II—THE GERMAN OFFICER'S TALE OF THE SIEGE
On my first trip into Tsingtau I met a German officer in the Prince Heinrich Hotel, who had taken part in the siege, and questioned him as to the truth of the statement.
"Maybe that is what they say, but the facts are the garrison had expected Tsingtau to fall sooner than it did. Our heavy artillery fire was not kept up for the purpose of throwing away our shells,—it would have been less dangerous to have dropped them in the bay,—but solely to do as much damage to the Japanese as possible before the assault on the fortifications could be made. We regulated our fire with the one purpose of covering the country with shells before they had a chance to get under cover. When they attempted to mount their siege guns at the start of the bombardment their forces were exposed to us. We could see their ammunition columns and supply wagons rolling up on open roads and, by spreading our fire about the valley, we were attempting solely to postpone the fall of Tsingtau as much as possible by hindering the allied forces in their work."
The officer then went on to tell me of the ruse Lieutenant Trendel, manager of the Wagonlits Hotel at Peking, who took part in the siege, played on the Japanese. Trendel was in command of a battery of six old nine-centimeter ships' guns which were in an exposed position on a ridge near Iltis Fort. This battery received a fire from both the ship and land guns, and the men could be seen on the first day of the bombardment building bomb-proofs in the dust and smoke from exploding shells.
In the night Lieutenant Trendel put up wooden guns, roughly shaped from beams, at a distance of two hundred yards from his own guns. In the morning, he exploded powder near them to give an appearance of firing from them. By this ruse he diverted the Japanese fire and saved all his men, dynamiting his guns before the surrender.
Governor-General Waldeck, after the surrender, made the following statement as to the bombardment:—
The combatant force at Tsingtau did not amount to more than forty-five hundred. The permanent garrison consisted of eighteen hundred men nominally, but was, in reality, about two hundred short. Some of those under arms were mere boys. Each fort was defended by about two hundred men.
The Tsingtau guns were mostly weapons captured from the Boxers during their rebellion, or trophies of the Franco-German War, and were no match for modern arms. The Huichuan and Bismarck Forts, however, had some modern pieces. Altogether there were, for the defense, about sixty guns and a hundred machine guns.
The Iltis fort was guarded by sixty men. The Japanese in their assault charged up under a hot fire as if unconscious of their danger, and gained the position before the defenders could call reinforcements.
The Bismarck and Moltke Forts were also taken by a charge, but for the most part the Japanese conducted their attack under cover of their trenches, and concealed themselves so well that the most searching German fire could not stop their advance. At length the supply of ammunition ran out, and further defense was futile. I thought the Japanese casualties would be very heavy, as they fought bravely and charged desperately, and I estimated their loss at five to six thousand. I have been astonished to learn that the loss in killed and wounded amounts to only seventeen hundred. They certainly showed remarkable skill in taking cover.