategy. All the troops did was attack wholeheartedly. Kuropatkin was the sort of general who, in the confusion of battle, was always quick to acknowledge defeat.

In the end, the Russian “retreat” only amounted to ceding a small bit of territory in the north. The Manchurian Army upheld the honor of being the world’s strongest military force by not crossing the Shaho to flee but halting on the river’s south bank. Positioning one’s troops with a river at their back is one of Sunzi’s “desperate situations.” Only a commander with the utmost faith in his troops would put them in such a dire situation.

The Japanese Army’s push forward all the way to the Shaho on October 13, meanwhile, was a staggering feat. None of the troops slept that night. They mounted a continual, sleepless attack. “The Japanese Army’s continual night assaults wore us out,” wrote one Russian in his account of the battle. The Japanese troops did not attack just once that night, but again and again.

Oku’s army made great strides forward on the thirteenth. Normally, after such a night, fighting would slacken in the morning, but, strangely, even after dawn on the fourteenth, the Japanese Army kept up its fierce attack without letup.

Kuropatkin came to the perfectly natural conclusion that the Japanese had plenty of reserves. It was military common sense that after an all-night advance, fresh troops would take over the next day. Kuropatkin assumed that the Japanese Army had brought in a huge supply of fresh troops to replace the battle-fatigued men at the front.

Understandable as this conclusion was, it was wrong. Men who had fought through the night without sleep or rest continued their onslaught at dawn. Reserves are an essential element in war strategy, the equivalent to pieces in hand (captured pieces that can be put back into play) in the chess-like game of shōgi. The value of reserve forces lies in being able to call up support in large numbers whenever it is tactically necessary. Kuropatkin assumed that Ōyama and Kodama had abundant reserves, but, in reality, they did not have a single soldier in reserve. They possessed no pieces in hand.

The game had to go forward with only the pieces on the board. Those being moved were ready to drop with fatigue. But, given the lack of replacements, nothing else could be done.

The Takashima battalion, part of the Third Division (from Nagoya) of Oku’s army, advanced as far as the northern edge of the fort at Shaho, capturing fourteen enemy guns and several dozen caissons. But they advanced too far and were cut off without support.

No words can convey the fierceness of the Russian attack. Superior gunners surrounded the battalion on three sides and focused their firepower with a noise to split the heavens. To escape the bombardment, men dove into trenches. The landscape was transformed. Local houses were blown to bits, while trees, stripped clean of twigs and branches, turned into blackened poles. The Takashima battalion was not alone in getting battered. Every Japanese force in the area met the same fate.

What saved the Japanese Army was a torrential rain that began around four o’clock in the afternoon on the fourteenth, a deluge so epic that it seemed the heavens had tipped over. In the downpour, the Russians lost sight of their targets, and their cannon fire let up. The Japanese seized the chance to curl up in their trenches and grab some precious sleep.

Of all natural phenomena, none infringes so deeply on human affairs as rain. This is equally so on the battlefield. The deluge that started late in the afternoon of the fourteenth soaked the soldiers and their weapons, and by nightfall the fires of war were squelched. Knowing that the Russians would not keep up the fight in such heavy rain, the Japanese troops settled down to repair the ravages of sleepless fighting. Russian soldiers were no less exhausted. Moreover, having gone on the defensive in the latter half of the battle, the Russian line was in zigzag disarray and needed to regroup. Kuropatkin set about reorganizing his troops that night.

The Japanese also needed to dress ranks. Ōyama and Kodama issued orders that night to do so in preparation for the next advance. Some staff officers scoffed that General Headquarters didn’t know the first thing about war. Now, when the Russian Army was reeling, was the time to deliver a knockout punch. This criticism was voiced with considerable conviction—but it was only idle criticism.

Suppose Ōyama and Kodama had had three fresh divisions at their disposal with plenty of ammunition on the side. Had they hurled those reserves at the Russian front on the night of the fourteenth, lighting into the exhausted soldiers, they might easily have driven them into the Shaho, a blow that would very likely have proved fatal.

Delivering a fatal blow was the one crucial thing that the Japanese Army had failed to do since the start of the war. Victory in war is impossible without delivering that fatal blow. With their backs to the river, the Russian troops were in an exceedingly vulnerable position, but the Japanese troops lacked the necessary reinforcements and ammunition to press their advantage. Their hands were tied.

On October 13 and 14, Ōyama climbed to the top of a hill in the village of Silitaizi to check on the battle’s progress. On the evening of the fourteenth, he descended the hill in the pouring rain, turned to his chief of staff Kodama, and said, “Looks like a victory.”

Kodama too could sense that momentum was on their side. Still, it was not a victory in the strictest sense of the word. There hadn’t been such a victory since Jinzhou, Nanshan, and Liaoyang. In sword-fighting terms, the Japanese Army had lunged forward and, with only light wounds of its own, made a gash in the opponent’s flesh. The opponent had merely stepped back, its strength undiminished. However big a step forward the army might have taken, the blow it delivered was far from a drastic, fatal stroke. Though wounded from head to toe, the enemy was still standing and had merely retreated a few steps. That was why Ōyama could only say, “Looks like a victory.” The purpose of the battle of Shaho had been to defend by attacking, and the enemy had obligingly withdrawn, thus fulfilling the purpose of the battle. They had to content themselves with that.

