with the fall of kinchou and the retreat of fock's entire division towards arthur, all glances were directed to lieutenant-general smirnoff. those who had believed absolutely in the impregnability of the former position now lost heart, and began as fast as possible to clear out of the place, going in chinese junks to chifu. when the battered remnants of the 5th regiment—the regiment which by its gallant defence of kinchou had covered itself with everlasting glory, and which had lost more than half its men and two-thirds of its officers—marched into arthur, it was given a most unexpected, not to say unique, welcome.
'you are a wretched, undisciplined corps of traitors, cowards, and blackguards. i will try the lot of you by court-martial. how did you dare leave kinchou? don't dare to show yourselves in arthur, lest by your presence you infect the whole garrison with your cowardice,' was st?ssel's greeting.
the regiment had no divisional commander, and no one dared to take its part. discipline prevented the officer commanding from replying to st?ssel, and he and his officers had to bear these totally undeserved insults. one general put the whole blame of the defeat on the regiment, and assured st?ssel (it was not hard to convince[pg 85] him, as he was not at kinchou) that the abandonment of the position was solely and entirely the fault of the 5th regiment, and the senseless way in which it had fortified the place.
this cruel and shameful injustice to this gallant regiment was soon known by all the others, and it had a very bad moral effect on the whole garrison.
after the kinchou débacle, the commandant drew up an order as to the distribution of the different units in the fortress, and on june 1 took it to st?ssel for official approval. the latter rudely cut him short, and, without either reading the order or looking at the scheme, said that it was inopportune.
'the publication of any such orders with regard to the distribution of the troops might,' he said, 'become known to the japanese through their spies. [he had himself, on may 29, issued an order detailing troops to various positions on the hills.] the district under my command has almost entirely passed into the hands of the enemy. arthur alone remains, i shall take upon myself the defence of the fortress. its present staff will be broken up, for it is a useless body. my staff will be sufficient. i will send colonel khvostoff to command a battalion. you will be on my staff. it is impossible for two equal commanders to be in one place.'
this was on june 1: we actually held on to the district outside the fortress for two months after this date.
the commandant was in an awkward position. st?ssel defied him, and the fortress, which, thanks to his own efforts and skill, was being gradually got into a state of readiness, was to be taken from him and to be commanded by a man who would wreck all. that moment settled the relationship between these two. it was the first act[pg 86] of the tragedy, which ended on january 1. quietly, and with perfect politeness, smirnoff answered:
'i was appointed commandant of this fortress by the tsar; the fortress staff is the organ of the commandant, appointed by imperial orders. i have no intention whatever of resigning either the rights entrusted to me by the tsar or the duties consequent on them. you, sir, as my commanding officer, can give me general orders relating to the defence of the fortress, but i remain its master until the tsar himself deprives me of it. if my removal from the duties of commandant admits of no delay, you have it in your power to publish an order to that effect.'
during this scene those present anxiously awaited the result, for in those few minutes the fate of arthur was decided. in an angry voice st?ssel replied:
'i do not mean to remove you from duty. you will remain commandant, but i shall run the fortress. whether legal or not is my affair; i will answer for that.'
what could smirnoff say?
there was a knock at the door; an orderly entered to announce some officers, and the episode was over. but as every wall has ears, this incident was soon known to the whole garrison, and indignation knew no bounds. we were all afraid for the fate of arthur, and made conjectures as to the action smirnoff would take. some declared he would leave on a destroyer; others, in indignation, said that st?ssel should be invalided and forced into hospital; others swore that the day and hour had been settled when smirnoff would surround st?ssel's house with a whole regiment and arrest him, as well as fock and others. the moment would have been an appropriate one, for the discontent in the garrison was very great, and the hatred of fock and st?ssel had much increased since kinchou. everything depended on smirnoff's[pg 87] decision; but to adopt such violent measures was risky—a dangerous precedent for the discipline of the troops. st?ssel also had st. petersburg at his back. even the viceroy could not interfere with his recent appointment as officer commanding the district, though much against it. who could say that st?ssel's arrest would not have results quite opposite to those wished for? it was most likely that st. petersburg—that hotbed of the most revolting scandals and intrigues—would represent st?ssel's arrest to the tsar in such a light as to cause an immediate order for his release. was it not all possible?
