Battle of Sandepu - Background

Background

After the Battle of Shaho, the Russian and Japanese forces faced each other south of Mukden until the frozen Manchurian winter began. The Russian were entrenched in the city of Mukden, whereas the Japanese were occupying a 160 kilometer long front with the Japanese 1st Army, 2nd Army, 4th Army and the Akiyama Independent Cavalry Regiment. The Japanese field commanders thought no major battle was possible and assumed that the Russians had the same view regarding the difficulty of winter combat.

The Russian commander, General Kuropatkin was receiving reinforcements via the Trans-Siberian Railway, but was concerned about the impending arrival of the battle-hardened Japanese Third Army under General Nogi Maresuke to the front after the fall of Port Arthur on 2 January 1905.

On Kuropatkin’s staff at Mukden was General Nikolai Linevich, who had been brought over from Vladivostok to command the 1st Manchurian Army and Kuropatkin’s left flank. The center was held by General Alexander Kaulbars’s 3rd Manchurian army. The right flank was commanded by General Oskar Grippenberg, the inexperienced newly-arrived commanding general of the 2nd Manchurian Army. The 2nd Manchurian Army consisted of the 8th European Army Corps, a division of the 10th, the 61st Reserve Division, the 5th Rifle Brigade, and the 1st East Siberian Army Corps under General Baron Georgii Stackelberg, besides a large body of cavalry, or approximately, 285,000 men and 350 guns.

Grippenberg was initially pessimistic towards Kuropatkin’s plans for an offensive against the Japanese left wing, which was left in an exposed northern position close to Russian territory near the small village of Heikoutai. He agreed to the plan on the condition that all three Russian armies coordinate their attack. Details of the plan were leaked by St Petersburg to a war correspondent from the Echo de Paris, who credited the plan to Grippenberg. This news article, as well as Grippenbrg’s major redeployments of his forces in 14 and 16 January, signaled to the Russian intentions to the Japanese.