June.
Tue report which we are told is believed in Tokio to be well-founded, that General Kuropatkin is now prepared to assume the offensive, inevitably recalls the lines written by that one years ago under the title, much-neglected poet Southey minety-March to Moscow "There was Tormazow and Jemalow And all the others that end in ow; Miladorovitch and Jaladovitch And Karatschkowitch, And all the others that end in itch Schamscheff, Souchonaseff, And Schepaleff, And all the others that end in eff Wasiltschikoff, Kostomaroff,
And all the others that end in off And Tehoglokof, Rajefisky and Noverefisky, And Riefisky, And all the others that end in effsky And all the others that end in offky 3 Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky, And Platoff he played them off, And Shouvaloff he shovelled them off, And Markoff he marked them off, And Krosnoff he crossed them off, And Tuchkoff he touched them off, And Boroskoff he bored them oft, And Kutousoff he cot them off, And Parenzoff he pared them off, And Worronzoff he worried them off, And Doctoroff he docthem tored off, And Rodionoff he flogged them off, And last of all an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name, A name which ie all know by sight very well; But which no one can speak and noone can spell."
Whether these Russian names and those who bear them will be as terrible to the Japanese as they were, according to Southey, to Napoleon's army, may be doubted and' indeed, our well-informed Tokio correspondent assures us that the news is received with much satisfastion at the Japanese head quarters, For the Japanese Generals are as anxious to meet the Russians in the open, as Admiral Togo has been to get the Russian fleet to come out from the shelter of their land batteries and fight in the open sea. By the way they stormed the heights above the Yalu, and the entrenchments at Nanshan, the Japanese have shown, as one of the London Spstacle fe insurmountable; but ers says, that they recognise no the carrying of such positions, glorious as it is, has not the de-Coives effect that follows victory in a big battle in the open. Before the fight at Kinchou our correspondent told us that the Japanese War Office considered that their earlier successes had advanced their programme some nine months If the Russians, relying on the experience of Plevna and at the same time undervaluing the Japanese as they have done throughout, believed that they could hold the Kinchou position for six months, and Port Arthur for two years, their expectations that they could tire out their enemy by prolonging the war for years must have been rudely disturbed, The Russian idea seems to have been to make the Japanese shatter themselves by protracted attacks on one fortified post after another. The Japanese have now shown that this idea must be given up, and that the Russian hope to drive them back into Corea after their strength had been spent in fruitless assaults on entrenchments was a vain one. General Kuropatkin has doubt-leas been urged from St. Petersburg to hurry on events by striking a decisive blow in the field.
Reverting to the victory of Kinchou, a Russophil contemporary has endeavoured to show that there is no discrepancy between General Floug's two dispatches on the subject. The brief account of the affair from General Stéssel himself, which we publish this morning, confirms our original conviction that when General Fong. sent his "simple demonstration" dispatch, his only knowledge of the fight was what he had received from St, Petersburg. General Stéssel acknowledges that his batteries were annihilated, and that his troops, instead of retiring in good order when the position was found untenable, were actually routed, for he owns that the retreat was so hurried that there was no time for his orders, that his guns were to be disabled before they were abandoned, to be carried out, The demoralization of his troops was such that he had to give up Talienwan and Dalny without even a struggle.
The campaign will become still more interesting if General Kuropatkin carries out the intention now attributed to him. From the scanty information that the censorship has allowed to reach us, it was gathered that Liaoyang was being put in a state of defence. The fact that a comparatively small force of Japanese has been able to drive back northward the three Russian divisions sent down towards Pulantien with the apparent object of making a diversion which would relieve the pressure on Port Arthur, shows that either General Kuropatkin is in a state of indecision which may arise from his plans having been capsized by the prompt action of the Japanese,—or that the 300,000 men whom he is now supposed to have under his command are still insufficient to cope with the various bodies of Japanese. who are operating in Manchuria, That he is now prepared to take a decisive step will be everywhere welcomed, if it results, as it should do, in shortening the war.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.