From that day onwards Port Arthur was, after dusk, plunged in complete darkness, the screened windows and deserted streets giving an ominous impression of desolation. The town became noticeably empty, though numerous families, anxious to share the fate of husbands and fathers, were still allowed to remain. In spite of the Viceroy's order (No. 49) that all families should be sent out of the besieged Fortress, General St?ssel made no effort to enforce this. In vain it was pointed out that women—except nurses—and children are a most undesirable element in a fortress: he took no action. About this time much valuable time and labour was wasted by St?ssel on the construction of an inner wall[4] with a ditch round the Old Town. The futility of this as a defence would have struck a first year's cadet, for it ran all along the hollow in which the town was situated, and would therefore be absolutely useless should the Japanese seize the hills in rear of the line of forts. Whilst he thus squandered time, labour, and money on this 'folly,' St?ssel delayed the work on the forts, and paid no attention to the fortification of that most important position—Kinchou.
Another curious point about the conduct of affairs was that officers were strictly forbidden to make themselves acquainted with the topography of the Fortress. In fact,[Pg 9] the object seemed to be to handicap our forces as much as possible by ignorance of the ground, for practice man?uvres were only held once, and the troops which had taken part in these man?uvres and were the only ones that knew the ground—the 3rd Siberian Rifle Division—were sent away to the Yalu. Their places were taken by corps fresh from Siberia.
Though Russian officers were not allowed to learn their way about the Fortress, numbers of officers of the Japanese General Staff, disguised as washermen, coolies, etc., were permitted to move about the batteries without hindrance. No one watched them. Not only were they able to learn all they desired and to make maps, but they drew up accurate range-tables for the siege-guns which afterwards did such brilliant service. When Smirnoff arrived and organized a fortress gendarmerie this was put a stop to.
The supply question was another branch of the organization that was shockingly mismanaged. Slaughter cattle, etc., were largely requisitioned from the surrounding district, but, owing to the disgraceful system of accounts and to the fact that the civil authorities in charge of the work were much under-staffed, only about one-half of what was available was obtained. In spite of the advice and protests of Colonel Vershinin, the Chief Commissary for the civil population, St?ssel went his own way and quite serenely left the Fortress under-supplied. After the departure of the Viceroy to Mukden he assumed complete control of the commissariat, and, in addition to the failure of the system as far as supplies went, earned the resentment of all the civilians by the severity of his regulations. The Chinese naturally tried to drive away their cattle into Manchuria, as the requisitioning price was not a large one, and after a proclamation issued by St?ssel on February 21, by which requisitioning was still more restricted, they were largely successful. Thus, with a close blockade looming[Pg 10] in the near future, the district round the Fortress was being denuded of live-stock.
St?ssel's influence was not confined to the question of slaughter cattle. As the armies in the north gradually concentrated, a horde of officers turned up in Port Arthur trying to purchase supplies of every sort, and whole vans of sugar, flour, salt, tinned milk, green foods, preserved fish and meat, etc., were actually allowed to be taken from this important fortress—a fortress separated by many thousands of miles from Russia, blockaded by sea, and expecting, according to the natural course of events, to be blockaded also by land. General St?ssel, who wrote in his order No. 126, of February 27, that there could be no retirement, since the sea was on three sides and the enemy on the fourth, allowed—nay, encouraged—the export of articles of vital importance. There was, consequently, in October, November, and December a shortage, which brought on an epidemic of scurvy. To all protests he replied that Kuropatkin would never allow us to be cut off, and, if we were cut off, it would only be for a very brief period. When the protests were repeated he 'came the senior officer,' and said that, as Commandant of the besieged Fortress, he would stand no interference. The civil authorities, who were under him, watched with silent indifference the melting away of our reserves. Several of the shopkeepers, indeed, hearing that supplies of every kind were badly wanted by the army in the north, themselves began to despatch truckloads. The state of affairs was almost a burlesque. Port Arthur, instead of being a fortress preparing itself for a siege, might have been a sort of general market, a principal supply dep?t for the main army, to which every one came to do business, or to gamble, and dissipate, for although St?ssel allowed only three restaurants for general use and closed the gambling hells, rowdyism was rampant and money flowed like water.[Pg 11] Never in my life have I witnessed such orgies as I saw that February in Arthur before the arrival of General Smirnoff, and this in spite of the most severe efforts at prevention.
