The North Pacific

CHAPTER XXI.

THE FALL OF PORT ARTHUR

At about the date of the miscarriage of Commander Oto Owari's plans in the North Sea, the regiment in which his old friend Oshima5 commanded a company was detached from Oyama's army of invasion and added to the forces under General Nogi, besieging Port Arthur.

It will be remembered that Port Arthur was completely isolated on land when the Second Japanese Army, under General Oku, captured Nanshan Hill, in the latter part of May, 1904. On August 9th the Russians were driven into their permanent works, the real siege beginning three days later, when shells fell in the streets of the city for the first time.

The task before the small brown men of Nippon seemed an impossible one. There were seventeen permanent forts to be taken, forty-two semi-permanent improvised fortifications, two miles of fortified Chinese wall, and a triple line of trenches over eight miles long. The forts were so arranged that each was commanded by several others; and the whole were manned and defended by some of the bravest soldiers the world has ever seen.

"You are expected to do the impossible things," was the first order from the Mikado to his troops in the field. The expectation was fulfilled; the imperial edict was obeyed. Ten thousand men, in the face of a deadly fire of shot and shell, trampled the word "impossible" under foot, buried it beneath their torn and mangled bodies; and over them the soldiers of Japan marched to victory.

Baron Nogi did not assume command in person until the siege had fairly begun. He had two sons, Hoten and Shoten. Shoten fell on Nanshan Hill, and his body arrived in Tokio on the day when his father was to sail for Manchuria. "Delay the funeral," said the General to his wife, "until Hoten and I are brought home to lie with Shoten." Hoten gave up his life on the deadly ramparts of "203-Metre"; Nogi still lives – a man "with face parchment-crinkled, brown like chocolate, with beard grey shaded back to brown, eyes small and wide apart, perfect teeth, tiny, regular nose and a beautiful dome of a head." So he is described by one who has often stood in his presence. Twice conqueror of Port Arthur, he is a mighty force in the Japanese army.

Within the city the Russian soldiers, and what was left of the civilian population, kept up a brave front. The long hours were passed by the ladies in making garments for the invalids. The hospitals, under the care of the Red Cross, were beautifully kept, the laundry work being done by poor women and the soldiers' wives, in place of the regular "wash men," who had left months before. Every day in the week a military band played in one or another of the hospitals; one day in the New Russian town and one in the New Town. Mrs. Stoessel, the kind-hearted wife of the commander-in-chief, visited the sick men, bringing such dainties as the lessening fare of the fortress could furnish, and speaking encouraging words. For every thousand invalids were thirty trained nurses, in addition to volunteer helpers. Every day came a sad procession, bringing wounded men in litters from the outer works. Every day the shells fell in the doomed city. The streets were full of great gaps, where they struck and exploded. Before October the Old Town was a wreck.

Every three days the men at the front were relieved, and as their comrades took their places the troops came marching back, singing cheerfully, although there were many vacant places in their ranks. When they overtook a litter with a dying comrade the songs would cease, and crossing himself each man walked with bared head until he had passed the brave fellow; then he donned his cap again and continued his song. Not a man of them would admit that the Japanese could ever take Port Arthur. Help would come from Kouropatkin or from the sea. So the days wore on, the leaves fell, chill winter winds began to sweep over the gulf, October gave place to November, and still the longed-for relief was withheld; still the terrible artillery of the foe roared from the surrounding heights and from the mighty battle-ships; and day by day the thunder was louder, the hospitals filled, and the heart of the gallant general grew heavy.

After the futile assault in August the Japanese settled down to the slow process of mining and sapping. No one realised more fully than General Nogi the tremendous task that was before him. Batteries and forts not only commanded one another with their guns, but were connected by meshes of barbed wire which must be cut in the face of a devastating fire before the assailants could advance. In places these wires were charged with electricity. When the cutters attempted to ply their nippers they fell in their tracks, electrocuted. The outer slopes of the fortresses were formed of slippery concrete, or of loose sand in which the Japanese floundered and slid backward, while the Russian marksmen picked them off with their rifles.

Buried in these formidable slopes were mines and torpedoes, some to be exploded by the touch of an electric button, some by mere contact. These hurled hundreds of the assailing troops into the air, torn and mangled. Deep moats surrounded the earthworks, and were so constructed that they could be raked by machine-guns. In at least one instance the moat was filled with combustibles which were fired as soon as hundreds of Japanese had leaped down into it. They were burned alive.

But every stratagem, every defence, every death-dealing manœuvre of the besieged was met and overcome by the relentless besiegers. To approach the fortifications across the zone of fire they dug zig-zag trenches at night, through which the troops, after great sacrifice of life, could get within striking distance and carry this or that battery by sudden assault. They tunnelled like moles, under the moats and through the earthworks. It might take two days or two months to advance a hundred feet, but the advance was effected.

