JAPANESE SCALING FORT AT PORT ARTHUR.
Capture of Forts
In the great assault of the 19th-26th August the Japanese lost 14,000 men, and succeeded only in capturing the Banjushan fort, which is east of the Urlungshan forts. General Nogi then settled down to steady siege operations, drawing his parallels nearer and nearer to the Russian main position, and capturing the all-important Kuropatkin fort early in September. This fort, which stands on Division Hill half-way between Wolf Hill and the harbor, not only commanded the parade-ground, but gave the Japanese the possession of the waterworks from which the garrison drew the main water supply. Up to this moment General Nogi's heaviest guns had been 4.7 and 6in. pieces of the naval type, and they had been quite unequal to the heavy guns of the position mounted in the Russian works. But now heavy siege guns and 11in. howitzers arrived from Japan, and immediately their effect began to make itself felt, so that by the 19th September another assault was resolved on. This was directed against three points of the ring of defensive works—against the metre-hill forts on the west, and (the outworks, as it were of the great Etseshan and Antszshan forts) against the advanced works of Urlungshan on the northeast, and against the lunettes in the Shuishi Valley which connects the Antszshan and the Urlungshan forts. At this last point some of the fiercest fighting of the whole siege took place. The Shuishi Valley was defended by a series of strong lunettes connected by advance works, within fifty yards of which the Japanese had advanced their parallels. On the evening of the 19th September four desperate assaults were delivered against the westernmost lunette. All, however, were beaten back. At dawn the assault was renewed with greater strength, and the western lunette was carried, mainly by the employment of dynamite grenades. The Russian garrison were driven out of the trenches, losing three quick-firers, four machine guns, and two mortars, but inflicting on the victors losses amounting to over 400 killed and wounded. At the same time a determined assault was made on 203 Metre Hill and the adjoining ridge by three regiments of the right division. The assaulting parties reached the dead ground beneath the ridge, but there they were compelled to remain during the night. At dawn on the 20th a terrific bombardment on the position began and continued till evening; and when the night had fallen the Japanese rushed the trenches on the eastern extremity of the crest line after a fierce hand-to-hand fight in which not only bayonets but even stones were used. But only part of the work had been won. The fort on the southwestern slopes of the ridges was still untaken, and though a small party of the besiegers penetrated the defences here, they were driven out again next day, and four more assaults delivered during the next two days proved equally unavailing though terribly costly in life—the casualty list at this point alone amounting to 2,000. The defences of this advance fort on 203 Metre Hill were typical of the obstacles which the Japanese had to overcome in the prosecution of their assaults. The bomb-proofs connecting the network of trenches which seared the slopes of the hill were made of steel plates covered with earth, and a triple row of wire entanglements made the ground in front of the trenches impassable. In the operations from the 19th to the 26th September the Japanese lost more than 4,000 killed and wounded. In the assault at the same time on the advanced works of Urlungshan the parallels of the Japanese had been carried to within fifty yards of the defences, but the assault still proved a costly business. Again and again the assaulting rushes were swept back by rifle and machine-gun fire; but the indomitable spirit of the Mikado's troops at length prevailed, and the redoubt was carried at the point of the bayonet. The position thus gained in front of Urlungshan enabled the Japanese to mount their heavy howitzers in such a way as to bombard not only the main forts but the harbor with great effect; and in the course of a few days several of the warships lying at anchor were severely damaged by the high-angle fire. By hard fighting and diligent sapping the investing army now continued to make steady progress against the Urlungshan forts which lie just east of the road and railway and command their approach to Port Arthur. On the 10th October the attack managed to establish itself on the crest of the East Urlungshan fort, and on the 16th the entrenched hill between Urlungshan and Banjushan, the latter of which was already in Japanese hands, was taken by storm. On the 25th October the glacis of East Urlungshan was stormed and held in spite of repeated counter-attacks on the part of the Russians. In front of these forts on the northeastern side the fiercest fighting continued all through the latter part of October and the early part of November, the general result being that the Japanese saps were brought within less than 300 yards of the main positions while the fire from the howitzers finally silenced the great forts of Urlungshan and Shunshusan. But these successes, though considerable, were insufficient to make a really serious breach in the main lines of the defence, as long as the great forts on the west—Antszshan and Etseshan—held out, and forthwith the Japanese attack was diverted to the latter of those two strongholds. Meanwhile, the heavy and incessant fire directed on the harbor and the town had been most destructive. The naval repairing works had to be abandoned, and both the old and the new Chinese towns were rendered uninhabitable where their buildings were not razed to the ground or consumed by the fires started by the bursting shells.
