Battle of Liaoyang, 1904: Kuropatkin gives up the field

Liaoyang was the first time in the Russo-Japanese War that both commanders put everything into a single battle. For more than a week, in late August and early September 1904, three Japanese armies attacked the Russian Manchurian Army in its prepared lines around the town. The Russians held most of their positions, yet in the end they marched away to Mukden. The British official history called the result a splendid tactical triumph for Japan, but the price in men was one Japan could ill afford.²

Background: Japan on the mainland

By the summer of 1904 Japan had landed three armies on the mainland. The First Army of General Kuroki Tamemoto crossed to Korea in February and March and beat the Russians on the Yalu River on 1 May; the Second Army of General Oku Yasukata landed on the Liaodong peninsula in May; and a Fourth Army under General Nozu Michitsura was formed in June. All three came under Marshal Oyama Iwao, while a Third Army under General Nogi Maresuke besieged Port Arthur.³

The Russian commander was Aleksey Kuropatkin, the former minister of war. Britannica judges that he had been a competent minister but proved irresolute and passive in the field, with a policy of avoiding battle until he had a clear superiority in numbers. He placed his main forces south of Mukden around Liaoyang, and by late August the Japanese armies were closing on the town.⁴

Armies and commanders

Kuropatkin meant to fight his decisive battle at Liaoyang and had three defensive lines prepared, the last of them a ring of forts around the town itself. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia calls his plan one of passive waiting that left the initiative to the Japanese, and the British official history notes that in the crisis he fed his reserves to each threatened point instead of counterattacking.⁵

The size of his army depends on the source. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives 152,000 men with 606 guns; the British official history puts the combatant strength at 140,000 to 150,000 with 559 mobile guns, and Britannica at 180,000. All agree that the Russians outnumbered the Japanese, whom the Soviet encyclopedia and Britannica both put at about 130,000, with 508 guns in the Soviet count and 470 in the British.⁶

Oyama's plan was to envelop both Russian flanks. The Soviet historian S. A. Zalesskii judges that his forces were too small for it, and the British official history notes how close Japan came to a dangerous position.⁷

The battle in phases

The dates differ a little from source to source. Britannica dates the start of the battle to 25 August, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia to 24 August (11 August in the Old Style calendar then used in Russia), and the British official history treats 23 August to 3 September as one long struggle. In the first phase the Russians held an outer line south and southeast of Liaoyang. Japanese attacks were beaten back in places, but on 26 August Kuroki's First Army took the Russian positions around An-ping on the eastern flank.⁸

Kuropatkin did not stand on that line. Zalesskii writes that, working from exaggerated reports of Japanese strength, he read too much into a setback on his left; the British official history describes the same general retreat of the Russian army from its forward positions at the end of August. The Russians fell back to a second line much closer to the town, running to the Taitzu River.⁹

On 30 August the Japanese Second and Fourth Armies and part of the First attacked this line in heavy rain. They were thrown back with heavy losses, and a renewed assault on 31 August also failed. The attempt to turn the Russian right had come to nothing.¹⁰

Turning point: across the Taitzu

While the main attack was failing, Kuroki prepared a move against the other flank. On the night of 30 August his 12th Division crossed the Taitzu near the village the British call Lien-tao-wan, aiming at the Russian left and rear. In Zalesskii's account the Russian command did not react in time.¹¹

Kuropatkin pulled his right wing back into the main position around Liaoyang and began regrouping on his left for a counterstroke against Kuroki. On 1 September the Japanese First Army took hills on the Russian left, and the Russian counterattacks on 2 September went badly wrong; the British official history singles out the defeat of General Orlov's brigade.¹²

In the early hours of 3 September reports reached Kuropatkin that his reserves were exhausted and that a corps on his left was falling back. Fearing for his line of communications to Mukden, he ordered a retreat that morning. Zalesskii adds that some of those reports did not reflect the real situation, and the British history argues that Kuroki's own position was then hardly less difficult.¹³

Aftermath

The Russians withdrew in good order toward Mukden, and the Japanese occupied Liaoyang. The Russian army had been beaten but not destroyed.¹⁴

The losses were heavy on both sides. The British official history counts some 5,500 Japanese killed and 18,000 wounded; Britannica puts the Japanese loss at some 23,000 and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia at 24,000. For the Russians the British history gives about 2,100 killed, 12,900 wounded and 1,500 missing, and the Soviet encyclopedia about 16,000 in all.¹⁵

Britannica stresses what that meant for Japan, which had limited trained reserves, while the Russians at Mukden were receiving some 30,000 reinforcements a month over the Trans-Siberian Railway. The British official history makes a similar point from the other side: a Japanese defeat at Liaoyang, coming so soon after the failure of the first assault on Port Arthur, would have been disastrous.¹⁶

Legacy and memory

The British official history made Liaoyang the hinge of the war. It called the twelve days from 23 August to 3 September the most critical period of the war, said the victory gave the Japanese supreme confidence in themselves, and gave much of the credit to Kuroki's perseverance, while admitting that his crossing of the Taitzu may have been premature.¹⁷

Soviet historiography put the outcome down to the mistakes of the Russian command, and Zalesskii calls it an operational success for Japan. The war on land was settled only by the great battle for Mukden in February and March 1905, in which all four Japanese armies fought.¹⁸ › Battle of Mukden, 1905