“To bring our forces up to the total specified[46] will take six to seven years. This fact, coupled with the incapacity of our railways to cope with any heavy traffic, calls for the greatest care in our external relations, lest we permit ourselves to be drawn into war at a disadvantage, with an insufficient number of troops which could be only very slowly concentrated.”
For various reasons, too complicated to explain, this advice was not acted on; the necessity for extreme care was not appreciated, and we were suddenly plunged into war when we were not ready. In 1902 our military position was good, and having begun to carry out our promises as to the evacuation of Manchuria, we had every reason to count on a continuance of peace in the Far East. But towards the end of that year there were signs of a possible rupture with Japan. The War Department was not blind to these, and the measures enumerated above, which, with the money then available, were to have been completed by 1906 or 1907, were, by the aid of a supplementary allotment, carried out within a year.
While hoping for peace, we steadily prepared for hostilities, and increased our troops in the Far East in 1903 by 38 battalions, and in the same year formed 32 new battalions in European Russia; so that by adding one to each of the East Siberian two-battalion[47] regiments, and thereby converting them into three-battalion regiments, all the 9 East Siberian Brigades could be expanded into 9 East Siberian Rifle Divisions, with 12 battalions apiece. The allotment of artillery and sappers to these divisions was carried out under a special scheme. Thus the force of 19 battalions which we had in the Pri-Amur district at the time of the Chino-Japanese War should have swollen in 1903 into one of 108 rifle and 20 reserve battalions. Behind these stood 40 more reserve battalions, held in reserve in the Siberian Military District. Altogether our Siberian possessions were to have contained in 1903 an army of 168 battalions of infantry, with a due proportion of other arms. The railway, however, did not permit us to transport these additional units until the spring of 1904, when hostilities had commenced. Yet they were eventually received, and the force in the Pri-Amur—which was practically defenceless at the time of the Chino-Japanese War—had grown into an army of four Siberian corps and two independent divisions, which received the first blows in the Japanese War. Though hastily improvised between 1895 and 1903, thanks to the great efforts made to render them reliable, to the fortunate selection of their commanders, and to their strong peace establishments, they proved to be our best troops. The principle upon which they were formed was the transference to them of complete companies chosen by ballot from the corps in Europe, and only under exceptional circumstances were the company officers permitted to be transferred from these new units. Each of the 32 battalions was formed from one of the army corps in Russia, one company being taken from each brigade, and picked officers were placed in command of each battalion. The soundness of the scheme upon which these units were created is borne out by the fact that at the Ya-lu the 3rd Battalions of the 11th and 12th Regiments, which had only just arrived to join their regiments, fought most gallantly. The 3rd Battalion of the 11th Regiment in particular, by making a counter-attack with the bayonet, inflicted severe loss on the enemy. In the spring of 1905 the regiments of all 7 East Siberian Rifle Divisions were turned into four-battalion regiments. In the 1st Manchurian Army, which I had the honour to command, were 5 of these East Siberian Rifle Divisions, and their 90[48] battalions were acknowledged to be the pick of all three armies. But to form all these new units we had to denude our German frontier to an alarming extent.
Besides increasing the number of men in the Far East between 1896 and 1903, we formed supply depôts, and hastily fortified Vladivostok and Port Arthur. Indeed, one quarter of the total sum allotted to all our fortress construction and maintenance from 1898 to 1902 was spent upon these two fortresses. Only on Kronstadt,[49] of all our land and sea strongholds, was more money spent than on Port Arthur. Many other difficulties besides those of finance confronted us in the provision of armament. It was vitally necessary that both Vladivostok and Port Arthur should have coast guns of the latest pattern, but it took a long time to get them delivered by the factories owing to the heavy orders already being executed for the Navy Department. As a temporary measure we were obliged to mount old-pattern guns. In a short time more than 1,000 pieces of ordnance were transported from European Russia to these two places. Progress was greatly delayed when the railway was interrupted during the rising in Manchuria in 1900, while work at Port Arthur itself was for a long time stopped by Admiral Alexeieff’s order. Had it not been for these delays, the place would have been much better prepared in 1904 than it was. But to appreciate properly what was accomplished there in a short time two circumstances should be remembered:
A. Owing to our fleet being shut up in Port Arthur, the Japanese possessed the command of the sea, and were able to remove the armament from several of their naval fortresses to Kuan-tung for the siege operations; against these coast guns even masonry defences were of little use.
