The Russian Emperor is said to have declared that he
intended to fight to his last soldier and rouble, and he is urging forward entire corps d'art-nee to reinforce General Kuropatkin, who will shortly have three hundred thousand ' men under his command. The Japanese War Office is making similar efforts ; and it is calculated that the winter campaign will be fought between Tie-ling and Kharbin by armies containing in all eight hundred thousand men. There has been no war involving such forces since Napoleon I. crossed the Niemen for the invasion of Russia. The Russian artillery is now described as splendid, though not always well worked, and all correspondents, even when Russian, speak with amazement of the never-ending showers of shells with which the Japanese precede every attack by their troops, and which, if the accounts can be trusted, sometimes blast away whole battalions. The general opinion of impartial observers is that the Japanese are the better soldiers; but no call to die has yet been disobeyed on either side, and the future history of the war will be choked with heroic "inci- dents." The special feature of the war, indeed, seems to be that the troops on either side can be stopped only by actual slaughter, amounting in many instances to more than 50 per cent. of their strength. If the war continues, as many