When the soldiers of the two nations actually met, the scene was terrible. As the opposing ranks drew near, the men tossed balls of gun-cotton – an explosive to which powder is as a toy-cracker to a twelve-inch turret gun – among the enemy. They screamed defiance. They fought with swords, with bayonets, and finally, like wild beasts, with claws and teeth. No savage tribes of Darkest Africa ever grappled in more frightful conflict.

The Japanese set their hearts upon taking Port Arthur on the birthday of their Emperor, October 29th, and the fiercest assault of the siege took place that day. On the evening before, Captain Oshima rested with his company in a trench which paralleled the defences of one of the strongest of the Russian forts. Until late at night his men were busy cleaning themselves as best they could, and changing their linen. They were preparing for death. The Japanese must die spotless in body as well as soul, to inherit eternal happiness. Oshima sat under a "bomb-proof" prepared by placing timbers across the trench and covering them with earth. He talked calmly with his line officers, and explained the plan of the coming attack, as he had received it from headquarters.

At intervals came the sound of the heavy siege mortars, two miles away, firing over their heads into Port Arthur. These huge eleven-inch guns were affectionately dubbed "Osaka Babies," because they were built at the Osaka arsenal in Japan. There were eighteen of them distributed about Port Arthur. Each gun was emplaced on a concrete foundation eight feet deep, which required three weeks to build. The shells used weighed a quarter of a ton and each discharge cost Japan $400. The expense of a six-hour bombardment was something over three hundred thousand dollars.

"The 'babies' are crying," observed Oshima drily, as he paused a moment in his instructions. "To-morrow night – who of us will hear them?"

"To-morrow night," exclaimed a young lieutenant with enthusiasm, "they will cry no more, unless it be for joy. The fortress will be ours!"

Oshima glanced at his junior officer from beneath his dark eyebrows, but said nothing.

The night passed, and the morning of the Mikado's birthday dawned upon the beleaguered city, upon the fair hill-tops and the rippling sea, upon the stern, bearded faces of the defenders and the eager brown hordes crouching in the trenches outside the fort.

Slowly the hours dragged past, the siege-guns dropping their shells into the sand-slopes and tearing open great craters. Then shrapnel was hurled at the parapets, a hundred shots a minute. Not a fort replied. As silently as the Continental troops at Bunker Hill, the Russians awaited the approach of their foe.

At last the signal was given. The little brown men swarmed out of their trenches and up the fatal slope. Then at last the answer came, in a blinding flash and stunning roar from the embrasures. When the smoke cleared away not a living man was left in sight, save a few whose wounds were not immediately fatal, and who lay in the hot sun helplessly awaiting death.

Another onrush of the diminutive assailants, another crashing discharge of artillery and rifle fire. A few survived, this time, and sheltered themselves in the gaps made by bursting shells. Again a host of assailants springing upward over the bodies of the fallen. Among them were the men commanded by Oshima. The young lieutenant, escaping the first fire and forgetting all caution, sprang ahead of the line, waving his sword and shouting "Banzai!" He reached the ramparts and for an instant stood erect upon them, a brave young figure against the blue sky. Then he toppled over into the fort and was never seen again by his comrades. Once more those who had not fallen burrowed in the sand-holes until the final charge was ordered.

An Osaka shell had made a breach in the ramparts through which the Russian rifles barked viciously. Oshima's company sprang toward the opening, only to find it guarded by a bristling hedge of bayonets over which the rear ranks were firing as regularly as on parade.

"Forward!" ordered Oshima, pointing to the breach with his sword.

A clump of Japanese soldiers sprang in front of the entrance and dropped in their tracks, pierced by half a hundred bullets. Their places were instantly taken by another squad, who reached the line of bayonets. There was a fierce hand to hand fight for a minute. The opening was so narrow that only a few could occupy it at the same time. These few, overpowered, pierced by the lunging bayonets of the Russians, staggered backward and fell, heaping the pile of slain before the redoubt. There was an instant's hesitation – then a dozen brown men dropped their muskets and ran in directly upon the bayonets, which flashed in the sunshine as they were driven home. Before they could be withdrawn from the bodies of their voluntary victims the remainder of the Japanese company sprang in over the bodies of their comrades and the Russian defenders met the same fate. Five minutes later the flag of the sunrise floated from two corners of the fort, and the ambulance corps spread out over the outer glacis, succouring the few wounded who survived the awful carnage.

Who were the gallant twelve who, like Arnold von Winkelried, sheathed the bayonets in their breasts to disarm the foe and so afford an entrance for their comrades? Generations of schoolboys have told upon the platform how the brave Switzer fell:

but few, save the keeper of the military archives of Japan, know the names of the twelve heroes of Fort Keekwan.

