A S we write on Friday, the fate of General Kuropatkin
still hangs in the balance. During the latter part of the six days' battle—a battle which will probably turn out to have been the greatest battle of modern times, both for the area covered by the combatants and the numbers engaged—the Japanese have been consistently successful. It may be, however, that at the last moment the Russians will be able to snatch victory even in the hour of defeat, and redeem the honour of their arms. Such things have repeatedly happened before, and may happen again. But though we admit the physical possibility that before these pages are in our readers' hands the tide of battle may have turned, we think it most unlikely. At any rate, the indications at the time at which we write are all the other way, and. these are the indications with which it is our business to deal. On Friday General Kuropatkin's position was as follows. His attempt to pierce the Japanese centre and to cut off Kuroki's force on the Japanese flank had. failed after three days of arduous battle, and he had been obliged, instead of attacking, first to stand on the defensive, and then to fall back, leaving as many as twenty-seven guns in the enemy's hands. Under certain conditions the position thus created need by no means be a desperate one for the general who falls back. An attack that fails is not necessarily a defeat. To fail to beat the enemy is not the same thing as to be beaten. All depends upon the conditions which impelled. the general to attack, and upon the morale of his army after its failure to maintain its advance. As to the first point there can, we think, be little doubt. Kuro- patkin did not attack because, like Lord Roberts before Paardeberg, he had carefully prepared his army for a great movement, and was able to choose the moment for that movement undisturbed by any initiative on the part of the enemy. Kuropatkin advanced and. attacked because he could not help himself, because such an advance was the only alternative to another retreat. His attack, in reality, was only a counter-stroke. He found that during the last two weeks of September the Japanese were gradually and silently weaving the meshes of their net round his armies. Though there was no great display of strength, and no attempt to force action, the Japanese were edging up on his right and on his left to outflank him. When this happens, the general who is in danger of being caught in the toils must either retreat with all haste out of risk of envelopment, or must strike as hard as he can and strive to cut the cords which he cannot evade. He advances not so much because he wants to as because he must. He is not attacking, but breaking out. But a moment's reflection will show how different, in case of failure, is the position of the general who is attacking at his ease, and because he has planned to do so, and that of him who has been forced. to attack as a last resort, or even because he thinks his foe has over- done the work of envelopment or made his net too thin and too wide. In one case he may only have been denied his will. In the other, in all probability, his position has become desperate because the alternative to breaking out —the alternative of retreat, which he rejected—is no longer open to him, or only open under conditions of greatly increased danger.
The strategic position of General Kuropatkin is, then, a very serious one. What has to be said as to the morale of his army? If that morale is still unimpaired, and if his supplies are still inviolate, it is still possible that his troops, even without performing miracles, may be able to extricate themselves as they did in the first battle of Liao-yang, and to fall back sullenly on new positions, against which the Japanese will again have to dash their forces. We do not, of course, profess to be able to answer our own question as to the morale of Kuropatkin's army. We can only note the facts such as they appear to us, and these, we confess, are by no means favourable to the notion that the morale of Kuropatkin's army is still sound. Three-fifths of them at least, or a hundred and fifty thousand out of the quarter of a million, have been steadily beaten for seven months, and have imbibed the idea that the Japanese soldiers, whether from superior weapons or any other cause, are more dangerous fighters than themselves. His men, that is, may not prove equal to the terrible work now required of them, work which will often demand self-sacrifice such as even Russians cannot bring them- selves to make.
The practical conclusion to be drawn from these pre- misses would seem to be that General Kuropatkin's army may not only be defeated, but destroyed, though at a price which even the Japanese will feel most terribly. On the other hand, it must be noted that although the Japanese seem able to bear the annihilation of whole brigades as no other troops would, the point at which their generals are weakest is pursuit. Though that may be due in part to their want of masses of cavalry, it must be due also to the impression made on the leaders by the grave losses which even victory over Russians always entails,—losses which appalled both Napoleon and Frederick the Great, and would have appalled even the Turkish generals if they had not been protected both by their comparative ignorance and their sincere belief in destiny. It may be, therefore, though General Kuropatkin's position looks almost desperate as we write on Friday, that the Japanese will again fail in giving the coup de grd,ce, and that the Russians will escape with an army which, though defeated, is still a coherent military entity.
After all, much must depend upon the brain- power of General Kuropatkin, and it is worth while inquiring whether his situation as a general who must win or be ruined will develop that brain-power to its highest. That depends in part upon his temperament, which may be like that of Marlborough, whom nothing except his wife's scolding could. shake from his serenity, or like that of Massena, whom defeat, possibly because of the Asiatic blood in his veins, rendered at once wrathful and comparatively stupid. Assuming General Kuropatkin, however, to be the great tactician we have always held him to be, we should be apt to believe that the kind of despair in which he must have made his grand movement to the south, while making him more daring—if that be possible —and more determined, will diminish his reflective power and increase his recklessness.
We should sum up the chances as follows. If the morale of Kuropatkin's army is not destroyed, and if their General has maintained his power of will and power of brain unimpaired, the Russians may even yet escape from their perils. If either the morale of the army has gone, or if the General's brain-power has diminished, Kuro- patkin's position is perilous in the extreme.
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