the viceroy[10] arrived in arthur and assumed command of the fleet on april 14. evidently anxious to ascertain what impression had been made by the death of admiral makharoff and the destruction of the petropalovsk, the japanese showed up again at 9 a.m. on the 15th, the approach of the fleet creating quite a flutter amongst the inhabitants. we all got nervous, and prepared for a fourth bombardment. steaming towards liao-tieh-shan, the fleet opened fire on the seaward defences, concentrating on the batteries on tiger's tail and the narrows. our batteries and ships, which were lying in the inner roads, replied energetically, and very luckily, with indirect fire. the bombardment continued at intervals till lunch-time, and was, from the japanese point of view, fruitless. after this the viceroy gave orders for the sea near liao-tieh-shan to be at once mined. admiral loschinsky had, some time before, reported to the late admiral makharoff the necessity of mining arthur and petsiwo where a landing was possible, but the latter was exceedingly sceptical as to the value of mines, for the same reasons as his predecessor had been. it had only been after the bombardment of march 10 and 24 that loschinsky was ordered to mine the southern shore of liao-tieh-shan.
[pg 37]
we now got some news from the north, and heard that a disaster had occurred on the yalu. we became convinced that arthur would be cut off and that the enemy were preparing to transport troops for a landing. there were continual rumours also that they would make another desperate attempt to block the entrance to the harbour. though great progress was made on the arming and fortifying of the fortress itself, on the position at kinchou, owing to the insufficiency of men, of building materials, and to the incomprehensible apathy of the officers commanding the district, little was done. st?ssel sat in port arthur, writing orders and interfering with smirnoff, and left the kinchou position entirely to other hands.
the state of affairs there was incredible. colonel tretiakoff, commanding the 5th east siberian rifle regiment, was appointed to command the position, but was given no power. whenever he asked for guns and ammunition for the weakly armed position, for engineers, labour, and building materials to repair the unserviceable batteries, or pointed out the necessity for constructing bomb-proofs, and urged that new positions on the hills might be fortified, the general would fly into a passion and shout: 'traitors! all traitors! who says that kinchou is badly fortified? the japanese will never take it. i will destroy their whole army if they only dare to land. we all know they are fools, but they will never send a large force here, and so weaken their main army.' being convinced of the futility of dealing with the general, tretiakoff, himself a 'sapper,' together with another engineer officer, schwartz, set to work with his regiment to try and get the place into order. although he continued, at every convenient opportunity, to point out the unsatisfactory state of the position against which the first blow of the besieging army must fall, not only was he not given more labour, materials, or engineers, but those[pg 38] that he did have were taken away from him. this sounds impossible, but is literally true.
amongst the large number of men now employed on the works there was naturally a proportion of undesirables and the commandant being anxious lest the results of the work and the plans of the newly-created fortifications should be communicated to the japanese, ordered a service of police gendarmes to be organized, under which were to be all the railway, town and gendarme police, captain prince mickeladsey was in charge. strict watch was now kept over the chinese, and the japanese knew nothing of what was going on in the fortress. on june 10, however, prince mickeladsey, with all his gendarmes, was sent by st?ssel to the other side of liao-tieh-shan, without the right of entering arthur, and the fortress being left without a gendarmerie, offered grand scope for spies. but more of this later.
after the sinking of the petropalovsk the japanese came almost every night into the outer roads and laid mines rarely a night passed without something happening: either destroyers or mine-layers always appeared, and the searchlights used to pick up these gallant craft, which were then shelled by the whole front. later the enemy became more cunning, sending junks in front of the destroyers to draw fire, thus enabling the destroyers to lay mines with impunity. the navy had hard work from now, fishing for mines, and ships were told off daily for what could not but be a most dangerous duty. the continual night duty also was most harassing, and the gunners—officers and men—were becoming exhausted.
while the isolation of arthur came closer and closer, little was being done by the officer commanding the district as regards providing the fortress with the necessary reserve of war materials, supplies, and hospital appliances, and poor progress was being made in requisitioning slaughter[pg 39] cattle and horses, for st?ssel paid no sort of attention to these points. this was perhaps, after all, logical, as he would not admit of the possibility of the isolation of the town. he informed the commander-in-chief that he wanted nothing—neither troops nor ammunition. although 50,000 field troops at least were essential for a successful defence of the fortress, and we had less than this number, men were actually sent from us to the north. as an instance of what happened, take this order, no. 328, of may 4:
'the following details, whose departure for liao-yang has been reported, are struck off the strength of the garrison from this date: one officer and 134 men from the 3rd reserve battalion and 250 men of the 7th reserve battalion.'
in this case, curiously enough, the men never actually went. after the battle of the yalu, in which the 3rd division suffered heavily, reserves were ordered to be sent from the fortress to replace casualties. the commandant obeyed the order, and despatched the required number of men within twenty-four hours. they were wanted for active service, and at once, and were sent off in 'serviceable'—not in 'first-year'—tunics. after their departure a telegram was received:
'why have the reserve men not been supplied with first-year tunics? they have been sent back.'
and back came more than 300 men a distance of 200 miles! why? for better coats! the commandant sent for the fortress intendant, who explained that, according to the local military regulations, reserve men were not supplied with first-year tunics, and that none were in store for them. tunics were, therefore, issued from the fortress artillery stores, refitted, and the men again sent off to the front, and this actually on the day before the communications were cut, when the com[pg 40]mandant had implored that every available waggon might be used to bring into the fortress ammunition, guns, hospital appliances, medicines, etc. but though the men were actually in the train, they never reached their destination, for by then the line had been cut. 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good,' and we profited to the extent of a few hundred more defenders.
the supply problem also became more acute. as the reserve of live stock was so small, for reasons already given, preserved rations were issued; but not only was the reserve of the latter not kept up as issued, but tons of preserved stuff were still allowed to be exported by the merchants, who held large stocks. as regards the collection of live stock, the position was more hopeless than ever. the civil commissary pointed out that requisitioning for cattle should commence on the furthest point from port arthur—in the country bordering on manchuria, and work inwards—so as to make it impossible for the chinese to drive away their cattle in that direction. the officer commanding the district, however, decided that the requisitions were to be served first in the sections nearest arthur. as might have been expected, the chinese, who are no fools, at once began to drive their cattle northwards. the district officers, under-staffed as they were, could only stop this to a very small extent, for, besides driving them, the chinese resorted to loading cattle on junks and taking them to chifu.
and so may arrived.
