Mukden, Battle of

(1905)

   The Battle of Mukden was the last major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War and the largest in history to that point. After the fall of Port Arthur, the Japanese began augmenting their forces in Manchuria for an assault on Russian positions in Mukden, which began on February 20, when the Japanese Fifth Army attacked the Russian left flank. On February 27, the Japanese launched a general attack on the right flank and despite heavy losses threatened to roll up the Russian flanks and encircle Mukden. General Kuropatkin ordered the evacuation of the city on March 10. The retreating Russian armies disintegrated, but the exhausted Japanese failed to destroy them. Mukden cost the Russians about 90,000 casualties out of 350,000 troops, and Japanese casualties were about 75,000 of 300,000. Russian defeats at Mukden and Tsushima prompted the tsar to accept an offer of mediation to end the war from President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Connaughton, Richard. Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: Russia’s War with Japan. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003;

    Ethus, Raymond A. Theodore Roosevelt and Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974;

    Warner, Dennis, and Peggy Warner. The Tide at Sunrise. London: Angus and Robertson, 1975;

    White, John Albert, The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964.

   ADRIAN U-JIN ANG