As a matter of fact, Stössel, quâ Commandant of the Fortress, never did give an order to retreat, because the question did not arise; but, as Officer Commanding the Kwantun District, which district he abandoned within two months, he surrendered the Fortress, despite the protests of the then Commandant, General Smirnoff, and the whole of the Council of Defence.
In spite of the extensive range of subjects touched upon in the literature issued in the shape of orders, it was astonishing how little was said about the defences proper of the Fortress, which were still in the most incomplete state, or of the Kinchou position, where practically nothing had been done. It was only in an order of March 7 that the works were mentioned for the first time, and then it was the Central Wall—already mentioned as a monumental folly—which called for attention! The cost of this folly in cash was £20,000; its cost in work left undone elsewhere cannot be estimated.
As we were not disturbed by the enemy from February 25 to March 10, we had time in Port Arthur to attend to home affairs. About March 4 Stössel received a wire from a certain General Bogdanovitch. In this the sender congratulated him on his victories, and expressed the hope that Arthur would give birth to new Nakhimoffs, Korniloffs, and Istomins. The telegram was quite genuine. It was thought that such a siege would certainly produce some heroes. Smirnoff and Kondratenko were not then known, and Bogdanovitch's kind wishes evidently referred to Stössel and his assistants, whose names had been well before the public since the Boxer campaign. Lieutenant Prince Karseladse of the 25th Regiment, who knew very well what was really going on, sent a reply wire to Bogdanovitch, to the effect that:
'There are no Nakhimoffs here; there is nothing but miserable incompetence.'
This wire was not despatched, but was handed over to Stössel. As a result, a District Order upon the subject of official telegrams was issued, and the sender of this message was placed under arrest and tried by court-martial. He was sentenced to some days' arrest. For reporting well on the prisoner, the report being made at the request of the court, Colonel Selinen, who commanded his regiment, was deprived of his command by Stössel, and immediately left for Russia.
One morning towards the end of February, I was informed by an aide-de-camp that Stössel wanted to see me. He received me very affably, but at once gave me to understand, not rudely, but in unmistakable terms, that he was General Stössel and I was only Nojine. On my asking to what extent the defences were ready, and in particular those stretching for miles on the land side, he said:
'I must tell you that I am a fighting infantry General, and don't understand anything about the Fortress or its surroundings. I am here temporarily. As you know, I have been appointed to command the 3rd Siberian Army Corps, which is on its way to the Yalu, and am only waiting for the new Commandant to arrive. He will soon put everything in order.'
'And under whom will Kinchou be?'
'Under him—under him. He is a most competent and clever officer. The papers say he has passed through almost ten academies. Why, he'll be a walking encyclopædia. My duty is to fight, and not to run a fortress. Lord! what a deuce of a lot of money has been spent on it! How can the Japanese, yellow-skinned little devils that they are, get into the place?' He then went on to threaten me with the awful things that would happen to journalists generally, and to me in particular, if we were not careful, and ended by saying that in the Fortress the Commandant was 'both God and the Tsar.' Only one thing comforted me as I left, and that was that Stössel was not long destined to be the Commandant of Port Arthur.
While we in the Fortress exhausted our energies on the useless Central Wall, Rear-Admiral Loschinsky, who had arrived on February 11, organized a mine defence of the Liaotun Peninsula, paying particular attention to Dalny, where the enemy might land. He then drew up a scheme for mining the Port Arthur waters, and every place which seemed suitable for a landing. Unfortunately, after the sad accident to the Yenisee and Boyarin, the officer commanding the fleet was very sceptical about the value of submarine mines, more especially as he believed that three months would see us again in command of the sea. On March 8 Vice-Admiral Makharoff, who had just been appointed to the command of the fleet, arrived, and great naval activity was at once noticeable; the dockyard literally hummed with work. After many attempts, the Retvisan was on the same day successfully floated off the shoal at Tiger's Tail, and taken to the western basin, a coincidence which made a great impression. The officer to command the balloon park also arrived; but there were neither balloons nor materials of which to make them, as when the Manchuria was captured in the beginning of the war they fell into the hands of the enemy, together with a large quantity of ammunition. We used later on to watch with great interest our own balloon float up from behind Wolf's Hills. It spent much time in the air, but not for our amusement; for while it, our own balloon, was watching, our own shells were shrieking on their way towards us.