Whenever I passed by the fire-brigade station in the morning I heard the swish of whips and the heartrending shrieks of men being flogged for drunkenness, for permission had been given to the Chief of the Police to correct drunkards with some 'homely treatment.' The usual procedure was as follows: The men to be corrected—workmen, cab-drivers, Chinamen—were drawn up in the prison courtyard. The inspector presented the charge-sheet, and the police-officer stopped in front of each prisoner.
'What have you to say?'
'Sir, yesterday——'
'One hundred lashes, two weeks' cells. Next. What have you to say?'
'Yesterday, sir——'
'One hundred lashes, to-day and to-morrow.'
And so on to the end. And then these God's creatures, some of them future heroes who died for the honour and glory of Russia, were removed and flogged. Later, owing to the protests of the Chief of the Fire Brigade, the flogging was carried out in the prison-house, where it was still more cruel. I know that men are flogged in Russia, but there it is only after trial. With us in Arthur things were more simple, more patriarchal.
During that time laws did not exist in Arthur. Once when Colonel Vershinin, the Civil Commissary, remarked with regard to an order that it was illegal, a staff-officer replied: 'How can you have laws on service? General St?ssel's orders are law for us.' And this was the state of affairs right up to the capitulation, more especially after St?ssel's appointment as aide-de-camp to the Tsar.
After he had left the garrison and the sick and wounded[Pg 12] to their fate and departed to Russia, Japanese military law came into force. It was strict, but it did not prevent freedom.
On February 22 we perused the following order by the Commandant with fear and trembling:
'Colonel Petrusha will ride round the Old and New Towns and the New Chinese Town, and will make prisoners of all men who are drunk or disorderly, and anyone else whom he may consider it necessary to arrest.'
This was alarming. Colonel Petrusha authorized to arrest 'anyone'? Several people went to the military Procurator to find out what it meant. It would be dangerous to go out in the streets, for if Colonel Petrusha thought it 'necessary' he would arrest you. The following day you would be up under the cold grey eye of the Chief of the Police. He would ask, 'What have you to say?' and you would be flogged. The only advice that the Procurator could give us was to be careful and retiring.
As February passed guards were placed along the whole of the railway-line from Tashihchiao to Arthur, and guns were mounted near the longer bridges, for bands of Hunhuses were now on the prowl. Train-loads of soldiers from the reserve battalions arrived every day, and the confusion and lack of system shown in their distribution were hopeless. Though all concerned strove to appear busy, it was mainly in the direction of writing orders that their energy was expended.
The general mental attitude towards the enemy was at this time remarkable, for from St?ssel down to the last-joined recruit all professed the greatest contempt for the Japanese. The whole nation was judged by the specimens seen in Port Arthur. 'A Japanese? Pooh! he's a mosquito. Why, I'll stick a pin through him and send him home in a letter,' was a favourite remark of the moment. The General commanding the 4th Rifle[Pg 13] Division, who led St?ssel by the nose, absolutely, assured all and sundry that the Japanese were 'fools.' 'The Japanese are fools, because in their field regulations it is laid down, that in the attack, the firing-line should extend at wide intervals.' Sitting on his horse in front of the regiments under his command, he would explain this, and then say: 'Front rank, tell me why the Japanese are fools.' The soldiers would shout in chorus: 'Because, when attacking, their firing-line extends widely.' Is it to be wondered that our men thought the Japanese fools—till their first engagement, and that after systematically retiring before the 'fools' and suffering heavy losses they lost confidence in their General?
