From 1904 to 1905, the two imperialist countries of the Japanese Empire and Tsarist Russia fought for control of the Liaodong Peninsula in China, known in history as the Russo-Japanese War, which ended in the defeat of Tsarist Russia.
After the Battle of Lushun in January 1905, the Japanese and Russians faced each other on the shahe river south of Fengtian, and the war shifted from sea to land. During the Battle of Fengtian, the Russian army attempted to use cossack cavalry as the main force to raid the Japanese outpost Heigoutai, which was also one of the few active offensives carried out by Tsarist Russia at the beginning of the entire war.
For this attack, Russia invested about 100,000 troops of the Second Army for deployment, and the Japanese also used about 54,000 troops, and the ratio of the number of participants on both sides was about 2 to 1.
In the end, the Tsarist Russia, which had a numerical advantage, killed and wounded more than 10,000 people in Heitaigou, and the number of Japanese casualties was close to 10,000, and the two sides basically equalized from the number of casualties, and Tsarist Russia did not occupy Heitaigou as desired. However, before the Japanese reinforcements arrived, the only cavalry of the Akiyama detachment, about 8,000 men on the left flank of the front, was defended by 100,000 Russian troops.
It was these eight thousand troops who insisted on holding the Black Platform Ditch, leaving the Cossack cavalry, which had absolute numerical superiority and was brave and good at war, to no avail. What kind of existence was the Cossack cavalry of 100,000 people who could not defeat 8,000 people, was it the poor strength of the Cossack cavalry or was there something else hidden in it?
1. Cossack cavalry
Cossacks, which mean "free men" in Turkic, were first formed in the 13th century by fleeing Russian and Ukrainian serfs. It is not an independent people, but a military group. The main ethnic groups are Slavs, but there are also many Tatars, Caucasians, Georgians and Turks.
Cossacks have lived for generations in the steppes of Eastern Europe, living in semi-autonomous groups. Since nomadic was the main way of subsistence, the Cossacks grew up on horseback and were good at riding horses, and each of them was a good rider and a good cavalryman. A war horse and a sabre can gallop on the Battlefield of Europe for a hundred years.
Napoleon, a generation of tyrants, once fought with the Cossack cavalry during the invasion of Russia, and he confessed that if he could have cossack cavalry, I would be invincible and dominate the world. Hitler, the German Fuehrer during World War II, also praised the combat effectiveness of the Cossack cavalry, and even formed the defecting Cossacks into an independent unit, the "First Cossack Cavalry Division".
In addition to fighting bravely, the Cossack cavalry was like a group of uncivilized beasts. Although dressed in a glamorous manner, the methods of dealing with opponents are extremely cruel, and they are also ruthless to the civilian population, often slaughtering the looted villages. Therefore, the reputation of the Cossack cavalry in European history is not too good.
II. The Battle of Black Trench, the Cossack "Waterloo"
During the Russo-Japanese War, the Cossack cavalry naturally joined the war as an important military force in Tsarist Russia. At the Battle of Kurodaigou, the Russian Cossack cavalry fought the Japanese cavalry after the Meiji Restoration for the first time. Although both sides were cavalry units, the form of engagement was completely different from traditional cavalry combat.
As an agricultural civilization, Japan's cavalry combat is not a strong point, and if the traditional cavalry battle mode is followed, the Japanese cavalry may not be able to compete with the Cossack cavalry. As the "father of Japanese cavalry", Akiyama Yoshiko naturally knew this, and then built a fortification on the Black Ditch Platform, in order to make up for the lack of cavalry firepower, the Japanese army was also equipped with heavy machine guns and large-caliber cannons in the trenches, as if they were stuck in the black ditch platform.
On February 25, 1905, the Russian army launched an attack on the Akiyama Yoshikobu in Heitaigou. Akiyama ordered two cavalry brigades of the Japanese army to meet the enemy, but only to be defeated and not to win, while the main force of the Japanese army remained in the fortifications of the ravine, setting up guns and waiting for the Pursuit of the Russian Cossack cavalry.
The Cossack cavalry naturally did not pay attention to the sight of a group of short Japanese cavalrymen, and the Japanese troops who saw the Cossack cavalry also had no intention of turning around and running. The Cossack cavalry felt that victory was within reach and went after the Japanese army on horseback, and their bones flowed with the character of bullying, fearing hardness, and fighting for strength, and they never had the saying of mercy among their subordinates, and in the face of the fleeing Japanese army, they only thought of taking advantage of the victory to pursue and kill them, completely unaware that the shadow of death had enveloped them.