pic
a woman dressed as a soldier, who went through several fights.
finally, smirnoff, in spite of the many suggestions and proposals, decided to settle the matter as peacefully as possible. he accordingly sent for general kondratenko and colonel reuss, and told them that he recognized the necessity for a division of authority, and so was quite prepared to give up all his powers, save only the actual defence of the fortress, for which he intended to remain responsible. reuss expressed regret for all that had happened, and promised to use his power to keep evil influences from getting at st?ssel.
next day order 285 was issued by the officer commanding the district, and clearly showed that st?ssel was not inclined to conciliation:
'as the enemy has appeared in the area of the fortress, and the 4th east siberian rifle division, with its artillery, has joined the troops in it, i now assume supreme command of the defence, and, in order to centralize authority, the chief of my district staff will in future be present at the council of defence established under the presidency of the commandant. all resolutions, etc., of the council will be given to him to report to me for my confirmation.'
why did he publish the order? its only result was to take the control of the fortress from the hands of the real chief, who, according to all regulations, should have been in supreme command. then, when fock's entire division[pg 88] arrived on wolf's hills, a council was summoned, at which the question of what further steps were to be taken was brought up—whether the outer positions on green hills were to be held, or whether the defence of the advanced fortified positions of the fortress was now to begin. the commandant protested against the latter, energetically insisting that the green hills must be held, because the fortress itself was not quite ready, and, what was more important, because wolf's hills and ta-ku-shan and sia-gu-shan hills were not fortified, and were most important strategic points. fock asserted that it was unsound to attempt to hold the enemy on field positions; that it would be a mere waste of men and ammunition, which might be so essential for the defence of the fortress itself, to which a withdrawal must sooner or later be made. it would be wiser to neglect wolf's hills and retire at once into port arthur, and so commence its defence with the maximum number of men. st?ssel agreed with fock. then the commandant explained his scheme in detail, and pointed out that as soon as the blockade became strict the japanese would get possession of wolf's and sia-gu-shan and ta-ku-shan hills; that, in that case, the inner and outer harbours would be impossible for ships, as the waters could be reached by indirect fire, and that none of our works could be successfully held.
smirnoff's brilliant and lucid statement carried the council, which, by a majority of votes (including st?ssel's), decided that fock's division should be sent back to occupy the best of the outer positions still in our possession. it is interesting to note that as the country had not even up till now been thoroughly reconnoitred by the district staff, they were unable to say at the meeting which were the best remaining positions! of the splendid positions on the heights at nangalin no one had given a thought. according to the reports of our scouts and reliable[pg 89] chinese, these were already occupied by the japanese. next day some of general st?ssel's staff rode out to choose positions. they stopped on the chain of hills named upilazy, which border on inchenzy bay and green hills, stretching along the lunwantun valley to the little bay of the same name. the hills on the line of these positions, stretching for more than seventeen miles, were commanded by kuen-san hill. the positions on the upilazy chain of hills (ten miles) were held by mixed companies of the four reserve battalions and the 7th division with two companies of the frontier guards. to these were added eight field batteries and one howitzer battery. fock took up his quarters at the seventh mile (the railway now only ran for twelve miles), and kept on repeating what he had said at the council—that it was only wasting men and ammunition to hold these positions—and was apparently quite ready to retire. smirnoff, however, insisted on their being held. engineers were sent to the flanks (there was only one sapper company of 800 men in the fortress), and the fortification of the seventeen-mile-long positions was commenced. fock would not hold the right, because he said the enemy would attack his left, and, as the position was too big for one division, smirnoff sent the mixed companies above mentioned from the fortress troops to hold the right. owing to this the left was strongly fortified, but the right hardly at all.
the enemy having now taken complete possession of dalny, at once used it as their base. there, quietly and comfortably, without any interference from us, they carried out the landing of troops for the investment. ten transports would arrive daily, bringing everything necessary for the concentrating army. the railway from dalny and all the rolling-stock was in perfect order, and by it troops, guns, ammunition, provisions, etc., were transported to the front. everything smiled on them:[pg 90] our fleet did not hinder them in any way; they had command of both sea and the land.
during all this time our intelligence services were very badly run, our only source of information being the chinese, who, working both for us and the enemy, naturally favoured the latter, as the district staff paid a starvation wage.
