The special difficulty of frontal attacks was amply confirmed during the Mukden battles, for, although our troops there held very extended positions, they repulsed the Japanese whenever the latter made only a frontal attack. When, therefore, the Japanese assumed the offensive, and Kavamura’s movement round our left flank developed, I determined to check it by attacking Kuroki in front and flank. The situation on our left had become very alarming, for by losing the strong Ching-ho-cheng position and retiring towards Ma-chun-tan we had exposed the left flank of the 3rd Siberian Corps on the Kao-tai Ling (Pass). A still wider turning movement threatened to throw the 71st Division back on Fu-shun, but the reinforcements rapidly sent to the 1st Army from the main reserve were able to arrest Kavamura’s movement, largely owing to the behaviour of General Rennenkampf’s and Daniloff’s 71st and 6th East Siberian Rifle Divisions, which fought with great gallantry and stubbornness. If the 1st Army, which had a strength of 175 battalions, had made a successful advance, it ought to have influenced the operation then under way against our right. Being anxious to take the offensive, I gave Linievitch, commanding the 1st Army, the chance of selecting the main point of attack, and he decided to strike the point where Kuroki’s and Kavamura’s armies joined. The orders had been issued, and the movement had actually begun, when certain unconfirmed reports as to the movement of some Japanese divisions round the left flank of the 3rd Siberians unfortunately led him to stop the attack and send back such units of the 1st Siberian Corps as had been lent to the 1st Army for the operation. We had lost several days in collecting troops for this offensive movement, and large bodies of the enemy had meanwhile been moving round our right. I have described in detail (Vol. III.) the steps taken to avert this danger, and the results achieved. Here I will only mention them briefly. Against the 2nd Army, which consisted of ninety-six battalions, and which was mostly located on the left bank of the Hun Ho, Oku was operating with the greater part of his army. His right flank was, according to our information, operating against the 5th Siberians, and part, probably, against the 17th Army Corps of the 3rd Army. Thus, opposed to the troops under General Kaulbars’ command at the time when Nogi’s advance developed, there were, according to our calculations, not more than thirty-six to forty Japanese battalions. As the 2nd Army was reinforced by twenty-four battalions of the 16th Army Corps from the main reserve, theoretically we should have driven Oku’s army south by an energetic offensive, and, having thus cut it off from Nogi’s force, should have fallen on the latter. To do this we should have had to seize the fortified positions with strong defensive points near the village of San-de-pu by frontal attack. Practically, in the much more favourable conditions of a month