To organize intelligence work successfully special experience is required. I was dissatisfied with the way this important duty was being performed, and I asked that a certain officer of the General Staff, particularly well qualified for it, should be appointed, but I received a refusal on quite insufficient grounds. Again, the Headquarter Staff paid very little attention to what they allowed to be published from the reports from the theatre of war, and gave out information containing the names of localities, units, etc., which must have made it easier for the enemy to fix the position of our troops. At the same time, though Headquarters knew the totals of our losses and the numbers of guns we had abandoned in the fights at Mukden, they for a long time did not contradict the Press reports which stated we had lost several hundreds of guns. The long absences from the army of officers commanding units compelled me frequently to ask that a time-limit should be fixed, after which, if they did not rejoin, the absentees should forfeit their appointments. This recommendation was eventually approved, and numerous general and other officers who had been for long merely officiating in command of brigades and regiments were, on the authority of the Commander-in-Chief, confirmed in their appointments. But soon afterwards demobilization began, and an order was then issued from St. Petersburg to the effect that the Commander-in-Chief was, to the prejudice of his own authority, to issue an order cancelling his previous ones making the appointments, because the “resurrected dead” thought of returning to the army, and wished to command the units from which they had so long absented themselves. It is essential that such harmful interference from Headquarters with an army in the field should be put a stop to, and that full power should be given to those in actual command on the spot.
I have not alluded to our marked inferiority to the enemy in technical troops and material. This chiefly applies to the proportion of sapper units. With each Japanese division of all arms was a strong battalion of sappers, while we had only one to each army corps. But, owing to the demand for work at one and the same time on the line of communications, and in constructing bridges and railways, only two sapper companies of the battalion were as a rule actually with our corps. In other words, each division had one company, a proportion which proved to be quite insufficient. The Japanese telegraph and telephone troops were also far more numerous than ours, and their material was better, and it was only after the Mukden battles that we were able to remedy these defects. Owing to their sea transport, the enemy were of course able to deliver with far greater ease light-railway material in the theatre of operations, as well as technical material for construction of fortifications and for the attack. It was only after Mukden that we received an adequate stock of field railways, wire, cables, explosives, and tools.
In spite of the superiority of our guns, we made a mistake in having only one type of shrapnel. We hoped, of course, that it would give good results when burst on contact[90]; but it turned out to be ineffective when used in this way, and for this we paid heavily, as we were unable properly to prepare by artillery the attack of even hastily fortified positions. When the Japanese prepared by artillery for an attack on a village held by us, they destroyed it in the most thorough manner. The instructions issued to Kuroki’s army (in October, 1904) contained the following remarks regarding our artillery:
“The enemy has apparently no common shell; his shrapnel is ineffective, and the splinters do little damage, as the walls of the shell are too thin.”
For a long time we possessed no mountain-guns, though we very often had to move by roads impassable by field-guns when operating in the hills. The enemy were greatly superior to us in this point. It was only for the Mukden battles that we were able to provide a few of these batteries to some of our army corps operating in the hills on the east, but even then the force under General Rennenkampf was insufficiently supplied.
The Japanese began the war with no machine-guns. We had a few machine-gun companies attached to some of the East Siberian Rifle Divisions, and in the very first fight—at the Ya-lu—one of these companies attached to the 3rd East Siberian Rifle Division was most valuable. The Japanese were quick to profit by this experience, and, after the September fighting at Liao-yang, put in the field a great number of these guns of a light, portable type. These were of great service to them, particularly in strengthening the defence of hastily prepared positions held by small numbers of men. The supply of these guns to our army was carried out very slowly, and was, in fact, only finished by the time peace was concluded. The proportion also was too small—only eight per division.
Our four-wheeled transport carts were unsuitable both for hill-work and for the Manchurian mud; but my request that two-wheeled carts should be substituted with the troops to come from Russia was not heeded. The quantity of ammunition with the guns was found to be insufficient for continued fighting. In spite of the reserves provided, the quick-firing artillery expended nearly all its ammunition at the fights of Liao-yang, the Sha Ho, and Mukden, and replenishment after each of these great battles was a slow process. We also found the need for howitzers firing high explosive shell. One battery for the army arrived as peace was concluded. Hand grenades, which were an innovation, were locally improvised, but were not sufficiently powerful in their action.
In my memorandum, from which I have already given extracts, submitted before my departure for the front,[91] detailing what was most urgently required in order to insure success, I emphasized—
1. The necessity of ordering ninety-six mountain-guns in addition to the forty-eight already ordered on my former recommendation. This was approved, and the order placed, but it was not carried out quickly enough.