with the capture in the preceding month of nos. 1 and 2 redoubts the enemy had got close up to our positions, and the salient angle of the north-east front was almost in their hands. i say 'almost,' because the ruins of these works remained the greater part of the time untenanted, neutralized by the gun-fire of both sides. as soon as they were abandoned by us, smirnoff, appreciating their importance, decided, whatever it cost, to recapture them, and compel the japs to retake them, and he considered the importance of this warranted the loss of even 2,000 or 3,000 men. he had accordingly arranged for a sortie in force, but st?ssel intervened, and prevented this by his order of august 31, already quoted, in which he would only permit sorties in small parties. to attack these redoubts with small numbers was quite ineffectual, and could only result in useless loss of life, and smirnoff tried in vain to persuade st?ssel to alter his opinion. had we only been able to recapture those works the effect on the moral of the men would have been great, as they would have realized that they could attack as well as defend; as it was, they had seen nothing but continual retirements ever since the war began. it would not have been impossible, for we possessed an excellent place d'armes[pg 192] in rear and on the flank of these places in rocky and water supply redoubts.
the japanese meanwhile did not waste time; they sapped right up to the glacis of the two latter, then started the first parallel, and, surrounding them with trenches, gradually endeavoured to work their way to water supply and temple redoubts. here, again, the only course for us was to hamper and delay the enemy's steady trenchwork-advance by means of well-timed night sorties. but not only had st?ssel paralyzed any attempt at a sortie in force by his order of the 31st, but he also managed to stop all small sorties by his action after one such had been attempted. order no. 590 of september 9 read as follows:
'on the night of september 8-9, lieutenant endrjievsky, of the 26th east siberian rifle regiment, on his own responsibility, and without even reporting it to his commanding officer, took 100 men of the scouts and performed various pointless gallant acts. this only shows: (1) that there are officers who do not consider the lives of the soldiers entrusted to them to be of the least value, and do not consider themselves responsible for them; to such gentlemen the sacrifice of a number of men for a quite useless undertaking means nothing; this proves their youth. (2) that in some units strict discipline is not maintained; for anyone to be able to take a company away from a bivouac without the knowledge of the commanding officer is very extraordinary.
'this officer is deprived of his appointment for taking his company out without permission, and for losing 5 men killed and 19 wounded to no purpose; he will not be recommended for any rewards, and will be transferred to the 27th east siberian rifle regiment for duty. colonel semenoff, commanding the 26th east siberian rifle regiment, will be good enough to look to the internal discipline of his regiment.'
this order excited intense indignation, all that was most honourable and most sensible in the garrison was outraged. thus was a gallant young officer, who had[pg 193] risked his life to try and assist us to hold temple redoubt a little longer, held up to ridicule. individual initiative was absolutely frozen up by this treatment, and no one attempted to carry out what, after all, is one of the most dangerous of operations, for all knew what the slightest piece of bad luck would mean for them. had its author at all considered the after-effect of this order, he would probably not have issued it.
pic
panorama of north-east front.
tumulus battery. 3. fortification no. 3. 5. chinese wall.
bombproof of the officer commanding the section. 4. rocky ridge. 6. fort, erh-lung-shan.
it has been said that st?ssel was liked by his subordinates, but he was feared, not loved, and he in his turn cared so much for the men under him that he did not consider it necessary to ride round the positions. and yet when telegraphing to the tsar his thanks for his promotion in the order of st. george, etc., he said that he had that 'day, on the positions, made the tsar's telegram known to all.' he never went nearer the front than the barracks of the 10th regiment, the safest spot in the whole fortress!
on september 9 i, as usual, accompanied the commandant on his inspection of the positions. as we went round, the men, taking advantage of the lull, were resting, having, wherever they could, burrowed under ground. the chinese wall had been repaired, and was held all along its length by infantry. life at the front, though possibly exciting, was now neither amusing nor pleasant. the air all round reeked with the mingled stench of decomposing bodies, garlic and disinfectants, for on all sides hung pieces of linen steeped in carbolic acid. at first the men could not eat, but they gradually became acclimatized. dogs had long ago fled.
on the 15th i spent some time on the splendidly appointed hospital ship mongolia, and was much struck with the perfection of the arrangements, and the contrast between the comfort and cleanliness on board and the squalor and filth at the front. i met one of the nurses who had served with the red cross in the late war in south africa. i asked her which she thought was worse, this war or the other.
