Battle of Te-li-Ssu - Background

Background

After the loss to the Japanese at the Battle of Nanshan, the Russian Viceroy Yevgeni Alekseyev came under extreme political pressure to make a military advance to prevent the complete encirclement of Port Arthur. The Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Russian Army in Manchuria, General Alexei Kuropatkin, disagreed vehemently to this plan, which he felt to be both foolhardy and dangerous, and he preferred to wait in Mukden for the Trans-Siberian Railway to bring him the reinforcements he felt necessary for an offensive. The matter came to head on 27 May 1904, when Viceroy Alexeiev summoned General Kuropatkin to a conference in Mukden. The two men wound up shouting at each other, and the matter was referred to St. Petersburg for a decision. The Tsar decided in favor of the Viceroy, and General Kuropatkin was reluctantly forced to mount an offensive from Liaoyang in the general direction of Port Arthur, but it is clear that he had no expectation of reaching that port. Lieutenant-General Georgii Stakelberg commanding 27,000 infantry, 2,500 cavalry (under the command of Lieutenant General Simonov) and 98 guns in the First Siberian Corps, was chosen for the mission. They were later supplemented by 3,000 riflemen and two guns, which arrived just as the frontline troops were withdrawing.

After the Battle of Nanshan, Japanese General Yasukata Oku, commander of the Japanese Second Army, occupied and repaired the piers at Dalny, which had been abandoned almost intact by the fleeing Russians. On 5 May, General Baron Nogi Maresuke arrived at Dalny to assume command of the new Japanese Third Army, consisting of the 1st and 11th Divisions. General Oku's Second army was restructured into the 3rd, 4th and 5th Divisions and an under strength 6th Division, with a total strength of 36,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 216 artillery pieces. Leaving the 3rd Army to lay siege to Port Arthur, and having reports of the southern movement of Russian forces confirmed by cavalry scouts, Oku started his army north on 13 June, following the line of the railway south of Liaoyang.

A week before the engagement, Kuropatkin sent Stackelberg southwards with orders to recapture Nanshan and advance on Port Arthur, but to avoid any decisive action against superior forces. The Japanese army had been moving slowly north since 30 May. Both sides continued to build up their forces and used infantry skirmishes and artillery exchanges to test each other's strength. The Russians, believing the Japanese Second Army's objective to be the capture of Port Arthur, moved their command facilities to Telissu. Stakelberg entrenched his forces, positioning his troops astride the railway to the south of the town, while Lieutenant General Simonov, commanding the 19th Cavalry Squadron, took the extreme right of the front. Oku intended to attack frontally with the 3rd and 5th Divisions, one on each side of the railway, while the 4th division was to advance on the Russian right flank down the Fuchou valley. Being the superior force and having the definite purpose of fighting his way north, Oku began to move on the morning of 14 June.