T HE Japanese victory of Kincbau on May 26th, of which
the bare fact reached us last week, was a magnificent feat of arms. The Russian position on the dominating ridge of Nan-shan was really a fortress mounted with sixty-eight heavy guns and ten machine guns, protected by a system of trenches and mines, and by elaborate arrangements of barbed wire, the whole defended by twenty thousand Russian soldiers and marines under the command of General Stossel. A frontal assault seemed impossible ; but General Oku, rely- ing on the valour of his men and their superior numbers, ordered attack after attack through the whole of a long day, always with fresh reserves, and at last, as evening drew on and his stores of ammunition became depleted, directed his men to carry the position with the bayonet at any cost of life. His soldiers received the order with enthusiasm, and as the guns of the fleet bad made a gap, they, in spite of a terrific fire, stormed the hill, and drcve the Russians over the ridge in such rout that their guns all fell into the enemy's posses- sion. The total loss to the victors was three thousand five hundred men, that of the vanquished being estimated at above two thousand by the Japanese, and at eight hundred by the Russians. The moral effectof such a defeat in cirectinstances so favourable to the defeated must be of even greateemoment, and justifies the reported resolution of the Japanese to carry Port Arthur itself by storm within the next fortnight. The history of the affair has bad an electrical effect upon the Continent, where it is recognised that men capable of such a feat of arms are the equals of any troops in the world, and may even compel the Russians to make peace, a possibility which we have elsewhere discussed at greater length.
