'At present and till the end of the campaign, sir, I am in the power of the censors; but later, taking advantage of the Tsar's promise to the press representative of the capital, I shall consider it my duty to write the truth—the whole truth, in order that Russia and the Tsar may be spared another Port Arthur.
'And I wish to remind you, sir, that my name is an unsullied one, and I belong to one of the oldest of the "noble" families.'
Two days later the following District Order appeared:
'As the Novy Kry, although warned more than once, continues to publish information of the distribution and movement of our troops which would be better kept secret, the offices of the paper will be closed for one month.'
Colonel Raschevsky wrote as follows in his diary of that date:
'Stössel has published a stupid order about closing the Novy Kry offices on the pretext that it publishes information about the sorties, patrols, etc., which might be of use to the enemy. It is utterly absurd! The paper passes through the hands of two censors—the Commander of the Port and the Fortress Staff—and suddenly to deprive us, from pure caprice and out of an evident desire to make himself unpleasant to the Commandant, of the only source of information and news from without is,' etc., etc.
SEPTEMBER PASSES
With the capture in the preceding month of Nos. 1 and 2 Redoubts the enemy had got close up to our positions, and the salient angle of the north-east front was almost in their hands. I say 'almost,' because the ruins of these works remained the greater part of the time untenanted, neutralized by the gun-fire of both sides. As soon as they were abandoned by us, Smirnoff, appreciating their importance, decided, whatever it cost, to recapture them, and compel the Japs to retake them, and he considered the importance of this warranted the loss of even 2,000 or 3,000 men. He had accordingly arranged for a sortie in force, but Stössel intervened, and prevented this by his Order of August 31, already quoted, in which he would only permit sorties in small parties. To attack these redoubts with small numbers was quite ineffectual, and could only result in useless loss of life, and Smirnoff tried in vain to persuade Stössel to alter his opinion. Had we only been able to recapture those works the effect on the moral of the men would have been great, as they would have realized that they could attack as well as defend; as it was, they had seen nothing but continual retirements ever since the war began. It would not have been impossible, for we possessed an excellent place d'armes in rear and on the flank of these places in Rocky and Water Supply Redoubts.
The Japanese meanwhile did not waste time; they sapped right up to the glacis of the two latter, then started the first parallel, and, surrounding them with trenches, gradually endeavoured to work their way to Water Supply and Temple Redoubts. Here, again, the only course for us was to hamper and delay the enemy's steady trenchwork-advance by means of well-timed night sorties. But not only had Stössel paralyzed any attempt at a sortie in force by his order of the 31st, but he also managed to stop all small sorties by his action after one such had been attempted. Order No. 590 of September 9 read as follows: