Port Arthur

by Richard Barry

The Japanese during the first two nights hastily dug out approaches and had a partially covered way from the base of the mountain to the moat. This gave them their vital hold on the north battery of the Cock’s Comb. So resolute were the Russians in holding every inch of ground that it was a full month and a half after that before the Japanese could take the complete fortification. And when the complete fortification was taken it availed but little, for it was but one of three great batteries which formed the series known as East Keekwan, which was itself but a portion of the eastern line of permanent defenses.

To see how the rest of the great Northeast Keekwan (Cock’s Comb) Battery was taken is to see how Port Arthur was taken, for all the forts were reduced in the same way. 203-Meter Hill, the Two Dragons, the Eternal Dragon, Quail Hill, Wangtai, and the Pine Tree fell as did the Cock’s Comb. The only difference lay in incident.

It must be remembered that the fight was never over with the taking of the outer parapet. Inside the forts, beyond the parapets, well protected by moats and caponieres, was a sheltering earthwork called the contrascarp, crossing which, storming parties met a close and unerring fire from men concealed beyond, in ways formed of timber balks and sandbags, and called traverses. Below these traverses were galleries where the garrison lived; and below the galleries were the bombproofs protecting the ammunition. Under the traverses, covering the galleries and bombproofs, was heavy masonry from two to three feet thick.

To undertake the capture of the whole chain of fortifications by such sacrifices as those which gained a single one of the Keekwan forts might have entailed the extermination of the whole besieging army and of all the reinforcements which could have been sent to its support. But with one fortress in the chain in Japanese hands there was another way—sapping.

Through November the Japanese engineers were busy digging underground from the advantageous hold they had on the north battery. They started straight down through the solid rock. Only a few men could work at a time, and these could dig only while the trench protecting them, which was a few yards in advance, was held by their comrades, vigorously firing, to keep down the Russian garrison, now not more than a hundred feet away. Moreover, sometimes when the Japanese sappers were half concealed in the earth, sometimes when they were wholly underground, companies of desperate Russians would suddenly break forth on them, spurred by Stoessel’s promise of the Cross of St. George and a money prize to whoever should break up any Japanese work. Thus at night, hounded by shells, sleuthed by searchlights, and harassed by heroes from across the way, the hole was dug. Forty feet down it had to go to get below the level of the galleries and bombproofs, then another twenty feet forward to find a spot under the vitals of the fortification.

Stupendous as the task was, the tunnels were finished at last, and on December 18th a quarter of a ton of dynamite was placed in two such mines, and the galleries and bombproofs of the north battery were blown into the air, with the demolished bodies of some forty-five men of the garrison.

And even this was only the beginning of the end. Already the Japanese had accomplished a herculean task. They had sweated, endured, writhed in agony, died, and they had taken only one battery. Ahead of them still rose, tier on tier, forts and batteries, moats and walls, until the soul grew sick to think that Port Arthur must be bought with sacrifice so vast. But the Japanese did not turn back, did not weep, showed no despair. They came to work, to meals, as cheerfully as ever they had done in the rice paddies. And this, notwithstanding that winter was on them, that the keen, equinoctial gales blew in from both seas, that the thermometer fell to zero and below. They were surrounded by charnel houses of their own making, and protected only by miserable, hasty dugouts shielded from cold and wind by a few broken boughs, light shelter-tents, and hastily packed earth. Death was preferred to a wound, for the wounded had small hope of succor; yet life was cherished and fostered.

Meanwhile the Russians were busy. They devised a new scheme of defense. Kerosene was taken through a subterranean gallery of the Two Dragons into a moat and there poured on piles of straw. Then they waited.

At the fifth grand assault, when the north battery of the East Cock’s Comb was taken, the Two Dragons were simultaneously attacked. A company of Japanese headed for the moat. The kerosene and straw were set on fire and the men who leaped into the moat, expecting to find caponieres as they had found them in the Cock’s Comb, were caught by flame. Many perished miserably. Some valiantly fought the flames, but few survived. These few—that is, the few who do the work in warfare—the few who accomplish that for which the thousands die—made possible the Japanese advance. Through, over, and beyond these few, the Japanese finally entered Port Arthur.