So also in the campaign on the east in the battle of Mukden. General Kuropatkin chose his defensive positions with skill. No pains were spared in fortifying the gaps in the mountain ridges through which the Japanese must pass. The principal routes open were through Da Pass and Gauto Pass. While these were the main defensive positions the Russians pushed fifteen miles further southward toward the enemy, and the earlier reverses at Tsinketchen were only fairly unimportant preludes to the battling at these mountain passes. The Russian line on the east had less geometrical regularity than the line of the west owing to the nature of the topography. The lines from the front extended to the foothills, as has been pointed out, and then were concentrated at the passes, the danger points, offering only a limited battle line until the fighting had swept over the mountains into the Valley of the Hun. What with artillery of a thousand guns and an army of 75,000 men only called upon to defend positions of vast natural strength, there was little wonder then when the open guns of the battle rolled over the plains in the west, General Kuropatkin concentrated his attention to the centre and gave little thought to events on his left. As it turned out the General's confidence was well founded. In all the war no braver or more stubborn or more successful fight has been waged by any Russian force than was waged by the army under Lieutenant-General Linevitch and General Rennenkampff on this flank. It has been said that the Japanese were fought to a standstill. That statement is literally true, and only the beginning of the Russian retreat made it possible for General Kuroki, the Japanese Commander here, to play any conspicuous part in the total disaster which befell the Russian Army. [Sidenote: Russians Had Advantage of Position]