Port Arthur

by Richard Barry

The army detailed for the capture of Port Arthur was 60,000 strong; Stoessel at the date of the battle of Nanshan probably had 35,000 men.

Encouraged by their uninterrupted success in capturing Russian intrenchments by dashing frontal attack, the Japanese, particularly after their brilliant success of August 9th to 11th, believed that they could storm the main defenses in like manner. They hurled themselves against the Russian right center in a furious attack upon the line of forts stretching from the railway around the easterly side of the town to the sea. For seven days they battled furiously. But the wave of conquest that had flowed over four lines of defense, broke utterly against the fifth; and after a continuous struggle, carried on day and night, beneath sunlight, moon, and searchlight, they retired completely baffled, with an awful casualty list of 25,000 men.

On September 1st the Japanese, finding that they could not take Port Arthur by assault, settled down to reduce it by an engineering siege. This latter was carried on by means of “sapping and mining,” supported by heavy bombardment, its object being to shake the defense by terrific artillery fire, blow up the parapets and other defenses by subterranean mines, and capture the fortress by fierce assaults delivered from concealed trenches close to the fortifications. Sapping and mining may be described as a method of attack by tunneling. The Japanese found that they could not get into the forts by a rush above ground, so they determined to burrow in below ground. The main attack was directed against the line of forts to the east of the city, or the Russian right center. The first operation was to cut a deep trench, not less than six feet in depth and a dozen or more feet in width, roughly parallel with the line of forts, and at a distance of about 1,000 yards therefrom. From this trench three lines of zigzag trenches were dug in the direction of the principal forts of Ehrlung, Keekwan, and Panlung. These trenches were about six feet deep (deep enough to hide the sappers from view) and eight feet wide (wide enough to allow the troops to march to the assault four abreast). The zigzag consisted of an alternate approach and parallel, the former extending diagonally toward the fortification, the latter parallel with it. The angle of the diagonal approaches was always carefully mapped out by the engineers, and was so laid with reference to the enemy’s forts that it could neither be seen nor reached by shell fire. The digging was done chiefly at night, and the soil was carried back through the excavated trenches in gabions and on stretchers, and dumped out of sight of the enemy. As the parallels were advanced across the valley or level spaces, they were roofed at intervals, with planks covered with soil and grass, so that as the Russians looked out toward the ravine in which the army was supposed to be encamped, there was nothing to indicate that the enemy was cutting a series of covered roadways, right up to the base of the forts themselves. Of course in many cases the trenches were located, and desperate night sorties were made in the endeavor to break up the work. But it went remorselessly forward. When the foot of the fortified slopes was reached, a second great parallel, extending around the whole face of the fortified eastern front, was cut—this latter for the purpose of assembling the troops for the final dash upon the forts. From this parallel the Japanese cut tunnels straight through the hills until they found themselves immediately below the massive parapets of such forts as they wished to reach. Here cross tunnels were cut, parallel with the walls and immediately below them, in which tons of dynamite were placed and the wires laid ready for the great explosion—much of this being done, it must be remembered, entirely unknown to the Russians, secure in their great fortifications overhead. The work of the sappers and miners was now complete.

It must not be supposed that while this slow work was being carried on, the garrison at Port Arthur, or the city itself, or even the fleet in the harbor, was being left in peace, or had any respite from the harassments of the siege. For as soon as the investment was complete, the Japanese erected hidden batteries in various carefully-selected positions, until they had no less than 300 guns trained against the city. All the furious assaults that failed so disastrously were preceded by bombardments, the like of which had never been witnessed in the history of the world. These batteries consisted of regular siege guns of from 5 inches to 6 inches caliber, a large number of naval guns of 4.7-inch and 6-inch caliber, and the regular field ordnance of the three divisions and two independent brigades composing the Third Imperial Army.

By far the most formidable pieces used in the bombardment, however, were the powerful 11-inch mortars, which were mounted in batteries of from two to four in various positions behind the ranges of hills which effectually screened the Japanese from Russian observation. The pieces are the Japanese latest type of coast-defense mortars, such as are used along the Straits of Shimoneseki and about the Bay of Yezo. They were brought by sea to Dalny, carried by railroad for a distance of fifteen miles to the end of the track, and from thence were hauled by hand over special tracks laid direct to the emplacements. In some cases, indeed, the guns were dragged on rollers through the sand, as many as 800 men being required to haul a single mortar; for the mortar barrels, without the carriage, weigh eight tons apiece. This task was accomplished under fire, in rainy weather, and in the night, to the accompaniment of bursting shrapnel and other discouragements which would have daunted a less dauntless race. Even when the selected site of the batteries was reached, every one of the eighteen mortars had to be placed upon a concrete foundation eight feet in depth and eighteen feet in diameter. In each case an excavation had to be dug, the concrete prepared and rammed into place, the heavy foundation plates, traversing racks, and the massive gun carriage, weighing much more than the gun itself, erected and adjusted, and the whole of the heavy and costly piece put together with the greatest nicety. All through the long months in which the sappers and miners were cutting their trenches, the engineers were putting in place these huge mortars, which were not originally intended, be it remembered, for such field operations as these; but were designed for permanent sea-coast fortifications around the harbors of Japan.

The mortar itself has a bore of 28 centimeters, or 11 inches. The shells are designed to burst on contact. They are loaded with a high explosive designed by the Japanese Dr. Shimose, and corresponding in its terrific bursting effects to the English lyddite, the French melinite, and our own maximite. Each shell weighs 500 pounds. Its cost is $175, and the cost of each discharge, including that of the impelling power, is about $400. During the heavy bombardments, each gun was fired once every eight minutes, and as the grand bombardment lasted in every case about four hours, the cost for these mortar batteries alone must have been over $200,000, and for the whole of the batteries, including naval guns, machine guns, etc., the cost of each bombardment was approximately half a million dollars. The 11-inch mortar has a maximum range, with a moderate degree of elevation, of seven or eight miles; but as none of these batteries were more than three miles distant from the point of attack, they were fired at angles of as great as sixty degrees, the huge shells hurtling high into the heavens, passing over two ranges of hills, and falling like thunderbolts out of the blue sky, vertically upon the devoted city.

But if the batteries were located behind hills that entirely shut out the object of attack from view, how, it will be asked, could the guns be aimed with such accuracy, to sink, as they did, a whole fleet of warships, one by one? It was in this way: For the attack of stationary objects such as forts, docks, buildings, ships at anchor, etc., the artillery officers were provided with a map of the whole area of bombardment, which was laid out in squares, each square having its own number. The Japanese having, at the close of the Chinese war, been in possession of Port Arthur themselves, and having possessed during the past few years an excellent bureau of intelligence, knew the exact location of every building or object of importance in and around the city. Consequently, when the artillery officers were directed to attack a building in a certain square, or a particular fort, they knew exactly what angle of elevation to give their gun, and how far to traverse it, so as to cause the shell to fall with mathematical accuracy upon the particular object to be hit.