Battle of Sandepu

Battle of Sandepu

Part of: Russo-Japanese War

Contemporary postcard from 1905 showing Russian officers during the Battle of Sandepu.

date	January 25. bis 29. January 1905
place	south of Mukden , Manchuria
output	draw

Parties to the conflict
Russia	Japan
Commander
General Alexei Kuropatkin General Oskar Grippenberg	Field Marshal Ōyama Iwao General Oku Yasukata
Troop strength
285,000 men	220,000 men
losses
13,963 total losses 1,727 dead 11,123 wounded 1,113 missing people	9,000 total losses

The Battle of Sandepu ( Japanese 黒 溝 台 会 戦 , Kokkōdai kaisen , also called Battle of Kokkōdai ) was from January 12th ^jul. / January 25th ^greg. until January 16th ^jul. / January 29, 1905 ^greg. fought between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Russian Army and was a land battle within the Russo-Japanese War . The battle took place between some villages about 58 km southwest of Mukden in Manchuria .

prehistory

After the battle of the Shaho , the Russian and Japanese forces faced each other south of Mukden until the cold Manchurian winter set in. The Russians had dug in at Mukden, while the Japanese held a 160 km long section of the front with the Japanese 1st , 2nd and 4th Armies and the Akiyama Independent Cavalry Regiment . The Japanese commanders assumed that no major fighting would be possible in the winter conditions and assumed that their Russian counterparts held the same view.

Meanwhile, General Kuropatkin received reinforcements via the Trans-Siberian Railway , but was concerned about the approaching Japanese 3rd Army under General Nogi Maresuke , consisting of battle-hardened veterans , which had been freed by the fall of Port Arthur on January 2, 1905.

In Kuropatkin's general staff was General Nikolai Linewitsch , who had been sent from Vladivostok to take over the 1st Manchurian Army and thus Kuropatkin's left flank. The center was held by General Alexander von Kaulbars ' 3rd Manchurian Army . The right flank was commanded by the inexperienced General Oskar Grippenberg , who had just arrived and to whom the 2nd Manchurian Army was subordinate. This army consisted of the 8th European Army Corps, a division of the 10th Brigade, the 61st Reserve Division, the 5th Rifle Brigade and the 1st Siberian Army Corps under General Baron Georgi Stackelberg . In addition, there were strong cavalry units, which brought the 2nd Manchurian Army to a strength of around 285,000 men with 350 guns.

Grippenberg was initially skeptical of Kuropatkin's plan to attack the Japanese left wing, which was in an exposed northern position dangerously close to Russian territory near the town of Heikoutai. He agreed to the plan on the condition that all three Russian armies join a coordinated attack. Details of the plan leaked to St. Petersburg via a war correspondent for L'Écho de Paris , who portrayed Grippenberg as the author of the plan. The newspaper article, as well as Grippenberg's strong troop shifts between January 14 and 16, warned the Japanese of an imminent offensive.

The Mishchenko raid

Kuropatkin's first move was to send General Pavel Mishchenko south with 6,000 cavalrymen and six batteries of horse artillery. Their aim was to destroy the Niuzhuang station on the South Manchurian Railway . The Russians knew that large amounts of weapons and food were stored at the train station. Mishchenko's order also included the destruction of railway bridges and parts of the railway line. Mishchenko started his company on January 8, but progressed slowly due to difficult weather conditions, insufficient horse feed and lack of supplies on the march. By the time Mishchenko reached the station on January 12th, it had been considerably reinforced by the Japanese. After three unsuccessful attempts to capture the station, Mishchenko was forced to withdraw. He returned to Mukden on January 18 without any results. The damage that his troops had caused to the railroad tracks was quickly repaired by the Japanese.