Devices of the Besiegers
For the first time in history a fortress constructed according to the latest principles of military science, and defended by modern long-range artillery, was being besieged; and like the old walled cities of the 17th and 18th centuries, its defences could only be overcome by sap and mine and parallel. So much the assailants had learnt to their cost in their earlier and futile attempts at taking the place by storm. The exigencies of these operations led to the adoption of many ingenious devices by the forces on both sides—such, for instance, as a steel bullet-proof shield to protect the pioneer engaged in cutting wire entanglements; and the deadly grenade charged with dynamite, flung into the enemy's trenches by the hand or by means of wooden mortars bound with bamboo. At first the Japanese had chosen the night time for their assaults, but this plan had to be abandoned owing to the effective employment by the Russians of searchlights and star shells, the former having the effect not only of exposing the assaulting troops to the fire of the defenders, but blinding them in their advance on their objective. Throughout the siege the defenders had shown not only indomitable courage, but inexhaustible resource, and in spite of all the discouragement which the steady and inexorable advance of the Japanese might have been supposed to inflict, they continued equal to every demand on their fortitude. From time to time supplies reached them by means of blockade-runners, but this was but a precarious and inadequate means of replenishing the stores on which such a long and severe strain had been made. And yet, in spite of all rumors to the effect that ammunition was running short, the great guns continued to hurl their defiance at the Japanese artillery, and never in any single instance was the defence weakened by a failure of powder and shot. Though the Russians had failed to foresee many things which the course of the war has proved to have been fairly obvious, no one can pretend that they failed to equip their great stronghold in the Far East in a manner worthy of its claim to rank as "the Gibraltar of the East." After nearly six months of close investment and almost continuous bombardment, the fortress still held at bay an enemy who had proved himself, not only before the defences of Port Arthur, but in many a stricken field beside, to possess fighting qualities rarely equalled and never surpassed in the world's history of warfare—an enemy, too, who possessed every resource of military science, and who had studied in the best military schools. The fact that the Japanese, who had confidently expected to take Port Arthur before the end of the summer had not even by the middle of November made a decisive breach in its main defences, speaks volumes for the character of those defences. But even the strongest fortifications that human ingenuity can construct are only formidable when men of high spirit man them; and the chief credit for having baffled so long the most desperate efforts of Japanese skill and courage must ever be given to General Stoessel and the men who, serving under him, became infected with his spirit and inspired by his example. By the middle of November the Japanese lines had, indeed, been drawn very close round the devoted citadel of the Czar. They were in possession of the eastern ridge, and held practically at their mercy that great ring of fortified hills which shuts in Port Arthur from the Dalny side. They had cut the main water supply of the garrison, and they had possessed themselves of important ground to the north of the old town, and their siege guns were able to render the dockyards and the harbor untenable for ships of war. To the west the advance had been less signal, and their foothold on the great ridge which commands the fortress on the western side was at best slight and precarious; while not even the faintest impression had been made on the great chain of fortifications at Liau-tie-shan, in the extreme south corner of the peninsula.
The Undaunted Stoessel
Tremendous efforts had been made to achieve the capture of the place by the 3rd November, the birthday of the Mikado; but that auspicious day passed without the fall of Port Arthur seeming to be in any degree nearer, while General Stoessel continued to send cheerful and undaunted messages to his Imperial master whenever a boat succeeded in running the blockade of the Japanese fleet and in reaching Chifu. Through all these protracted and strenuous operations, the losses of the Japanese had been very severe; they cannot have been less than 40,000 men, and they may have been considerably more. The garrison had suffered less severely, but in the absence of reserves their losses were even more serious, and by the middle of November the total effective force was little more than 10,000 men. It will ever be a mystery how a force so utterly inferior to its enemy, defending, a wide perimeter of fortifications, every point of which was daily liable to fierce assault and bombardment, could for so many weeks endure the awful strain to which it was subjected. Yet the indomitable garrison was never quiescent or passive in its resistance. Besides repelling assault, it engaged in continual sorties and counter-attacks, and often, when driven from an essential position succeeded in recapturing it at the point of the bayonet. A remarkable instance of this offensive capacity was furnished in the course of the great assault from the 19th September to the 26th September. In operating from the north against the defences of the Shuishi Valley, which lies between Antszshan and Urlungshan, the Japanese, after their first success, pressed on against High Hill, a position of the most vital importance to the defence, as it permitted the principal forts on the west of the town to be taken in reverse. As any attempt to retake the hill must be a desperate enterprise, General Stoessel refused to issue an order for its recapture, but called for volunteers. The requisite number were at once forthcoming, and led by Lieutenant Podgorsky, they attacked the Japanese with grenades and drove them from the position which they had already begun to entrench.
In his dispatch of the 23rd September, this is how General Stoessel reports the affair:—
The Gallant Podgorsky
"The last assault on High Hill was repulsed to-day at 5 o'clock in the morning. The enemy had actually occupied some of the defences of the High Hill position and had placed machine-guns in them, which they directed against our troops. Lieutenant Podgorsky was dispatched to this part of the field by General Kondrachenko with a force of chasseurs and engineers, who under the direction of Colonel Irmann hurled grenades filled with pyroxiline into the works held by the Japanese. These exploded among the enemy, who fled in panic. Captain Sytcheff, of the 5th Regiment, pursued the flying foe with chasseurs. Colonel Irmann attributes the principal share in the work of compelling the enemy to withdraw entirely from High Hill to Lieutenant Podgorsky. The Japanese lost over 10,000 men. All our troops distinguished themselves. General Kondrachenko, Colonel Irmann, Captain Sytcheff, and Lieutenant Podgorsky won special distinction. The troops fought heroically, particularly the 5th Regiment. The whole garrison down to the last man is resolved to defend Russia's bulwark in the Far East to the last drop of blood."