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 n............