The end was not yet. No sooner was the fort occupied by the Japanese than the fire of two others was concentrated upon it. The victors were in turn forced to evacuate that deadly enclosure, and plying their spades busily, entrenched themselves just below the parapets.

So assault after assault was delivered, and the slain lay in heaps inside the fortifications and without, and still Port Arthur was not taken; but slowly and relentlessly the besiegers moved forward, a few feet, a single earthwork, a point here and a point there being occupied, always nearer the heart of the citadel.

The last stage of the defence began with the capture of 203-Metre Hill, on November 20th, by which the Japanese secured a position from which they could search out with their shells every nook and corner of the inner harbour, where the last hope of the defenders, the remnant of their proud "Port Arthur Squadron," had lain in comparative safety since the actions in the earlier part of the war. The patched-up hulk of the Retvizan was sunk at her moorings. Again and again the other vessels in the harbour were struck. The great Keekwan Mountain fort was at last taken and held, and on December 30th the Japanese stormed the key of the inner defences, Ehrlung fort, and put its weakened garrison of five hundred men to the sword. The hospitals of the city were crowded and medicines lacking.

On the last day of the year General Stoessel ordered the remaining battle-ships and cruisers to be blown up, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, with a transport containing eight hundred wounded, to make a dash for Chefoo; all of which was successfully carried out.

January 1, 1905, dawned peacefully. The besiegers prepared themselves for a final rush, before the contemplated horrors of which the civilised world stood aghast. But it was not to be.

Early in the forenoon a man bearing a white flag was seen mounting the parapets and approaching the Japanese lines. He was courteously received and conducted to headquarters. An hour later cheers rent the air, through all the trenches around Port Arthur. The city had capitulated. General Stoessel had surrendered, to save his remaining half-starved, emaciated, faltering but gallant troops from sure destruction. What it cost that brave heart to speak the word, no one can tell. In the person of her general, Russia knelt before the despised islanders and sued for peace. It was a terrible humiliation to him, to the army, and to the haughty Empire whose boast had been: "Russia never withdraws."

So ended the greatest siege, characterised by the highest art of warfare and the uttermost personal bravery of line, rank and file on both sides, that the world has ever known.

CHAPTER XXII.

ON BOARD THE "KUSHIRO."

After the fall of Port Arthur came a lull in the operations of both sides, at sea and on land. The Russians were still busy entrenching themselves in and south of Mukden, the ancient Manchurian capital. Here Kouropatkin had made his stand after the disastrous defeat at Liaoyang. Immensely strong works were thrown up, the defensive front made apparently impregnable, and St. Petersburg breathed more freely, although various indications of internal disorders gave the court concern.

Oyama's men, meanwhile, prepared themselves as best they might for a winter campaign. They burrowed in the hillsides and lived in dug-outs and shanties almost within pistol shot of the Russian outposts. Supplies of food and heavy clothing reached the army by the Yalu River and from Newchwang over the railway to Liaoyang, whence they were forwarded in waggons to the front. Oshima shared a small mud hut with two other line officers. His men cheerily cooked their rations of rice over little fires in front of their dug-outs. The scene would have resembled Valley Forge, but that the troops were well clothed and under absolute discipline.

On October 2nd, Kouropatkin had issued a proclamation declaring that the period of retreats was over. "The army is now strong enough to advance and compel the Japanese to do our will." This was the last effort to relieve Port Arthur – a "forlorn hope" indeed. A battle ensued, the carnage and desperate valour of which even exceeded those of Liaoyang. The Russian losses alone were nearly seventy thousand, killed and wounded. After ten days of terrific fighting they were forced back to the Hun River, where they held their own and settled down for the winter, with the Japanese facing them.

The Baltic fleet, under Vice-Admiral Rojestvensky, after the Dogger Bank affair, resumed its voyage southward. It rounded the Cape of Good Hope safely and proceeded to Nossi Bé, a port at the northern end of Madagascar, where it was welcomed by the French with as much cordiality as they dared to show their natural allies, without open breach of neutrality. Here the vice-admiral spent many weeks, cleaning, provisioning, and coaling his ships and drilling his crews.

A second squadron of ships, meanwhile, started from the Baltic for the East, by way of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, followed by still a third division. No one, outside the inner circle of the Russian Admiralty and War Office, knew where these three squadrons were to unite. Their port of destination, after the capture of Port Arthur, could, of course, be no other than Vladivostock, where two powerful cruisers, disabled by Togo in August, had been repaired, and, with a few smaller craft, still formed the nucleus of a fleet.

Commander Oto Owari had hastened at once to Tokio, on his unexpected return from the North Sea, where his strategic attack upon the Baltic ships had so signally failed. He was acquitted of blame, by a court of enquiry, and was at once given the command of the torpedo-boat destroyer Kushiro, then fitting for service in the Sasebo docks.