WITH THE COSSACKS

The story of an Irishman who rode with the Cossacks throughout the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. The war was hardly Russia's finest military hour, and its humbling at the hands of the rising Japanese set the scene for the 1905 Revolution - a rehearsal for 1917. This is the story of the war as seen by an outside observer, an Irish correspondent for the "New York Herald" newspaper, who accompanied the Cossacks, Russia's fierce horse-soldiers under General Mischenko, throughout the campaign. With more than a hint of "Boy's Own Paper" swagger, McCullagh takes his readers through the war's main battles, from Mukden to the fall of Port Arthur, after which he and his Russian comrades fall into the hands of the victorious Japanese. The book concludes with an eerily accurate prophecy of coming Japanese supremacy in Asia - and also of their decline. "Success will bring satiety…time and wealth and factory servitude, the great corridors of all martial virtue, will gradually take the fine edge from off their valour." Reprint of the 1906 original edition.