[pg 194]
'there, in comparison to what is going on here, things seem trifles: the wounds there were generally small; here they are dreadful.'
meanwhile, on land, the enemy were, generally speaking, quiet. the reconnoitring patrols of both sides frequently came into contact, and each tried to snatch surprises and ambush the other. but the results were small. they shelled our defences, and we in turn did our best to foil them and delay their siege-works. on the 17th i accompanied smirnoff on a visit to colonel yolshin, who had been wounded, and a good deal was said about the inactivity of our engineers.
if we had only had good men here, in six years what might we not have done, seeing what had been accomplished in four months? our senior as well as junior engineers entirely forgot that enormous progress has been made of late years in ballistics, and apparently had no knowledge of modern artillery. they quietly pursued the prehistoric dogmas of ancient manuals.
in a fortress with a stony soil like arthur—soil which cannot be touched with entrenching tools—all the mobilization defence works, especially those of heavy profile, should have, to guard against such assaults as we had experienced, been prepared beforehand. the mobilization works in arthur were only begun on the arrival of the new commandant on march 17, up till which time they had not been touched. the whole attention had been directed to the central wall, and on the forts and intermediate works.
there was no mobilization scheme in the fortress. perhaps general bazilevsky knew of one, as he had seen the gradual development of the fortress works, which had gone on for over ten years. unfortunately, all records of these[pg 195] matters had been despatched to harbin, and no one in arthur, not even the commandant, knew anything of them. it may be asked why the new commandant was not entrusted with the plan of mobilization works? why did general bazilevsky—if he had such a plan—not give it to st?ssel? why did kuropatkin when he went round the fortress not ask for the plan of its works, even though only roughly drawn out? because in all probability one never existed. as to general st?ssel, it is quite possible that he did not know that a fortress ought to have a mobilization scheme, or did not even appreciate what a mobilization scheme was. he knew nothing about the works of the fortress; they had been entirely under the control of bazilevsky, who worked absolutely independently, and was subordinate only to the viceroy. for him, it was a sufficiently important duty to dismiss and abuse the cab-drivers on the streets, to order private soldiers who were improperly dressed back to barracks, and to order men walking about in the streets to keep step. to march out of step he considered such a crime that he thought it necessary even to make a special report on this subject to the viceroy. he was therefore very busy, and of course could not trouble himself about a defence scheme.
during september 18 and 19 heavy firing took place all along the line, and the attack on water supply and temple redoubts was fiercely pressed. the enemy mounted artillery within 100 yards of the former, and after changing hands six times, it remained on the 19th a smoking ruin, in the enemy's hands. temple redoubt was captured on the 20th, on which day furious attacks were made on long hill and 203 metre hill, and pan-lun-shan was shelled. in the evening the first was seized by the japanese. with the capture of water supply redoubt the town was deprived of the usual water-supply, but fresh water lake and the wells dug[pg 196] by smirnoff's orders gave us plenty of water for the requirements of the garrison and civil population.
from the early hours of the 21st the japanese attacked 203 metre hill, upon which their gun-fire was also concentrated. the whole of the western front and part of the eastern replied by massed fire. the assault increased; column after column rushed forward on to 203 metre hill, covering all its fore hills and slopes with heaps of dead, but at 8.45 a.m. they were repulsed. this assault was distinguished by particular obstinacy. i myself saw how, when their attack was repulsed, instead of retreating, the enemy began to build parapets of their dead and wounded comrades on the granite slopes of the hill, for they had no sand-bags. from this parapet they kept up rifle-fire all day on 203 metre hill and its spurs, on fort no. 5, and on the military road, making all communications impossible. from morning till late in the evening the japanese guns kept up a constant bombardment on 203 metre hill, and its position became more critical with every hour. having got three-quarters of it, they meant to get possession of the rest at all costs: they slowly crawled upwards, fell dead, rolled back, and others dashed forward; they lay concealed and waited for reinforcements, nothing would drive them back. all their thoughts, all their endeavours were to get possession of this hill. our men began rolling down great boulders from the top. these bounded down, flattened out the dead, and sought out the living, who, in trying to dodge, exposed themselves, and were shot by our men on the look out.
there you have the poetry of war—the reverse of a battle picture.
pic
a canet gun mounted on fort v., september 22.
