I thought that I could arrest the retreat and deliver a counter-attack from behind the reserve, and then, having taken No. 10 Battery, re-organize the left flank.
At the subsequent court-martial General Fock declared that I could not have ordered the reserve to meet the Japanese; but he was mistaken, being misled by Captain Rotaiski, who, giving evidence, declared that he saw the Japanese pursuing me and saw me escape from them through the window of a shed. I never got through any window, but I mounted my horse and galloped off to stop those retreating. The Japanese then fired on me from the hills above the shed. It was not I, but a Japanese officer, who jumped through the window, and was overtaken by four men from the reserve and killed in the shed, as a proof of which his sword was presented to the commander of the 14th Regiment.
The order to attack was given by me, for the commander of the reserve rushed up to me and asked: “What are we to do?” “Attack,” I answered, and pointed out to him whom to attack and where. After that I galloped after the retreating soldiers and made myself hoarse shouting “Stop, stop, my men!” But they in their turn shouted out to me: “Your Excellency, we have been ordered to retreat.” I could not imagine who had given this order. As, however, at this moment the Japanese saw us retreating from behind the Nan Shan hills, and opened a terrific shrapnel fire, it was absolutely impossible to stop the men. A shrapnel bullet struck my mare’s ear and wellnigh maddened her. I managed to rally my men in a position in rear, chosen earlier by me, about a verst from the Nan Shan hills, and when they had halted, I looked back towards the hills and saw two bodies of men running down into the valley; they were probably the 5th and 7th Companies.
No. 13 was in the hands of the Japanese, who were to be seen on the heights above, firing down on the retreating men, who quickly hid themselves in the deep ravines. I now occupied the above-mentioned position in rear, brought up a battalion of the 14th Regiment, and lengthened the line as far as Ta-fang-shen station. I found the battalion in question in a ravine behind the position. Of the rest of the 14th Regiment I saw no signs; probably they were somewhere in rear under cover. The commander of our scouts came in to me here with our colours.
Awaiting on this spot the enemy’s attack, we heard heavy firing on the right of the Nan Shan position, and the enemy’s guns ranged on us and on the right flank. Our companies on that flank passed across towards Ta-fang-shen, and I ordered them to concentrate 1 verst in rear of Ta-fang-shen on the road. For some reason the Japanese decided not to attack us. It was already quite dark when I went to the burning station of Ta-fang-shen to see to the dispositions of our troops there. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion, and I was covered with fragments of burning planks, beams, and hot bricks. How I and my comrades escaped death passes my understanding. The station was blown up at the instance of General Fock’s staff—probably by his orders. One officer—Major Saliarski—and twenty men were killed by this senseless explosion.
Night had set in, when the 14th and 5th Regiments received the order to retire, and I, leaving some mounted patrols to watch the enemy’s movements, went with the Mounted Scouts to Nan-kuan-ling. While moving along the road, I met our 7th Company and saw the whole of the 4th Division encamped in the wide valley. There I found the companies of the 5th Regiment which had retreated, and ordered them to report their losses. Very many of our comrades did not answer the roll-call, the first return showing a loss in killed and wounded of 75 officers and 1,500 men. It was awful to see the thinned ranks of my gallant regiment; my heart bled for my officers, who had brought up the rear in the retreat, but the spirit of those left seemed to be as fine as ever. I feel bound to pay tribute to our comrades who fell in the battle and mention some of their heroic deeds.
Lieutenant Kragelski refused to retreat, and bade each one of his men farewell as they passed him. Captain Makoveiev, commanding the 8th Company, had declared that he would never retreat, and he was true to his word, for he remained in the trenches, and was killed only when he had expended all the cartridges in his revolver. Major Sokolov, commanding the 9th Company, also refused to retreat, and sabred several Japanese before being bayoneted to death.
The whole of the left flank attributed the retirement to the receipt of an order, and consequently I set to work to sift the matter to the bottom. About six o’clock General Fock sent an officer with the order to retire. Though he did not come to me personally, this officer probably sent an orderly—who failed to reach me—and himself went to the left flank and conveyed the order to retire to the scout detachments of the 13th and 14th Regiments. This order reached the commander of the 7th Company through Second-Lieutenant Merkoulev, besides which the former saw the orderly on a black horse shouting and waving his sword towards the rear, and only then ordered his company to retire. The fact that this order to retreat was given, was confirmed by all the officers and men, and also by Ensign Kaminar (5th Regiment).
I placed the letter sent to me by Lieutenant Sadykov relating to this point before the commission which assembled to investigate General Stessel’s conduct. It was there shown that Second-Lieutenant Moosalevski was present and heard General Fock give the order to retreat to my orderly officer, Lieutenant Glieb-Koshanski, who galloped back with the orderly on the black horse to see the general’s order carried out. When I stopped the retreating scouts, Lieutenant Glieb-Koshanski and his orderly galloped as far as the Nan Shan hills, and the latter reached No. 10 Battery by a ravine when the Japanese were already in the position (this hero never returned). Our 7th Company and Captain Rotaiski’s company were still at their posts, and began to retire only after the receipt of the order.
When those who had been in Port Arthur were assembled in St. Petersburg from all over the Empire to give evidence at General Stessel’s trial, I only gave details of the Nan Shan fight in answering the questions put to me. The conclusion arrived at was this: the scout detachments of the 14th Regiment, shaken by the hasty retirement of those of the 13th Regiment at that moment, began to abandon their trenches about four o’clock, the time when I saw them retreating in a body. Lieutenant Roosoi had only ten men left in the trench, but the other companies—i.e., the 7th and 5th of our regiment, and Captain Rotaiski’s company—remained on the position. Lieutenant Glieb-Koshanski and the orderly galloped up with a report to General Fock just as I was leaving No. 13 and had mounted my horse, and it was thus quite possible for the orderly on the black horse to have really galloped up to the position and given the order to retire before I had stopped the retreating scouts. Anyway, it was proved conclusively that the Japanese appeared in No. 10 Battery, and the other inner works of the position before the 7th and 5th Companies began their retreat.