It is perfectly evident in the light of these accounts that the Japanese, emboldened by their previous successes, rated their enemy too lightly, and without any preponderance, and indeed with scarcely an equality of numbers, they attempted to take by assault a position naturally strong and fortified by all the art and resources of the military engineer. The battle did indeed prove the incomparable qualities of the Japanese soldier; but it did little to add to the reputation of Japanese generalship; while, on the other hand, it exhibited General Kuropatkin in a light infinitely more favorable than any in which he had previously appeared. If one of Kuropatkin's subordinates--General Orloff--had not blundered badly in carrying out the movements against Kuroki on the Russian left, it is probable that the battle might have resulted in a decisive defeat instead of in a nominal victory for the Japanese. That blunder--which cost Orloff his command--enabled Kuroki to hold his own at a most critical juncture, and so to obviate the dangerous possibilities which the situation had developed. It was the peril of Kuroki that compelled Oku and Nodzu, who faced the centre and right wing of the Russian position, to press on their assaults with redoubled fury, even after they had been fighting for five days and losing thousands of men without making appreciable headway. In twenty-four hours Oku made three grand assaults upon the entrenched hills before him; and, when the last had been beaten back with awful loss, the laconic order came from headquarters: "Reinforce and attack again at dawn". Such a demand upon the endurance and _morale_ of troops is well-nigh unexampled; and that the Japanese soldier responded to it speaks volumes for his qualities as a fighting man. His persistence prevailed in the end, and the Russian line was forced. But even then the retreat was slow and stubborn. While a rear guard held the Japanese at bay, all the guns and wounded were safely withdrawn, and when at last the Japanese came into possession of Liao-yang, it was to find the fruits of their dearly-bought victory snatched from them, and their own forces too exhausted to follow victory up. The casualties in this awful conflict were enough "to stagger humanity", if one may use Mr. Kruger's famous phrase. The Japanese losses cannot have been less than 40,000, and those of the Russians were perhaps half as many; while the expenditure of ammunition on both sides was terrific. More than a thousand guns belched forth their deadly missiles continuously for nearly a week, and all eye-witnesses agree that never before has such tremendous artillery fire been witnessed. Well might it be necessary for both armies to rest after such a titanic struggle, and to devote more than a month to reforming and reinforcing the shattered ranks and to refilling their ammunition trains. The main result of the battle was to drive the grand army of the Czar one step further back from the beleaguered fortress