The value of the system of military education on which Japan relied for her safety was amply demonstrated in the war with Russia which came to an end in the autumn of 1905, having lasted a year and a half. The negotiations which had been proceeding throughout the year 1903 concerning Korea and Manchuria proved barren of satisfactory result, and being convinced that nothing more could be hoped for in the shape of a pacific settlement of the points in dispute, while on the other hand Russia was protracting the discussion only to gain time for further military preparations, the Tokio Government at last announced through the Japanese Minister at St Petersburg the rupture of diplomatic relations, on the 6th of February 1904, and forthwith commenced hostilities. At the outset the operations were principally of a naval character, designed to cripple the Russian fleet and make the landing of troops on the coast of Korea and Manchuria secure, the first land skirmish taking place at Cheng-ju, in Northern Korea, on the 28th of March. Wiju was occupied on the 6th of April, and a three days’ encounter at the river Yalu ended on the 1st of May in the complete defeat of the Russians under General Sassulitch by General Kuroki, and the capture of Kiu-lien-cheng. Up to this stage the operations in the field had been under the control of General Kuroki, but in May Marshal Oyama arrived from Tokio to take supreme command of the armies in Manchuria, and a series of important engagements then took place, notably the storming of Nanshan near Kinchau, close to Port Arthur, which opened the way to the investment of that fortress, and the occupation of Feng-hwang-cheng and Dalny. The Russian General Kuropatkin sought to relieve the growing pressure on Port Arthur by sending an army southward through the Liao-tung peninsula, but Marshal Oyama sent General Oku to meet it and a desperate battle was fought at Wa-fang-kou and Telissu, adjoining villages to the north of Kinchau, on 14th and 15th June, and ten days later a beginning was made with the attack on the fortress on the Regent’s Sword which nine years before Marshal Oyama had taken from the Chinese. The same month he was personally engaged with the First and Third armies in the mountainous region between Feng-hwang-cheng and Liao-Yang, where severe fighting occurred at the passes in the Mo-tien-ling, Feng-shui-ling and other ranges, on the route to the capital of Manchuria. Kaiping, on the coast of the Gulf of Liao-tung, was captured on the 9th July, and a week afterwards a determined attempt on the Japanese positions at Mo-tien-ling was repulsed, with great slaughter. The second Japanese army forced back the Russians on Ta-shi-chiao, when they again sought to break through to the South, and at Port Arthur itself there was a severe struggle for the possession of Wolf Hill, ending in a complete success for the Japanese forces. Meanwhile General Oku was executing Marshal Oyama’s plan of