The Truth About Port Arthur

by E. K. Nozhin

In the artillery magazine there were for the 3-inch quick-firing field artillery guns:

Cartridge cases	6,957
Double action fuzes	8,479

Of small ammunition there were:

	Cartridges.
3-line rifle	12,621,176
3-line revolver	14,512
4, 2-line revolver	5,357
4, 2-line Berdan	41,635
Chinese	2,122,050

Since the date of our taking over Port Arthur, particularly during the disorders in China in and after 1900, the diplomatic sky had never been really clear, and at times the political barometer alternated between the 'set fair' and 'storm.' In 1903 it was first very unsettled, and then kept steadily falling, which caused us to think seriously of fortifying Port Arthur, not as heretofore, by talk and correspondence, but by deeds.

General Vernander, head of the Engineer Department, rendered no material assistance. He only greatly delayed matters, which had been practically decided on, by fresh proposals and fiddling with details; but the visit of General Kuropatkin, the War Minister to the place in 1903, gave a great impulse to affairs. After being three weeks in Port Arthur he made himself acquainted with all the details on the spot, inspected all the proposed fortifications, gave great encouragement to us, and ordered certain changes to be made. The most important result of his visit, however, was that he changed the order of building the different works laid down by the original authors of the scheme of defence, in accordance with their actual requirements and importance, and gave orders for us to set to work at once simultaneously on all the most important.

Amongst other things, he thought it advisable to strengthen the summit of Ta-ku-shan by building a block-house for 100 men with two or four quick-firing guns in a caponier for flanking the approaches to the main line of works and to the hill itself. He also thought the height near the temple behind the village of Siu-shuing should be strengthened to cover the approach into the valley of the Lun-ho, and to command the village. A block-house with two guns was to be placed on the near peak west of Fort 4, that the foot and slopes of the hills, on which this fort was built, might be shelled, and a trench was to connect up fort and block-house. He considered the interval between Fortification 5 and Fort Erh-lung-shan too great, and said an intermediate work should be made on the summit of the height in front of Fort Erh-lung-shan. To distribute the defence beyond this Fort by occupying Angle Hill and points D and E (High and Long Hills), he did not conceive to be possible without greatly weakening the garrison. But the sudden outbreak of war compelled us to diverge from much that had been intended.

In an order of the Viceroy's, dated February 9, 1904, the Fortress was declared to be in a state of siege, and three days later the reserve men began arriving. According to the artillery mobilization scheme, three weeks was supposed to be sufficient for this arm to be ready for war. But the Committee of Defence of the Kwantun District, to which this scheme was submitted, expressed the opinion that the mobilization would take two months. It was indeed lucky for us the enemy did not attempt a landing in Pigeon Bay the night of the torpedo attack; but they were cautious and none too certain of themselves at that time, and probably thought us stronger than we were.

At all events, for three months they took no decisive action on land, which enabled us, firstly, to mobilize the garrison, receive reserves, munitions and supplies, to look round and to draw up a scheme for the fortification and defence of the Fortress on land, and partly also from sea; and secondly, to get some knowledge of, and be able to appreciate the worth of the enemy and of ourselves. In the fights at Kinchou and on the advanced positions the enemy did not exhibit any extraordinary bravery or superiority over us. On the contrary, what was shown up was our inability to engage them and drive them back.

Our field force, under General Fock, having made a slight attempt to meet the enemy on the position before Kinchou, quickly withdrew on to the prepared position itself, and then, having lost this in sixteen hours, and lost all its guns of position and batteries at Dalny and Talienwan, retired more than hurriedly towards Arthur, and occupied a strong (in the topographical sense) but long position along the hills—Khelaza, Upilazy, Kuen-san. But the force retired from here also on July 30 to the Fortress works, not defending the position on Wolf's Hills, which had to a certain extent been fortified, and which it had been decided to hold.