the following is what colonel raschevsky wrote on the 21st: 'in two days, the 18th and 19th, we have fired 70,000 rounds. as we have for long been short of shells, batteries were often unable to reply to the enemy.[pg 197] from may 26 (the battle at kinchou) our losses have been: killed, 3,200 men and 59 officers; wounded, 8,500 men and 286 officers. of the wounded, up to the present not less than 2,500 to 3,000 have recovered and returned to the front.'
during the night of the 21st about 900 corpses were collected under 203 metre hill. at 2 a.m. on the 22nd colonel tretiakoff reported that the enemy were again advancing on to it, and that our men had great difficulty in holding on. fort no. 5 was bombarded all day. on the 22nd the town and part of our line were being bombarded, when smirnoff started to reconnoitre 203 metre hill himself. under a hot fire we reached fort no. 5 (by courtesy a 'fort,' for it had no masonry shelter, and was even now a ruin), but had to wait until the fire slackened at the enemy's dinner-hour before we could venture to watch over the parapet; he then saw how 203 metre hill was surrounded. to relieve fort no. 5, which was being heavily shelled, he decided to telephone to electric cliff to turn their fire on the enemy's guns, but the time taken to get the telephone message through was disheartening. (i have seen an article in the voenny sbornik by a m. timchenko-ruban, to the effect that the fortress was supplied with materials for telegraph and telephone construction on a luxurious scale!)
the general was disturbed about the position of 203 metre hill, though for that front, as a whole, he had no fear. he thought that the enemy would storm this hill that night, and that they must therefore have large masses of reserves collected somewhere close by: he wanted to find those reserves. his theory was justified, for at 1 p.m. a report was received from an observation post at pigeon bay that, from a small peak half a mile away, a good view could be had of a deep ravine running to the foot of 203 metre hill, and that in it the enemy's reserve of[pg 198] almost two regiments was hiding, waiting apparently till dark to make a fresh attack on the hill.
smirnoff at once telephoned to colonel khvostoff to send a section of quick-firers from liao-tieh-shan or fort no. 6 to shell them, and at the same time told him to warn all guns on the west front to be ready to sweep the south-west foot of 203 metre hill, where the enemy were bound to first show themselves on leaving the ravine. the section of quick-firers moved cautiously towards the ravine without being seen from the enemy's siege-batteries. it then suddenly opened rapid fire on the crowd of reserves massed in the ravine, and caused great loss. they were surprised, and, as had been foreseen, bolted out on to the slopes, where they came under the fire of the guns of the west front and scattered in panic, leaving great numbers of dead behind. it was a most skilful and daring operation, for these guns advanced to within one and a half miles of the enemy's outposts and four miles of their siege-guns; the gunners must have been so taken aback that they did not at once open fire, and it was evening before our section was forced to return to liao-tieh-shan, after a brilliant piece of artillery work.
on that night a pyroxyline mine was rolled into the attack trenches, and caused awful havoc, a number of the enemy being literally blown to atoms and many burnt and wounded. the remainder bolted, and, falling into our wire entanglement, were hurled down the hill. after this they again made two mad efforts to storm the hill from the north-west, but both assaults were repulsed with loss.
on the morning of the 23rd another japanese battalion, which was in this same ravine, came under the fire of our guns, took to the slopes, and in about ten minutes was also wiped out of existence.
the initiative in thus checking the attack on the almost[pg 199] captured 203 metre hill was the conception and work of the commandant alone, and was due to his true grasp of the situation and his taking the risk of sending guns where most other commanders would have feared to send them.[24]
in st?ssel's order of thanks to the troops for their work on this occasion, all the seniors were mentioned by name—except smirnoff!
from the moment this assault was beaten back, the trenches in front of 203 metre hill were gradually evacuated, and the enemy went to earth only on angle hill. all their sapping was confined to the north-east. on the western front of the fortress there now remained in our possession only 203 metre, flat, and divisional hills.