Having spent more than a year in Japan, I knew of the enemy's energetic preparations for war. But our people would neither pay attention to the serious articles in the newspapers nor to the warnings of their own keen officers who had been through the Chinese campaign. The majority, especially those who had recently come from European Russia, preferred to accept Fock's estimate, for, thanks to the inferiority of our professional military literature, the army had no idea of what modern Japan was like, and in particular of her military strength. This stupidity and ignorance was shameful and sad. Whose fault was it?
On the whole, the daily life in the town little resembled that in a besieged fortress, for there was a false sense of security, and people did not seem to realize the position. Because, since bombarding us on February 9, the enemy's fleet had disappeared and made no sign, people almost believed we were not at war, and things went on as before. The population, especially the garrison, believed that everything was 'all right,' and, together with their commanders, carelessly passed the time without worrying about the future.
[Pg 14]
'Why, if there was a chance of our being cut off, do you suppose for a minute that St?ssel would let supplies be sent out? Do you really imagine that the Japanese can wage war on two fronts? They are concentrating against the main army on the Yalu, and St?ssel says the more that land in Kwantun the better. He will take them all prisoners,' were remarks made. Nearly all talked similar nonsense, and, what's more, believed it, and beyond mining the shores, carried out by Admiral Loschinsky, no precautions were taken to prevent a landing.
A certain amount of activity was visible within the Fortress. We commenced laying a fortress telegraph, but the system was overhead. Both the telephone and telegraph systems worked very badly when they were installed, and their faults were intensified when falling shells cut the wires. It was usually quicker to send an orderly than to attempt to get a telephone message through the exchange. Not only was the system unreliable, it was also unsafe, for the private and military lines were all together, so that, owing to the induction, anyone could overhear the most secret military message. Such a state of affairs in a besieged fortress was a monstrosity. One might have thought that at a place like Port Arthur a proper telephone system would have been organized in peace-time. But no! A system had been worked out by a certain captain of artillery, and the money had been allotted; but when the time came this officer was sent to the north, and the scheme was not carried out. The question of what happened to this money would form an excellent subject for an inquiry.
In addition to his intense activity in writing profuse orders, St?ssel developed a mania about 'signalling.' He was convinced that the enemy were being continually signalled to from the hills, and the strictest orders were[Pg 15] issued to watch day and night for the culprits. The hills were always being patrolled, and 'signaller-catching' became a kind of amusement. Even the civilians joined in, although anyone who gave the matter a thought knew that the Japanese would not require to have messages sent them when they already knew every inch of the place; but owing to this practice many an innocent human being was wafted to a better world. An order on the subject—No. 120, of February 26—ran as follows:
'Although twenty men were caught yesterday in the act of making some kind of signals, about 3 a.m. this morning some one was seen signalling with a lantern between my house and the commissariat dep?t. It was impossible to catch him, as he ran off to the New Chinese Town. Pickets detailed for this work will in future fire on any men seen signalling, if they run.'
Though in the majority of cases, of course, the military procurator was unable to produce any proof of guilt against the Chinamen arrested, after this order they were shot like partridges.
Though many were lulled into a false security by the absence of any military operations by the enemy since their first attack, yet to every one the complete state of unpreparedness of the Fortress, as well as the chaos reigning in every corner of it, was patent. In vino veritas, and in the restaurants and clubs the strongest opinions were expressed about St?ssel and his actions by those who had exceeded. So much of this criticism went on that a special order upon the subject was issued:
'It has come to my knowledge that in the garrison club officers busy themselves over matters which do not concern them, criticize the course of the military operations, and repeat various stupid stories, picked up from God knows where. An officer's duty is to think how best to carry out his orders, and not to judge the actions of his[Pg 16] seniors. Those who cavil do much harm, and I, of course, will punish them to the utmost of my power.'
After this tongues ceased to wag, for it was known that the Commandant had wonderful ears. Officers even began to suspect each other of espionage and tale-bearing.