I might also have been blamed for not holding on longer to Tieh-ling and fighting there, and for ordering the troops to retire on to the Hsi-ping-kai position. My reply is given in detail in my third volume. It is sufficient to say here that, when it was decided to retire from Tieh-ling on March 12 and 13, according to the officers commanding those units of the 2nd and 3rd Armies which suffered most in the battle of Mukden, we only had an effective strength of 16,390 rifles in 114 battalions.[29] If I had accepted battle there under such conditions, it would have been most dangerous, as we might have completely lost the cadres of many units. How long it would have taken us to re-form for a new battle can be judged from the fact that the officer commanding the 3rd Army stated before a committee assembled as late as May 17 [two months after the retreat] that he thought the acceptance of a general action even then on the Hsi-ping-kai position itself was inadvisable.[30]
I will bring the present chapter to a close by quoting literally my farewell address to the officers of the 1st Manchurian Army. In this address, with fresh impressions of all that we had gone through and had actually felt during the war, I outlined those of our defects which prevented us defeating the enemy in the time at our disposal. But while indicating our weaknesses, I also brought out the strong points of the troops which I had commanded—points which gave every reason for a belief that we should have won in the end.
“_To the Officers of the 1st Manchurian Army._
“In a few days the 1st Manchurian Army will be broken up, and I must now bid farewell to the glorious troops which I have had the great honour to command for two years. Upon you fell the arduous duty, in the beginning of the war, of withstanding the attack of a numerically superior enemy, so as to gain time for our reinforcements coming from Russia to concentrate. You had the good fortune to be present at the battles of the Ya-lu, Te-li-ssu, Ta-shih-chiao, Yang-tzu Ling, Lang-tzu-shan, and also at the long-drawn struggles of Liao-yang, the Sha Ho, and Mukden, and by your conduct during those fights you earned the praise of the rest of the army.