there was now more interference than ever with smirnoff's arrangements. no sooner did the commandant give an order (based on his personal acquaintance with the state of affairs) than it was altered. it was only through the mediation of kondratenko that a deadlock was prevented; in fact, kondratenko's chief work now consisted in persuading st?ssel that the opinions of one of his friends—always diametrically opposed to smirnoff's—were detrimental. every morning and late every evening, after going round the fighting-line, kondratenko, biely, grigorenko, and khvostoff used to meet the commandant. all questions as to the defence which were pending were then decided, and the programme of future work for armament, fortification of positions and distribution of troops and their supply was worked out. each of those present received detailed instructions, and at the following day's meeting reported results. st?ssel and his staff never took part in these meetings. indeed, he, as a rule, did[pg 200] not interfere till after smirnoff had issued his orders; he then altered them or by his own made it impossible to carry them out. but, notwithstanding this, work continued, for all knew that it was necessary, though the district staff's interference often caused hopeless confusion, hindered success, and demoralized the garrison.
the following is what colonel raschevsky wrote in his diary on september 28:
'what strikes one most on inspecting the fortifications on 203 metre hill is the impossible arrangement of the trenches which encircle the whole of the top and have apparently been made under the influence of our "mad mullah." those placed on the steep slopes are deep, narrow, and have a very thick roof. they resemble long dark corridors with narrow slits in the front wall. to hold such trenches is difficult, for they are quite unadapted for defence. the loop-holes have been made tight under the roof, so that to look out of them in a downward direction is impossible, and the field of fire is consequently very small. in fact, all beyond 20 to 25 yards is dead ground, so that an attacking force can get up almost to the position without loss. they are difficult to aim from, as the men cannot stand up straight and have to fire stooping. generally speaking, their arrangement is such that the attacker is able, with small loss, almost to fall on the defender and take the top of the hill, whence the defence can be driven from under the bomb-proofs. it is only the pluck and coolness of our men in making the most of the 25-yard field of fire, coupled with the indecision shown by the japanese in the last moments of an attack—for they have not yet displayed dash or made a rapid attack with the bayonet—that has enabled us to hold the hill so long.'
pic
a company in the trenches.
there was none too much ammunition in the fortress to waste, and yet while we were trying to husband it, the[pg 201] following absurd note was written by st?ssel to general smirnoff. the author's amazing ignorance of the functions of big guns and his want of foresight is by it strikingly illustrated:
'groups from three to five men can often be seen running about on pan-lun-shan. the artillery does not shoot. why? they should never wait for orders to fire at infantry on the run. the artillery seems to want waking up, and it is not the first time this has come to my notice.'
the enemy did not lack humour. i find a note in the diary for the 24th. 'it is said that the japanese have dropped a letter for us recommending electric cliff to fire more carefully lest they should hit kuropatkin!' considering his many promises to come down and help us, this was rather smart. but all the same, even our friends the enemy had their disappointments. as smirnoff said, 'their general staff had furnished tokio with a detailed plan of the fortress, upon which the plan of the attack was carefully worked out. they expected everything to go as had been ordained, and so have run up against some "snags." where they never suspected any defences they have found works of strong profile. they have now fought for two months without doing much, though, till the naval guns had all been mounted, i feared for the north-east front. they have fixed upon our weak side all right—the north-east—behind which is our heart.'[25]
the september assaults had contributed their quota to the hospitals, where life had now been very sad for months: not only were the patients suffering, but the whole staff were worn out.
on the 28th the besiegers' attention was turned towards erh-lung-shan and chi-kuan-shan forts and kuropatkin[pg 202] lunette, towards which they were burrowing, while the former and tumulus battery were bombarded. that day also we were favoured with visitors. in the morning the look-out post on golden hill sighted a japanese destroyer on the horizon from which a boat, flying the french flag, put off in the direction of arthur. admiral loschinsky sent out one of our destroyers, which brought the stranger into port. in her were two men who said they were correspondents of a french and an american paper.
while the fort commander, admiral grigorovitch, was telephoning their arrival to the commandant, they informed the officers around them that kuropatkin had been defeated at liao-yang and that the baltic fleet had returned to libau. we had received no news for a long time from outside, and this, of course, quickly spread throughout the fortress, producing an overwhelming impression.
the commandant at once ordered an aide-de-camp to meet the new-comers and take them to the fortress staff office to be examined, and he requested the chief of the staff to let him know the result. he then busied himself with his work. not hearing of them for two or three hours, he telephoned to the staff office for information, and was told that they had been met on the road to the office by st?ssel's aide-de-camp, and had gone to his quarters. before half an hour had passed in came the orderly with the cards of x.—— and y.——! the correspondents were inspecting the fortress, accompanied by lieutenant malchenko, and, happening to pass the commandant's house, they thought they ought to pay him a visit! he did not receive them, needless to say, but rang up the staff office.