Before the Cossack cavalry could catch up with the Japanese army, the main force of the Japanese army hiding in the fortifications launched an attack on the Cossack cavalry, and even if the Cossack cavalry on horseback had strong riding and shooting skills and slashing skills, they could only obediently let the Japanese army slaughter in the face of the firepower network composed of light and heavy fire of the Japanese army.
With strong fire support, the Japanese cavalry shrunk in the fortifications and fought the cavalry battle into a positional offensive and defensive battle. In the next three days, Akiyama Yoshiko, as the father of a generation of cavalry, relied on this offensive and defensive style of fighting, and with a cavalry force of 8,000 people, he resisted the fierce attack of the Russian army of about 100,000 people.
On February 28, Japanese reinforcements arrived, and the number of Japanese troops reached about 54,000. Although it was only half the number of the Russian army, but with the excellent fortifications, the Russian army did not take the Black Goutai area in the end, and the encirclement was torn apart by the Japanese army.
Why the Cossack cavalry lost
Seeing this, I believe that everyone has a general understanding of the entire campaign. It is time to find out why the Cossack cavalry, known for their bravery and good fighting, lost this battle.
First of all, were the Cossack cavalry weak? The answer is not weak, as mentioned earlier, until the second time of World War II Hitler praised this unit, and also specially formed the Independent Army. Although Hitler's attitude toward the Cossacks was not good at first, he only put them in charge of some security or life-saving work, but after seeing the strong fighting power of the Cossacks, his attitude changed, allowing them to fight for the Germans on the battlefield.
Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the Cossacks is beyond doubt, and what is problematic is the thinking of fighting.
After experiencing two industrial revolutions, the great powers have established industrial civilization, weapons have shifted from the era of cold weapons to gradually mature hot weapons, and the innovation of guns and artillery has continuously promoted the evolution of war methods. During the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had become a capitalist country through the Meiji Restoration, and its weapons gradually followed the trend of the world.
In contrast, the Cossack cavalry in this battle, armed with sabers and rifles, also prefers to engage in close combat with the enemy through rapid mobility, although there are rifles, but the combat thinking still stays in the era of cold weapons. Objectively speaking, this can not blame them, the tsarist Russian treasury is already empty, there are still feudal remnants inside, the army's heavy firepower configuration is not much, the cavalry unit is even fewer, and the use of close combat is also a last resort.
Therefore, one of the main reasons for the defeat of the Cossack cavalry in this battle is the asymmetry between operational thinking and weapons, and the Japanese army is the combat idea of thermal weapons, taking advantage of its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses, avoiding contact with the Russian army and solving the problem with guns. The thinking of the Cossack cavalry still stayed on the idea of cold weapons fighting with knives. Cold weapons collide with hot weapons, and it is naturally clear who loses and who wins.
In addition to the problems in combat ideas and weapon configurations, there is also the problem of the will to fight. Needless to say, Japan naturally has a strong will to fight, and the new Japanese army after the Meiji Restoration is also very strong in combat.
The Cossack cavalry was different and was originally composed of different races, and there was a certain "rebel force" in nature, and there was naturally a division within it. They will not be loyal to a certain government wholeheartedly, and for them, "milk is a mother". Even if there is a will to fight, it is indeed related to their own interests, and the Liaodong Peninsula that the Russian government cares about is not their vital interest, and naturally it is inferior to the Japanese army in terms of will to fight.
Finally, there must be many people who think that the Japanese army played a little clever in the Battle of Heigoutai, obviously a cavalry battle, but with the advantage of firepower to hold the fortifications, the battle between the cavalry into a position war.
In fact, in the final analysis, this is still the difference between the two sides in the war thinking, the task of the Japanese army is to hold the black ditch Platform For the Japanese army that uses hot firepower to fight, the meaning of sticking to it is to use guns to hold the position in the fortifications. Trench warfare that emerged during World War I was a similar principle, a change in operational thinking after weapons innovation.
Moreover, no matter what kind of service it is, the task is that task, the military order is like a mountain, and all the ways are to complete the task as the only purpose. On the battlefield, it is understandable to take the most beneficial way to fight, and a commander who will not be flexible is not a good commander after all.
Text/Disciplinary Case
Resources:
1. "Cossack Cavalry under the Swastika", Mao Chunchu
2. "The War Between Two Robbers dividing the Spoils: The Russo-Japanese War", Tang Chuanxing
3、《
The character image of the protagonist", Li Jinli