'There was no time for that. I forestalled the Japanese, and did not give them the possibility of breaking into Arthur; I was thus able to prevent a street massacre.'
And this was the cry of all the whole Stössel clique before the Committee of Inquiry.
One extract from the diary and I have finished:
'January 2, 1905.—On the way to the rendezvous of the Japanese Commission appointed to take over, we met an officer of the Japanese General Staff who greeted us in Russian. Ribnikoff at once recognized him to be a man called Ito, who had been in Arthur for several years as a watchmaker!'
Small wonder they beat us!
So it ended—so ended Russian Port Arthur. From its loss—from this mighty struggle, this long-drawn-out nightmare of suffering, this death of all our aspirations—new hope is born to our nation, a hope of better days.
Salus patriæ. Suprema lex est.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] The text of this capitulation was drawn up two years before by one of the most able Japanese lawyers.