The battle

On January 19, Kuropatkin ordered the 2nd Manchurian Army to conduct a large-scale flank maneuver to bypass General Oku's 2nd Army before Nogi's 3rd Army could come to the rescue. However, Grippenberg did not receive permission to use his entire armed forces - Kuropatkin limited the contingent to three divisions and the I. East Siberian Army Corps including cavalry. The Japanese suspected an imminent offensive and their Commander-in-Chief Ōyama had his left flank reinforced. Kuropatkin later accused Grippenberg of having acted carelessly to warn the Japanese of the impending Russian attack.

On January 25, the battle began with the attack of the 1st Siberian Rifle Corps, which attacked the village of Heikoutai and took it after heavy losses. The Russian 14th Division, which had been assigned to attack the fortified village of Sandepu, failed in a coordinated action with the 1st Siberian Rifle Corps, as they did not attack until the next day, January 26th. Handicapped by the lack of maps, reconnaissance and bad weather, they even attacked the wrong village, Paotaitzu. There they came under heavy Japanese artillery fire and faced a counter-attack by the Japanese 5th Division from the direction of Sandepu. Rather than come to their aid, Grippenberg sent a hoax to Kuropatkin saying that Sandepu had been taken. Then Grippenberg granted his men a day of rest on January 27th. The target assigned to Stackelberg's troops was still in Japanese hands and despite the existing rest order, the latter attacked. 6000 Russian soldiers fell or were wounded and Stackelberg had to withdraw without having achieved anything.

On the morning of January 28, Grippenberg found that he had been separated from Kaulbars' troops by the Japanese-occupied Sandepu. A union of the troops was therefore not possible for the time being. Grippenberg wanted to continue the attack anyway, since the troop ratio still spoke in favor of the Russians: They had seven divisions at their disposal, which were opposed to five Japanese divisions. His intentions were not shared by Kuropatkin, who, as usual, acted cautiously and hesitantly and ordered him to withdraw. Again Stackelberg ignored the order and, with the help of Mishchenko's cavalry, took part of the village of Sandepu. At the same time, with Grippenberg's approval, the Russian Xth Army Corps under the command of General Konstantin Tserpitsky secured positions behind the village of Sepandu. Despite the favorable situation, Kuropatkin relieved Stackelberg of his command for insubordination - and again ordered Grippenberg to withdraw. Advancing with high morale, the Russian soldiers who advanced for the first time during this war no longer understood the world when the withdrawal was initiated.

Ōyama then ordered a massive counter-offensive on January 29, which successfully captured the village of Heikoutai by noon.

Immediately after the battle, Grippenberg resigned from his command and gave reasons for health. On his way back to St. Petersburg he stopped in Harbin , where he expressed himself bitterly about Kuropatkin and blamed him for the defeat in the newspapers. He called Kuropatkin a traitor and claimed that he had withheld crucial reinforcements during the battle because he was envious of not wanting to endanger his own fame. After Grippenberg arrived in St. Petersburg, he continued his negative coverage of Kuropatkin.

losses

According to more recent Soviet sources, the Russians lost 1,781 men killed in action, 9,395 wounded and 1,065 missing in this battle, although the total losses may have numbered up to 20,000 men. Japanese casualties amounted to 9,000 dead, wounded or prisoners.

consequences

The battle ended in a tactical draw and neither party claimed victory. In their Russian homeland, the Marxists used the controversial debate between Grippenberg and Kuropatkin to stir up a mood against the government.

Cinematic implementation

The battle was themed in 2011 in episode 12 of the Japanese television series Saka no Ue no Kumo .

literature

• RM Connaughton: The War of the Rising Sun and the Tumbling Bear — A Military History of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-5 1988, ISBN 0-415-00906-5 .
• Jukes, Geoffry. The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 . Osprey Essential Histories. (2002). ISBN 978-1-84176-446-7 .
• McCullagh, Francis. (1906). With the Cossacks; Being the Story of an Irishman who Rode with the Cossacks throughout the Russo-Japanese War. London: E. Nash. OCLC 777525
• The official history of the Russo-Japanese was: Volume 2 , 1908, Great Britain. Committee of Imperial Defense