The fighting round 174 Metre Hill—Capture of 174 Metre Hill and evacuation of Connecting Ridge—Fortifying 203 Metre Hill—Defence and capture of Extinct Volcano.
We had to work absolutely under the enemy’s very nose, mostly at night, although we took the opportunity of working in the daytime whenever the enemy’s fire slackened a little.
It was a good thing that the 5th Regiment had learnt something about trench-making, so that the officers, and even the non-commissioned officers, knew exactly how to go to work without any instruction from sapper specialists, of whom we did not possess a single man.
General Kondratenko did not propose recapturing the advanced hills, as they were not exceptionally important positions, and it would have cost us dearly to hold on to them.
After August 15, things were fairly quiet on our side, but bullets, and even shell, rather frequently passed over the quarters of the regimental staff. We had, therefore, to move them farther back, to a small river running along the road from the town towards 203 Metre Hill, and as a large mess tent would have been visible from a great distance, we decided not to pitch one.
The Japanese had not got off lightly in their attacks on the advanced hills, and their losses must have been reckoned in thousands. They lost particularly heavily in storming Height 426, where they stumbled blindly upon the wire entanglements and made repeated attacks. There were piles of dead heaped up round these entanglements. The fact must be noted that we were driven out of these positions by gun fire, and not by the Japanese infantry.
Events here made it clear to every one what preponderance in artillery really means. The side that silences the enemy’s guns can capture his positions without particularly hard fighting, for, having once got the enemy’s fire under control, one can choose a point of attack, concentrate the whole of one’s artillery on it, and then take it by storm with comparatively small numbers. For this, however, a numerous, well-trained, and efficient artillery is essential. To win a battle with badly trained or inefficient artillery is now a matter of extreme difficulty. I will not venture to lay down the exact proportion of guns necessary per 1,000 infantry, but there must be, at any rate, not less than 6 guns per 1,000 (i.e. one battery to each complete battalion).
What an error we committed in posting our artillery on the crests of the hills! The Japanese punished us very severely for the mistake, but it was too late then to change our dispositions.
The Japanese batteries were completely concealed, and fired on our skirmishers as deliberately as if they were at practice on their artillery ranges. They had a lot of work in front of them yet, of course, as we could still hold on to those positions we had spent some time in fortifying, and the 5th Regiment had yet many trying moments to live through.