colonel khvostoff arrived, and reported that the foreigners had been with st?ssel, had lunched, and had[pg 203] been sent round the fortress works with malchenko. they had shown no papers when asked for them by the port authorities, but had produced a letter they had brought for st?ssel, the address of which was most ungrammatically written. having arrived at st?ssel's, they gave him this, which turned out to be a letter from christoforoff (christoforoff and prince radzivill had brought st?ssel the telegram about his appointment as aide-de-camp to the tsar). st?ssel asked them to lunch, and after the wine the conversation became intimate. he openly told them the condition of the fortress, the shortage of ammunition and of supplies. after the feast he gave them permission to go round the works. excusing himself on the grounds of work at the front which could not be postponed, and to which he had personally to see, he went for a walk in the town (instead of his usual after-lunch snooze).
the chief of the staff finished, and every one was for the moment silent. a whirl of ideas flashed through the commandant's brain. st?ssel was interfering in his arrangements, and would make the defence of the place impossible, and his authority was being undermined at every step. this state of things must be stopped.
'gentlemen, i am going at once to general st?ssel, and will try to persuade him that suspicious correspondents must not be allowed to stroll about the town and fortress. they must be arrested and examined.'
having reached st?ssel's, he pointed out that the arrival of these men, apparently with the blessing of the japanese and without any papers, necessitated our looking upon them with suspicion, and that they must on no account be permitted to inspect the defences. st?ssel replied it was nonsense; that they had brought a letter to him. when it was remarked that this letter was so very badly written that it was hard to believe[pg 204] that a russian officer could be the author, he replied that neither christoforoff nor prince radzivill were great scholars!
smirnoff, feeling that st?ssel might not wish to compromise himself in the eyes of foreigners, said:
'if, sir, it is inconvenient or awkward for you to arrest them after they have been your guests, i will undertake it as commandant, and will have them examined. let all the unpleasantness fall on me. later, when we find out there is no reason to suspect them, they will blame me, and not you, and will take me for the russian barbarian.'
'pooh! they will see very little of the fortress. there is no harm in it. they will go back and write that we are not yet eating earth, as most of the foreign press seems to think, and that bands are always playing. how could they be spies, when they asked me to let them enlist in the volunteers that they might bark at the japanese?'
on the 29th, loaded with letters and requests, they left the hospitable shores of arthur, and when they had gone a short way they were taken up by a japanese destroyer.
i afterwards met x. —— in tokio. he showed me a passport given him by the french consul at chifu, which was signed by the district staff on september 28. beneath was the signature of general nogi's staff, dated the 29th! from nogi, y. —— went to nagasaki and x. —— went to chifu, whence he telegraphed untruths about st?ssel to his paper.
the day of their departure st?ssel stupefied us. we had become hardened to most things, but the following order by the district staff, dated september 29, was in its way a gem:
'yesterday, the 28th, two foreign correspondents, french and german, arrived from chifu. they were allowed to land without the permission of the com[pg 205]mandant, and without a careful inspection of their papers. they had letters of credit from the consul, but no official permission to act as war correspondents from the staff of the army. they came, of course, to ascertain the condition of arthur, for while in one paper it has been said that we are already eating earth, another has it that bands play and we want nothing. having detained them for twenty-four hours at the staff office under the supervision of an officer, i ordered the chief of the staff to examine their papers, and afterwards to send them at once out of the fortress, as i couldn't permit them to remain.
'much nonsense is printed in foreign papers, from the capture of port arthur to the retirement of kuropatkin almost as far as harbin. we are inclined to believe all this, though it is utter nonsense. for instance, we are ready to believe that kuropatkin has retired to harbin, till we look at the distance, and see that he must in two days have gone a hundred miles; but our people still believe these things because they appear in a newspaper—a foreign paper at that.
'for the future the port authorities are requested not to allow anyone to land without the commandant's or my permission, or without a careful inspection of papers. the commandant will be responsible for this.'
i think comment on the above is unnecessary.
at this time a rumour was current among our men that arthur had been sold to the enemy. it was founded on letters from the japanese saying: 'why do you hold on? arthur has been sold to us. we have it here on paper.' for the ignorant masses this was quite convincing.