13 Headline:  Heavy Japanese Casualties

Bennet Burleigh, cabling from Tien-Tsin to The Daily Telegraph, insists that the Japanese casualties in the battle of Liao-Yang were nearer 30,000 than 17,000.  Mr. Burleigh declares there is no evidence that the Russians used dum-dum bullets.

Brief google:

Such bullets are sometimes known as Dum-dum or dumdum bullets, after an early British example produced in at the Dum Dum arsenal, near Calcutta, India. There were several expanding bullets produced by this arsenal for the .303 British cartridge, including soft point and hollow point designs.

….However, it was soon noticed that such small caliber rounds were less effective at wounding or killing an enemy than the older large caliber soft lead bullets. Within the British Indian Army, the Dum Dum arsenel produced its now infamous solution – the jacketing was removed from the nose of the bullet, creating the first soft point bullets.

….These bullets expanded to a diameter significantly greater than the original .312 inch (7.62 mm) bullet diameter, producing larger diameter wounds than the full metal jacketed versions. Because the energy was roughly the same, none of these rounds actually produced more severe wounds than the then previous .577/450 Martini-Henry British service round, yet protests were lodged based on the comparison of the wounds produced by expanding and non-expanding bullets from high velocity sporting rifles.

…The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibits the use in international warfare of bullets which easily expand or flatten in the body, giving as example a bullet with a jacket with incisions or one that does not fully cover the core.

Back to the article:

Oyama was overheard to say at Liao-Yang that stubborn as Kuropatkin is, he must now be in a desperate condition and aware that his game will not do.  Whatever corps Russia may mobilize, Japan can duplicate them with better troops put into the field more quickly.”

Mr. Wallace, correspondent of a San Francisco newspaper, who has just recovered from a dangerous illness, complains of gross neglect at the hands of the Japanese army doctors.  He says that it is part of a plan to be rid of all foreigners.

There are a good number of articles about shipping and ships from neutral countries being held and what it means if a Japanese or Russian ship makes a call in the US or France and so on.

I believe this is connected to the number of books you can read from the war period and several years after that deal with — international law and neutrality….

Sep 15 Headline:  Criticism Surprises Japan

Leading Japanese journals are much surprised by the change in sentiment which, it is reported, has been produced in England by the news of the Liao-Yang battle.

The article goes on for a couple of paragraphs about how the Japanese see the importance of recent events and what happened on the ground then gets to this:

All this, it is remarked, is unquestionably appreciated by thoughtful Englishmen.  Nevertheless London dispatches suggest that, although Gen. Kuropatkin was driven out of a valuable position and signally defeated, yet British faith in the Japanese strategy has been shaken and the final issue of the war is considered more doubtful.

It is surmised by the press here that it is not English opinion that has changed, but the tone of the war correspondents, who are thought to be dissatisfied because they have not obtained larger facilities.  It is admitted that Japanese officialdom has not shown the highest tact in the treatment of correspondents…

Others, however, are gradually becoming inimical, and have telegraphed statements and appreciations which cannot possibly have been based on actual observation, but must necessarily have been founded on hearsay, colored by prejudice.

Say it ain’t so!!!

Sep 18 Headline:  Japan Bows to the Press

Owing to the friction between the military authorities and field attaches and correspondents, Field Marshal Yamagata, Chief of the General Staff, today telegraphed to Field Marshal Oyama, commander in chief of the Japanese forces in the field, as follows:

[Couple of paragraphs on how Japan is fighting to establish peace and democracy in the East]

It is therefore hoped that these principles will also find expression in the treatment of foreign officers and correspondents attached to our armies, and that, so long as the rule of military secrecy is not infringed, a frank and candid consideration be extended to them, so that the spirit of sincerity, which animates this empire, be fully demonstrated to the whole world.   [and thus they will not harp on looting for days on end....]

Sep 18 Headline:  Japan Driving in Wedge at Port Arthur With Heavy Blows — very long article

It is almost superfluous to point out that at Port Arthur the Russians enjoy none of these advantages.  Before the war the Japanese swarmed in the place.  In banks, shops, as coolies, small dealers, the clever islanders found employment.  They kept their eyes and ears open.

The attacks of the Japanese have been directed at the centre and flanks of the whole system of defense.  It must be remembered that since the commencement of the war the Russians, taught by Todleben’s example at Sevastopol, have thrown up a very efficient secondary line of defense.  The eastern sectors, against which heavy attacks have been continuously delivered, were already so carefully arranged for mutual defense by Gen. Vernander’s plan that comparatively little new work has been carried out there.

….In front again of these mines or deep pits filled with stones, placed above explosives, which explode by contact when walked over, protected again by wire entanglements, and trous de loup, have been plentifully arranged.