The whole lay of the land was adapted to defensive fighting. Along most of the front lay the Sha-ho River, broad enough and deep enough to demand bridging except when frozen over. The culminating event of the battle of the Sha-ho had been the recapture by the Russians of Lone Tree Hill, a mile east of the railroad, just south of the Sha-ho, at the very centre of the battlefield. From this point the Russians commanded a territory five miles in radius. The hill, naturally adapted for defense, was strongly fortified to a point nearer impregnability even, than achieved by any of the boasted fortifications of the mountains around Port Arthur. Thousands of Japanese were ultimately to immolate themselves on the slopes of Lone Tree Hill in vain efforts at its capture. It still stood invincible when events elsewhere demanded retreat and its abandonment. Westward the Russian line spread across a rolling country dotted with Chinese villages. The low, stoned walled cottages of these clusters of hamlets formed the basis for defenses which were well calculated to offer enormous resistance to troops advancing across the wide-stretching flats along the Sha-ho, and the east bank of the Hun, the only approach for the Japanese.
The Russian Position
Eastward from the Sha-ho the defense line followed the foot hills that become mountains thirty miles east of the Sha-ho. In front flowed a river for twenty miles of the distance, and a vast level plain approached the river from the south, over which the Japanese right flank must make its advance. The Russian position was enclosed in a vast triangle with the upper angle between Mukden and Fushan, northward, its base the eighty-mile line from Madyanapu, on the Hun River, to Tsenketchen, thirty-five miles east of Yentai. Mountains protected the left flank; the Hun River protected the right flank, while Lone Tree Hill, and the Sha-ho River were chief elements in the strength of the centre. All the genius of the Russian commanders was exerted to find the weak spots in this long line. Artillery of the heaviest types, ranging through all the grades of siege and field guns, and the more mobile and most deadly machine guns were scattered with prodigality across the whole vast front then in receding lines to the apex of the triangle, where were arranged the defenses of Mukden and Fushan. To facilitate communications over the battlefield, two hundred miles of light railroad track was laid, and thousands of light cars for horse or man propulsion were in constant use carrying munitions, provisions, guns or whatever was needed, to depots from which every part of the battlefield was readily accessible. Telephone and telegraph wires connected the headquarters, just north of the Sha-ho River, with every command along the entire line. Crowning all, an army of 350,000 men rested on its arms, elbow to elbow, along the front, as bulwarks to the flanks, and northward, thronging Mukden and Fushan, the reserves. This was the immediate situation on the Russian side that confronted Marshal Oyama.
The Japanese Task
The Japanese task, however, was more than to defeat the Russian army. Criticism had followed the victory of Liao-yang because, despite the awful defeat administered, the battle had been indecisive. The Russian general had been able to extricate his army and by a masterful retreat, to realign his forces in a new position with no alternative but to follow and prepare to renew the struggle left to the Japanese commanders. The Battle of Mukden must be estimated in the light of an effort to prevent a recurrence of this feat by the Russians. The chief world interest centers about the strategy of Marshal Oyama to encircle his foe, to cut off his retreat completely and to force the alternative of annihilation or surrender. The geography of the country, its strategical features far afield from the actual Russian positions, therefore, become matters of moment which must be understood to permit a comprehensive understanding of the battle and its results.
Mukden the Real Battleground
Marshal Oyama's problem, as has been said, was to envelope the Russian armies. It was as though the Russian triangle were a bottle into which a cork must be driven. On the neck of the bottle, ten miles apart, are Mukden, on the West, and Fushan, on the east. Between these points the Russians would be compelled to disgorge in a retreat northward should the center be broken and a retreat became necessary. Here, then, was the Japanese objective. To take Mukden and Fushan, to drive the forces there southward toward the Sha-ho, and to place a force northward to be the cork in the bottle, driving back the retreat on the advance of the center, right and left armies, thus surrounding the Russians with a hoop of men and guns that would make escape or victory impossible. Thus it is that a battle that centered twenty-five miles southward on the Sha-ho River becomes officially known as the battle of Mukden, for here centered the really vital struggle of the whole memorable engagement. The Russian line of communication centers at Harbin, where the railroad which pierces Manchuria and the Liao-tung Peninsula to Port Arthur, branches southward from the Siberian railroad, the artery through which flows life from St. Petersburg and European Russia to the Far Eastern armies. The whole Manchurian campaign has moved northward along this railroad, the salvation of the Russian army always depending on its ability to keep open at its rear this means of sustenance, of ammunition supply, of reinforcement supply, of transport of every kind, whether advancing or retreating. The railroad reached the actual Russian lines just west of Mukden and then continued southward to the Sha-ho, branching here and there to various field depots convenient to the various army units. Marshal Oyama's plan of battle comprehended, as its greatest achievement, the cutting of this railroad north of Mukden before a retreat could be made. This was the first and most vital contribution if the ultimate plan to envelop the Russians was to succeed. This plan failed and hence the prize of decisive, final victory slipped from the grasp of the Japanese commander, however great the blow he dealt to the Russian army.
Russian Flanks Strongly Protected
General Kuropatkin was fully alive to the dangers on his flanks as well as at the front. His right flank rested on Mukden, but the actual lines to which were given the task of preventing the turning of the right flank were far afield from the actual city. To the southwest they extended to the Hun River, thirty-five miles away, while the far outpost was within touch of Sinmintin, a Chinese city, thirty-five miles westward of Mukden on the banks of the Liao River. Sinmintin is actually in the territory which was excluded from the theatre of war by the famous agreement proposed to the European Powers by John Hay, the American Secretary of State, by which the neutrality of Chinese territory was assured. Nevertheless, while not actually occupied by the Russians, Sinmintin was to all intents and purposes within their lines and was continually used as a receiving point for supplies bought or commanded in the Mongolian provinces. Cossacks in large force remained in close touch with the city while the road leading from Sinmintin to Mukden, a famous caravan route, was occupied by large forces of Russians and was regarded as an effective bulwark for the Russian right flank.
The Russian defences on the right, or west wing of their army began just west of the Sha-ho River, extended thence westward for thirty-five miles to the Hun and then bent due northward across the left side of the Liao River Valley to a point a few miles east of Sinmintin; thence along the Sinmintin-Mukden road to Tatchekiao, five miles northward of Mukden; thence due westward until the line intercepted the railroad, a few miles north of Mukden. Lieutenant General Baron Kaulbars was commander of the army of nearly 100,000 men which made up this wing of General Kuropatkin's forces. The left wing's divisional commander was General Linevitch, who, with General Rennenkampf, stands among the greatest of the Russian commanders. Occupying a position to the Russian left flank exactly similar to that of Mukden on the right, is Fushan, ten miles east of Mukden. With this position firmly held at center and on its flanks it would be impossible for the Japanese to drive in their cork in the neck of the bottle between Fushan and Mukden. To the average strategist, indeed, universally among strategists, the view would prevail after a glance of the battlefield as it lay at the opening of the struggle that there was the real vital point to the attack as well as to the defense. In the opening days of the battle events all shaped themselves to bear out this view. General Kuropatkin manifestly thought so. Here he threw the weight of vast numbers of troops and thought victory near when the Japanese attack from this quarter had been fought to a standstill. Logically, Fushan was the chief danger point, and the fact that Marshal Oyama, the Japanese commander, chose another strategical solution for the problem is among his achievements that have resulted in the appellation of "The Napoleon of the Orient."