B. The delivery of these heavy howitzers and the landing of other siege material was greatly facilitated by the existence of Dalny, a place which had been created entirely at the instance of M. de Witte, without any reference having been made to the War Ministry or the officer commanding the Kuan-tung district, under whose control the locality actually was.
A large quantity of food-supplies was collected in Port Arthur, and even at the time of its premature surrender there was enough in the place to last for one and a half months. Moreover, the authorities on the spot were empowered to purchase locally, and as the resources of flour, barley, rice, and cattle in the district were unlimited, there was nothing to prevent them doing this. Many unreasonable reproaches have been hurled upon the War Department on account of the inadequate strength of the fortifications, but in the creation of this fortress great difficulties had to be overcome in a very short time. In estimating the ultimate strength of the place, it must not be forgotten that we only took possession of it at the end of 1897; that during 1898 and 1899 we had a very weak temporary armament on the sea-front; and that the cumbrous official procedure then in force made it impossible to spend quickly large sums on new fortress works. Firstly, the scheme had to be drawn up by the engineers on the spot, then it had to be sent to St. Petersburg to be examined by the Engineer Committee, and afterwards to be approved by the Tsar. In the case of Port Arthur, in order to accelerate this routine, special authority was deputed to the local authorities; while Major-General Velichko, a gifted and energetic Engineer officer, was sent to the Far East as the representative of the Headquarter Engineer Administration. Indeed, when the scheme of fortifications at Port Arthur was put before the Emperor for his approval, a large portion of the works had, contrary to the usual procedure, been commenced in anticipation of sanction. As everything was stopped by Admiral Alexeieff, who was commanding the Kuan-tung district, during the rising in Manchuria in 1900, we only had three years (1901, 1902, and 1903) to finish these tremendous permanent works. Considering the time available and the rocky soil, much indeed was done.
The armament, also, could not well have been provided more quickly. The ordnance had first to be made, and the orders for coast guns could only be executed slowly, as the Obukhoff factory was full of work for the Navy Department. The 10-inch and 11-inch Canet guns and large-calibre mortars ordered by the War Department were required simultaneously in all the Russian naval fortresses, especially in Libau, Kronstadt, and Vladivostok; but, as a matter of fact, Port Arthur and Vladivostok received most of them at the expense of our strength in the Baltic and Black Seas. While awaiting the demands for new ordnance to be complied with, we robbed other places, so as to bring up the Port Arthur armament to some hundreds of guns. In the first years of its occupation, also, everything for this place had to be sent round by sea. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, in four years (1899 to 1903) we succeeded in making Port Arthur so strong that the armament of its sea-front kept the whole Japanese fleet at a respectful distance, while the batteries on the land side withstood a severe test under the most unfavourable conditions. Not only were the enemy numerous and possessed of technical troops and material for the destruction of our defences, but being presented with a ready-made base in Dalny, they were able to land monster siege-guns. Once again, as at Sevastopol, our fleet was more useful on land than on its proper element. Yet the enemy lost twice as many men as the garrison, and Port Arthur held out almost twelve months from the commencement of the war. Even then its fall was premature.
Much attention was also paid to economy, and Treasury interests were by no means overlooked. The rapid concentration of troops, the large number of buildings that had to be constructed and the collection of supplies and stores for the commissariat and engineer departments, afforded ample scope for malpractices; but the appointment of selected officers at the head of these two great branches of the army, and of picked men as their assistants, was naturally productive of good results, and the reputation of these branches in no way suffered in the war.