Kodama spoke softly. “Shall we end it here, then?”

Japanese casualties at Shaho totaled 20,497—the equivalent of two full divisions. Russian casualties were even more horrific. Bodies of Russian soldiers abandoned on the battlefield numbered 13,333, and 709 men were taken prisoner. Russian casualties exceeded sixty thousand, but with its rich supply of reserves, the Russian Army was well able to recover. The Trans-Siberian Railway would soon apply balm to Russian wounds, in the form of nine trains bringing fresh troops daily. From that perspective, the Japanese Army’s situation was desperate.

When the rain let up on October 16, fighting was still continuing on every front. Kodama sent a telegram to Yamagata Aritomo in Imperial Headquarters. He began by summing up the enemy’s situation. “The enemy is still halted on the northern bank of the Hun River, dressing ranks. It appears they plan to switch to the offensive as soon as they are ready.” He added, “Now is the optimal time to deliver another blow. For now, our troops have the advantage in both strength and morale.” This was undoubtedly true, since they had just inflicted a loss of over sixty thousand men. “Alas, lack of ammunition prevents us from doing this. I deeply regret that there is nothing to do but hold the line, dig in, and wait for a fresh supply of ammunition.”

“Message received,” Yamagata instantly replied in his wire. “Re ammunition, I am exploring all avenues, including increasing production and purchasing from abroad. Despite utmost effort, to my extreme regret an ample supply cannot be quickly obtained. Recently at the prime minister’s residence I stressed that no expense must be spared in procuring supplies for the armed forces, and not one cabinet member present disagreed. The administration is aware of the need. Unfortunately, supply capacity cannot be readily expanded.”

The battle of Shaho petered out on October 18. The Russian Army retreated behind the Shaho and began to dig in, a ploy to gain time until it had regained its strength. On the twentieth, Manchurian Army headquarters ordered the Japanese Army to strengthen its defenses as well. The two armies ended up staring at each other from their respective trenches.

So began the celebrated “face-off at Shaho,” but first the Japanese Army, known for its ferocious attacks, had to build solid field defenses. They entrenched, leaving a distance of only several hundred meters from the enemy at the closest point. In the end, they made a great trench line extending dozens of kilometers, with crisscrossing communication trenches between camps.

By November, there were already signs of winter in Manchuria. The two armies hunkered down and prepared for the winter ahead.

Following the battle of Shaho, men at the rear of the Japanese supply line were quick to sense that a winter lull was coming. They were the ones responsible for amassing foodstuffs and ammunition sent from the Japanese mainland, and getting them to the front. “With this little ammunition, there’s no way the army can fight a war,” they figured. “All they can do is dig a hole for the winter and crawl inside.” The commissary in the rear had a better grasp of what was going on than did those at the front. They had no doubt that the war effort hinged on supply.

Akao Seiboku, the commissary general, realized that a vast amount of charcoal would be needed and so took steps to secure it, sending an army of merchants out to collect charcoal all across Manchuria and felling timber in the nearby hills to produce it locally. With the entire Japanese Army forced to camp outdoors in subzero temperatures, charcoal would be a life necessity. Ammunition might have been scarce, but charcoal was a different story. In short order, Akao assembled a vast amount, over 1,800,000 kilograms in all, in a pile over 6 meters high that looked from a distance like a Chinese-style wall.

Those in the rear were thus farseeing, whereas the chiefs of staff and commanders at the front were so involved in what was happening under their noses that they made no systematic plans for the winter. In the beginning, they dug only the usual firing trenches and counterguards. When November came, and they finally saw that this was going to be a contest of endurance, they tinkered with the trenches to make them winter-proof, and also constructed fortresses and other semi-permanent works. Communication trenches and tunnels were added later. By then, the grass had withered, the snow had turned to ice, and the ground was frozen solid a meter down, defying the soldiers’ pickaxes. Still, the entire army was eventually able to burrow underground.

The battle of Shaho was basically called off for lack of ammunition. Yamagata Aritomo used the vague expression “years of halfhearted planning” as his excuse. In other words, from the first, the Japanese Army had suffered from a persistent systemic flaw, the lack of a basic concept of supply.

The standing army consisted of thirteen divisions, a fighting force of two hundred thousand men. Adding in the standby reservists, to be called up in time of war, made a total of three hundred thousand. This system of mobilization was, of course, borrowed from the West; headquarters always maintained this scale, even in time of peace. But they forgot one important thing: the need to manufacture sufficient ammunition in time of war. The navy did a far better job of understanding this need and preparing accordingly. During the war, they had ample production capacity.

What are we to make of this? It may be unbelievable, but from its very inception the Japanese Army suffered from what can only be called a total lack of common sense.